Summer Solstice (Asexuality)

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Today is loooong. Summer solstice long. What is America going to do with all this daylight? There’s too much time for thinking today. (Read: disclaimer for the thoughts that follow.) There is time to weep and time to laugh, time to mourn and time to dance, time to be born and time to die, and time for asexuality.

That’s right. A-sex-ual-ity.

Recent conversations with friends have inspired this revelation that there are times when it serves one well to forget about the boy/girl mumbo jumbo. Really, every movie does not need to stifle its viewers with the idea that life is incomplete until the guy gets the girl. Maybe my choice of movies is to blame. Nevertheless, it gets tiresome. Ah, to be free of decoding texts, to dispel that knot of worry that ties itself up in your stomach as you await a call.

Is asexuality worth a try?

We’re obviously talking short term (don’t inundate me with your complaints of ‘needs’, I’m well aware). But speaking with the expertise of someone who has recently been on a family vacation where the pretense of asexuality is a must (What, mom? What are ‘pecs’? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where? No. ‘Abs’? I’m not interested), it can be pretty relaxing.

Sure, vacations are obvi relaxing on their own, but think about how nice it is to just turn off your phone and not worry about social networking. Some of you may have just had cardiac arrest at this idea, and if you did I hope we’re not friends. Don’t invite me to the funeral. I swear I won’t go.

Think about all the time we’d gain without these distractions. According to the Nielsen Company, users spent about eight billion hours a month on Facebook in 2010, and now Twitter is huge and everyone has a smartphone. Probably half of these hours are spent talking to a significant other or trying desperately to find one. That is a LOT of time, people. And summer solstice day, when everyone is going crazy indoors with the idea that they should be doing some outdoor activity because there’s extra light, must be even higher.

That’s an extra four billion hours a month to solve problems, volunteer, take your grandmother to lunch (she deserves it!), invent a portable bread cutter for restaurants (I, for one, am sick of my friends squishing the bread down when they cut their slice), or finish (start) that novel.

Selfishness is likely the root problem. Time spent looking for love is almost always for oneself. And while humans were not cut out for asexuality like the jellyfish, the amount of time invested in searching at bars, on Facebook, on the phone, even in line for lunch, is something to think about. To supplement this, consider that the relationships that are the most tiresome, that you fret over the most, that take up all your time are often the ones that are unhealthy or never get off the ground.

The search for love is not to be discounted, as love itself is one of the best things left in the world. And sometimes, okay, love is time spent on others. (Promise this is not the cynic ranting of a loser going through a dry patch…okay fine! I live with my grandma and I’m knitting a sweater as I write this.) But, insert cliché here →, everything in moderation.

Asexuality is an extreme, yes. Plus, if you adhere to that there’s no point to the rest of this column (whoops). On an unrelated note, this will be the last post.

Okay, not really. Obviously asexuality is not actually biologically possible for most of us. But think of our friends the jellyfish! They just swim and float and glide, all footloose (footless, really) and fancy free. And you can bet they have some MAJOR ideas going on somewhere in all that gelatinous mass.

Perhaps a watered-down version where we focus more on our family, friends and those in need rather than our own needs is worth a try. Also, not to be that annoying aunt, but love always comes when you least expect it. Think about it.