I might not actually be as aromantic as I thought

[QuestionsConfusion&Panic]

I had a really deep discussion with a friend the other day and I think I agree that I was unknowingly in love with my best friend because I sort of denied it and I thought i had never felt love but the more I think about it the more I think I really did love her, my feelings are just without like kissing + desire which would be more ace than aro... like i wanted to be her most important and I would do such extravagant things for her and think about her constantly and she was so grateful for my love but never acted the same way and I understand why now. Plus I desired a physical closeness too, not kissing but I wanted to be cuddling with her, playing with her hair, it was all stuff my friend I was discussing this with agreed was more than friendship feelings.  My feelings for that girl mimicked my friend I was talking to's feelings with her boyfriend.

Thing is, I've fallen out of love and its good because she like has a boyfriend and that could have been a bad disaster if I kept loving her like that,. But now I like someone else but I blocked out my feelings until too late because he asked me about us and i denied him very weirdly and i feel terrible especially now because I have similar feelings for him as I did for this friend so I think it's similar but its most likely too late and its all just very problematic and confusing. especially now i have no clue what orientations I am and like my sense of self is gone but I can't really find it and I am just so lost . 

yeah idk what you guys can say really but I just am so confused because I really thought I was aroace and i dont think its true at all... i mean i could still be ace but maybe i just have rhe same kind of mental bblock with that i did and sort of still do with romance? I'm just so confused. idk what happened. 

[Tired-Sparo]

figuring out your orientation or even just yourself as a person takes time. it will be hard but try and remind yourself to be patient with yourself because feelings are confusing so it takes time and patience to figure it out but one day youll get there. Also im not trying to define your orientation for you because only you can do that but just a suggestion maybe you could be grayromantic or somewhere else on the aromantic spectrum. But no matter what you will figure it out one day and whatever your orientation is youre an awesome person and i wish you luck with your dating endeavors. also even if talking to that guy seems like its too late you should talk to him anyways. just be honest about it an be like hey im confused but this is how i feel and yall can decide what you wanna do from there. you never know anything can happen.

[TripleA]

I mean I don't think you necessarily have to want to kiss someone to be romantically attracted to someone, kissing could also be seen as purely part of sensual or sexual attraction as well (I view kissing in these ways). If you really think you've had romantic attraction, especially more than once, then that does make you alloromantic (I would guess biromantic).

 

I think because you thought you were aromantic for so long, you rejected the idea of ever having romantic attraction, and were not open to the fact that you could develop it in the future (not the case for aros, obviously, but for allos who thought they were aro before developing roamntic attraction). This is where some people go wrong in the process of discovering their sexual or romantic orientation, and it's not a bad thing to be wrong sometimes. Sometimes, humans are not so patient, or we think it's right at the time. True, they could be right down the line, but it doesn't always go that way.

 

I am not 100% sure I am aro myself, I am still questioning and going through my feelings however, I was in one romantic relationship (quite a short one) and it did not end well, as I had no romantic feelings whatsoever and it felt awkward and uncomfortable. The thing is, most romantics have to go through a few relationships to find 'the one', and I'm open to the fact that maybe I just haven't found someone I have romantic attraction to yet, despite being 18 years old and had sexual attraction since the age of 15, and that's fine.

 

This is pretty much why allo people will say to Aros, "You will find the one someday" (I've had it before), and it can be true for most people, including those who think they are one thing but turn out to be another thing entirely, but not for Aros. It's annoying, but yeah. Romantics won't understand aromanticism much anyway, and then there's the whole anormativity thing.

 

I think it is harder to determine if you're Aro and/or Ace when you're below say 16-18, since you are still developing, and some people do develop late in some cases (like I did), but it's different for different people. 

 

You just gotta 'go with the flow' and do what you want, because there's the whole 'the heart wants what it wants' thing