Blue Phoenix Ace

YMBAI you find silly reasons not to date someone that wouldn't be important in a long term relationship. Things like "her hair is too long" or "he doesn't watch the Walking Dead".

Sure, find me a good royalty-free emoticon and I will add it to the list. Source code button OK, I added a source edit button. It uses HTML tags. I tried some options with BBCode but it caused some other weird issues.

Me on Facebook: I'm doing a "research paper" (but really just more curious than anything). In your mind, what are some of the differences between a romantic relationship and a close friendship? Jeff: Sex Me replied: What about friends with benefits? Leah: I think the feeling of attachment, adoration, and sometimes possession distinguishes romantic involvement from close friendship. And usually sex. You *can* have a celibate romantic relationship, but it's rare in practice -- if the act isn't there, the desire probably is. On the other hand, you can have a sexual relationship without romance, but that tends to unravel, either turning into romance or actual enmity. Kitsy: My thoughts on a "Close friendship" ...........We have a history..shared life events..love being together, not jealous when not together, would sacrifice for each other, a confidant, accept their/my idiosyncracies....have fun together...no sexual interest in the friend whether male or female......as in I could sleep in a bed with them and the interaction would be the same as if I were with a sister/brother. Thoughts on a "Romantic relationship"....... .We have a history together or are developing one....love being together, not jealous when not together would sacrifice for each other, a confidant, accept their/my idiosyncracies....... heart flutters or there are some psycho-sexual feelings when they are around.....want to be in physical contact a lot as in you can hardly stand it when you aren't touching.......this tends to wane when you've been together a million years but physicalness should always be part of a romantic relationship, even if it is only hugging, snuggling or holding hands. That's all I've got. I highlighted the interesting stuff in bold (obviously). I'm not sure it's very clear though.

YMBAI when asked what you want out of a romantic relationship the best thing you can come up with is "cook for her and share a meal together".

High school pretty much sucks. College is totally different, so much better.

When I broke up with my girlfriend she immediately got in a rebound relationship with her ex that she dated before me. I think she was trying to make me feel jealous or something. I didn't feel anything but relief that she wasn't my responsibility anymore.

37 Will be pushing 40 here in a couple of months.

Yeah but we're perfectly happy taking care of it ourselves, which is pretty hassle free. I would think being aro-ace is easier than being aro-allosexual.

I think this is going to be a long and informative thread for all of us. First let me preface by saying that although I administer this site, my opinion holds no more value than anyone else's here. I'm just another fish in the same pond. It may seem foolish, but perhaps we can all ask our romantic friends to describe what romantic attraction means to them. I may even go on Facebook and make a total fool of myself, but it might help a lot. Even still, the question of what romantic attraction is has so many books written about it, and they probably all have their own unique definition. Will we really come up with a better solution, one that we all agree on here? Something else to consider, do we really need to define romantic attraction? Can we go about this another way? Maybe it would be better to compile a list of 20 or so "you might be aromantic if..." bullet points. That still leaves the conundrum of dividing aro from greyro. I really don't want it to be some checklist that you have to tick all the boxes to be aro. But the bullet points might help a reader think through things in their own mind. If they've honestly never felt a crush then they are aro, but if they think they have, then they are grey. I'm not really sure. It can also be confusing to define other greyro spectrum terms like Lithro-. Can you be sure you are repulsed by romance, or have you just confused other feeling for romance but you've never felt real romance (so you're aro then right... I guess)?

Hello world! Looks like the source editor is kinda working if you wanna try that out... Ugh this is bad the reply stays open now... Test Test Test... Test Why does this leave in my reply now? Sorry it's getting late so not sure how to make this work without leaving stray HTML codes in the reply field by default.

OK, I just added the unformat button, looks like a T next to the underline, and for some reason font got lost so I just readded that too. Not sure about BBCode or the like. I think I have to install an advanced toolbar somewhere. I can go look for one.

