I noticed a certain pattern in my thoughts lately. I tend to be envious of people’s sex lives every now and then because most people seem to have no big troubles hooking up with just about anyone. Whereas I, being on the ace spectrum, would prefer someone I’m much closer to, which presents its own set of difficulties.
Now recently I began questioning that mindset. Why do I even feel jealous, if it isn’t something I want anyway?
I mean, it’s usually things like one night stands or other sexual things that I personally don’t even want to do all that much, even less so if it isn’t with a person I genuinely trust. So why would I feel jealousy then? Doesn’t make much sense to me.
Just wondering if someone may have experienced something similar, because I’m not quite sure what to do about this.
3 comments
IME jealousy is a compass pointing to something you want. So maybe you don’t want the actual sexual encounter, you’re looking for something else that sex gets you (feeling wanted, feeling sexy, proof that you’re worthwhile, intimacy, etc).
People are living their lives and you’re jealous that you’re not living your life (by going out and doing what you want to do.)
I have had a similar experience. There was the part of me when I was younger that wanted many sexual partners and was envious of those that “slept around”. But I also learned with my first partner that after having sex with someone I got very emotionally attached to them, whether they were a good match for me or not (she was NOT, but I stayed with her for over a year). Thus I was very careful after that first relationship to not immediately sleep with someone. However, even now years into a very happy marriage I read the posts here about folks being promiscuous and using things like Tinder (which didn’t exist back in the day when I dated, we had to rely on things like going to bars or personal ads in the local paper) and there is still that pang of jealousy that my younger years weren’t more like that. I guess maybe my lesson here is I guess it’s okay to trust your need to have sex mean more for you and just know that it’s OK to be envious of what others do even if you know that it’s not exactly how you want to live.