Jump to content

What You Thought You Were Before You Identified as Arospec


Recommended Posts

also a pretty silly excuse I had was maybe I were aro because I am from Scandinavien.

 

I were sort of "dating" a mexican guy at the time, and people from scandinavien are in general considered sort of "cold, and dont have tradition for marriage and stuff" that is sort of opposite rumour to the south-amarican culture, that is considered more warm and romantic. I were acussed of being cold from him so I thought maybe it were just a part of my enviroment and being misread because I were with this mexican guy and used all my day on English-forums that may had an more traditional way on seeing things. but well... people in Scandinavian still go together as couple and stuff it doesnt only happent in Mexico and other countries lol....  

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Natkat I do agree that romantic expectations vary from country to country. Like, my parents come from Taiwan, and their idea of how people should be in love completely differs from what I've heard it should be, from my American peers. My parents don't say things like, "I love you." They show their love by taking care of the kids when the other person's busy, and by cooking food for each other and doing each other's laundry. Physical contact is nonexistent in our house. I can't remember the last time my parents hugged each other, or me.

 

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought I was straight to begin with, too...then went through the usual rolodex mentioned here.  i thought I was straight...then lesbian, then bi.   Of course I'm also asexual and sort of omniaestheitc (i worked as a freelance artist in college so have a thing for beauty...and I love seeing beautiful-to-me people of ANY a/gender) so that had a lot to do with it too.

I NEVER officially announced or discussed my orientations with anyone, ever, except when I was kidding myself pretending to be straight.

It wasn't until I found out that being aro/ace was a thing so that's when I truly felt comfortable enough with myself to start talking about things honestly, but still not giving out information I didn't think they needed. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Before I mostly attributed my lack of romance to Aspergers. I do have that, but when I heard of Aromanticism I realized that it was a seperate thing. When I looked it up, Aspies are much more likely Ace or Aro then the general population, but the majority are not.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, selina said:

I always thought I was picky because whenever I met someone I would always find reasons not to have a crush on them

 

i know that exact feeling! did you turn it into a weird fake superiority "im-too-good-for-romance-but-especially-too-good-for-YOU" thing like i did?

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I was younger, I sort of knew it. The label didn't exist at that time where most people didn't even know that Internet existed, but I felt I was, because I didn't experience any kind of attraction at all. 

When I was 23, I experienced attraction for the first time, and I forced myself to think I was just "normal", but I had to eventually face it, feelings just don't work that way, they can't be forced. I can experience romantic attraction and form a romantic bond, but it happens extremely rarely, and all the cheesy stuff in romantic relationships is a turn-off, flirting, pet names and all the rest ; and when you have a desire for QPRs that doesn't exist for romance, that's already considered abnormal and unhealthy enough. Sorry, romantic world. I just don't function the way you want me to, and I've always felt it.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, peridotty said:

 

i know that exact feeling! did you turn it into a weird fake superiority "im-too-good-for-romance-but-especially-too-good-for-YOU" thing like i did?

sometimes I did:/

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Me, sophomore year of high school, after both of my friends had recently come out as lesbian: "Well, I guess this makes me the token straight friend, then."

 

Me.

 

Straight.

 

HA! BAHAHAHAHA!!!! 9_9 Oh, young Dodec, you sweet summer child.

  • Like 5
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I thought I was straight by default until almost mid-twenties. -_-

Then I realized I sort of found girls attractive too. Since I never had a crush on guys, I thought maybe I could be lesbian or bi. So I had to try, to see if it's right.

 **Cues lots of internal chaos, confusion, and unwanted sex*

 

These past few experiences showed me who I was, and now I identify as aro/ace with some pan-sensual traits. 

(I don't know if the word 'pan-sensual' even exists, but I used it anyways to describe it in one word :D)

I occasionally feel sensual or aesthetic attractions towards someone with feminine looks, regardless of their assigned sex or gender. This was probably the reason why I thought I might be bi back then, because I assumed these sensual and aesthetic attractions were something romantic or sexual (which were not 9_9)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought I was a heteroromantic ace (earlier - that I was a heteroromantic heterosexual) because I aesthetically prefer 'generalized females' - people who like to beautify creatively (most females - both cis and trans - except very 'vanilla' ones, but also male goths, for example).

