eatingcroutons

It rhymes with apocalypse.

On 6/6/2020 at 10:26 PM, John Rando said:

Question : are INTX personalities overrepresented here because of our comon experience as aro or just because it's an internet forum about a niche subject requiring introspection to sort out ?

INTx types are over-represented in pretty much every kind of MBTI self-assessment. Various factors contribute to this; one example is that people generally see themselves as more rational than they actually are. 

On 6/6/2020 at 10:26 PM, John Rando said:

This test is so frustrating. You are supposed to pick answers to questions and the answers are not mutually exclusives most of the time. You can't answer "None" or "Both" you are just conflated with "neutral about it".

Two things to mention here:

1. Tests with binary options have a LOT of flaws in determining your MBTI type because they simplify the whole system down to E versus I, N versus S, etc. This is not at all how actual MBTI types work. For example it's a common misconception that the difference between say, ENTP and INTP is simply that ENTP is more extroverted and INTP is more introverted. That's not true at all. They have completely opposite primary cognitive functions (extraverted intuition versus introverted thinking). 

2. It's absurd to think that everyone fits neatly into one of 16 personality types. Personalities exist on a spectrum. Some people fit very well with a given MBTI personality type; others are vaguely borderline between multiple types. Like any other psychological categorisation, MBTI types are more useful for some people than others. If you don't neatly fit one of the pre-described boxes then the whole system is probably a waste of your time.

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On 3/19/2019 at 3:38 AM, mythlady said:

I absolutely despise shipping people in real life. I think its a horrible invasion of privacy.

Things that are invasive: Sending or showing any sort of explicit sexual or romantic material to a person who hasn't consented to receive or view it. Stalking or harassing people for any reason whatsoever.

Things that are not invasive: Fantasising about other people, or relationships between other people. Sharing those fantasies in spaces that exist to share fictional fantasies and are clearly marked as such.

On 8/14/2020 at 3:38 AM, Asteroid said:

Well I've known many, many men, who by they own words, were not interested in romance at all.  Some of them were very sexual, and some of them weren't, at least as far as I know.  Were some of the sexual ones going through a phase and not genuinely aromantic?  Probably!  Were all of the non-romantic, highly sexual guys just going through a phase?  I have no idea  No one has the right to just openly declare that, beyond "maybe."  

No-one has the right to declare anything about anyone else's orientation, full stop. And many people's orientations shift or fluctuate over the course of their lives.

It looks like some posts have been removed from this thread so maybe I'm not getting the full picture, but I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Why is it important to you to know exactly how every person you describe as a "non-romantic, highly sexual guy" identifies in terms of orientation?

On 8/14/2020 at 6:28 PM, Holmbo said:

When I think about it, why do we even need a Latin term? Wouldn't it be better to just say romancenormativity (romonormativity for short ?)

Much more intuitive IMO.

Because amatonormativity as generally defined is not just about prioritising romance, it's about prioritising a particular model of monogamous, lifelong romance. 

The opposite might be a word that encapsulates embracing a diversity of relationship types - or embracing people's freedom to make their own choices about what kinds of interpersonal relationships they engage in.

On 2/1/2020 at 9:27 PM, Mark said:

Do you have conversations about romance/romantic stuff?
If so how do you address that some of your members may be romance repulsed?

I was about to ask/suggest exactly this. Presumably you have mechanisms in the group for accommodating romance-repulsed people, while making space for discussions about romance. You can apply the exact same principles/mechanisms to manage discussions about sex! 

On 12/4/2019 at 11:44 AM, lonelyace said:

They're such a new concept that there really aren't defined rules and expectations for them

I don't think this is a function of QPRs being a "new concept". I think it's a fundamental, and fundamentally important, aspect of a QPR that it doesn't have "defined rules and expectations". The entire point of a QPR is that it's whatever the people involved in it want it to be. 

A QPR may look more or less like a friendship, or more or less like a romantic relationship, depending on the expectations and boundaries of the QPR and how well those match with society's expectations of boundaries in friendships and romantic relationships. 

But there's no singular set of necessary or sufficient conditions for a relationship to be a QPR. A QPR is any relationship that is sufficiently different to the typical social categories of "friendship" and "romance" that the people involved in the relationship prefer to call it a QPR instead. 

