nonmerci

I had an aro-ace character who is a sociopath (though I'm questionning a bit the aro part) so I get you with th android thing. Just because there is a stereotype, it doesn't mean you are not allowed to use it if this is three-dimensional as say @Oatpunk. Stereotypes are meant to be played with after all.

I don't have anything to say as I am also ace, but I am interested as I may write an aro allo character someday. So I'll look at others' responses.

5 hours ago, punknoya said:

Is it possible to be on the aromantic spectrum if I like the idea of/want all the things that happen in a relationship? I do want to kiss, cuddle, hold hands, have dates, make out, maybe have sex etc. with people I’m close with but I don’t really feel anything aside from “aw that’s a sweet/cute/neat thing to do”. 

Yes, it is possible. There is even a word for aromantic who still want to be in a romantic relationship : cupioromantic.

Though in the aromantic community, you find a lot of people repulsed by romance, it is not always the case. Personally, I can enjoy romance in books and movies,  for instance, even ship characters sometimes (though I am not crazy about my ships).

Also, you list sex in the romantic things, but sex don't have to be romantic. Aros are not necessary asexual. The same way, all your desire for doing these things are not necessary linked to romantic attraction. Maybe you just enjoy physical contact.

I think Diana from Anne with an E may be somewhere on the aro spectrum. Maybe that's just because I would enjoy a character from this show to be so. But she doesn't seem very interested in romance for herself, in particularly compared to the other girls who all want to date. She only noticed and showed interest in Jerry after Jerry offered to walk her home (which was considered romantic if I understood; she was suprised to find him ready to walk with her). And as the actress who played her said herself, Diana may have kissed him, but she wasn't in love with him : she only dated him because he is from a different world and be with him gave her an illusion of freedom : she escaped her house and all its rules. But when she realized how different they are, she didn't enjoy his company anymore because they have nothing to talk about. And when she compares her experience to other girls, it was clear for her she didn't love him.

So she may noot be aro, but if it was revealed she was on the spectrum, I wouldn't be surprised.

Also, she and Anne can be seen as QPPs, totally.

3 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

I have to wonder, why not just say, "I don't really feel this draw towards specific people that others seem to, and that's fine", or, "I don't particularly want to be in a queerplatonic relationship", versus "part of my essential identity is my inability to feel this specific need that some others seem to".

I can see different reasons.

1) Having a word for that is quicker to express the feeling

2) Not wanting to be in sort of relationship can have various reasons. For comparison, if you say you don't want to be in a romantic relationship, people will think that you still feel attraction for other people and that you don't want to be in a romantic relationship because you are shy, scared of commitment, traumtized by past experiences, or whatever, which is not the case. Also, not feeling attraction implies other things than just don't want to be in a relationship, like alienation when people speak about crushes as an universal experience. That can be the same with squishes and queerplatonic relationship, I guess.

3) A feeling of legitimity. The ability to put a word  on what they feel is important for some people. And even more when words already exist to describe the opposite, and that's the opposite is valued by others.

4) Having researches more easy when we search articles about that, or people to talk with about this subject. I remember how I googled in the past things about never having a boyfriend before, and things like that, and never finds something that talk about aromanticism. I'm pretty sure the same thing can happen about aplatonicism. In particular in scientific researches, though I don't know if some already exist about aplatonicism (probably not).

5) For some people, it is important for their identity, and there is nothing wrong with that.

3 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

especially with queerplatonic relationships which can, well, look like pretty much anything.

I won't say "anything". Though it can be a lot of things indeed, it is supposed to be a strong partnership, different from friendship and romance. And some people, like me, don't look for that type of relationship.

9 hours ago, Leton. said:

Biggest moment of pleasure : not being stuck at an art project  When it's going well and i don't have a blank i mean. Art is my thing so it bother me a lot when i am stuck. Being proud of my progress

Same. I love to write and it's frustrating when I can't because I am stuck. Also, I love when I finish something.

I also say music, in particular American musical. Don't ask me why because nobody in my family is into musical and I am not American. I can't even see them live. But I love the music, and the unique way of melting songs into the story. But I know no one who share my passion for that.

I also enjoy some video games, but my father says it's for little kid and I should grow up. I'd like to see him win Fire emblem Fates Conquest in the hardest mode. Then we'll talk.

@DeltaV ok, I never thought about that before. That makes sense.