 

I have to admit that I used to mistake intense envy of successful 'generalized females' for romantic attraction :facepalm:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

from 'straight by default and just young' to 'late bloomer? Still straight by default' to 'GAY MAYBE?'  to 'We'll see' to 'REALLY LATE BLOOMER?' to 'MAYBE ARO? Maybe REALLY late bloomer?' over the course of like 10 years, xD then to 'EFF THIS, YOU'RE 23. ARO. NOT LATE BLOOMER.' :P I just got sick of the 'possibly aro/ace but maybe not because it could still happen right?!??!?' it was not even a hopeful 'it could still happen either' just a 'Look I don't wanna be wrong about being aro/ace' thing XD. So I got sick of the maybes two years ago xD

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

I totally thought I was straight for a long time and just needed to find "the one". I tried, for many years, dating guys I found attractive but usually lost interest after the first or second date. I used to think it was because I just had very specific interests and I couldn't connect with someone who didn't share them. So the drop to that theory was when I connected with a guy who did share those interests and then felt nothing about it once we went on a date. That was the first time I started to realize I might not actually like men, and I immediately went to lesbian, because I thought the only other option was asexual and that didn't seem to fit. I was quite freaked out by the thought. Not of being a lesbian but of having gone so long without realizing it. Then I started to think about how I had never been in love, google some phrases related to that and found the term aromantic. I feel it fits extremely well and even though I'm not entirely sure about my sexual orientation still, I know that perusing a romantic relationship is not the way to figure it out.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Being ace, aro, and introverted in a family focused on academics kinda helped me stay oblivious. I don't know that I ever explicitly thought of myself as straight? People, including queer friends and family, had these expectations that I would start dating or start feeling romantically about "the other sex", and I just kind of absorbed those expectations for myself. But when other people weren't making comments, I didn't really think about dating or my orientations because nothing obvious every hit me out of the blue. I remember trying to think about being LGB or pan like some of my friends, but that didn't feel right...and all I was left was the expectations from others that I would "find someone" in a traditional, straight way.

 

Eventually I started looking into gender (and, as they are usually co-linked, sexuality) and I just found these labels that described what others had failed to imagine of me. I trusted my elders in the community and started using labels I wasn't 100% confident to say I was, and now they are the most comfortable ways in which I can convey my experience and find community like y'all. :)

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly I thought I was just really pessimistic and picky, and i don't know why but people saw my dislike towards romance that as me being jealous because "everyone" or whatever was in a relationship or wanting one but not me. I didn't want anything to do with a relationship, but I just kind of assumed that of course there is someone out there that's perfect for me and I'll fall head over heels for, especially because everyone around me seemed so certain about this haha.

I probably also thought I was just being too negative because I always viewed relatioships so logically, for example, what's the point in having one if it's just going to end, you can hang out with multiple friends instead of spending all your time with one person. I assumed my logic was completely normal until I asked around and realized  no one held this opinion, and the general response I god was that that this magical thing called love makes everything worth it :facepalm:

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I always thought that if I ever truly fell in love, I'd suddenly understand and desire romance.  This was encouraged by my mother, who said "I know you!  When you fall in love, you'll fall **hard**!" (I suppose she based that on the fact that I became obsessive about topics that interested me - common autistic trait - and thought that my obsessive love for topics/shows/books/etc would carry over into obsessive love for a romantic partner.  Sorry Mum, autistic, not romantic!).

 

I also thought I just had higher standards than most people.  I saw friends pairing off with partners who had (IMHO) *major* character defects and problematic bad habits and just shuddered!  I was told that falling in love made a person blind to all that was negative about their partner.  To me, that seemed very illogical.  After all, if you married that person, you'd be stuck living with his/her/their character defects and bad habits for the vast majority of your life!  To me, going into a relationship with both eyes relentlessly peeled open in regards to aspects of their personality and traits that you could not tolerate long-term felt much more logical.

 

My parents also called me a 'late bloomer', which I never understood.  After all, the changes to my body wrought by puberty happened exactly when they were expected to, so I wasn't late to start puberty.  So that never made much sense either.  

