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ever been on a date without knowing?


Ugh...

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I haven't had this problem that I know of (it's still possible there was a time I still don't know was a "date"), but I worry about this a lot. Why do people have to be so vague about asking someone out?

 

9 hours ago, Kojote said:

Much MUCH later he told me that "Yes, he heard me, but he knew he was hot so he kept trying"........

 

Wow. Not cool. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that!

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Lmao, this is how I ended up in my last relationship. I had a bad day at work, and migrated across the way to the bar opposite us and proceeded to get roaringly drunk, drunk enough so that when a guy at the bar struck up a conversation about comic books I participated enthusiastically and even added them on facebook to chat later which I thoroughly regretted in my hungover state the next morning, because all I could really recall was that they dressed like a stereotypical "nice guy" and liked comics. Fortunately they were still pretty awesome even when I wasn't drunk, so when they asked me to dinner I accepted without thinking because it was the kind of thing my friends and I did all the time, and I was in a frustrated slump where I wanted to make new friends. I didn't even realise the connotations until after dinner when they kissed me, which was amusing.

 

Fortunately this one ends well; they were very familiar with aromanticism and about halfway through the relationship we both started transitioning in the other way and she's still one of my good friends even though I broke up with her a long while ago! She's also much better at making her intentions clear from the get go now 0u0

 

I've had this happen another time before, but it was an act of deliberate deception by the guy in question, I think because he knew I'd turn him down /:

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Come to think about it, I think I was in an entire relationship without actually knowing it. 

 

So I got kinda close with this boy in school. I'm not the most sociable person, so he and my one friend from secondary school were like my only two friends for the first couple of months. We had five classes together and therefore, by my logic, we spent lots of time together because of work. I sat beside him in all my classes, I studied with him and I went over to his house. Even once, we actually went out to a restaurant and ate? 

 

In hindsight, I realise all of this would be done by two people in a relationship but genuinely, really, anything I did for him, I would have done for any other of my friends except that I didn't have any other friends then? And I actually thought that we were in an actual platonic friendship and that he had the same feelings for me as I did for him. Like, hella platonic.

 

So then I finally finally realised that I had settled myself in a pseudo-romantic relationship with a jerk (he's dearly misogynistic and homophobic? Which I learnt after spending enough time with him) and I wanted to tell him to back off but like how do you break up a relationship if you haven't acknowledged it exists? So then I started avoiding him and then he assumed that I was avoiding him because I was "afraid of acknowledging my romantic feelings for him". And then I got so pissed with him for that and basically I haven't sat next to him in class or spoken to him alone ever since because I feel like I can't trust him to think of me as a friend anymore?

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I was very clearly stating that I am aro and I was only looking for company of friends, but she arrived with a huge bouquet of damn roses. I was naive enough to expect to just hang out but she decided to play the selective hearing card. I ended up carrying the greenery for twenty minutes. I politely told her I couldn't accept her gift, and she told me to bin it then. Now this was in public and she knew well how that would have looked. She also decided to hold my hand and at this point I completely lost connection with everything, all seemed so unreal, kind of like being a ghost inhabiting a mannequins body, starting into the void. It felt like an eternity.

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15 hours ago, Cassiopeia said:

at this point I completely lost connection with everything, all seemed so unreal, kind of like being a ghost inhabiting a mannequins body, starting into the void. It felt like an eternity.

This... you are the first person to put into words this horrible feeling that I hate so much.

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On 6/12/2016 at 11:40 PM, Quinoa said:

I haven't had this problem that I know of (it's still possible there was a time I still don't know was a "date"), but I worry about this a lot.

 

Same.  Now I'm wondering if this has happened, and I just never figured it out O.o.  I feel like this is quite possible.

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On 25/06/2016 at 8:51 AM, Cassiopeia said:

I was very clearly stating that I am aro and I was only looking for company of friends, but she arrived with a huge bouquet of damn roses. I was naive enough to expect to just hang out but she decided to play the selective hearing card. I ended up carrying the greenery for twenty minutes. I politely told her I couldn't accept her gift, and she told me to bin it then. Now this was in public and she knew well how that would have looked. She also decided to hold my hand and at this point I completely lost connection with everything, all seemed so unreal, kind of like being a ghost inhabiting a mannequins body, starting into the void. It felt like an eternity.

