Hi! I (21M) recently developed a lot of tender feelings towards the idea of a particular kind of relationship lately.
For many years, I knew that I was heterosexual, but I never felt any romantic spark that made me want to actually pursue a relationship. Eventually, I assumed that I wasn't interested, but a part of me always wondered if I was wrong.
One day, I got bored and tried to imagine a hypothetical relationship that would feel wonderful and natural for me, irrespective of societal norms. After hours of roleplaying hypothetical scenarios and writing down what made my heart the most happy, I finally settled upon a coherent vision for a theoretical partner.
She'd be really sweet and loving, but the twist is that she'd often take lead over me. She'd be on the confident and assertive side and would totally break my brain. She would often initiate affection unexpectedly, and I'd get all flustered and totally melt for her. She would adore my softness instead of expecting me to suppress it. She would call me cute nicknames like "Cupcake" or "Pumpkin", and I would feel very comfortable and safe with her.
This blew my mind because it went against everything I thought hetero relationships were. And yet, I responded so strongly to it. I began searching to see if anyone else felt this way and I found "role reversal," a term referring to the inversion of traditional heterosexual relationship dynamics. I found a role reversal community and it had the most adorable art I've ever seen and perfectly encapsulated what I wanted. (Some of this content can be found on Lemmy at [email protected]. I love this post in particular. Honestly, I'm thinking of reviving it and posting content there myself!)
A day later, I woke up with constant euphoria and a nonstop firehose of vivid romantic fantasies. It lasted all day, every day. For 10 days straight. My feelings were so intense that I barely ate anything and only slept for 3-4 hours a night without getting tired.
Those fantasies not only showed me how wonderful a relationship would feel, but also that I myself would want to be very affectionate and adaptive to my partner's needs, not just my own. I was enamored with the idea of being the sweetest, most loving boyfriend I could be for her. It wasn't long before I wanted a relationship like this more than anything else.
In retrospect, perhaps it's unsurprising that my ideal relationship would be nontraditional. After all, I have spent my whole life fighting masculine gender expectations. I'm super outwardly emotional, I love to make people happy, I'm very gentle, I love adorable things, and I make myself look cute, nerdy, and non-threatening. I loved it when some of my female friends called me adorable and gave me cute nicknames, and I was full of admiration and gratitude when one of them physically protected me.
I feel like the phenomenon of role-reversed relationships is likely more common than the actual usage of the term. But perhaps I'm still a bit of a unicorn. So, what do you think? Have you seen relationships like this in the wild? Have you known about these dynamics, or are they unfamiliar to you? I'd like to know your thoughts!
The question is whether there are as many women like that as there are men like OP.
When I was a teenager, I was really serious about computer games and my family didn't respect that. They thought I was like an adult obsessed with children's toys. Then while playing Diablo online I met a nice pair of people who said they were a married couple and really liked playing computer games together. This blew my mind - adults who played video games, and an adult man who found a woman to share his hobby rather than being an awkward loner like me. I wanted to be like him when I grew up, but eventually I learned that there's only one woman who wants to be like his wife for every ten men who want be to like him, and that I'm not in the top ten percent of men (so to speak).
For me personally, I determined that it was in my best interest to be open-minded to maximize the number of potential partners.
I'm not going to go down the path of defining a million traits that my future partner should have because nobody in the world will match all of them. Instead, my goal is to minimize the number of preferences I have, while still being excited about a relationship with someone within the distribution defined by those preferences. So, for example, I don't care what hobbies my partner has as long as we can make the relationship work. If we share hobbies, great! But if we don't, that's fine too. We can find other things to do together.
Even the fantasy I mentioned is likely not the full story, just a data point. I'm likely to be more flexible. There is probably no label that perfectly describes what I want my relationships to look like. While labels can help me find like-minded people, I also shouldn't let them limit my thinking.
Also, I avoid thinking about aggregate numbers, e.g. "What percentage of people have these traits?" and instead think "Which settings and contexts maximize my odds of meeting someone like this?" It helps me recognize that I have agency to shift the odds in my favor and this isn't a complete lottery.