what I’ve been thinking of as romance, as being a huge romantic sap, is making grand gestures of, basically, “look! I know what you love and I want to do special things for you around that!”
like, my partner always says that I am the greatest at giving gifts, because I deploy that skill. I’m like, “look! I know what will make you super happy, and I’m gonna make it happen, in proportion to how important you are to me!”
but like also, I’m realizing that it’s not actually about romantic relationships for me, because it’s just like… I want to show my love of any kind for people by being super thoughtful and celebrate whatever amount of emotional closeness we have… and I want the same from people… and it’s totally regardless of what KIND of relationship it is… it’s just that for my partner, it’s going to be the greatest that I can make it….
Soooooooooo that might kind of be the OPPOSITE of what people actually mean by being romantic??
also I kind of think that the reason it’s so hard to figure this stuff out is that society in general doesn’t fucking know either.
This might be something where Love Languages theory might help; I’m not a huge fan of it generally, but I do recognise that many people find it useful.
But other than that, I think the last paragraph is spot on.
Mainstream culture keeps trying to quantify the acceptable level of intensity, when it comes to wanting people in your life and showing them affection. And one of the ways it does that is by labelling greater levels of intensity as “romantic” rather than platonic. Which just doesn’t work.
I’m an intense person. I wouldn’t have described myself like that, but I have to face the fact that that’s how others experience me. When I develop any kind of feelings for someone, I’m really into them. Including in what I now find out may be a particularly autistic way of wanting someone, wherein they become one of my special interests.
And firstly, a lot of people seem only able to understand that at all by calling it romantic, even though there’s no reason to think that automatically.
And secondly, I’ve always had people on my case pressuring me to say that I’d be uncomfortable if I were the one on the receiving end of it. And I just wouldn’t. In fact, if someone did have feelings, but they didn’t manifest in a similarly “intense” [normal, to me] way to mine, I wouldn’t feel wanted. I want the same back that I give, and that is not remotely unreasonable.
My biggest problem with that has been parsing it from the concept of “lovebombing”, which is interest that’s fake as hell, and [luckily] has always felt fake as hell, to me.
But people not getting their heads around the idea that I could be wanting someone that way without it being an unhealthy romantic obsession comes a close second.
(fyi y’all that was tagged “i’m grey-aro – for reference”)
First of all: same. Intense, with special interests in people, and that’s my “love language” if you like – I want others to do things that show they really know me, as well as wanting others to express their affection for me through platonic physical affection.
And second;
The thing about how our (amatonormative) society keeps trying to say “you must be X amount of romantic to ride,” and then defining it incoherently (like “we mean really big and obvious and intense about your passion! yeah, that’s… probably a measurable thing!!”)….
That makes my brain go, “but what is it then? What is it tho? What is being romantic? What is it? It’s not a thing, is it? This binary is completely indefinable and indefensible! Then how am I supposed to know if I’m The Thing!?!”…
and then I realized OF COURSE IT FUCKING IS. BECAUSE ALL THE OTHER ONES ARE TOO.
Like, how the fuck can I sit here being nonbinary, knowing perfectly well that the gender binary is a lie… that male and female are not opposites, and they’re p much impossible to define except as vague clouds of feelings, styles, physical traits, and ways of being in the world.
People can still BE men or women or bigender or genderfluid or agender or demi or third-gender or something else entirely.
It’s just that you can’t draw a box around what any of those things are, and tell other people, “this is exactly what this gender is, and feels like, and looks like.”
Probably because genders don’t EXACTLY exist. Because alongside them, there’s a very visible, tangible, strong system, that very much exists, that makes up what the genders are in a given culture+era, and uses that as a major part of the entire system of oppression and abuse. (the kyriarchy.)
So no matter what gender actually is, or what genders there are, the whole idea of them is dragged down, and enormously warped by, the system of oppression that uses them. Like if gender was a mattress, and oppression was an elephant sitting on it.