@Coyote I opened the link, and I thought it was a bit weird how some people include in their definition who can use or not use the term. I saw several times that it is a word that should only be used by aromantic... which is ironic considering that the person who created it was not aromantic. I get why they come to that conclusion : the fact that platonic attraction and lack of platonic attraction is a lot more important in aromantic circles, considering how platonic bonds are valued here. But I don't get why it should exclud people to use it (though I would not consider a hypothetic alloromantic allosexual aplatonic person LGBT, which seems to be the reason why people want to prevents them from using this term... anyway, that's another debate).

I think the difficulty here is that there is no fixed definition, and that it is difficult to have one considering how people who are using the term now could feel excluded if their definition is erased. But from what I see, there is different things.

First, there are two kind of kind of definitions : some that define the term about attraction, some that define it about relationship. But most of all, it is used to talk about platonic AND queerplatonic relationship. Which are not the same for me. I think it shows something : as we didn't have any term to speak about lack of interest in QPR, we use a term that already exist, aplatonic, that was a bout platonic relationship. I think that this ambiguity in the word "squish", that is about "platonic attraction" but seems also link to the concept of QPR. I'm not saying we should not use aplatonic that way (to be honest, I do identify to the term because of that, though I guess now that "nonamory" fits more... in terms of platonic attraction only, I guess I'm in the grey area, I don't really know, nor really care I think).

Anyway that's interesting to see how the definition evolved.

4 hours ago, Holmbo said:

I personally feel it makes more sense to use aplatonic for someone who does not experience platonic attraction. Cause I don't really see a point of having a word for not having squishes.

Wait, "platonic attraction" and "squish" are different things? I thought it was synonymous.

16 hours ago, AroThroughMyHeart said:

I've heard so many good things about Anne with an e! I'm honestly not sure why I haven't started watching it yet lol but I read the books (Anne of Green Gables) and I'd probably enjoy the show too

I heard the books are a but different (I haven't read them though), but I can tell you tell he show is amazing.

I see what scene @Oatpunk is talking about and yes, that's amazing. All the fandom is all about Anne and Gilbert, but what the show os really about is family and friendship. Anne and Diana's friendship is amazing too. And what about Bash and Gilbert, who are like brothers to each other? I love that show.

On 6/29/2020 at 3:54 PM, Guest Xinah said:

I like to ship my own characters when I'm writing, but it's never "a love at first sight"

I remember when I describe the first crush of my character, not exactly "love at first sight" but he was indeed attracted to her at soon as he saw her. And it was si strange to write, the while time I was thinking "but that doesn't really happen in real life". Now that I know I'm aro, I understand why I feel this way about that scene. 

I identify as aromantic since 3 years now I think; at the time I must be 22, now I'm 26.

First I identify as greyro because I had one crush I think, and aso convinced myself that I had more, but in fact not. i had been in denial because getting married was in my plan (mostly because I want children, and because brides have super cool dresses... the fact that the husband was almost optional in this plan was a hint lol).

Now, I am more confident that I am aro. And since then, I don't think about romance for me at all. Before, I saw it as something I should find, so I picked boys that seems cute and nice to be my crushes.But since I'm aware that I'm aro, I don't do that, and I never had a "crush" again. And that for me proves that I'm aro. If you are certain you don't feel romantic attraction, you shouldn't doubt yourself.

When I was doubting myself, it was when I didn't want to be aro. Because as I said, I wanted to get married, have children... OK, I still want the children, but it is a lot more difficult when not in a heteromantic relationship. So I didn't want to be aro, and tried to analyze my feeling to convince myself that I was not. That's also why i admit immediately I was ace (litterally, I read the definition, and my only doubt was about this definition not being the norm lol), but that my aromanticism took moreintrospection. It was only when I get rid of the amatonormative thooughts that I fully embrace the aro label.

I'm not saying you have the same problem as I do. But for what you say, it seems you fear to be a "special snowflake" who identify with a new label just because it is cool. I don't think you are; but maybe, this fear makes you less confident in your identity? I don't know.

7 hours ago, Coyote said:

Good news: "I don't like my friends" isn't the paraphrasing I used. It was "I don't love my friends," because "love" (specifically) was what that original thread was about.

If you believe I'm paraphrasing that thread poorly, what paraphrasing would you prefer?

Oops, I made a mistake while writing (in my language "like" and "love" can be translated by the same word, that's why; but I think the meaning is different in English and "love" is stronger than "like" so it may have been confusing).

I think that it is enough to just edit the first post as you did. I think my problem was that I didn't understand you were paraphrasing in the first place.

