1y ago

Difficulty feeling attracted to "real" people

As a blind man, I know I am usually attracted to the sound of a woman's voice. It's usually just the way they say a specific word or syllable, like "uh huh". However I find this almost never happens with people in the "real world". It only happens with voice actors, other performers, and people who are completely unavailable. I know that sighted people are usually attracted to one another by a person's physical appearance, at least initially. For blind people, attraction is based on voice or touch, and touch is a big no-no most of the time. The one time I dated a woman who was blind, we were touching each other toward the end of our first date, which was quite an eye-opener, figuratively speaking. Online dating has become so visual that I've all but abandoned it. I have felt starved for arousal as someone who lives on my own because of this. Have any other blind people found they rarely feel attraction in the real world?

10 comments

I’m not blind, but to me this seems analogous to when sighted people watch too much popular media and struggle to find normal looking people attractive, or even to the similar situation with some people expecting sexual partners to act like porn actors.
If it’s the same kind of thing, it may help to take a break from media with voice actors, and get more non-romantic voice-based socialization, even if it’s just Discord or whatever people use these days, just to help reset your idea of normal.
- Just to add on, and I hope I'm wording this well enough... It can also be a bad focus as a result of desperation. Some people (far too many) hyper-focus on what signs to look for which indicate that the other is interested during the early stages.
  Just for the sake of an obvious example, people will even debate whether it's good to text others multiple times without response! Everyone is reading waaaaay too much in to signs instead of just looking for someone they click with and like talking to.
  This could be a subconscious expectation that those "sincere" (or which ever exact quality OP likes) inflections are the best sign of interest, when that's simply not the case IRL. ... I realize that's similar to the porn expectation, but this one comes from a much more common mode of thought.
- Yeah, there’s quite a difference between regular people and experienced voice actors who’ve been properly recorded and edited. Like how there’s a huge difference between regular people and big actors with personal trainers, makeup and cinematography on top.
  There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but I agree that this could be an issue.
  In general, I think it’s important to understand people as complete and complex and not to narrow them down to a single characteristic or element. You always want to look for broader compatibility in a partner.
  
  I've heard interviews with Catherine Disher and Mary Elizabeth McLin and thought both of them sounded super sexy even when just speaking in a normal voice. I actually met Mary at a comic con before i'd heard any of her voice work. I didn't tell her that, naturally! I just said "I really enjoyed your pannel, what would you recommend if I wanted to listen to some of your voicework?"

For me, I often can't be physically attracted to someone until I know and like them as a person. It makes online dating worthless, and porn largely useless. Fortunately, I don't personally feel the lack; I enjoy it when it's there, but don't feel any need to seek it out. But if I did feel I need it, I can certainly empathize with how easy it would be to feel starved for affection. There's also a lot of character-driven adult science fiction/fantasy these days (especially in LitRPG, fanfiction, and Progression Fantasy), for those times when I just do feel the need. Some characterization goes a long way.
There is an online dating app called goodnight for IOS that's focused around voice and audio-based dating, without visuals. I've heard it's accessible with work-arounds, though I don't have direct experience with it myself. Even if you don't find a partner there, maybe just a bit of flirting and getting used to what real people sound like when they're trying to be attractive might be a good reset for you. Also, listen to interviews of voice actresses. They don't sound anything like they do when they're performing. Spending time on websites like Behind The Voice Actors helped me come to terms with how little you can really tell about someone based on voice. As someone born blind, I was way over-estimating how much information (race, physical/body type, personality, etc) I was actually getting from a voice.
- @fastfinge @geekgarious There are audio-based dating apps? I wish I knew of any because all the dating apps I'm using are duds. Tinder sucks, bumble sucks, hinge sucks. It seems all they care about is visuals. I've tried everything from spending hours getting the right pictures with my friends help to adding compliments to people's profiles but none of it works and its disheartening because I want to date and its really no secret for those who know me well enough. Being blind while trying to date is a fight and right now, I'm losing badly.
  
  My original post contains a link. However, you're posting from Mastodon instead of getting a Lemmy account, so you can't see it. Nothing I can do about that; sorry. Consider joining Lemmy so you can actually access all the features of the platform.

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