So of course “aromantic vs alloromantic” is really hard to define, and to describe, and to discuss.
Because not only is there this elephant crushing it, but it’s not even supposed to be thought of as even being a binary (much less as a spectrum, or as multiple options).
We’re not even supposed to be able to see the mattress. Only the elephant.
I think you’re being a little uncharitable here. I was raised Mormon, and since Mormons are hyperconservative and patriarchial, men used to say things like this a lot. When men say “I didn’t realize how bad things were for women until I had a daughter” (or something along those lines)”, they’re being literal. They (usually) don’t mean “I completely ignored my wife’s struggle but now that I own a small girl-child I must Protec”, they mean “I literally have not seen some of these problems in action before and now I’m seeing them happen to someone I love in gory detail”.
Imagine for a second you live in Zimbabwe and don’t follow American politics much. You hear weird news coming out of the USA every so often, but mostly it’s just background noise. Then Trump gets elected, and suddenly every day there’s some new crazy shit happening in the US. You hear about it and you’re like ‘this can’t be real, can it?’ But of course, it is real, and the more you look into it, the more you see it’s fucked up.
This is kind of like that. Speaking as a trans man who transitioned early in adulthood– there are a lot of things women* just don’t talk about around men, because it’s socially taboo. Things like, say, periods. Or why you need to be buying all that expensive makeup and clothing. Or the ways that girls/women bully other girls/women and how it can fuck you up. Or menopause. Or why you’re afraid of walking home alone at night. Or abuse and/or sexual assault that’s happened to you in the past.
Sometimes it’s because women don’t feel safe talking to their male partners about it. Sometimes they think it’ll hurt their male partner to hear about it. Sometimes, it’s just that it’s Not Done– it’s as socially wrong as taking off your pants in a restaurant.
If you’re lucky, you have a good partner, you’re both willing to step outside the gender role box you’ve been assigned, you feel like you can tell them anything and you’re right, and your partner takes you seriously when you tell them and doesn’t get grossed out or go “bzuh? That’s batshit insane, it can’t be real”. A lot of people– especially people in conservative/patriarchial societies, but even egalitarian people in lefty parts of the country can fall into this mess– do not feel like they have this kind of safety with their partners. They feel like they can’t discuss the problems they’re having with their partner, because their partner is a Man/Woman and you Don’t Talk About These Things, it’s Not Done.
So if you’re a man– even if you are a good man, even if you’re kind and empathetic and care about other people and try to treat other people right– there’s a good chance you’ve never been exposed to the full brunt of the ~female experience~. It’s entirely possible for a man to grow up with no sisters, a mother who doesn’t talk about these things with her son, and no female friends until you start dating in earnest, without hating women or ignoring their problems. It’s then entirely possible that your parther won’t talk about the problems she’s having, because she’s still relating to you as A Man as much as she’s relating to you as Her Partner. Socialization is a hell of a drug.
Speaking as a trans man again… a lot of the problems that women have are not immediately obvious to the naked eye. I’m not saying ‘women don’t have problems’. I’m not saying ‘sexism is over’ or ‘feminism is unnecessary’. But if you never go clubbing**, don’t ask your coworkers about their salary, don’t watch much TV, and don’t talk to women about Taboo Topics… you’re never going to realize just how deep the rabbit hole goes, just as much as our hypothetical Zimbabwean isn’t going to realize just how bad Trump is as a president.
And then you have a daughter. Your daughter has not yet learnt that you don’t talk to men about Taboo Topics, and you’re her dad. She trusts you with everything when she’s tiny, and even as she gets older, she knows you’re one of the people who unconditionally love her, no matter what. You see her getting hit with all the misogynistic messages women get hit with every day and how it changes what she feels safe doing. You see her struggling with misogyny and bullying and ridiculous beauty standards. You see her dealing with the basic biological functions that women usually have under control by the time they’re getting married but are a scary mess when you’re a young teenager, the gross boys and men who treat young girls like shit, the way she gradually absorbs sexist toxicity and stops believing she can do anything she wants. If you’re unlucky, you see the fallout that comes from her being assaulted.
