nonmerci

Yeah that's a trope that I hate. Everytime a character, usually female as it is also part if the "I am not like other girls" trope, says they are not interesting in dating or things like that, it is just a code for "another character will make them change their mind". And so that's what people hear everytime an aro says that.

Hum... I never reamly think about it honestly. But I think I do. Like, I did tell a coworker she may have adhd as I recognize in her the things that adhd makes me do, so...

Not really but I don't think it is linked to my aromanticism. I don't know if there is a cause, but I just... don't experience that I guess ? For a long time I thought it was just a way of presenting things, to say "I recognize I have things in common with these characters", but then I realized it is something more powerful than that. Sometimes I think it is due to my emotional empathy being low but I don't know (emotional empathy = the ability to feel what the other person is feeling, for instance when seeing someone crying makes you cry too).

Nothing about what you say is normal. The only thing that may be typical is people pretending to love what you love, but I think it is more something young people do when they are still learning how to proceed in relationships.

So that's not typical alloromantic things, but big red flags. I'm sorry to see how unlucky you were with guys. Seem that you met a lot of toxic assholes.

I think that as with everything, it depends on the people involved.

I was, maybe friends is not the word, but class comrades. It never was a problem with him that the guy was in love with me as he knew that no means no (and maybe, the way I said no scared him). The rest of the class though... the shipping was hard. But it didn't affect how we both interacted. 

However I think it only works with people who respect other people bondaries or who don't catch feelings. And also, people who don't struggle with their romantic feelings if they are caught... which is not the case of most people as even if they respect "no" as answer, they often need to distance themselves to get rid of these feelings (and they usually want to if they struggle with them).

So, yes, I think it is possible, but that if feelings are caught, it often means the end of the friendship or at least the end of how it was : it either turns into romance if the feelings are mutual, or create distance if they are not. So possible but complicated.

I think the alloro experience is more : chosing if you act on the feelings or not.

Now I don't talk enough about this stuff to know, but I have the story of a girl who told me trhat her boyfriend at the time had an appearance that she didn't look at all (she usually was into more conventionally attractive guys) and yet she was attracted to him. I guess she would not have chosen him if she could.

There is also a friend who told me that at first, she just wanted sex with the guy but then romantic feelings developped. I am also not sure that she would have chosen it if she could as it was not her initial intent. 

Also, heartbreak would be a lot more easier if people could just chose to not be in love anymore.

It depends on the person really. For some it is because they want to share an important with their closed ones (in particular after the self-discovery phase). For some it is to explain why they are not dating. For some it is to shut down questions and pressure from others (that doesn't necessarily work cause arophobia but...). For some it is because they are looking for QPRs and don't want people to assume it is romance. Some are just proud.

Anyway lot of reasons can be involved. Personally I just mention it in a conversation if I feel like it when the topic of my relationships is brought up. Cause I feel like I would be lying or hiding the truth if I don't explain I don't date cause I'm aro. Not saying that was everyone who doesn't share their identity is doing, but that's how I feel about myself.

To sum up : if you don't think coming out is important for you, then don't.

Because they don't know how to project themselves onto other peuples experiences. They think "I thought this at this age, or I used to not believe in love, or I was too scared so I said I didn't care even if I did", and think that this is what everyone means instead of believing what you say. Sad but very common.

Yeah you are still aro. A lot of aros still watch romantic media. Some people use labels like "cupioromantic" to describe the fact that they still desire romance despite not feeling attraction, some people just use aro, it is up to you.

On 8/5/2023 at 6:02 AM, Lovebird said:

negative mortality

I think you meant "morality". Sorry I just find your lapsus funny.

Anyway I agree with what people are saying it. It's logical to be upset about romantic expectations in society but that's not a reason to spread hatred. Also everything is just chemicals in the brain. The anger you feel right now OP is just chemicals in your brain. However, I think we can all agree that it exists.

You sound more anxious than aro.

Can't tell as the only media I've seen with a canon aro character is Loveless and I didn't like Georgia that much.

I heard rumors that Isaac in Heartstopper will be aroace though, and I like him so he'll be my favorite.

For me it depends on the song. If I feel like it could have been written from an aro point of view, I'm fine with it even if it is not really the case. For instance, Never been in love by Will Jay is an aro anthem and no one can changey mind, even if it was written with amatonormativity in mind but not aromanticism.

On the other side if it is written with an allo point of view, it doesn't go in my aro playlist (I mean, I don't have an aro playlist, but if I have one). For instance : Love Song by Sara Bareilles. I've always seen it as someone who tells her boyfriend she won't write him a love song, and even if you can interpret the song differently to make it more aro, it is toi hard for me to forget my first interpretation. So out of my playlist even if I know some other aros would put it there.

