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You might be aro if you mistook sexual, aesthetic or sensual attraction for a crush. You might be aro if you thought romantic feelings described by others must be exaggerated. You might be aro if you never notice when someone has a crush on you, unless someone points it out to you. You might be aro if you broke somebody's heart by accident, even without realizing it, simply because you underestimated the intensity of their feelings. You might be aro if you felt suffocated and overwhelmed in a romantic relationship. You might be aro if

Alternatively, assumed you were bi or pan because you felt equally towards all genders.

If you have thought your squishes were crushes or have had to make up crushes to fit in.

YMBAI you are on this website and reading all (or some) of these things and nodding your head or smiling because you relate.

When the question "What is your type?" really confuses you and you just answer with what you think would make a good friend.

Assumed you were straight, and then realized you felt nothing towards any gender.

Dated someone because you felt like you were supposed to.

You might be aromantic if when you think about marriage you don't imagen who you will get married to, but other things instead e.g. getting to wear nice clothes, how nice the food will be, having the opportunity for a big family get together You might be aromantic if when people look down on marrying for visas, marrying for tax breaks, etc. you wonder why they do because those sound like very practical reasons to get married

me: *is happy* all of my family: "so who's the lucky lady?" NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

YMBAI you found kiss scenes in the middle of action completely stupid. Like, why are you kissing right now when zombies are about to kill you?

No problem YMBAI you started dating someone who you should be really good with on paper and you genuinely like, but once you're in the relationship, you feel uncomfortable or trapped.

You might be aro if you don't understand how most people seem to have crushes all the time... Or if you thought you were just picky when it came to crushes..

YMBAI you get upset when a book, movie, or tv show ruins a perfectly good friendship by turning it romantic unnecessarily. YMBAI you can't flirt to save your life.

YMBAI when somebody tries to explain the concept of "friendzone" to you, and you just don't understand what is their problem with that. It sounds amazing. It sounds idyllic, like something you always genuinely wanted. YMBAI romantic relationships seem like a temporary thing, and you don't get it how grown adults believe that they gonna last ⁓forever⁓.

You had a crush on someone, though! (As lots of aros make up crushes or were just simply confusing them with squishes like me) But you watched a rom com the other day/romantic book etc.

What questions or misconceptions about the aro spec do you hear? This may be useful for future FAQ sections on flyers, websites and such. Does that mean you don't love anyone, not even your family? Don't you mean asexuality? You probably just came out of a bad relationship. How can you tell if you haven't dated?

You might be aro if you don't understand the point of romantic relationships.

was to a new years party at a friends house. woman at the house: So are you bisexual? me: yes woman: so do you prefer men or women? me: uhm... I dont really work that way. woman: I mean like.. would you rather have a boyfriend or a girlfriend? me: I wouldn't she was very confussed.

YMBAI you decided as a child that you needed to "find" a crush, because everyone else had them, so you just picked the nicest boy/girl in your class and became truly convinced that you actually had a crush on them.

Apologies for derogatory terms/names "Oh you are just a slut." - um, like no? So what if I still like sex/feel sexual attraction doesn't mean I'm a slut, literally stop slut shaming people especially aromantic people. "Wow such a cold hearted bitch." - just because I don't want to date or get into a romantic relationship with you or anyone else, doesn't make me cold hearted. Someone sounds bitter and it isn't me. "So what, your like a robot?" - Ah yes, you have found out my secret, I am a robot hiding in a flesh body, incapable of any feeling or emotion bec

Maybe you have commitment issues? Perhaps your standards are too high, just give people a chance!

The problem i have is that getting aromantics to define romantic attraction us like telling a person who was blind from birth to define what vision is. It just doesn't work. It reminds me of those arguments on AVEN about the definition of asexual and sexual attraction. A lot of the time it's people trying to describe something they don't experience and it just doesn't work.

"is it something I did wrong when you were younger?" (@my mum) - seriously, mum, we had this exact same conversation when I came out to you as a lesbian five years ago, its still.not.a.childhood.trauma. please chill "but if you'd fall in love sometime in the future, you would try to be in a relationship with them, right? You are not giving it up right? There is hope" (@my mum) - Yeah. Sure. And If I were a dog, I'd probably chase my tail all day like dogs do. But I am not, , and I am also not alloromantic, so why are we even talking about this? I'm not giving up romantic love. I j

YMBAI you never understood the point of marriage. (Seriously, why would you stay with the same person your whole life and then make it harder and more expensive to get out of the relationship if things go bad?) YMBAI you always thought that books and movies exaggerated romantic attraction, but apparently they don't? YMBAI you were in a romantic relationship and you felt unhappy and wanted to get out of the relationship the constantly. YMBAI you were uncomfortable or displayed signs of anxiety in a romantic relationship.

Every time I see a cheesy, cliche, or badly written love story in movies and am torn between constant facepalming and trying not to fall asleep. And then some of my alloromantic friends keep going on about how cute the story is and I am just so confused sometimes.