And it’s in your face, in a way it might not be with your wife. The misogyny that happens to young girls is much more blatant and terrible than the misogyny that happens to grown women (grade-schoolers are not known for their subtlety). What’s more, you’re seeing it all happen in real time- you’re seeing a girl who’s cutting herself down to size to fit society, not a woman who’s already done it. So it’s entirely possible that a man won’t realise the full extent of misogyny until he has a daughter, without that man being a shitheap in any way.
…I’m not saying that this is right or good or the way things should be. This is the very definition of ‘male privilege’– you have the ability to ignore bad things in the world that other people don’t get to ignore, just because you’re lucky enough to be a cis man. That is a bad thing. It needs to stop happening. It is a tragedy that men and women are not taught to communicate properly with each other, and it’s not women’s fault that they don’t feel safe talking about dangerous things with men. That is also a bad thing that needs to stop happening.
But at the same time, men saying “I didn’t realise things were bad for women until I had a daughter”… it’s not necessarily “hurr durr I didn’t realize women were people until I had a daughter because I’m a horrible person who ignores what women say :V”. It can mean “wow, I didn’t realise just how much of a problem misogyny/sexism was until I had a daughter, because there are things I didn’t know. Now that I know the full extent of the problem, I’m going to change the way I act about it”.
Stop assuming the worst of people, ffs.
*(Speaking in broad terms here, just assume the tag “cis” usually-but-not-always goes here. Trans people do tend to relate to gender/their partner’s gender a little differently.) **(As An Sperglord, it confuses me just how much feminist discourse is about the club scene and why it’s bad. It seems disproportionate to the amount-of-a-problem-it-is.)
Or why you need to be buying all that expensive makeup and clothing.
Is it ok if I ask why here? Because I still don’t know.
Yeah, of course! It’s not the end of the world not to understand things.
OK, I’m trying not to assume that you work in tech, but… you know That One Tech Guy who wears nothing but free company T-shirts and cargo pants and won’t shave or cut his hair? The guy who’s brilliant and could easily get promoted if he wanted, but no one is willing to promote him because he looks like a hobolo and training him to dress professionally would take too much time when there are equally qualified people who already know how?
If you’re a woman and you don’t wear makeup, or you don’t shave your legs (which is much more of a hassle than shaving your face, for the record), or you don’t have A Wardrobe (rather than, like, 1-3 Outfits and a week’s worth of basics to pad them out, like most men seem to), people are going to treat you like you’re That One Tech Guy, regardless of how you perform or behave. People see women who don’t wear makeup as lazy and sloppy, women who don’t shave their legs or armpits as Making A Statement and being gross in the process, women who don’t dress in a variety of outfits as poor or lazy…
So if you want to get anywhere in life as a woman, whether in your career or your personal life, you have to have many clothing and wear at least some makeup.
There are exceptions to this rule- for example, a lot of blue-collar jobs are just fine with women not wearing makeup, because they expect female workers to be ‘one of the boys’ and hyperfemininity is a detriment there. And of course there are plenty of guys who like women without makeup, and so on. But in general, if you’re a woman who’s not working in an industrial setting, you need to perform some level of femininity to be taken seriously.
(And of course if you perfom too much
femininity, people will think you’re stupid and shallow and vapid, but that’s a whole nother ballgame.)
This is a good explanation which holds in many places, but this is really dependent on local culture. Around me quite a lot of tech guys match your description of That One Tech Guy and don’t have much trouble getting promoted. I’m a woman in a non-tech job in a tech company and I dress however and almost never wear makeup and it’s fine. (Sometimes women in tech complain that there’s actually a pressure on them not to dress too nicely/femininely or wear makeup because it doesn’t fit the culture. Which is also bad, but also demonstrates how impeccable grooming isn’t always the norm.) So it’s not just industrial settings that don’t have super high feminine grooming standards.
