Hi comrades! This is my first time on Lemmygrad, so I apologise for the abrupt introduction. I saw there’s an introduction community, although it seems abandoned. I’ll consider making a post later today perhaps in this community, if you have better ideas for where it should fit, please let me know!

How do you deal personally with expressing affection towards family, lovers etc.? Capitalism has definitely commodified affection/love/relationships in every aspect (e.g. Valentine’s day), so it’s hard to not fall in for “consumerist love”. Obviously, a type of affection and compassion I’d argue are integral for the wellbeing of any society, although invidiualism as we know hardly promotes this.

The culture also creates expectations of how affection and any type of relationship should be “performed”. Corporations such as Disney which have a near monopoly on all expressions of late-capitalist culture often set stereotypes through the media they present to us, a good example being the Aladdin animated movie which is very racist, or Tarzan which was not popular until Disney animated it and made a friendlier version of its story. Thus this gives birth to lots of unrealistic expectations and pressures, because we feel we have to “perform” to our friends, family and lovers like we’re on a stage. This ties in and is reflected in the usage of social media, we can see unrealistic body expectations, although mostly in the cishet space as far as I know, please correct me if I’m wrong. I think it’s a combination of factors, first off the culture sets everyone up regarding expectations then they’re exacerbated on mainstream social media such as Instagram.

Now regarding a more personal aspect, I find that I have a hard time showing affection, even to family. Some people naturally express their emotions well, while I find myself not even going for hugs, and so on. I mostly internally justify it as “oh the other person would think it’s awkward,” perhaps it’s a lack of communication on my side. More often than not, this resulted in people thinking that I’m uninterested in them (as in friendship or a relationship), or even in an extreme case someone thought I hated them which was definitely not the case. I’m more of an introvert, although when I get to know the person better I become rather extroverted with them, so I think I’m ambiverted. I want to learn to express my emotions better through creating mostly, although I have yet to find a good creative process to suit me other than writing, which I enjoy. I think social anxiety plays a role in this, also the fact that I overthink most social encounters and exaggerate to myself how the other person understands my actions.

I’d love to hear your experiences and opinions regarding the subject!