I have used the analogy of a stance because to me it feels like there’s an almost kinesthetic component involved in my felt sense of the states that I describe as “stances”.
I had never thought about this before, but upon very brief reflection, it’s highly true of me. For example, I have a certain posture and set of behaviors I routinely use when interacting with people of the opposite sex who are not my SO or family. Some components are:
Continuing to do whatever I was doing, to some extent (contrast with stopping whatever I am doing and attending fully to the person)
Pointing my torso at about a 30-degree angle to the left of their midline
Looking at them directly with my eyes but with my head also pointed slightly away from their midline
I think this is probably a subconscious effort to signal lack of romantic interest to both 1) the person and 2) my SO, if ze is present.
looking at your components 1,2,3, I noticed that these are the same I would use when I signal “this interaction is on a timer” trying to communicate that the other person is kinda wasting my time, and they should be brief with their signals and move on. It is less “Im busy, please go away” but more “you have 90 seconds of my attention span, say your piece”.
Maybe the stance with the opposite sex people we are not interested with is defined not just by intensity (or lack thereof) but timespan.
not just by intensity (or lack thereof) but timespan.
This seems right. It’s sort of unfortunate, because I find most people interesting, and I like being friends with people, but all the signaling associated with those things happens against the backdrop of what everyone else thinks it means when opposite-sex people talk to each other for more than 90 seconds, and the very belief that men and women can’t be “just friends” functions as a strong prior affecting 1) outside observers and 2) the person I am talking to.
XD once again, I am reminded that the level of precision I use in my legal writing is the appropriate level of precision for communicating with everyone on Lesswrong. (Yes, everyone!)
Mature adults of the opposite sex can have genuine friendships, after they both are married and have kids, that’s common enough at least from where I am from. And before that, friends-with benefits scenarios are relatively common.
A pure unalloyed friendship without any sex or romance is definitely pretty rare among unmarried young adults. It only happens when both are childhood friends and high enough in the social hierarchy that everyone in their social circle knows they have, or can get a hot girlfriend/boyfriend at a moments notice. Then there’s no internal or external pressures to woo each other.
I had never thought about this before, but upon very brief reflection, it’s highly true of me. For example, I have a certain posture and set of behaviors I routinely use when interacting with people of the opposite sex who are not my SO or family. Some components are:
Continuing to do whatever I was doing, to some extent (contrast with stopping whatever I am doing and attending fully to the person)
Pointing my torso at about a 30-degree angle to the left of their midline
Looking at them directly with my eyes but with my head also pointed slightly away from their midline
I think this is probably a subconscious effort to signal lack of romantic interest to both 1) the person and 2) my SO, if ze is present.
looking at your components 1,2,3, I noticed that these are the same I would use when I signal “this interaction is on a timer” trying to communicate that the other person is kinda wasting my time, and they should be brief with their signals and move on. It is less “Im busy, please go away” but more “you have 90 seconds of my attention span, say your piece”.
Maybe the stance with the opposite sex people we are not interested with is defined not just by intensity (or lack thereof) but timespan.
This seems right. It’s sort of unfortunate, because I find most people interesting, and I like being friends with people, but all the signaling associated with those things happens against the backdrop of what everyone else thinks it means when opposite-sex people talk to each other for more than 90 seconds, and the very belief that men and women can’t be “just friends” functions as a strong prior affecting 1) outside observers and 2) the person I am talking to.
Everyone else? :)
XD once again, I am reminded that the level of precision I use in my legal writing is the appropriate level of precision for communicating with everyone on Lesswrong. (Yes, everyone!)
Mature adults of the opposite sex can have genuine friendships, after they both are married and have kids, that’s common enough at least from where I am from. And before that, friends-with benefits scenarios are relatively common.
A pure unalloyed friendship without any sex or romance is definitely pretty rare among unmarried young adults. It only happens when both are childhood friends and high enough in the social hierarchy that everyone in their social circle knows they have, or can get a hot girlfriend/boyfriend at a moments notice. Then there’s no internal or external pressures to woo each other.
It’s very common where I’m from.
I would add the caveat “A pure unalloyed friendship in fact, including internal feelings and sentiments, not limited to external behaviour”