 

I considered myself straight-by-default until I was about 17.  That's when I began university.  I had not dated much in HS (I actively avoided any guy I was told liked me that way!).  I gave a lot of thought to why I wasn't interested in boys, and wondered if that meant I was a lesbian (For some reason, I never really gave any thought to my lack of interest in girls).  I dated a lesbian woman who was a few years older than I was for a few weeks, but that went nowhere just like dating hetero boys had.  That left me very much at sea again, and I ended up dating a guy again... bad move on my part, since he was the one who coerced/nagged/wheedled/whined/demanded/kind-of forced me into sex.  After that, I ended up dating another guy who tried to rape me (thankfully, the unexpected arrival back home of my parents prevented that).  And after that, I just decided that I'd had just about enough of dating and men for a while.  I decided to stop trying to date.  That worked for me.  

I still had no idea I was ace or aro at that point.  But I just had to protect myself and my emotions, and dating was just putting both in danger.  So I just quit dating.  A few years later, I discovered there was a word that described me well - asexual - and some of the puzzle pieces slotted into place.  Then. my parents finally told me I'd been diagnosed autistic at three years old.  I was re-diagnosed as being HFA later that year and lots more puzzle pieces fit themselves in.  Later, I realized that agender was also a term that fit me.  Much later, after identifying as hetero-romantic ace for quite a long time, I realized that the term aromantic fit me far, far better.  The rest of the puzzle pieces fit in.  I'm an autistic, agender, aromantic asexual.  And those labels feel right to me.  

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know the stereotypical high school movie jock who's all, like, "I'm so super straight" but is revealed to be gay?  That was me, to an extent, but with aromanticism.  I always told myself I was super romantic and wanted to find "the one" and I believed that up until a little bit ago.  I have only really had three major "crushes" in my life; two of which I realized were/are squishes, and one of which was a weird mix of "I should have a crush so I choose you" and "wow you have your shit together."  I had a few smaller "crushes" between these, but they were mostly founded on sexual attraction.  The first squish and the weird one I had before I knew really what aromanticism was.  They were followed by a long period of not having any kind of "crush," during which I first heard the term "aromantic."

 

Cut to me in my first week of college going to the LARP club and meeting a super awesome girl there.  After a few weeks of hanging out and eating dinner at the same table in the cafeteria as her and telling myself I'm going to ask her out and not asking her out, she mentions a boyfriend just in passing.  And I'm all low-key "oh, my heart is broken" until, on further reflection, I realize the things I had fantasized our hypothetical "romance" as consisting of weren't things exclusive to a romantic relationship.  They were things like "watching shitty anime with snacks" and "making each other laugh with stupid jokes."  And I had just performed in a staged reading that was about aromanticism to a great extent, so I reflect a bit more on how I felt about her and about the other people who I had been "in love" with and think, "huh, maybe I'm aromantic."  And I start looking at stuff online and find out about more about aromanticism and about squishes and QPRs and I think, "Wow, where was this information all my life."  So much started making sense.  I realized I didn't need to be in love to love a person.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me, like several people on here have said, it was less that I thought I was anything and more that I just kind of defaulted to "uninterested straight person." I didn't really actively consider myself straight, I just figured I didn't have any sort of realization of being attracted to girls, so I was probably just straight but not interested in anyone. Then I discovered the words ace and aro offhandedly one day, but I still just kind of  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ through the whole thing for a little while until a few things happened after which I just kind of slowly settled into ace and aro spaces.

 

So it was something like:

uninterested straight person --> ace??? aro??? both maybe but what's the difference between sexual and romantic??? ehh whatever --> yup i'm aroace this is fine

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

At first I thought I was straight , then I thought I was Bi, then I thought I was Pan, And now I know Im Asexual. Then I learned about romantic attraction, at first I thought I was Panromantic, but now I IDed as Bi/Pan Demiromantic or Alterous for short. I also now put Ace/Aro-spec on my list of identifiers.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I kept putting my discomfort with being in relationships down to a few different things - lack of experience, wrong guy, Asperger's, etc. I'm fine with unrequited infatuations or crushes, even if I feel I really want to be with the other person (I have tried to make it happen a few times), but when I have got with someone it's always felt the same. Crippling anxiety, depression, panic attacks, berating myself for feeling so awful and confused about being with such a nice person (well, this most recent relationship at least). For some reason I just thought this was "normal for some" as people didn't think it was odd for me to feel this way, but I think they misunderstood me entirely. Yes, romance and crush feelings fade, but shouldn't that be gradual as you adjust over months or years, rather than being on some roller coaster and the brakes get slammed on after the first hill?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...