Can someone explain this to me please?

[CastIronFire]

I'm going to start by saying I'm autistic in case it makes a difference.

I don't very often 'fancy' someone. I never have. I rarely feel sexually attracted to someone unless I've got to know them well first and then they become attractive to me. I've never been attracted to more than one person at a time.

I don't fancy actors or famous people. I never fancy someone on a night out. I can appreciate if someone is good looking but I don't fancy them.

Because of this, I find it very difficult to understand how someone can be in love with someone but 'fancy' someone else. Like an actor or something.

I don't really understand how it is any different to fancying their best mate really. It feels like a betrayal.

It's making it really difficult for me to have a relationship.

I was at work today with two of my male colleagues and they mentioned an actress in passing who they both said they fancied. One is married and the other lives with his girlfriend. I don't understand how they can desire her and also love/fancy their partners.

Yup, we've heard repeatedly that you don't think it's meaningless - but it is, to most people.

So how is him fancying me significant and fancying other women meaningless?

It doesn't make any sense. Fancying someone and finding them attractive is either important or its not.

That's a rhetorical question. I don't expect an answer to it.

Besides, I don't have an issue with him thinking other women are attractive. But fancying them or being sexually attracted to them is something I'm not going to be ok with

Your definition of finding someone attractive is everyone else's definition of fancying .

I think they are attractive. I don't find them attractive.

I think my friend's husband is a very attractive man. I don't find him attractive though. I can just appreciate that he has an aesthetically pleasing face.

The difference is that I've told her I think he's attractive and she was ok with it. I don't think she would have been happy if I'd told her I found him attractive because that implies a degree of desire. And I don't feel any desire towards him.

I jumped a step in my head in that last reply.

But there is a difference between thinking someone is attractive and finding them attractive.

Personally I'd be more concerned about your emotional connection with your male friend than your boyfriend having a superficial liking for the look of someone.

I'm not sure what you mean by fancy. To me and pretty much everyone in this thread it's a surface level appreciation for one or two characteristics of another person. If that's enough for you to feel so insecure in a relationship that you'd rather be single then I suppose that's the best route for you.

Seems a shame, though. Your boyfriend sounds lovely.

My friendship is no threat to my relationship. I'm not attracted to him on any physical level at all. My boyfriend has also become friends with him. I don't find him attractive.

My boyfriend is lovely. He just needs to find someone else.

Tbh I don't look at other people with lust and desire. My version of fancying them is to appreciate they are objectively good looking, and notice that fact. I feel no desire towards them. I never questioned that might not be the norm until now!

To me and pretty much everyone in this thread it's a surface level appreciation for one or two characteristics of another person

But what if those characteristics are ones you don't have? If they are important to him and what he is attracted to, why would he be settling for someone who doesn't possess them?

If anything, I just have one questions now and ones that I know other people won't be able to answer.

What is the difference between someone who is good looking that you would have sex with and someone who is good looking that you wouldn't have sex with?

If everyone else just thinks fancying is looking at someone and thinking 'They have a well proportioned face' or whatever, then how do they decide who they want to go out with or have sex with?

But your boyfriend has functioning brain cells, right? So he can make up his own mind about who he wants to be in a relationship with, and communicate that? You don’t get to dictate that.

That hasn't answered my question though.

Besides, I don't have an issue with him thinking other women are attractive. But fancying them or being sexually attracted to them is something I'm not going to be ok with.

To me OP, and I suspect to your boyfriend, those are the same. I see... Ummm... Vin Diesel and think he's good looking. He, to me, is aesthetically pleasing. I would say 'I fancy him'.

But there is a difference between thinking someone is attractive and finding them attractive.

Nope, don't agree. They mean exactly the same thing to me. I think you may be creating an issue by having definitions for things that your boyfriend doesn't share, so he's saying one thing, and you're hearing another.

It's different because , for exmaple, my friend's daughter's boyfriend is a very good looking boy. I can tell, when I look at him, that he is one of the most attractive boys in her year at school.

I obviously don't fancy him. I don't find him attractive. I don't desire him!

I don't understand how other people don't have that.

What I am getting from this thread is that most people are incapable of seeing someone who they think is good looking without being sexually attracted to them.

That's very confusing.

I'm going to bed. This is too much to process and it's just making it worse.

Nothing anyone says is going to explain it to you, OP.

Most people can see someone is attractive, and just compartmentalise that in their head.

At the end of the day though, they still PREFER their actual partner.

Usually because attraction to someone you’ve chosen to partner up with, is so much more than the sum of its parts.