18 hours ago, DragonWithAQuest said:

Here it is. https://www.tumblr.com/jestcoining/685356345649774592/paradox-aro-arolovedox
It’s also called arolovedox to avoid confusion with the label you linked.

Thanks ! I really like loveflux in the link you posted, I think I will use it.

16 hours ago, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

I don't need to redeem who I am by saying I love my friends/family/pets/interests/etc.

Yeah. I understand if it is a big part of them, they want to say they love, that's normal. But they can do it in a way that doesn't look down on people who don't.

17 hours ago, DragonWithAQuest said:

Also, not one of mine, but the Paradox Aro flag. For people who are in some way both loveless and not loveless.

I never heard of paradox aro and the only thing I find about it is this, that doesn't fit. Do you have a link? Cause it may fit more than what I call myself which is greyloveless (ok it's just that I don't like the word greyloveless even if I ivented it lol).

1 hour ago, Lovebird said:

I personally connect more to the loveloose label, but I still feel more solidarity with loveless/heartless aro than the rest of the general aro community as they're far, far less likely to call me a psychopath for not being platonically attracted to my friends every millisecond.

Never heard of it, interesting, I may look into it.

I think loveless and probably lovelose and heartless aros too are more opened cause they don't see love and in particular platonic love as the one thing that redeems us. I remember people telling me how we give a bad image of the aro community, how we should not associate loveless or heartless with aro cause this is not linked to being aro, and that we should even stop ID as aro cause our absence of love is necessarily linked to neurodivergence. There is nothing we love more than people who randomly diaognise others online, right?

I'm kinda in a grey area when it comes to being loveless but count me in!

I had a guy who changed his route from school to home so he can do the route with me even if I said I didn't want to, spent the intercourse with le even if I said I didn't want to, also followed my family if he saw them on the streets, and finally threatened to kill himself after I rejected him.

So yeah, I had a creepy stalker in high school.

I don't mind shipping, I just don't like when it is the only thing a fandom talk about or value in a fiction, cause it means I'll get bored and leave. I'm happy for them if they enjoy it but I don't watch a story for that so I don't reamly care. Also I think it is often pointless to talk about it cause people are so emotionally involved in it that it can become heated soon if you don't like a ship. I remember getting yelled out cause I didn't like a ship for storytelling reasons, even if the only thing people had about it was a photography, they didn't even see the characters interact yet... (it was Tiana and Hook from Once Upon a Time, I didn't like the idea cause for me they kept nothing of Tiana's story so I was expecting that they at least keep her love interest... but it was apparently a crim to say that, I even was called racist for pointing out the show was racist to do that).

Well for me, it is something that didn't crossed my mind until I enter the aro community and heard about how aros talk about their friends and squishes. To be honest I think that sometimes, some people seem to merge platonic with queerplatonic and that added to my feeling of "I've never felt like that", but still, I realize that all the things that were put under "platonic attraction" and what some aros expect from friendship are things I don't relate to.

For instance I don't look at people and think "I want to befriend them", I don't need to see my friends often cause I don't miss them even if I enjoy their company, things like that.

I do hear people say things like "but you can't be aro you enjoy romantic movies" but I'm not sure that these people understand what aro means, for them we are just people who hate romance, so I don't know if they are really more accepting : you can't accept something if you don't know the definition. 

But it is also true that there are people, sadly even in the aro community, who thinks that the grey area doesn't exist. So yeah I think people who completely lack attraction face less invalidation than people in the grey area.

25 minutes ago, Holmbo said:

Yeah I agree that romance is kinda elusive as a concept. It's so subjective too. I know several people who don't experience romantic attraction but they don't choose to identify as aro because they still want a romantic relationship.

Yeah I think that something to talk about : anyone in the grey area is free to ID as aro or as allo. Just saying cause once I saw someone says that they are all aros even if they don't ID as such and we should tell them they are aro cause they don't ID as if just cause of amatonormativity... And I was just there thinking : let people ID as they want.

I never heard if it. That sounds weird. Maybe they mean a friend with whom they have a strong squish ?

I don't know about this one but from what you explain, I don't see why not.

That has nothing to do with being allo and everything to do with being a walking red flag. You could report her to your boss for sexual harassment.

What you describe about your friends could be aplatonicism (like aromanticism but for friendship). I'm aplatonic myself and I don't see it as a problem if I ddon't form a super closed platonic relationship that would replace romance. Being unpartnered doesn't mean that you are alone or doomed to be unhappy.

For the rest, I don't know, it may be worth exploring with a professional why you are detached from your emotions of you don't like that. Just know that it doesn't make you less aro, and be sure to call out anyone who pretends it does.