Musings: Romance for the Introspective Introvert

Based on my current experience with my close friendships, I wonder how introverts handle romantic relationships. I’m a big friendship person. I love seeing depictions of intimate friendships in media and long for those type of friendships myself. But now that I have a close friend who likes to interact with me through video and voice calling, I realize just how much energy it takes to leave my inner world to cultivate friendships. I think it’s easier for me to leave the house and spend time with people individually or in small groups than to have them intrude on me when I’m in my fortress of solitude. I have the desire to have video call dates with my friends, to spend face to face time with them outdoors or at their homes. This desire is often not met due to a lack of effort and personal circumstances. But even when I make those dates, the day comes around I would just love to stay home, scroll through my feed and save countless memes to my archives. If I plan an online meeting, I don’t want to cease what I’m doing or pause the story that is being written in my head to interact with the person. I have more conversations with my friends in my mind than I do in real life.

When it comes to friendship, it’s considered acceptable for me to hide behind my introversion and use it as a reason for not interacting with others or building any kind of relationship that goes beyond the superficial. If I was in a romantic relationship or married, I would have no excuse but to put in the effort to nurture a relationship with my spouse. When my friend calls me it’s fine if I ignore it because I just don’t feel like talking at the moment. Would this be okay if my husband was the person calling? Can I ignore him or my children because I have a lot going on right now? I’m just looking at these things that take so much effort, things that are seen as optional in friendships but are obligations in romantic relationships and I’m wondering, “How can I live up to having to be available for a romantic partner when I struggle with being available for friends?”

Lack of Romance Does Not Equate to Being Unloved

I’m very grateful for my friends and family. With all of the love, intimacy, support and physical affection I receive from you all I will never feel unloved, unworthy, lonely or miserable just because I don’t have a “boyfriend”. I could live my whole life being single and be even more fulfilled than people in romantic relationships because I have you.
But society has done a good job in making us believe that if no one is romantically interested in us or if we don’t have a romantic partner, that we are unloved or broken. It makes us believe that romantic love is superior to platonic love, that romantic relationships are greater than friendships and that only romantic relationships are worth investment and commitment. It leads us to limit love, physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, sensual touch (cuddling, kissing, hugging etc) and commitment to only romantic relationships. You see, these things are essential to humans. And because these things are deemed as inappropriate within friendships, we all feel the need to chase a romantic partner to have such things because society says you can only get these things from your romantic partner. Remove those amatonormative glasses from your eyes and start to experience real love. Focus on loving your friends and family and developing close, loving, intimate relationships with them. Stop chasing romance.

The Prioritization of Romantic Relationships Within Amatonormative Cultures

We live in a society where it is totally acceptable and expected for us to go long periods without speaking to our friends (notice I said ‘friend’, not acquaintance, which is a more casual superficial relationship) and brush it off as being “grown” and “busy” but when it comes to our romantic partners, we are expected to maintain steady, consistent contact and communication with these individuals and to invest a great deal of time in building intimacy, love etc no matter how busy we are. We are expected to sacrifice our friendships and familial relations at the drop of a hat to please our romantic partners. How often do you see a person leaving their hometown to follow their friend overseas because they don’t want to be without their friend? Rarely, but we do this for our romantic partners in order to maintain the relationship. Yes, I do acknowledge that we can have friends who we love dearly and go a certain amount of time without speaking with them but why don’t we view romantic relationships the same? Is it because society has this messed up idea that romantic relationships are worth more than friendships? We prioritize romance over friendship. Our romantic relationships are of a higher priority than our friendships because we all know when someone/something is a priority we make time for it no matter how busy we are. Simple! How often do you go without speaking to your “significant other” or someone you are romantically interested in? Because we are not romantically interested in our friends (let’s be honest, most people don’t have close, passionate, intimate friendships. Friends are just people they hang out with, share a few jokes and common interests with. They don’t have deep relationships with their friends, especially if they are of the gender which they are sexually and romantically attracted to) we don’t see it necessary to invest time in building an intimate, sensual, loving relationship with them because society says we only want to spend time with, touch and be emotionally close with someone out of romantic interest for them. It’s a society that tends to romanticize any emotionally intimate, physically affectionate or sensual, deep, meaningful friendship. It’s an amatonormative culture based on a romantic-sexual relationship hierarchy. Even if these close friendships are accepted, they are only viewed as appropriate during childhood/adolescence. Growing up means leaving friendships behind in pursuit of finding the “one” and any close friendship is viewed as having an “emotional affair” because we are only to be close with our romantic-sexual partner. A world where romance and love are not seen as equal, where sensuality and physical affection are not so closely linked with romance and sexuality is a more loving world for everyone.