I am really, deeply confused as to why we're spending so much time discussing the semantics of the title of a thread on the Arocalypse forums in order to address issues happening on Tumblr. In all seriousness: what on earth does anyone expect to accomplish in terms of combating the misunderstandings that happen on Tumblr, as highlighted in the OP, by crafting the perfect topic title on these completely separate forums? 

On 12/21/2019 at 9:59 AM, kernsing said:

Although, maybe the ace community is a good place to start with aro activism since they’re more likely to be aware of aromanticism existing in the first place. But then that gets into the problem where we want to be separate from and not always tied up with the ace community. Anyone got thoughts on that? 

My thoughts? Bluntly, I have little to nothing in common with "the ace community" as I've experienced it, and based on my experiences it's one of the last places I'd turn to for help with aro activism. I've tried, many times, believe me, to connect with ace communities. But there's only so many times I can see attitudes like "sex eww, romance yay" being paraded around as the community zeitgeist before I nope the hell out. 

On 12/18/2019 at 5:50 PM, sennkestra said:

I was referring to the link to the arokaladin post from this November, which was directly linked in the specific quote I was responding to (requoted below with original link for reference). That post is still up.

Ahh okay. Again though, I can't help you with that one, as arokaladin blocked me some time ago because I read stories about immoral things. Again, I recommend contacting them directly if you have issues with what they're saying. 

On 12/18/2019 at 5:50 PM, sennkestra said:

I would think the goal here is to just be aware that this is an ongoing concern, and also be educated about the causes behind it, and to start thinking about potential ways to respond for if/when it inevitable does filter out to other parts of the aro community that you are more active in.

These misunderstandings do occur in the aro communities I'm actively involved in, and in this thread I've already talked about what I've found are effective ways to respond to them. I'll definitely continue to correct misunderstandings when I see them, but to be frank, you couldn't pay me to wade back into Tumblr. 

On 12/18/2019 at 5:50 PM, sennkestra said:

Does anyone know if there's a best way to nominate resources for the site (or at least the periodic "what's going on" linkspams?)

I suspect the two options you've mentioned yourself (emailing them, and pinging them here) are not a bad place to start! 

9 hours ago, Coyote said:

I consulted with some other people earlier about wording, and someone pointed out to me that instead of "revisionism," technically, a more accurate word would be "denialism."

The massive problem with the language you're using is that both of these words imply intent. People are misinformed about the history of the term "queerplatonic". They're not, in the vast majority of cases, actively trying to suppress it. Your language comes across as accusatory and that is not conducive to building bridges or reaching solutions. 

3 hours ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

This, combined with the mentioning of specific Tumblr users and especially their words being taken out of context, makes it feel like a bitter accusation towards members of the Tumblr aro community specifically, without any real attempt to address the context behind their words- It's just "This person on Tumblr made a bad post! I'm gonna show that bad post to everyone on Arocalypse so they know how bad it is!"

Mate I know we've had our differences but I am 100% with you on this. 

16 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Given that there are many people frustrated with the real crimes of the ace community, and given that people keep talking about a fake crime instead of just focusing on the real crimes (and even citing this fake crime as an intracommunity grievance), what are some potential solutions here?

You know if you'd stated in your OP that this was the goal of your thread, it would have saved us all a lot of wasted time and miscommunication. 

I would like to say though, as one of the admins of an aro community, I've just had a really fantastic experience with one of our partner communities. The partner community in question is nominally for aces and aros, but is in practice ace-dominated. There was an issue last week where some aro-exclusive things were said in a conversation - a "real crime of the ace community". I brought this up to the community admins, frankly with the sinking feeling that I'd be ignored and we'd have to end our partnership. But the admins in question took my comments deeply seriously, and are now planning a community announcement and adjustments to their rules to help ensure that aros are as welcome, in and of ourselves, as aces. 

That's not just a potential solution, it's a practical one that's being implemented right now. It involved honest discussions about things people found upsetting and why, and practical objectives that we hope will help make everyone feel more included. 

As @Jot-Aro Kujo has said, I'm not really sure what the practical objectives of this thread are. 

