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Aromantic Moments


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Here's a story for you guys.

 

A tenth grade all girls slumber party. The guys had been evicted by eleven, and the rest of us had just turned the corner of midnight. Like the dorks that we were, we were camped out in our sleeping bags with the lights off, playing truth or dare without the dare. Except, instead of one person answering a question, everyone would answer. One of such questions was, "Who would you marry?"

Everyone was naming their crushes, and making a big deal about it. Getting all nervous, squeaking out the answer, giggling, that sort of thing. Then it was my turn. I picked the person I got along with better than anybody.

"Probably... My mom."

"Your MOM????"

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18 minutes ago, Naegleria fowleri said:

playing truth or dare without the dare. Except, instead of one person answering a question, everyone would answer.

I’m pretty sure some of the games that I was involved with ended up in this state (although not intentionally from the beginning). 

I had a love/hate relationship with truth or dare in my middle school days (I had no friends to play it with in high school)... it is an excellent way to gain insight into how I am “supposed to feel” about crushes, etc, but of course I always dreaded being asked those sorts of questions myself.

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5 hours ago, Star Girl said:

I had a love/hate relationship with truth or dare in my middle school days (I had no friends to play it with in high school)... it is an excellent way to gain insight into how I am “supposed to feel” about crushes, etc, but of course I always dreaded being asked those sorts of questions myself.

I'd tend to see such games as being a fairly safe space to challenge normative assumptions.

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  • 1 month later...

Recently I've learnt that there is a phrase 'asking out'. Seems like it means ask someone to go to lunch or café or cinema and stuff.

OMG isn't it just ,'hanging around'!? I'm do this quite often with many other friends...

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  • 1 month later...

In high school (back in the 90s when nobody used the word "aromantic" as an identity, and I sure had no idea I was aro), my girlfriend asked me to go to prom with her, and I told her I wasn't really comfortable with it.  Then I suggested that she ask someone else to go with her.  She got super upset with me and I did not at all understand why.  Looking back now, it's the most obliviously aromantic thing I've ever done.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A few months ago, in class, the teacher was doing statistics and told us that 86% of students at the end of high school fell in love at least once. My friend said :

"It means 14% never fell in love? That's too sad".

And in my head, I was screaming :

"14%? I KNEW THEY WERE MORE OF US!".

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  • 1 month later...

A couple months ago, my college program hosted high school seniors for a night so they could see what the school and program were like.

I didn't learn till after they left that one of them had a crush on me. My roommate and a few other friends told me it was 'obvious', but I had no idea.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/11/2016 at 2:38 AM, aussiekirkland said:

There's a point where monogamy is taken too far? Needing every single one of your needs met from a single person (particularly non romantic needs) sounds seriously unhealthy to me. I just can't understand it.

I agree. If I were in a romantic relationship as an asexual, I would let my romantic partner (assuming they're allosexual) have sex with someone else. Hell, I would probably even let them have another romantic partner if they wished! In fact, I would simply let them break up with me! It's THAT simple!

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On 6/16/2018 at 1:48 AM, Spirit of God said:

I agree. If I were in a romantic relationship as an asexual, I would let my romantic partner (assuming they're allosexual) have sex with someone else. Hell, I would probably even let them have another romantic partner if they wished! In fact, I would simply let them break up with me! It's THAT simple!

The idea that you'd 'let' a romantic partner do anything sounds quite awful.
Why would anyone want to be in such a dysfunctional relationship?
 

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On 6/16/2018 at 7:09 PM, arolectriclady said:

I remember watching the Friends episode where Rachel goes on dates with herself and finding that idea incredibly appealing and refreshing. Of course, the plot eventually revealed she was actually miserable and in denial the entire time ?

 

 

I love going on dates with myself! Once I was supposed to be meeting up with friends but they all cancelled last minute so I just took myself on a date and it was one of the best days I've ever had.

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On 6/3/2018 at 4:43 AM, BionicPi said:

A couple months ago, my college program hosted high school seniors for a night so they could see what the school and program were like.