In your place I'd OK with the hand holding. Since physical human contact is something I very much enjoy. They'd have to avoid saying romantic sorts of things. Though something like these scenes might appeal to my sense of humour.

Though not sure I could put up with the flower stupidity for anywhere near twenty minutes. If you want to take me to a nice garden I might be open to that though.

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@Mark the problem wasn't the physical gesture but the idea behind it. People internalised amatonormativity so deeply, they don't even question whether or not others even want to be courted. I do not like to be put on display as some trophy wife. People do this crap as part of the 'would you like to be my girlfriend ' dance. Also, she did not listen to what I said at all. I have told her I did not want to date her prior to this at least ten times. She still did it. If that's how she respects my boundaries then I don't want her to touch me at all.

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  • 1 year later...

So so many times. I assume friendly interactions so I say yes, it is only when they offer to pay for food with the comment 'I'll pay, it is the first date' or 'I asked you on a date to this place' or when the arm goes over my shoulders, or there is assumed handholding while watching a movie. I even went on a blind date once without noticing, it was meant to be a double date with me and a guy being set up, I just thought it was a group of friends going out :rofl:

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
On 14.5.2016 at 1:45 AM, Spud said:

I'm concerned I'm going to ask my friend to the movies or something and they'll think I'm asking them out. Worse yet, we could be halfway through the movie when I realize what they thought was going on O_O

 

 

That actually happened to me :facepalm: Except I was the one getting asked to the movies and then halfway through he tried to hold hands and I felt kinda disgusted and realized it was to be a date and told him later that I wasn't interested

 

Also got asked a few times to get coffee, I love coffee so of course I said yes, only to realize later it was a date.. I too think those things shouldn't be romantically coded.

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2 hours ago, Aliyiah said:

That actually happened to me :facepalm: Except I was the one getting asked to the movies and then halfway through he tried to hold hands and I felt kinda disgusted and realized it was to be a date and told him later that I wasn't interested

 

Also got asked a few times to get coffee, I love coffee so of course I said yes, only to realize later it was a date.. I too think those things shouldn't be romantically coded.

So many things being romantically coded is what makes it difficult and awkward.
Especially if, like me, you really enjoy romantically coded things but find romance repulsive.

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I think it may have happened to me before. One of the times I'm thinking of was a movie with a friend, when I was in high school. I don't think I would've minded either way (a date or not) with him, but I'm not sure what it was. 

 

The other person was a coworker who asked me to lunch and coffee under the guise of offering to be my mentor. But eventually I started noticing creepy vibes and figured out that wasn't what he actually had in mind. 

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5 hours ago, iris said:

The other person was a coworker who asked me to lunch and coffee under the guise of offering to be my mentor. But eventually I started noticing creepy vibes and figured out that wasn't what he actually had in mind. 

offering to mentor while vibing for a date? that does sound super creepy but also sketchy as a scenario. 

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well there was this one time someone asked me to go "as a friend, to support her" with them on a double day for their friend who was asked on a date with a guy she didn't trust, and I agreed, y'know, being supportive of my friend and her roomate. and then by the end of the date I came to realize that I wasn't actually asked as a friend, I was asked as a crush. made me a little uncomfortable...

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I had (still have) this "problem"  the other  way round. Whenever I invite some friend of mine (girl) for a pizza or just to go to the cinema, people just assume that is due to romantic intentions. The problem is that also the girls I invite think that I want to get romantically involved and then they feel bad when I say it wasn't, some got angry at me saying that I was sending signals (no idea what they were referring to). It just puts me in an unconfortable position; as soon as I get seen with some girl and we are "alone" everyone thinks that's because I'm "interested in them".  