7 hours ago, Coyote said:

There's a lot of things going on in this thread. If there's a particular part of your posts you'd like to hone in on and make sure I don't miss when I'm figuring how much of everything to reply to, a good way to do that is with direct questions. Do you have any questions about what I do or don't agree with?

I don't really know now, I think your previous post get answer my questions. Maybe if I read again the conversation I will find, but where I live it is late,I should sleeping,  so let me think and I'll see.

Thanks for asking.

6 hours ago, Mark said:

do miss friends.
However I associate love for friends more with "philia

For this, it was an example because of what John Rambo said some posts ago, about not missing friends. And I relate to that part. But I get that all people don't.

5 hours ago, Mark said:

It's worth asking "how similar" as well as if the False Equivalence fallacy might apply here.

The aromantic spectrum is quite diverse as are the asexual and aplatonic spectra.
An "aros and aces" a-spectrum is more diverse. With the possibility of conflicting needs between allosexual aromantics and asexual alloromantics.
An "aros, aces and aplos" being even more diverse. With more possible conflicting needs.

OK, I see what you mean. Maybe you are right and this is a false equivalence as you said. I think what confuse me here is that I see the same false equivalence between aro and ace, but that's another subject.

@Coyote You're right that we should have apologized for going so hard on you. So sorry for that. Re-reading the post I can see that it was not meant to be hurtful but it was mis read because, as you said, we are used with questions not being questions.

(Though I still think the "I don't like my friends" was reductive and badly written, so yes for editing with "this is not supposed to define all aplatonic people" or something like that)

(Though to be honest, what annoying me was not that you didn't give apologies,  but more than the clarification didn't came from you but others, which makes me confused about if you agree or not : before your previous response I had no idea what you truly think about all this, and that makes the discussion a bit hard... now I can understand why you don't want to engage in the conversation if you have an history of being called out, but it makes me think that left me confused and ignored)

13 hours ago, LauraG said:

To play devil's advocate (and I legitimately mean that - I think you could probably argue against this pretty easily), an alloromantic aplatonic person might love their romantic partners, but not love their friends (note: this is a specific example, not a broad generalization). For them, the idea of being "more than friends" might make some inherent sense to them, and so they're not exactly defying amatonormativity there. In fact, they may actively be confused by aro frustrations with things like that phrase, because they can't relate, and aros might be frustrated with them because they feel like they're upholding a system they find harmful. In this case, it might not make sense to group these two groups together.

OK,  I get your point. But I disagree. If we take just ace and aro groups, the same problem can arise : for instance if some aros want to talk about why sexual attraction is important to them, but that aces are sex repulsed and are not comfortable with kt. Of if some aces want to talk about how romance is more than friendship for them too, which would frustraste aros. But we still group them together because we think the similarities are more important than the differences. And that's how I feel about aplatonicism right now.

8 hours ago, Coyote said:

16 hours ago, Mark said:

Something I can often struggle with is understanding how QPRs are non-romantic when they are described.

Does anyone else want to address this?

I don't think this fit on the current discussion, but maybe make another thread?

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

All sorts of struggles matter. Trans struggles matter, for instance. The question is which groups it makes sense to group together, not a question of making an exhaustive list of which people have problems. This interpretation just sounds like injecting stuff that isn't there by relying on a flawed implicit metric (that declaring someone "a-spec" is the only way to acknowledge their struggles matter).

I say later that why I reacted that way was because for me, aplatonic, aromantic and asexual problem are similar, and that's why it makes sense to group together, to fight against the issue and discuss about their experiences. Of course a-spec is not the only way to acknowledge struggles matter and the purpose is not to make a list of people who has problems, or everyone would fit in the label and it will make no sense at all.

3 hours ago, VoidArcana said:

that this hypothetical person had nothing to do with any form of aspec community unless they were some kind of aro and/or ace aplatonic, erasing the importance of the aplatonic label for some people. (and this is also where I get the 'mirroring exclusionist argument' problem, aka 'your ace and/aro identity doesn't count unless you're some kind of actual LGBT as well')

You describe why I felt upset with the comment of @Coyote. Immediately speaking of the possibility of an allo allo person using the term as an argument for not having them in the a-spec community, gives me the feeling that aplatonic struggles don't matter in themselves, or that they matter p ly if you are aro or ace. Which is why I said I read the commet as "these people don't have real problems".

Now, I get that's not what @Coyote meant. So, to answer the original question ("what does an allo allo person who doesn't love their friends has to do with me?"), I would say that : the problem face are similar. People are supposed to need each other company. For instance, in the aro community, loving our friends is seen as something that humanizes us, because "we don't love romantically, but platonically". And to take the same example as @John Rando did, if you tell someone "I didn't miss my friends during the confinment", you will be seen as weird because you are suppose to love them and so miss them.

