The Problem With Recipro

I recently discovered that there is an expression to describe my view of sex and it’s called Reciprosexual. It basically means I can’t fancy someone if I know they’re not into me.

So... I will not find a gorgeous woman hot if I believe she thinks I’m horrid or if she’s a lesbian. Fantasies still work though, because in my dreams Charlize Theron or Áine Rose Daly think I’m utterly gorgeous.

This extends to sex itself. I’ve never been into bumming, mainly because I’ve always believed that it’s something a woman gives her male partner as a “gift” and is not really enjoying it. I have met women who said they really like it but they’ve never slept with me so I would have to be 100% certain that the girl wanted me to do that to consider it.

I never knew that this was a describable trait up until I checked on an LGBTQIA+ website and there was a synopsis and also a flag. The idea of someone getting turned on by me is, in itself, a major libido booster and I can’t enjoy sex where I don’t feel that vibe.

Something else that has come into focus since this discovery is that my timidity around women throughout my life was a rather peculiar side-effect being in this part of the sexual spectrum.

To elaborate…

For many years I had a crush on a woman that I cut off all contact with through the (retrospectively false) belief that I had hurt her emotionally. For nearly 9 years I stayed away from her and burned all my bridges that would have allowed me to get back in touch (phone numbers, emails and the like). I always told myself that I was afraid of getting back in touch and discovering that she hated me or had forgotten me and while this fear was definitely true, there was another layer.

All I had left of her, in that 8.5 years of no contact were the memories of her smiling and happy, liking my company and wanting to spend time with me. Had I got back in touch it would, in my paranoid mind, have confirmed for certain that she didn’t like me and this would have had the domino effect of wiping out all the emotional attachments I had on my memories of our time together before. To find out out she wasn’t “into me” any more was something that, on a purely sub-conscious level, scared me. Without even realising it, I was phobic of having all those happy memories reset and becoming nothing to me. I know this is what happens because another woman I slept with in 2008 later dated and married a famous actor. We had stayed in touch for about 5 years after we met on holiday and I had always hoped I’d see her again one day. Once her relationship with this bloke went public, she blocked me on Facebook (despite staying friends with other people from the holiday where I had met her) and as I hadn’t done anything to piss her off I guessed the reason was that her famous boyfriend or his PR people had said “Anyone who’s seen you naked below the waist, unless they’re your gynaecologist or a close family member, get them OFF social media!”

The memories of our night together shagging were instantly confined to the bin. I could no longer look back on them with any sense of eroticism simply because I knew that I would never see her again and she wanted no further contact with me. I don’t imagine for a moment what she did was personal but it was like a switch being thrown. Not into me, so I can’t be into you.

So, the reason I didn’t get back in touch with my friend for close to a fucking decade was because I had only the memories of us together and I wanted to cherish them. But the other problem was that I didn’t even realise this and I look back now and realise that so much of my shyness and social awkwardness was a fear of being made to feel lonely through my past being taken from me as well as any future.

If you see someone you really like and you ask them out, maybe they’ll say yes and maybe they will say no. But if they say no then, to me, that robs the attraction I had felt in the first place and I would be left with nothing.

Being recipro is fun when someone is heavily into you. But it sucks with regard to being able to put yourself about. It also extends to friendships (maybe reciprosocial?) because I have lost friends in the past who have hurt me badly and those memories have made me timid and awkward around forming new bonds.

Reciprosexuality is a double-edged sword. On the one hand I will have a great time with someone I know gets wet knickers looking at me. On the other hand it means I feel I’m walking in to a minefield in any situation where my ego might take a bruising. I never knew until I was able to put a definition to how I felt, just how much I treasure my happy memories.