I don’t agree with everything @earlgraytay is saying here, but I agree with a lot of it (especially in the first post, but also in a more limited way in the second one — and I am so very in favor of the second one’s “yes, let’s actually answer that” ethos). And I am so hardcore in favor of the basic rebuke to OP that the first post contains.
I’d also like to add another couple quick points:
You’ll notice more threats if you’re actively looking for them than if you’re just not ignoring them. And you should be actively looking for threats to your child to a greater degree than you have to for your spouse.
More things are threats to kids than to adults. Say your 20 year old (let alone substantially older) wife has dreams of being able to make a living as an author, and she has an opportunity to show some of her writing to a writer she looks up to, and who’s old enough to be her father … and he praises it and turns on the charm, all in an effort to get into her pants. That’s a douchey thing to do, but that’s all it is. Now imagine the same scenario with your 12 year old daughter. Suddenly, things look a whole lot different, because they are a whole lot different.
It’s not just that your daughter’s classmates are going to be less subtle than your wife’s co-workers, they’re also generally going to be less homogeneous, meaning that the odds that there’s going to be some asshole who will make her life miserable are going to be higher, especially if she’s in a class where making how people treat her a major factor in choosing her workplace is a real option.
Also, they’re going to in general have less reason to all pull together. Someone, I think ESR, noted that social status games get a whole lot crueler and more pointless when a bunch of people are thrown together by forces beyond their control sufficiently often than social hierarchies will develop, but without having a common goal for position in the hierarchy to at least partially depend on contributions to. American public schools. The court of Louis XIV at Versailles. Ladies Who Lunch.
As @tchtchtchtchtch noted about the second post, local culture varies. So does personal experience, even conditional on local culture. Your wife may simply catch and have caught less shit than your daughter, for no inherent structural reason, just by luck. And vice versa.
A lot of common gendered (and non-gendered) awfulness has to do in one fashion or another with the partnering process: Trying to figure out what you need to do to attract a partner. Despairing over your inability to find a partner, and wondering what it says about you. Approaching potential partners and having them reject you, sometimes in intentionally humiliating ways. Having a potential partner approach you, and then humiliate you when you say yes. Finding a partner, and having them abuse you in any number of ways. Finding a partner, and having them suck (whether in a way that’s actually abusive or not), and repeating the experience, and wondering if this is what you have to settle for if you don’t want to be alone. Having potential partners’ other potential partners seek to humiliate you or otherwise harm you, in order to eliminate the competition. On, and on, and on. Your wife is already partnered, by definition. If your marriage is monogamous, there’s a whole lot of shit that simply no longer applies to her.
It’s not just that you’re only seeing your wife after she has already “cut herself down to size to fit society,” even if that describes her experiences well. It’s also that you’re (in all likelihood) only seeing her after she has put on new growth where she’s figured out that society is more comfortable with it. If your wife used to really be into woodworking, or some other “masculine” craft, but gave it up long ago because of how people treated her … in the intervening time, she may have found and taken up quilting, or knitting, or something else that’s more “feminine” than her old hobby but still involves making things with her hands that are both useful and beautiful. Maybe it even makes her happier than woodworking used to. And maybe not. But either way, even after setting aside that the pain of loss isn’t nearly as fresh, she’s probably also a lot more fulfilled in that area than she was between when she gave up her old hobby and when she first found a new one that at least did for her some part of what the other had done.
Regarding @earlgraytay’s second post: A lot of this strikes me as somewhat true, but overstated (in varying degrees). Some of that’s no doubt the varying local culture thing. Especially regarding anything where the disfavored option is “hippieish” or “nature girl,” since my hometown is the sort of place that people people have been known claim “never left the sixties.” It’s not entirely true. But it’s not entirely false either.