Also, as @DeltaV said, aplatonic people are often invalidated as being "sociopath", or they are laugh at... which is a similar problem (aromantic is still synonymous with psychopath for some people, both aro and ace people are outside of the society noms when it comes to relationship...). Aplatonicism could be regarded as a mental problem or, a scare for intimacy, commitment... like aromanticism and asexuality.

And that's why for me I wouldn't mind an allo allo aplatonic being included. Because this person won't be there because "I don't like my friends", but because "I don't like my friends and because of that I share similar problems with you". Because if not, I don't think an allo allo people would feel the need to identify with the label in the first place.

(I hope I am clear)

Personally I think I could wat a roomate, but not a partner, let alone a QPR. Friends are fine, I don't need something else.

5 hours ago, Guest ABitConfuzzled said:

So, by your standards, all the toxic men in the world who're taught that romance is for girls are aro.

What? I never said such a thing. In fact I said exactly the contrary? As I said  eing aromantic as nothing to do with what you think about romance.

I really dont understand how you could have get that from my comment...

5 hours ago, Guest ABitConfuzzled said:

It's not a moral choice or something like that.

I never said it was. I said it was about the attraction...

Really, I feel like you take all I said and turned i it into what you wanted me to say to start a fight...

1 hour ago, sennkestra said:

I think it's important to not read everything in terms of tumblr-style exclusionist-inclusionist debates, where it's assumed that talking about whether or not a group makes sense to "include" in a specific conversation is inevitably tied to "whether they have problems" or "whether they deserve resources".

I... don't think that's what we're doing? I don't use tumblr so I don't even know how these posts look like.

My point is : if a few people here, included aplatonic people, find this post offensive, it may be because it wasn't well formulated? Not that we are over-sensitive? That's all we are saying. In this case,  that the statement was so under-developped that it ended up reductive and over-simplified, and so hurtful.

1 hour ago, sennkestra said:

What makes aplatonic (which was suggested as an addition to future use of "a-spec") different from agender (which was suggested to not be included, despite being included by some others previously)?

But I think there is a difference between how both questions have been asked here. For agender people, we we were wondering : "are the problem both communities face similar enough to group them"? But with aplatonic people, it was more "do I want to associate or be associated with these people"? Which is not exactly the same question, because it leads more to judgment than constructive thoughts, in my opinion.

Anyway I'm not sure all this discussion makes any advance for the topic neither, so... my bad.

Demiromantic : can only feel romantic attraction after connecting with someone.

Greyromantic : can only feel romantic attraction under certain circumstances, OR/AND feel a romantic attraction that is note intense, sometimes to the point that it is hard to say if this romantic attraction or not.

Cupioromantic : someone who don't feel romantic attraction, but who still want a romantic relationship.

Fir why cupio is included, you define aromantic by feeling or not feeling romantic attraction, not by the attitude you have towards romance. So cupio being included makes perfect sense for me.

For demi and grey, see it like this : romantic attraction is a spectrum that goes to feeling romantic attraction as society expect you to do (maybe more), to not feeling in it at all. Between both side of the spectrum, you have the grey area. Some people in the grey area will connect more with the alloromantic people. But some other will connect more with the aromantic people : b because most of the time, they don't experience romantic attraction, because their experience is close to the aro experience than the allo one... So, speaking about an aro spectrum to let the door open fore these people.

5 hours ago, sennkestra said:

With regards to exclusionists though, I just want to gently push back on "exclusionists will make fun of us" alone as a reason to avoid certain phrasing - because I do know people who would describe themselves as not feeling "love" for their friends in very similar terms, and I don't want to throw them under the bus just to avoid stupid exclusionist opinions by saying "we're not like those weirdos".

Personally, what shocked me in that was not only exclusionism but also how it seems to deny that aplatonic people face problems because of their aplatonicism? I may be wrong, but I read Coyote's comment like that : "these people just don't love their friends, no big deal, I don't see what it has to do with me who have real problems". Maybe that's not what Coyote says but that's how I read it. I don't have any problems with the definition, just the wording.

Also, I think that if an alloromantic allosexual labels one day as aplatonic, it would be they will feel the need to do, maybe because it makes them feel different, not understood, or I don't know.