 

Now I am very careful with my actions near girls and also pay more attention to how they behave near me. It's stressful, but I don't want to give wrong impressions. 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ha! Funny story about this. I asked a cool guy (looking back, he was a squish...)  that I was just starting to be friends with if he wanted to go check out an art gallery with me. I was just being friendly - he thought it was a date. We became really good friends, and eventually started dating. He would always refer to that day at the art gallery our first date and I would just kind of laugh awkwardly and say that at the time, I was just wanting to be friends. If only I had known about aromanticism, lol... 

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On 16/11/2017 at 12:24 PM, GreatNihilist said:

I had (still have) this "problem"  the other  way round. Whenever I invite some friend of mine (girl) for a pizza or just to go to the cinema, people just assume that is due to romantic intentions. The problem is that also the girls I invite think that I want to get romantically involved and then they feel bad when I say it wasn't, some got angry at me saying that I was sending signals (no idea what they were referring to). It just puts me in an unconfortable position; as soon as I get seen with some girl and we are "alone" everyone thinks that's because I'm "interested in them".  

That's me but on the side of the other party :/.
There was a guy in my club that was friendly and nice with me and invited me to go to the cinema with him. Being someone who love cinema, and is aro but especially dense when coming about intent and flirting, I didn't feel there was something more than just watching a film as buddies.

So that was super awkard when the same guy told me he had feelings for me as I was waiting for an other film, hoping that this "date" would help me to answer him.

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Many times, but the funniest was the first. The first happened when I was just an 11 year old sprout, so I blame age as much as I do anything else. A fellow 11 year old asked me out to see Attack of the Clones in theatres, and I jumped at the offer because I love Star Wars. I'm afab, and had been a tomboy growing up. The boy who asked me out had been a friend earlier on in elementary, but he'd moved schools years before so I DID find it weird that he'd called /me/ to ask. We hadn't hung out since he'd moved all those years ago (which is a long time when you're a child). In line for the movie we happened to bump into my best friend at the time, who was another boy. They were immediately rude to each other, and I remember being baffled.

They challenged each other to a game of air hockey, and were so overly aggressive and mean to one another. I remember being bored out of my skull and confused as all hell why they were acting that way.

 

When me and the boy I came with were watching the movie, he made all these comments about how cute Anakin and Padme were in their romantic scenes and I remember brushing him off like ??? Dude??? This is clearly unhealthy? Anakin's nuts and Padme could do way better. Plus I just wanted to see some lightsaber action, I didn't care for how "soft and smooth" Padme's skin apparently was. I could tell the boy I came with was bothered by me saying this stuff, but I couldn't tell why. I was super grossed out when he offered to share his drink with me. GERMS, MY FRIEND. I haven't seen you in 4 years, I don't know what kind of cooties you're carrying! After I denied the drink, he was grumpy and silent the rest of the movie. 

 

After he took me home I never heard from him again. 

My mom asked me later if I'd realized that was a date and whether I'd been nice to him. I was genuinely shocked. I was even more shocked by what my best friend's behaviour indicated, but that is a whoooole other story that ends less happily lmao. 

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On 17/12/2017 at 10:33 AM, Phobe said:

When me and the boy I came with were watching the movie, he made all these comments about how cute Anakin and Padme were in their romantic scenes and I remember brushing him off like ??? Dude??? This is clearly unhealthy? Anakin's nuts and Padme could do way better. Plus I just wanted to see some lightsaber action, I didn't care for how "soft and smooth" Padme's skin apparently was. I could tell the boy I came with was bothered by me saying this stuff, but I couldn't tell why. I was super grossed out when he offered to share his drink with me. GERMS, MY FRIEND. I haven't seen you in 4 years, I don't know what kind of cooties you're carrying! After I denied the drink, he was grumpy and silent the rest of the movie. 

wait wait wait wait. He made comments during the movie?! my goodness. Last time someone tried to talk to me during a cinema experience beyond 'pass the popcorn' I got up and moved to a different row. Okay, there have been some vocalisation during movies that are acceptable, but certainly not random comments about skin or conversational comments meant to be heard. 

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