I didn't learn till after they left that one of them had a crush on me. My roommate and a few other friends told me it was 'obvious', but I had no idea.

I can relate. I remember this happening in my 20s, my roommate noticed I had walked home from school with our neighbor a few times and proclaimed, "that boy likes you." Except it didn't end with my obliviousness.

 

My roommate proceeded to meddle and the neighbor ended up asking me over to watch a movie. I didn't think anything of it because I was used to having guy friends and wasn't convinced my roommate knew what she was talking about. Well, I ended up getting my first kiss planted on me in a super cheesy cliche moment that made me laugh (out loud at him). And for some reason that didn't drive him off and I didn't decline spending more time with him. Next thing I know he has introduced me as his girlfriend :/ I went with it for a couple months and then realized we had a complete mismatch of feelings (now I recognize as a lack of romantic feelings on my part). Poor dude, I ended up giving him the "it's not you, it's me" line.

 

I really wish I had realized what was going on about myself then, or even highschool. Would have saved me some floundering and feeling like something was "wrong" with me.

On 6/16/2018 at 12:09 PM, arolectriclady said:

I remember watching the Friends episode where Rachel goes on dates with herself and finding that idea incredibly appealing and refreshing. Of course, the plot eventually revealed she was actually miserable and in denial the entire time ?

I think I am going to try to embrace the solo dates more. I go out with friends, but am a home-body otherwise. But lately I have been feeling a disconnect from my friends. 

 

Recently, I went to an art crawl with a friend, her husband, and kids and I felt akward/ignored for most of the night and decided afterwards it probably would have been better to have just gone alone. Now I just need to get the motivation to get out.

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I know all the words to a certain version of the Parting Glass (old Scottish/Irish folk song) due to working at a renaissance faire, and for years I thought a certain line was "there is a faire, made in this land" and not "there is a fair maid(en) in this land", and thus didn't understand what it had to do with the girl sung about in the rest of that verse, lmao.

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  • 1 month later...
On 4/4/2016 at 2:29 AM, 46odnetnin said:

And when they do stupid, stupid things "in the name of love". It drives me up the wall. I have had to study romeo and juliet 3 times and every time I get so annoyed at the plot.

I can never learn to love that story

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I was reading Archie (2015, don't remember which issue but Archie tries to be like Jughead as he deals with Veronica moving away) and I realized - holy shit guys, some people would be jealous of us being aro. One day I will meet someone that realizes I've never really dated and don't want to, and they are going to think "Wow, wish I could do that!".

Nice. 

The Jughead 2015 comics give me life. I still sort of wish I could be ace so I wouldn't feel like a fraud in the larger ace/aro community and Jughead should have been ace and aro, but I'll take what I can get. 

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1 hour ago, David Box said:

I was reading Archie (2015, don't remember which issue but Archie tries to be like Jughead as he deals with Veronica moving away) and I realized - holy shit guys, some people would be jealous of us being aro. One day I will meet someone that realizes I've never really dated and don't want to, and they are going to think "Wow, wish I could do that!".

 

Hahaha this exact thing happened to me last weekend! I was catching up with a friend over Skype, and she spent a fair bit of that time talking about the trouble she'd been having trying to find a relationship. At one point she said outright to me, "I really wish I could be like you and just not be interested in relationships!"

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13 minutes ago, eatingcroutons said:

 

Hahaha this exact thing happened to me last weekend! I was catching up with a friend over Skype, and she spent a fair bit of that time talking about the trouble she'd been having trying to find a relationship. At one point she said outright to me, "I really wish I could be like you and just not be interested in relationships!"

Nice 

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@David Box @eatingcroutons i once had someone (online) tell me i was lucky to be aro.  they were very emphatic, describing the assumed advantages and asking "do you even realize how lucky you are?"  tbh it kind of bothered me.  like, i agreed with some of what they said, but there are also disadvantages.  i felt like it wasn't their place to tell me how good i had it when they couldn't understand--hadn't even thought of--many of the experiences shared by aros, not to mention the ones i personally had, which were some of the worst of my life.  it's not just avoiding romantic heartbreak and drama.  and i told them that.