And some of it’s no doubt my own autistic obliviousness. But I really don’t think that’s all of it. I think it’s more that a lot of the ways that “people see women who do X” are ways that a reasonable fraction of the population[1] are at least somewhat biased toward seeing a woman who does X, a smaller (often much smaller) number emphatically sees women who do X, and a reasonable fraction of the population does not, in fact, see women who do X … and that people are much more likely to spontaneously speak up about in the affirmative than in the negative.
Like, if a woman wears three outfits 90% of the time, and this doesn’t strike you as being in any way objectionable, how likely are you to say something, unless it’s directly in response to someone else saying the reverse? Not very likely at all, I would think!
[1] Maybe a majority, maybe not, and almost certainly varying wildly by the specific non-comforming practice — my intuition (such as it is) puts the fraction at a lot higher for not shaving one’s legs than for not wearing a variety of outfits, at least for how men are likely to view women for each. (If others have contrasting experiences or intuitions (or statistics!), I’d love to hear them.)
You know, I think a lot of modern internet culture war shit goes back to the ‘60s-‘70s (counter)cultural refoundation that both sides claim lineage from. ‘cause there’s a sense it was sold as something for everyone – women, racial, and gender/sexual minorities would get their civil rights and inclusionary movements recognized, in return straight white guys got the consensus that Cool People agree: sexualization is Correct, being offended is Incorrect. And there’s a growing sense (from all sides) that the terms have not been upheld.
Sad Puppies and the Hugos. Because that’s what we’re talking about now, apparently.
Both sides claim to be the true heirs of SFF. The antis sniff that it’s obviously them because the genre has always been committed to a progressive vision, especially starting with the ‘60s-‘70s and the New Wave.
And that’s not wrong, but there’s a lot of stuff under that aegis. You have Left Hand of Darkness, with LeGuin all “gender fluidity would be great; we could experience our true selves independent of mutilatory social structures, and it would give rise to meaningful new cultural practices oriented around the beauty of self-discovery and self-crafting”.
And then there’s Varley’s Eight Worlds, which is like “Just imagine, if perfect sex changes were consumer services like haircuts, you could experience banging-hot hetero sex from both sides!”
Or Marion Zimmer Bradley all “adding strong female characters to fantasy allows us to escape tedious military epics towards an exploration of the importance of emotional labor, correctly identifying life-creation, not -destruction as the fundamental force of history”.
And meanwhile, “Red Sonja, DAAAAMN. She could force herself on you, how hot is that?”
(Joss Whedon postures like he’s from the Bradley tradition, but he’s toooootaly from the Red Sonja tradition.)
And then you have stuff like Stranger in a Strange Land, which is about interspecies tolerance, peace, love, and understanding, as enabled by author-insert dirty old man Jubal, attended poolside by his harem of buxom secretaries, including the one trained to totally suppress her personality so to better serve.
Like I said, something for everyone.
(Modern equivalent being Kim Stanley Robinson, recurring theme being “If scientists ran the world, there would be peaceful, multicultural, inclusionary socialism. And also collective nude bathing, where young female students seduce their mentors.”)
And you know, I’m still waiting on the WisCon panel on “Recovering the Promise of Teenage Groupies”.
Honestly I’m not much in the fandom these days but I do get Gardner Dozois’ “World’s Best” anthology every year, and I have noticed an increase in stories where nothing happens, but at least it’s brown and queer folks it’s not happening to.
One story a bit back that stuck with me, the message seemed to be “working in a Foxconn plant would suck”, which okay but I couldn’t even tell what was SF about it. Another that started promising – in an Islamic country (bcuz good point, the future won’t just come for white Anglophones), polygamy and semi-arranged marriage coexist with social media (ditto), and men hire Cyranos to polish their appeal, under the pressure that not every man can win even one wife. That’s a solid premise! But once this is established, the protagonist just throws up his hands and experiences a wave of relief as he realizes he could just be gay instead.