In other words….

DH is a good looking man. Is he the best looking man on the planet?

Objectively - no.

But I think he’s really good looking.

And here’s the thing…. I also like other things about him, aside from his looks (kind of normal in a LTR ).

I like his build. I’m tall, and he’s taller and bigger than me. I like that, but other women might not be so keen on that rugby player build.

He’s funny and makes me crack up on the daily. Other women wouldn’t get his sense of humour.

He tells a great story and is very social/gregarious. Other women might prefer someone more introverted.

He’s confident. Other women might prefer someone more retiring.

He has quite a few women friends - all of my exes have - and it’s always been something I really like: men who like women as platonic friends. Other women don’t like their partners to have friends of the opposite sex.

I mean, I could go on and on.

What it means is, DH is basically this ‘whole package’. And that means I PREFER him above all else, including someone who may ‘beat’ him in just one element of all his good qualities, say ….. looks.

Why would I rate someone who only does better than him in 1/10 criteria, when he does better in 9/10 criteria - and still performs really well in that 1/10….?

And don’t worry - it’s perfectly normal to see that someone is attractive, but not be attracted to them.

Some people - as in the PP - may not be able to differentiate. But most people can.

I can see that Ryan Gosling is an attractive man, but he leaves me cold. I’m not attracted to him at all. Just one example off the top of my head.

“What I am getting from this thread is that most people are incapable of seeing someone who they think is good looking without being sexually attracted to them.”

But if you read through it, it’s mostly people saying the exact opposite of that.

“If everyone else just thinks fancying is looking at someone and thinking 'They have a well proportioned face' or whatever, then how do they decide who they want to go out with or have sex with?”

There are different levels... and you’re missing some of them out.

There’s - that person is conventionally attractive (and it actually doesn’t matter what sex they are because there’s nothing sexual about it). Nobody would describe that as fancying them.

There’s - that person is attractive in a way I find a bit more pleasing than just acknowledging they’re conventionally attractive.

There’s - there’s something about them I find attractive, something not necessarily related to how they look, comedians for example people often “fancy” even when they’re not particularly conventionally attractive or singers say.

Thats not a comprehensive list, just examples. But they are all fairly shallow by themselves but what other people might mean by fancying someone - but they’re totally harmless.

Then there’s an actual full blown attraction to someone where you like the way they look, there’s something about them that attracts you and you also like their personality. That would be the type that most people would find worrying if their partner had or might indicate there’s an issue with the relationship they’re in if they had it and wouldn’t be someone famous or someone you’ve seen pass by or whatever.

It's not that I fancy every good looking man. Far from it. It's more that I think OP is splitting distinctions that other people might not. (like thinking someone's attractive vs finding someone attractive)

I think maybe if the boyfriend had used different words this might not have been as much of an issue?

It seems OP sees 'fancying' as synonymous with a deeper attraction than most people do.

If the boyfriend had said 'X actress is attractive' rather than 'I fancy x actress' then I think maybe OP would be less worried? But I'm not really sure I understand.

I don't know. It's like someone with an innate ability trying to explain to me how to sing in tune, it's not something I can understand. I just have to believe them when they say it's possible to just be able to do it.

I think that the feelings you attach to the word "fancy" are different to the feelings I attach to that word. When I say I fancy someone, I mean that I find them mildly sexually arousing - most often due to looks, but sometimes mannerisms play a part.

Fancying is involuntary, and just because I fancy someone does not mean I want to have a relationship with them, sleep with them, or anything else. I just have a reaction to them. I do not love them and I do not want to have a relationship with them.

For me, feelings like liking, loving, fancying are not finite. I can feel them for lots of people at the same time. I make a choice to be with my dp. If I fancy someone else then it doesn't not make my feelings for my dp smaller or change my decision to be with him.

That said, you don't need any reason or rationale to end a relationship if it isn't what you want. But you cannot reasonable expect your dp to stop having feelings that are natural to him (which fancying a few celebrities is).

So how is him fancying me significant and fancying other women meaningless

Because actions speak louder than words. Who's he shagging, you or them? Who does he love, who does he want to live with and marry?

You can't hold involuntary thoughts against him! Which is what fancying someone is.

“If everyone else just thinks fancying is looking at someone and thinking 'They have a well proportioned face' or whatever, then how do they decide who they want to go out with or have sex with?”

