I'm the same as you, but in reverse: I sometimes miss being alone, but I don't miss the flirting and the attention.

And honestly, the "missing the loneliness" has kinda been fixed now that we no longer live in small apartments, but have a house with rooms where we can be ourselves when we need it. We are that weird kind of couple who love being alone together. He does his thing, I do mine and occassionally one comes over to give the other a hug and a smooch. And if one or the other needs extra attention, we put down whatever we are working on to give it to them. For example, he's gotten hooked on collecting fossils recently and sometimes he bursts with the need to do lectures about pre-historic aquatic life and their anatomy and he comes over and dumps one fossil in my hands after the other while he talks. It's the same when I go off on one of my things. Like I can talk at length about movies, foreign cultures and their habits and languages. And then we have a mutual interest in birds. Like I saw a raven fly over our house the other day and immediately called him and we babbled for several minutes about my observations to make sure it was a raven and not a crow. If either of us are out and see a weird bird, we snap a pic if possible and send it to the other and discuss what bird it is if it isn't immediately apparent.

How the frick would I find a guy like that ever again? Do they even make those anymore? I need someone to match my level of mundane weird.

Ps: this is his most recent bird identification pic in our privat chat. He correctly identified it as a curlew. I double checked my bird lexicon. The rest of our chat is full of pictures of fossils xD

Typically for a man at least, if you aren't active looking, you're never going to find anyone. Feeling good about yourself isn't going to attract people... being attractive and approaching them is really what you have to do.

Oh I'm not trying to say it's "bad" fundamentally in and of itself or anything like that. I was just trying to give a basic explanation of why a more avoidant person might bail in that situation. I'm not trying to imply that someone with a more avoidant attachment style can't have a real or meaningful relationship, those were just the words I felt would make the most sense to the person I was explaining it to for a very basic bare bones explanation.

I guess thats where i got lost. I usually need to get to know someone a bit for a crush to develop.

Strange that someone down-voted you for this.

I don't think that's greedy, I think that's pretty normal.

I need to see how a person interacts in conversation to be attracted to them, as i am far more attracted to mannerisms and values than looks. A cute face is great, I couldn't care much about body as long as a person is relatively healthy (this is a very broad range for me).

I don't think that's ironic, it just happens to ~~both~~ all genders because it's a "people" thing, not a gender thing.

People will say "men do this" or "women do this" depending on context, but really a lot of that could go either way.

It's seen as misogynistic when people talk about women doing it, but when they talk about men doing that just seems all very well.

Why can't we just say humans are flawed beings and leave it at that? There's a lot of ways the media influences our perceptions, and not all of them good. Especially when it comes to gender dynamics.

I mean, just watch any rom-com from before 2010. Half of the stuff you see in them would be a Title IX violation on any college campus these days.

Yeah that's something I think women are slowly learning how to rewire their brains around because, just like how popular culture shaped how men approached women, the same popular culture (and internalized misogyny) taught women that asking for consent is not sexy.

This appears to be changing from what I've read in various comments on audio porn geared towards women and also just from conversation with other women. I totally used to think asking for consent "ruined the mood", and now with more knowledge I think there are many ways to ask for consent in a sexy way.

My favourite is to play a slight d/s game and make someone tell me what they want using their words (i also like it used on me). It's a bit of a tease but people like it. And you get enthusiastic consent (I consider begging to be pretty enthusiastic).

I think these women who are saying it ruined the mood have some shit to work through, because you should be encouraged to ask for consent.

yep. same experience, it's very much a 'don't do as I say' type of thing.

I see a lot of people online talking about this mythical woman who asks for consent, swaps std tests, uses condoms religiously, and and finds it 'sexy' but I have never ever encountered such a person in real life. Also this supposedly 'emotionally mature woman who clearly communicates what she wants from a man'.... again never met such a woman.

Who I do meet, is women who hate consent, hate condoms, and if you asked them for an std test they'd tell you to fuck yourself. And then I see them go on social media and post about this stuff like it's gospel. Like I remember once I had a girl insist we not use condoms, then the next morning I woke up she was on her phone posting on twitter talking how men who don't use condoms are all trashy and abusive... she was projecting her own trash shitty sexual habits.

It's almost as if what people say they want and what they actually do in real life is completely different.

I notice the same thing with 'emotional intelligence' trend going on lately. Everyone claims they are high EQ and demand a high EQ partner... and these are the same folks who throw a passive aggressive temper tantrums at you if you don't reach for the check fast enough at the end of the date. It's so insane who hypocritical it all is at the end of the day.

And the trippiest by far, since I am a straightforward and honest person, is getting told that being honest and straightforward is 'manipulative' or it's a 'strategy' or something, because the concept of that is completely non-existent to them. They basically can't ever be honest, so they think nobody else ever could be and I've had people straight up accusing me of lying when I'm telling the truth about like my intentions and desires in dating... like i say 'i want kids' and they hear 'i am trying to manipulate you'. I also meet many women who are so weird about the kids thing, like they just incessantly lie about it because they feel like not wanting kids makes them 'look bad' so they lie and say they want them... it's so fucking stupid and miserable.

people will just make up endless crazy bullshit rather than be straightforward and honest. but being honest with other folks means you have to be honest with yourself about who you really are... and that's never going to happen for the vast majority of folks.