And it’s like… wut.jpg
In a proper world an editor would’ve returned that with a note saying “great story, can’t wait to see it when it’s done”. But that’s exactly the issue, isn’t it, that box-ticking and message Correctness are being accepted in lieu of quality.
Actually, you know what that really reminds me of? Christian rock.
Christian rock? How so?
I wasn’t aware there was this much focus on sexuality. I mean, it makes sense, though, if it emerged in those decades of Free Love. Does this mean you’d characterize the Campbellian vs. New Wave thing as “military adventure vs. sexcapades”?
(Also, I am here for Red Sonja, though I’m willing to bet that her depiction has changed considerably in the comic world. No idea about the original source material, though.)
EDIT: Also, we see more general fanservice-y stuff, from modern anime like Infinite Stratos and maybe Macross, to older stuff like BattleTech (where MechWarriors canonically wear little more than shorts and tank tops because heat buildup radiates into cockpits).
It’s that modern, SJW approved media, specifically SFF created and published to be SJW approved, is very similar to the Christian publishing and music industries.
Being in The Industry myself, I’m gonna expand on this a little.
I don’t entirely agree with isaacsapphire, in that there are plenty of talented writers publishing “SJW-approved” media.
It’s not just whatever’s happening to win the awards this week.
(I’d recommend Roanna Sylver, Austin Chant, and Shira Glassman, and out of the more famous authors Seanan McGuire is really good in her own right.)
That being said: Christian publishing has notoriously low standards, because The Message is more important than craft or polish. As an example: the Left Behind series, one of the most infamous works of “Christian fiction”, was written in one draft, received minimal copyediting, and then was published. It shows- the characters meander all over the place, make a lot of phone calls, and often seem to forget that there’s an apocalypse happening around them.
But it had The Right Message- it was explicitly Christian, it had nothing to offend the right-wing Purity Police in it, and it trumpeted anti-abortion, anti-gay-rights, and pro-Family Values causes. So it got published. And then people bought it by the score because it was the closest thing to SFF they were ‘allowed’ to read, and in some Christian bookstores it sold more copies than anything other than the Bible. (Mostly because it’s a 12-book series, with prequels and multiple spin-offs.)
… If Message is more important than craft, if the ideology of what you’re writing is more important than the story you’re telling, you’re going to put out crap. It’s inevitable. A story can hit all the right MESSAGE tickboxes and still be ridiculously awful. Likewise, you can disagree with every bit of the message a story is trying to press, while still enjoying it as a story. (Narnia, anyone?)
I do think SF/F Media Aimed At A Lefty Audience has this problem- particularly literary SFF- though I don’t think it’s anywhere near as bad as Christian media. There’s still plenty of quality art out there being marketed in that intensely SJ way (OMG IT HAS GAY CHARACTERS). But there’s also a lot of hype for stuff that’s mediocre at best and wouldn’t be getting nearly as much attention if it WASN’T targeted at SJ people (and if MRAs weren’t raising a stink about it).
We need to be critical about the quality of what media we’re consuming, and not just about whether OMGITHASLADIESDOINGCOOLTHINGS or OMGTHEREISQUEER. Otherwise people will try to feed us shit and call it sweet corn.
…And after all, one of my short stories got published and won an award, mostly because it was about a trans person. I think that says everything you need to know about the quality of the industry right there.
“There’s still plenty of quality art out there being marketed in that intensely SJ way (OMG IT HAS GAY CHARACTERS).”
Yeah.
Like, I’m published by queer presses, so all my protagonists are some flavor of gay. But I also tend to write very dark stuff, full of power games and drama. I feel like if I said, like, “Salvation has gay men in it!” and the usual people who go for that kind of ad bought it… well, some folks would like it, or at least I hope so. But I get the sense some of them might be unpleasantly surprised.
