nick007 wrote:
MrDiamondMind wrote:
ToadOfSteel wrote:
Oh and for the record, I'm 22 and counting. But I'm not in a big rush to lose it either. I just want the relationship... I want to love and be loved by a woman to the point where we're inseparable and committed to each other for the rest of our lives. If that involves sex, so be it. (and I think it would if a family is to be part of that plan). But if not, I'm not losing any sleep over it...
I'm pretty much the same in this regard, except I really don't want a family. And I'm rather certain that I'll really want to be sexual if it doesn't happen in a long time and I've gotten used to the intimacy. Even though I'm not using 'used to' in the monotonous sense.
I haven't lost mine either & I do not want the sexual side of a relationship unless things would be serious & passionate 1st then I mite would really enjoy it. I'm a borderline asexual & have no luck on asexual dating sites either so I'm not going to limit myself
Forgive my ignorance, but I have a hard time grasping the concept of "asexual dating." I've had quite a few asexual relationships with the opposite sex. We called each other "friends."
People who say they don't want a family don't know what they're missing. To be perfectly honest, I always knew that children were to be a part of my life. It's just something about passing on my wisdom, knowledge, talent, and maybe even a little genetic information on beyond my death. But feeling compelled to do something and actually WANTING to are two completely different things. To that end, our oldest child was the only one we "wanted," while our daughter was unplanned. We were scared to death throughout both pregnancies (for different reasons, the second one was complicated) and had no idea how to raise a child. It's frightening, but I imagine it's frightening for most parents. We still face a lot of uncertainty. But in the end we've found we really love our children.
Think of it as a roommate mentality. They go through stages. The first stage is the waking up every 3 hours for feeding the diaper and changing the baby (yes, I wrote it correctly--if you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about). We found the best thing to do was keep the baby in our bedroom until roughly 3 months. At that point the baby gets his or her own room--baby monitors will give you some amount of comfort until the baby develops an 8-hour sleep pattern. With our second child, we didn't even go quite that far. By not tending to our child at all hours of the night, we forced her to learn to sleep faster. I never understand how it is couples we know have 3-year-olds who can't sleep in their own beds.
When they start crawling/walking, they go into what I call the pet stage. They like to be cuddled, of course, but they spend a lot of time exploring. Lock up all household cleaners and make sure they can't get to the rodent bait. Other than that, they're extremely independent as long as they can see you. We keep the "good toys" in the kitchen, but they never play in there unless we're cooking. Somehow they just know that they should stay close to the adults. If you have stairs, let them play on them. Going up is easy, but you might need to teach them how to crawl back down because it's kinda scary. We don't believe in "baby gates" at our house.
So after they start walking and the teeth start coming in, they go into what I call the "roommate" phase. Yeah, you still have to keep them clean, but that's about all the work you have to do. This can happen between 1 and 2 years. They start using words so you don't have to guess about what they want. We haven't gotten to potty training yet, but that's the next step. By 5 years, they don't really need you (if you've done your job). So after they get teeth, things are easy for the next 10-12 years, at which point you have to completely start over. By 16 years, you almost won't even KNOW you have children, and from 18-20 you just wonder what the hell happened and why it's so quiet in the house.
So yeah, it's only SLIGHTLY more complicated than that, but it's really nothing to be afraid of. Believe me, I was on the edge of a panic attack for about 18 months after my son was born. At some point during that time, I came to the realization that things weren't really all that difficult. I've managed to mellow out with my kids. My son needs a lot of, um--how do I put this?--"direction." My daughter is a little princess who, for some reason, does not ever want to be away from ME (of all people) and is extremely well-behaved, all things considered.
Don't knock parenthood, even for yourself. It's not that bad, and you'll likely be a lot better at it than you think you will.
20 May 2010, 9:01 pm
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