Again, I'm not saying aplatonic should be included, I have no opinion on that and I don't even use the word a-spec myself. My point was just : there were a lot of discussion about who could ou couldn't be included, but about aplatonicism I think it was particularly rude.

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

For that reason I think unless any one such person would like to speak up about it (and I'll leave the door open for that), for the time being, I figure lumping these allo-allo folks in with aros or aces doesn't make any more sense than, say, grouping us with people who don't experience empathy, or something. It just seems arbitrarily based on etymology over the practical realities, since "experiencing a lack of something" covers way too many groups that aren't getting equal consideration.

You seem to think the only people who could want to speak about m their aplatonicism would be allosexuals alloromantics people. Which would not be the case, I think?

Personally, though I don't define myself as aplatonic, I can relate to things about them, in particular with the definion here about not feeling squishes, which leaded me to feel weird sometimes in the aro community (less now but when I enter the community and so how all the resources I find talk about that and QPR, I felt like it was the norm).

I'm not saying aplatonic people should be in the a-spectrum, just that if one day they want to, I wouldn't see it as a problem.

On 6/6/2020 at 11:52 PM, DeltaV said:

Asociality/'aplatonicity' differ from aromanticism and asexuality (and 'agender') that they are far less likely regarded as neutral traits. So many aromantics and asexuals may not want to include them in the a-spectrum.

I don't think it is necessary less neutral trait? I mean, you talk about how people confuse aplatonicism with sociopathy, but there are still a lot of people who thinks that aromantic means psychopath, so... can you elaborate please?

On 6/3/2020 at 4:26 AM, Magni said:

For in the media, I think it would make sense to open section talking about how hard to get canon word representation, if can find an article about that.  I know I found one article discussing Katniss from hunger games as aromantic which could be considered proper source.  

Another thing for "In the Media" section is irl people; we could list Yasmin Benoit, her wiki page mentions her being aromantic so should be easy to get a source for that.

I tried to add things in that regard in the media section, but I'm not very satisfied of how I organized things. Is it bad or is it just me?

15 hours ago, Coyote said:

That's the question though, would an alloromantic allosexual have any reason to want to identify with the ace & aro umbrellas like that? I mean, if someone's like "I don't love my friends," I don't see what that necessarily has to do with me. I'm not preemptively ruling it out, just asking what the rationale is supposed to be.

An allo ace could say the exact same thing about aromanticism "what this person who says "I just don't fall in love" has to do with me?" Same way, in the LGBT+ community, cis people probably don't connecter with trans specific troubles. But still, these people are linked together because some of the problems they face are similar. Not all but some of them.

As @John Rando said, I think there is the same type of reaction to it. The logic of being define by a lack of certain attraction or feeling. For me the problems are similar.

also, I'm not sur that "people who don't like their friends" is the best definition...

On 6/3/2020 at 2:13 PM, honeypandan said:

What's also interesting is that the first episode seemed a lot like a romantic comedy type of tv show. I'll have to keep watching to see if it stays that way or it becomes more serious later on.

I would say there is dark humour in it. It take trope of romantic movie, but bring them to the point that is no sane at all.

6 hours ago, Mark said:

Though it is concerning how, according to Wikipedia, "According to many reporters and critics, concerns were expressed regarding the viewers who have positively identified and connected with Penn Badgley's character on multiple social media platforms, despite the transgressive acts that the protagonist displayed and committed over the course of the season"

Yep, I saw that type of comments in média and this is disgusting. I don't know if this is identification or connection, but I saw some people défendons his actions and... I am concerned about this.

I think it is because the show really makes you enter the logic of this character, who see himself as a "nice guy". This is the genius of the show, but also concerning as some people are seeing his actions are romantic when they are not, this is possissiveness and control. I suppose it shows how some alloromantic are quick to forgive things if they are done in the name of what they call "love"... and so it shows how people have not sane ideas about romantic love.

And some reactions about season 2 finale tends to show that some of these people also think that it is to the man to protect his love interest, not the contrary. Which shows some archaic view about romance too.

I love it! I think it's even better than part 1.

So I complete the part on aronormaitvity and I try for the part "In the media", but that's difficult due to the lack of canon. So I talk a bit about Jughead. I thought about Sheldon Copper but I didn't talk about how this is non official at all. If anyone has some official canon, I'll be glad.

Anyway, tell me if this okay for you, @Magni and others. In particular, I am not a native English speaker, there must be some grammar mistakes.

I don't have a lot of knowledge of aro history and all that, so I didn't dare write about it. If someone has better knowledge...

About symbols, we can talk about arrows and white rings too, maybe?