YMBAI you were curious as to why there were so many songs about love or sex on the radio. I realized when I was little that there were so many songs about love and my reaction was kinda: "Why can't people write about anything else? Love is so boring. You can write songs about literally anything, and the one thing people choose is love 90% of the time!"

just thought of another few that really bother me: "but you're so emotional!" that has nothing to do with it "don't sell yourself short!" im not "if you keep that up, you'll never get [significant other of the ~opposite gender~]" thats the point

For those times when you suddenly realised not everybody around you was aromantic. So we were watching a video on Youtube in French, but before it played an ad popped up. It was one of those ones you could skip after five seconds, but instead we ended up watching the whole minute of this random love story between a guy and a girl in highschool. It eventually turned out to be a Coca Cola ad... because those two things are related somehow?

It's just a fancy made-up word for being single because no one wants to date you and you're just trying to make yourself sound special.

YMBAI you wanted a relationship, but when you started trying it just felt wrong and boring to you

Never experiencing crushes.

I'm not sure we want Voldemort as a figurehead for aromanticism… Kind of gives a bad image.

YMBAI you are annoyed that straight people of the opposite sex don't want to accept being "just" friends.

How do you know you haven't met "the one"?

I thought that was a thing when flowers smell good? So like does that mean you love yourself more than anyone else? and the worst by far: Oh I'm so sorry for you THERE'S NOTHING WRONG

Somebody asks you what a non-platonic relationship would look like and you genuinely have no idea because it's just not something you can really conceptualize.

You're too young to know that! Give yourself some time (or) Just wait until college/some other arbitrary threshold. You'll definitely start to feel something by (insert arbitrary point when you are considered "mature")! You're just gay and closeted!

YMBAI you originally thought that everyone was faking their romantic feelings or crushes, until you realized they weren't and that you just didn't feel the same way as other people.

You had to lie about having a celebrity crush or having crushes in general.

If anyone ever discounts your aromantacism because of your age, point 'em in my direction. I'm 40. Yeah, older aros exist! We know our own minds and what works for us. We're strong enough to do what feels right to us despite all. of. gawddamn. society. pushing romance down our throats. Just the fact that we continue to be resolutely ourselves despite that relentless social pressure means that we're very strong. You mayn't always feel very strong, but you are.

I've always been aro, I always was waiting for those feelings and they never came, and at one point I stopped waiting for the future and identified as how I feel now and I'm never gonna stop!

No, this is a very real problem, lets talk about it. Heck, even I feel awful and predatory and all sorts of horrible sometimes because of this, and I'm also a girl. No wonder hetero guys started the voluntary celibacy topic. Wanting only sex from someone isn't predatory or misogynist or a bad thing. If you communicate honestly. respect your partner, respect boundaries and ask for consent, then there is nothing wrong with that. Just because you cannot give them your everlasting romantic love, you not going to treat them like a piece of meat... (Not like romantic lov

- "Do you want to be alone for your entire life?" As if my aromanticism was a choice I'd made, instead of the way my brain happened to work. - "Well it's probably because you have emotional issues." - "Or daddy issues" I think my favorite is "I would rather tear my own skin off than live life without feeling love!!1!" Which was so overdramatic it turned hilarious.

Additionally: When we are watching a play or something with romance for class. A bunch of people are sitting and going "awwwww that's adorable" or "they're so cute" and I just sit there wondering why they're wasting their time kissing while they could be addressing the problem/plot.

I had that moment when I once discussed love with my friends. In contrast to them, I'm very cynical when it comes to love, and said that romantic attraction only last for a maximum of three years- and if you haven't established other forms of bonds with that person your relationship is likely to fall apart. My alloromantic friends didn't agree with me of course and one of them said "No, not true, my boyfriend and I are still going strong even after two/three years! Just wait until you fall in love!" I didn't start an argument, because I think it's better to be a "happy fool" sometimes. She did

I was wondering what you guys really can't seem to understand about romance. I guess we all have difficulty understanding the basic stuff like what crushes feel like and whatnot, but what about everything that encompasses this whole romantic culture we live in? I, for one, can't possibly understand how a lot of people seem to find extreme jealousy romantic. I just saw a post where a guy said that if a girl wanted to marry him she'd have to cut off all contact with other boys and everyone was gushing about how the fact that he was so protective was romantic and cute... No it's

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/119238-a-list-of-romantic-orientations/ Originally posted by Amy Ghost in the link above at AVEN and copied here. Enjoy! Orientations Abroromantic - Is someone who experiences a fluid or rapidly changing romantic attraction to different gender expressions. Acoromantic - Is someone whose negative experiences with romance has alienated them from their allo-romanticism. Adfecturomantic/Affecturomantic/Adfectual/Adfomantic - Is someone whose romantic attraction is affected by their neurodivergency. Alloromantic/Zedromantic - I

YMBAI when someone expresses concern that you might feel left out or dissappointed because you aren't in a romantic relationship but they and/or others are, you are confused because you're doing just fine as you are and you hadn't even considered it. YMBAI you just sit there indifferently while people around you go in and out of relationships. YMBAI you just ignore Valantines Day every year because it's a couples holiday and you never have a partner on that day, and this never bothers you.

YMBAI you don't understand the concept of online dating or are confused by the fact that people deliberately try to find a partner (and go on dates before they even know them).

Also, aromantic does not equal sociopath. I've seen that one enough times on the lovely internet