Letting Relationships Develop As They May

The January 2016 Carnival of Aces call for submissions includes the prompt “Do you go looking to start a specific relationship intentionally or do you wait to see if it happens serendipitously?”

The answer for personal relationships is very much “I wait to see if it happens serendipitously.”

Okay, there is a little more to it than that. I sometimes do something to deliberately increase my contact with people who may share interests with me, but that’s all I do – create opportunities for new personal relationships to form serendipitously.

None of the personal relationships I’m interested in come with scripts. Even ‘friendship’ does not come with a script. Therefore, I do not even know how I would start a specific relationship intentionally. I suspect that if I tried it would go something like this:

Me: Hey, I’m looking to for someone who may be a friend, or a queerplatonic partner, or something, and since I like you, I was wondering if you would be interested trying that out with me. I am not interested in dating, but if you want to go on dates with me, we could try that. But just to be clear, I am an aromantic asexual, so I do not want this to be a romantic or sexual relationship at all.

Other Person: What the hell?

I think it is a good thing that there is no particular script for the kinds of relationships I’m interested in but … I wish that it was easier to signal that I’m interested in close non-sexual/non-romantic relationships, and that it was easier to pick up other people’s signals.

Getting friendships by serendipity actually seems to work okay, and I cherish what I have. However, for serious, committed, close relationships … well, I have my parents, and I cherish them too.

Based on my experience and what I’ve read about others’ experiences, the best approach is to have a good relationship with oneself, so one is not dependent on getting into certain kinds of personal relationships with other people. And then let one’s personal relationships with other people be what they may.