6 hours ago, sennkestra said:

Sorry, are we looking at different posts? The post I was mentioning is very much still up (at least on my end), although it's possible it may not be showing for blocked users or something

The link in Coyote's post is a reblog. Try to click through to the OP and you'll see it no longer exists, as Coyote mentioned. 

5 hours ago, Coyote said:

Back on the topic of QPRs, I'm glad that Crou has had such good experiences with correcting people.

I'll just highlight, in case it wasn't explicitly clear, that my experiences are with aro communities outside of Tumblr. I'd qualify your claim that "...there are a lot more people willing to spread misinformation..." with an on Tumblr, as it seems that's where all your examples are from. There are a bunch of reasons I (and many others) are not part of any aro communities on Tumblr, and if you have issues with Tumblr communities or what's being said by the people in them, it might be more effective to talk to those communities rather than complain to this one.

5 hours ago, Coyote said:

Anyway, AUREA has been brought up a couple times now, so that's got me thinking, maybe I should ping @AUREA and ask for an official response.

I mean it's up to them, but I personally wouldn't expect them to give an "official response" every time someone on a social platform makes an inaccurate post about something to do with aromanticism. They've done a pretty good job collating a set of resources that any of us can link to when we see myths or inaccuracies being perpetuated. 

21 hours ago, sennkestra said:

Several of us have actually already reached out on tumblr. It remains to be seen if that will influence their behavior at all in the future (they haven't made any changes to the current post in question).

The post in question has been deleted by the OP. 

As for getting out ahead of ignorance: Tumblr is a terrible platform for controlling the spread of misinformation. We've all seen how political psyops campaigns take advantage of this, and Tumblr's algorithms are notoriously fickle and opaque. End result being that comparative numbers of notes on different posts are an extremely poor measure of any community's attitudes to or interest in a post or idea. 

Posting something in the general tags in the hope the platform will surface it to others is a crapshoot at best. Some things that can be more effective include sending asks to people who've posted/reblogged incorrect posts, reblogging to reply directly to incorrect posts, tagging people in posts with correct information, and contacting larger resource blogs if their information is inaccurate. 

In terms of discussing this on a community level, we've done that at some length in this community; I can't remember anyone spreading misinformation about the origins of "queerplatonic" in this community any time recently. I'm not part of any of the aro communities on Tumblr, so can't help you there. AUREA is the closest thing we have to do building a coordinated resource between the many scattered aro communities, and explicitly acknowledges the origins of the term queerplatonic. 

15 hours ago, LauraG said:

Hm. In my experience people tend to be quite reluctant to let go of the idea that it was aros who coined the term, often getting stuck on not believing that the coiners don't identify as aro. Maybe bringing that up earlier in the conversation would work better. 

If people really want to dig their heels in, I just link to the primary sources. They're all still out there, and I've yet to meet someone who disagrees with hard evidence of how the coiners themselves choose to identify. 

12 hours ago, LauraG said:

How do people typically react when you correct them? My experiences trying to politely correct people have... not been positive, to say the least. I'd be curious to hear how you go about it if it typically goes smoothly for you.

Usually with something like "huh, interesting, I didn't know that," before getting back to whatever they were actually talking about in terms of queerplatonic relationships. Sometimes the discussion sidetracks for a bit into the history of the term. As for how I go about it, I just point out that the term was coined before a distinct "aro community" really existed, and that the people who created it don't identify as aro. I've never had a negative reaction to that. 

12 hours ago, Coyote said:

However, since intentions are of interest apparently, that seems like a good reason to talk about this post by @arokaladin (dated Nov 26, 2019).

Mate I can't help you with that one, they blocked me ages ago for enjoying Impure Fiction. But if you take issue with their posts on Tumblr, have you considered contacting them directly, rather than posting essays on different platforms entirely? You ask, "What are we to make of that?" but nobody on these forums can read their mind any more than you can. 

On 12/8/2019 at 11:54 AM, Eironwen said:

I agree that it was less harmful overall to be honest and break up with him than to continue faking it. I mainly feel bad because getting into a relationship in the first place was my mistake and it hurt him worse than me. But I guess it was just a mistake and I dealt with it best I could.

Yeah, you went into the relationship in good faith, and were honest as soon as you realised it wasn't working for you. It's a shame that it didn't work out and he was upset, but sometimes that can happen even when nobody's don't anything wrong. 