Which is why I’m not a huge fan of that type of ad. I won’t say I’ve never done it–I did yell pretty loudly that The Cyborg He Brought Home has a trans dude in it!–but it seems a bit empty. What are your gay or trans or POC characters actually doing? What’s your plot?
If a neurotypical asks you, “What game are you playing?” they’re not asking you to describe the game.
They’re asking you if they can play too.
If a neurotypical asks you, “What are you watching?” they’re not asking you to explain the plot of the movie/tv show to them.
They’re asking if they can watch it with you.
.
When neurotypicals ask you “What are you doing?”
What you think they’re asking: “Please explain to me what you are doing.”
What they’re actually asking: “Can I join you?”
Now here’s the really fucked up part. If you start explaining to them what you’re doing? They will interpret that as a rejection.
What you think you’re saying: [the answer to their question]
What they think you’re saying: This is an elite and exclusive activity for a level 5 friend and you are a level 1 acquaintance. You are not qualified to join me because you don’t know all this stuff. Go away.
.
This is why neurotypicals think you’re being cold and antisocial.
IT’S ALL A HORRIBLE MISCOMMUNICATION.
I didn’t realize, even thought it took me almost three decades to learn this, that this was such a paradigm changing realization until we had our conversation today.
But it really really is. One of the most bewildering realizations I’ve had is most people don’t talk to learn things unless its related to work or directly towards their own hobbies, all the words and questions are bonding questions if done socially. They are “lets make friends” questions.
So if I answer their question without an opportunity for the person asking the question to give a response or to join in somehow, the asker feels alienated and starts shutting down.
Example: what are you reading?
True answer but not what they’re looking for: Title of book
Best answer for social scenarios where I want to retain/create friendship: This book is about x and y but it has z that i know u have an interest in too.
Example: what are you doing?
True answer but not: drawing
Best answer for friends: I’m drawing but would u like company while I’m working?
And sometimes frankly I’m not in a headspace where I can process people so the answer is something like, “I would like to do something in a day or later, do you want to plan something?”
Tldr: communication is wierd
HOLY
SHIT
that explains so fucking much thank you
(why the fuck do neurotypicals never just day what they mean ie hey this show looks cool mind if I join you)
Further annoying?
They don’t realize that’s what they’re asking and they just feel rejected and go away. So you can’t even ask them what you did wrong because they can’t even put a finger on why they feel the way they do they just know you made them feel bad for some undefined reason.
That is way more of being an imposing burden then just…. you know…asking if you can join.
Well sure, I’m not justifying the response by any means. But it is a reason some people have (especially those dealing with social anxiety or who have had trauma from being excluded).
But the one sure-fire way to be rejected is to never ask though…
I’ll contribute as someone who does have this level of social anxiety on occasion and who sometimes does what y’all are complaining about.
I have been told, many many times, that the sheer act of asking is a burden. Mostly it’s because I’m an Obvious Minority and thus My Existence Is A Burden (yaaaaay childhood racism -_-;;), but the sheer fact that I might want to join in on things is shock! horror! UNTHINKABLE
Also there’s the whole Ask Culture vs Guess Culture thing, which is basically at the heart of this post. I grew up in hardcore Guess Culture – you try to avoid asking anything outright, you have to infer and read between the lines a lot. Which is extremely frustrating even without the added complication of “and people who are obnoxious like you just by virtue of existing should never even ask at all”. If at any point you may be an imposition, you try to avoid it wherever possible – you wait for an invitation, rather than ask for one.
Between the Guess Culture thing and the whole “don’t even bother asking nobody likes you” thing, even asking for things like “can I join you” is anxiety-inducing. With indirect ways at least it’s a save. No invite? Oh well.
Again, I’m not saying any one approach is better than the other – what I’m saying is that there’s layers to these things, whether because of culture or because of anxiety issues or whatever, and people aren’t necessarily trying to be obtuse on purpose. It’s just an issue of cross-purposes and clashing communication styles.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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