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8 hours ago, aro_elise said:

@David Box @eatingcroutons i once had someone (online) tell me i was lucky to be aro.  they were very emphatic, describing the assumed advantages and asking "do you even realize how lucky you are?"  tbh it kind of bothered me.  like, i agreed with some of what they said, but there are also disadvantages.  i felt like it wasn't their place to tell me how good i had it when they couldn't understand--hadn't even thought of--many of the experiences shared by aros, not to mention the ones i personally had, which were some of the worst of my life.  it's not just avoiding romantic heartbreak and drama.  and i told them that.

 

I'm sorry you had that negative experience. I guess for me the pros of being aro absolutely outweigh the cons, and I love it when other people also acknowledge those pros - I'd much rather focus on the good stuff!

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11 hours ago, aro_elise said:

i once had someone (online) tell me i was lucky to be aro.  they were very emphatic, describing the assumed advantages and asking "do you even realize how lucky you are?"  tbh it kind of bothered me.  like, i agreed with some of what they said, but there are also disadvantages.

I've had a somilar experienced, which felt very erasing.
 

11 hours ago, aro_elise said:

i felt like it wasn't their place to tell me how good i had it when they couldn't understand--hadn't even thought of--many of the experiences shared by aros, not to mention the ones i personally had, which were some of the worst of my life.  it's not just avoiding romantic heartbreak and drama.  and i told them that.

I felt they didn't understand the experience of not being able to take part in couples/romantic culture being socially excluding.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Idk if this is more related to non-monogamy/relationship anarchy but part of me has no idea why cheating is such a big deal. Like...people are going to feel attracted to other people even while in a relationship! Idk what the big deal is! Why can't the couple just acknowledge that it might happen and if it does just talk it out? Or maybe open the relationship? It would be unreasonable to tell your friends to only spend quality time and have heart-to-hearts with you...how is a romantic relationship any different? *Throws hands up in air* I don't get it.

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4 hours ago, arolectriclady said:

Why can't the couple just acknowledge that it might happen and if it does just talk it out? Or maybe open the relationship? It would be unreasonable to tell your friends to only spend quality time and have heart-to-hearts with you...how is a romantic relationship any different?

 

I think the issue with 'cheating' is that there has been an (implicit or explicit) agreement made to have a monogamous relationship. So it's a breach of trust if one of the partners breaks that agreement. An open relationship is completely different to 'cheating' IMO. If it has been discussed and agreed that those are the terms of the relationship then 'seeing other people' isn't 'cheating' i.e. breaking the rules of an agreement. It's playing by those rules - by definition it's playing fairly and not cheating!

 

I agree that monogamy is essentially arbitrary and don't see why something true of friendship (you can have more than one friend at once) shouldn't be true of sexual relationships more often. People should feel more free to discuss and adopt  the type of relationship they actually want and not just assume a standard template. Tangentially, it's interesting to speculate on what the reasons for the 'standard template' could be. I was doing that here a while ago.

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12 hours ago, NullVector said:
15 hours ago, arolectriclady said:

Why can't the couple just acknowledge that it might happen and if it does just talk it out? Or maybe open the relationship? It would be unreasonable to tell your friends to only spend quality time and have heart-to-hearts with you...how is a romantic relationship any different?

 

I think the issue with 'cheating' is that there has been an (implicit or explicit) agreement made to have a monogamous relationship

Yeah that's it. Except if you specify it from the start, people expect you to only date/have sex with them. So if you don't you break the rules and you are not seen are honnest any more.

Then, how and why this had become an implicit rule... I suppose it was because of heirs : they needed to know if the person who inherited was the child of his dad, so the relation had to be exclusive. That's why cheating was even more criticized when the women was the cheater...

 

But sometimes it goes far. I know someone who felt bad for flirting a bit with another man than her fiancé. They didn't do anything, just talking (though she saw the guy was interesting), and she kept wondering if it was cheating or not... I didn't get why it was such à big deal for her.

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