Glad to hear he's learned something about himself too, and that things ended well overall! 

Multiple people, my own bedroom. I don't like living alone, but I need my own space - not least so I can have sexual partners over! 

On 12/11/2019 at 3:40 PM, bydontost said:

3. goddamn am i fed up with this constant talk of qprs and where they originated

But tost, someone is Wrong on the internet!!!! 

Seriously though, AUREA cites the original coiners of the term and a comprehensive etymological history. Equating kids on Tumblr not knowing that history to a campaign of intentional revisionism is a stretch. Just correct them with a link to the actual origin of the term and move on. That's what I do if I see someone who mistakenly thinks queerplatonic was coined by aros. 

On 11/29/2019 at 7:18 AM, KymiNyci said:

Does anyone know of any Aro apps?

Apps to do what? 

On 11/26/2019 at 6:36 AM, Shyshy said:

However, one thing I just can't wrap my head around or just fail to understand, is that her friends are as equal of a priority as me. And she doesn't mention to her friends that she has a boyfriend, because they would act weird as she said. I just don't know where to look or read up on how to manage with this aspect or problem or insecurity of hers. ... what can I do to feel better about myself or talk to her about before she says she doesn't want to talk for the rest of the night and goes off playing with her friends.

To be honest, it sounds like you're the one with the insecurity here. A lot of aromantic people feel this way about relationships: we don't like the idea that any one person should be more important than everyone else in our lives.

To make this relationship work, you may have to find a way to accept that she will always value her friends just as much as she values you. If it's a dealbreaker for you that you need to feel more valued than everyone else in her life, you might want to discuss with her whether that's something she can realistically do for you. 

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2 hours ago, Holmbo said:

The show is finally coming back at long last!

???

I've been reading the books in the meantime and they're really fantastic - definitely worth picking up if you enjoy the show! 

I know there's been a fair bit of research done on how portrayals of love in the media distort expectations, e.g.:

https://hyrmina.com/paper/77580c7344e348268a031bf742ff5671

http://web.archive.org/web/20120210050418/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3776923/Romantic-comedies-make-us-unrealistic-about-relationships-claim-scientists.html

This kind of research isn't strictly about aromanticism, but it does give plenty of evidence about the pervasive and powerful impact of media on our concepts of what love is, and what kinds of relationships society tells us everybody should be striving towards. I think it'd be pretty reasonable to speculate in your paper that this pressure to have a movie-like romance hits people who don't want relationships at all even harder. 

On 11/17/2019 at 8:21 AM, Sabaro said:

But yeah it kinda makes me feel superficial that i like their story cause i find them hot 

Given how poorly-written most romance is, is it really surprising that "they're hot" often becomes the most compelling reason to care about characters' relationships? ?

16 hours ago, Sabaro said:

The only time i find myself enjoying it is when i feel like I’m sexually attracted to both the characters, i feel bad and almost guilty for saying that for some reason. But its true. Anyone else feel like that? 

One hundred percent. And that's absolutely nothing to feel guilty about! There's nothing at all wrong with thinking hey, those two characters are hot, it'd be even hotter if they boned. 

I can appreciate a romance plot when it's genuinely well-written, and is believable and important to the characters. The problem is, most romance sub-plots in media are about as deep as he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious? And that's just lazy. I have a hard time believing that two characters will fall in love just because they're a straight man and a straight woman in the same place at the same time. And yet a lot of media seems to take it as given that any such situation will inevitably lead to romance, and therefore that there's no need to do anything to show or convince the audience why it happens. 

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On 10/15/2019 at 3:03 PM, LBMango said:

I have never understood the concept of "emotional vulnerability" because I never felt that there was any possibility of me coming to harm. "vulnerable" means (to me at least) that there's some risk, or danger. I'm not closed off. I'll pretty much tell anyone anything, if they care. But I have never felt "emotionally vulnerable" because I can't imagine the danger... 

My understanding of "emotional vulnerability" is being in a position where your emotional state depends to some extent on another person, or other people. Is saying or doing things which put your emotional state at risk, depending on how others respond.

So yeah - if you're not worried at all about how others see or feel about you, you're probably not going to feel emotionally vulnerable no matter how open and honest you are.