I imagine him all frustrated trying so hard, regurgitating theory quotes with glassy eyes and everyone going "OK, CIA brat" under their breath
Really sex pest behaviour.
I imagine him all frustrated trying so hard, regurgitating theory quotes with glassy eyes and everyone going "OK, CIA brat" under their breath
Really sex pest behaviour.
I’ve been trying my fucking hardest over the past year and a quarter, because I had a really awful flight where I had to spend 5 hours staring at the seat in front of me, cursing at myself in my head because if I hadn’t overheard something, I would have spent the entire flight leering at the woman sitting next to me like a fucking pervert
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Do you mind if I explain the whole scenario?
Go for it, comrade. There's no better way to address these issues than talking about them.
Are you sure you can handle the emotional labor?
I'm not the person you were originally talking to just FYI, but I'm happy to listen and offer my thoughts! If it does end up being too much to handle right now, I'll get to it after work.
I told BMO this over private chat.
So, I was getting on a flight back from a vacation a year and a bit back. And due to seating bullshit, I don’t get to sit with my family members. I get to sit next to strangers. I’ve had bad experiences sitting next to people I don’t know on flights. However, my teenage brain was kinda fine with it, because the woman sitting directly next to me was hot. And so I sit there during boarding, and occasionally, I look at her legs. However, a few minutes later, the woman is conversing with her friend, and talks about a creepy dude who was leering at her. I end up having a near heart attack before she clarifies that it was some old dude at check in. But my nerves don’t calm. I begin to consider what I was doing. I was subconsciously viewing her in a sexual manner without her consent. Same as the old dude, but the difference was I wasn’t caught. My mind ended up listing all the times I had viewed women in a sexual manner without their consent. Guess what? It was a lot. I’m no better than that creep.
First of all, you are clearly better than that creep because you had the common decency to avoid making this woman feel uncomfortable. We all - men, women and non-binary people alike - have intrusive thoughts that we would be mortified to acknowledge in public, but the important thing is how you respond to these. Feeling sexually attracted to someone is perfectly normal and doesn't impact that person in any way so long as your words and actions don't cause them discomfort.
Second, I really do think this is somewhat related to your religious upbringing. I know you said that wasn't the case, but hear me out because I experienced the same sort of shame over my sexuality for far too long. The puritanical views on sexuality and the idea that simply thinking of a sin was the same as committing it certainly played their roles, but I think the biggest issue was growing up with the belief that my thoughts weren't private - the belief that there was a watchful observer constantly monitoring me for impure thoughts. Although I didn't realize it at the time, this feeling stayed with me long after I'd given up on religion.
Remember that your thoughts can't hurt anyone but yourself until they turn into actions. I'd also suggest some CBT - for me, a lot of this ties into my OCD and the skills that I learned in therapy have been a huge help. Learning how to observe and accept your thoughts will make a difference!
I hope this is helpful advice. My lunch break is just about over, but I'm happy to talk about this later if you'd like. Feel free to message me anytime.
You probably are right on the religious angle. I’m a bit worried about the whole seeing a doctor thing because I don’t want to tell my parents about this. However, I’ll try to be brave and ask them for help. Thanks a lot.
By the way, do remember that some people are immature teenagers and meme saturated (me) so CBT , to me, doesn’t automatically click as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
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You didn’t have like a magazine to look at or something?
I spent the whole flight in thought and desperately wondering if I had upset people before with my behavior and if it was too late to apologize.
Besides, the magazines suck on planes. The crossword and Sudoku is already filled in.
I read your other comment and you said you were a teen and the woman you “leered” was an adult. Most adult women get teenaged boys are horny balls of hormones who don’t have the best self control and probably aren’t gonna assume you’re some disgusting perv just for letting your eyes linger a bit too long. You may at worst made her mildly uncomfortable but the fact you recognized you were being kinda creepy and stopped probably was more than enough of an “apology” and she probably didn’t care pass that.
Plus I think the idea that “viewing someone sexually attractive without there consent” isn’t really a violation. People don’t have 100% control of their thoughts and other people can’t read your thoughts, the contents of your mind are your own, as long as they don’t lead to fucked but behavior you shouldn’t really feel guilty for them. Also a world where you couldn’t even feel attracted to someone without their prior consent would... well I don’t understand how dating would even work in that world. Pretty sure all non-asexual people wouldn’t want that.
Well, to be fair, I context also context tended context to context leer context at context peers context. I’ve been correcting that as well. (Sorry about the context thing it’s to make OOC editing harder) But relationships, as I view them, tend to grow from friendships. My only ever date came as a result of this.
I mean yeah but unless you’re an asexual person who wants a non-physical romance, physical attraction is usually gonna be a factor in that. It’s usually the evolution of two friends realizing they have a mutual physical attraction to each other and then deciding to explore that. You can be friends with someone but also think they’re kinda cute and maybe would be DTF if they were but if they’re not whatever. That’s like, most of my friends.
The most important thing is the emotional bond. The date didn’t really go well and we decided to just be friends but she’s a good friend and I’m happy to know her. It’s always good to have a friendship to fall back on.
That is important but, again unless you want a non-physical relationship, which is fine, physical attraction is important too. Idk some people here seem really off out but that assertion but yeah if you want to have sexual relationship with someone finding them sexually attractive is a part of that, doesn’t mean you’re some gross shallow pervert. And “attracted to someone physically” doesn’t mean “person who is conventionally attractive”.