Born and raised Catholic. Now a recovering Catholic. I'm pretty sure the Bible mentions singlehood being a blessing in several places. The problem most people would have is if you got into a platonic relationship, somewhere between singlehood and marriage. To not get married might be considered "sinful" as they assume what you are doing in your bedroom (when you aren't if you are ace, and isn't really harmful anyway). As for being a "special snowflake", people are just using that as an insult. You are bearing this important facet of yourself to be truthful and honest, and they throw that snowflake crap back in your face. You've got a few crappy options, according to these folk: Live a miserable life to conform to other people's expectations Lie about yourself to appear to conform to their expectations, which is miserable Tell the truth and be labelled an attention seeking "special snowflake" So see, no matter what you do here, you can't win. In my opinion, it's better to tell the truth if you feel like doing so. Those people can't be won over anyway, better to lead the life the way you want to and be open about it.

If you click on the notification bell, then click on notification settings, you can tailor them to suit your needs.

Fearing loneliness is very natural. I have experienced my friends running off to get married many many times now. Fortunately, none of them have completely forgotten about me. They may spend less time with me, but it's not zero time. I've had a great time acting as the honorary uncle to their children too. I'm trying to make more friends, but it is difficult as I get older. I have met some great people through AVEN, so that has been a positive experience as well. All I can say is, yes it certainly does suck to see all your friends get married. They seem to have this special bond with someone, but it's not an arrangement that would probably ever work for an aromantic. You aren't anybody's NUMBER ONE, but then again deep down, would you really want to be? I find that kind of obsessive attention a bit icky.

I had a girlfriend for a few months once but I couldn't seem to reciprocate her feelings. I started to feel lack of freedom, and stifled. So, I broke it off. I met her on Match.com since I had never felt strongly about asking anybody out in person. My reason for doing it was because everybody else does it, and I figured it must be nice. But my experience taught me that I really didn't want it after all. I kept trying to date for many years after that, not ever accepting that it was simply OK to just be single. Fortunately, I figured all this out about aromanticism and now I'm at peace with it.

I've got IPS support looking into the search bar. I have a temporary ally Overlord I just noticed.

Why do you need the create button? There's a "start new topic" and "reply to this topic" button at the top. I'm not saying you're wrong, just trying to figure out what the use case is. You can see "unread content" in full screen as well. It's right under the search area. Fixed! But I had to do some hacky CSS stuff, and it might break something else. So I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Done! Find it under the food aisle of your emoticon dialog! I could, but that would defeat the purpose of filling the information out. If you wish to keep it private, simply leave it blank. None of the fields are required. (If you are referring to a setting where each member can alter the privacy of their profile, then that makes more sense, but I can't seem to find such a setting.) Outstanding issues are: - Advanced search goes to page not found, I have contacted tech support about this - Arocalypse logo, being solved in another thread (thread is pinned and deadline set for April 10th, resolved) - Font in upper right is hideous, site aesthetics not so good. This is more of a "philosophical" problem as we say in the programming world. There's no clear solution in other words. One person may think the site is hideous and others think it looks good. I realize some of our users may have various types of color blindness and this can certainly make some colors look much worse to them. We do have a "solution" for this. At the bottom of the screen you can click on Themes and try out another theme. Let me know if neither the default Green theme, nor the Default theme work for you and we can try to figure something out. I do plan on gathering some opinions on the colors, fonts, etc in the upcoming weeks. I am open to specific suggestions as well. Thanks!

Done!

- Would be nice, can't seem to find the option but will keep looking - Will take care of this when we get a logo/banner image and can attach a link to it - Done! - Done! - Will add soon -Done! - Will do this when we have a logo (your link looks like an Ace icon by the way...) - Done! (I think) Yep, there's the font you are looking for.

Similar to the other responders here too. I feel that I am razor thin close to being aro. I have had one crush in my life, but no real desire to turn it into a full relationship. So, technically this would mean I am not aro, but so close that I feel comfortable using the label anyway. I hope claiming that doesn't offend any aros out there.