Going out with someone is taking a chance. You don't know if you want to date them until you've tried it! They might be drop dead gorgeous and so you date them but fake a headache halfway through so you can go home because you discover they're a racist and it puts you off them. Dating is initially a leap of faith, sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Some people will have sex instantly (if they can) with whoever they like the look of and decide afterwards if they like the personality (if they spend enough time with the person to get to know them, some skip that bit because they aren't interested in anything other than sex). Some people want a deeper connection first, built up through dating, before deciding on whether to have sex or not. Some people won't date anyone they haven't already met in real life eg through a hobby or work. Whichever type of person you are, it's totally possible to feel sexual attraction to someone you've met/someone you're friends with etc and decide not to act on it because it would hurt someone else (or yourself, if you realise that person is bad news for you, eg when people are attracted to "bad boys"). It's called having morals and standards.

Penis's aren't like badly trained dogs that tug on the leash dragging their owners places they don't want to go. They don't burst forth from men's underwear entirely unwittingly and drag their attached man into some vagina he doesn't mean to be in, just because he finds a woman sexually attractive.

There's a huge element of choice involved. If he's a decent bloke you've really got nothing to worry about. If he found himself sexually attracted to eg a friend he'd stop torturing himself with what he can't have and distance himself from her. The ones that cheat on you are not decent men.

If he found himself sexually attracted to eg a friend he'd stop torturing himself with what he can't have and distance himself from her.

If that were the case, I'd rather he left me. I wouldn't want to be with someone who would rather be with someone else.

Thank you.

I think I do attach the same meaning to it. I don't find anyone (else) even mildly sexually arousing.

Looking back, there have been two men in my life who I have found attractive in that way at first sight without actually knowing them first.

One I saw at an event about 10 years ago and did have a similar response as you describe to him. I got talking to him and he mentioned in passing that he was married so that was that. I met him again several months later as he was a friend of some friends. We spent a bit of time together in a group (never alone) over the next couple of years. I did still 'fancy' him but no one knew and i often found myself thinking and daydreaming about him apraising him physically, wondering what it would be like to kiss him, thinking about him naked 🤷🏻‍♀️, enjoying his company within the group because he made me laugh etc.

During that time, I went on dates with other men but none of them matched up to him so it never went anywhere.Then one evening he tried to kiss me. He was still married and I was horrified. I withdrew from that group didn't see him again.

Then about 5/6 years ago, I saw a man walk into the pub with some people I vaguely knew and I felt similarly about him. I got to know the other people better over the next couple of years and so bumped into him a few times but still didn't really know him. I dated a couple of people in that time but found myself always comparing them to him and looking for the qualities I found attractive in him in them too despite not actually knowing him as a person. But I always found them lacking and a poor substitute so I ended it with them. After about 3 years, he asked me out. I went out with him for a few months and he was an awful man so I ended it with him.

The point of those experiences was that they were both men who I, uncharacteristically, found 'mildly sexually arousing' without knowing them first. They were strangers to me really but I found myself comparing other men I did date to them and I found other men lacking because these men weren't real to me really. The first was married and the second I didn't know he was an idiot until I dated him but, until then, no other man could compare because they were real and flawed and imperfect and these men weren't at the time.

Other than that, I don't recall ever being 'mildly sexually aroused' by any man I didn't know. It wasn't that I had a deeper connection with them but I knew them as a person, had spoken to them, knew their personality and interests.

I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who thinks and daydreams about other women in the way I did about those men or with someone who compares me and finds me lacking because I'm real and flawed and can't match up to the flawless perfection of someone they don't actually know.

OP, his is beyond frustrating. Your most recent post demonstrates amply that you process attraction very differently to most. Can you not accept that the vast majority of people aren’t like you, so it’s irrelevant that you met a virtual stranger a couple of times and years comparing everyone you dated unfavourably to him, and then had the same happen again? That’s just you. All you need to accept is that you don’t understand how other people work differently. And it’s your decision as to whether you can cope with that in this relationship, or indeed any other.

I wouldn't be in a relationship with someone and have those thoughts/feelings about another man because it would kill any feelings I had for the man I was with.

I don't want to be with someone who was with me because of a 'commitment' he had made or because of a life that was so enmeshed it was easier to stay than leave while he fantasied about someone else or had to stop contact with them otherwise he'd be 'torturing' himself by being around someone he couldn't have.

My boyfriend has suggested moving in together a few times. Not soon but in the future and the main thing that puts me off doing it is that I worry he'd feel he had to stay with me then. If he fancied someone else, I'd want him to be able to be with her and not feel he had to stay with me because it would be too complicated or inconvenient to leave me.