The Angel of Eternity

This moment is probably an aromantic AND an asexual moment.

Last year, my then roommates randomly sat with me at an on-campus restaurant at my university. I don't remember how we entered this topic, but I told them something along the lines of "At least no one is attracted to me". They said that I was lying, and one of them told me something that happened:

One day, I was walking past my roommate in the hallway of our dorm building, and we greeted each other. Apparently, a girl came up to my roommate and told him that she thought I was cute.

My reaction to this story: It feels so unnatural that anyone would want to direct that kind of attention toward me. That's just weird. At least this person never said to my face that I was cute.

So, I've based a character on Twenty-One Pilots member Josh Dun (hard to explain). In this narrative, Josh is aromantic and asexual. His friend, Tyler Joseph, leaves to go on an LDS mission. Since Josh isn't LDS, he must stay behind. However, months before Tyler leaves on his mission, Josh and Tyler post an ad in a newspaper for someone to let Josh live with them. Josh meets the family with whom he'll live while Tyler is away. Shiva, a teenage female, is a member of this family. Apparently, Shiva falls into love (lust, really) with Josh upon seeing his identity in this newspaper. Shiva meets Josh in real life, and her heart is racing, because she wants to be sensual with him. Later, Josh visits her high school to spend the day. He meets some of Shiva's friends, who also develop crushes on Josh. I'll spare you all the details, but Shiva and her friends keep being "lovey dovey" and romantic around Josh. This makes Josh VERY uneasy. He always declines all their moves. 

Fast forward a few years, and Josh and Tyler are in college. Josh is glad to be away from Shiva and her friends, finally, because he thinks that such a situation won't happen at college. Boy, is he wrong. A hefty handful of girls start to flirt with and make moves on Josh until, ultimately, Josh hits a breaking point. He yells at all the girls who have a crush on him, saying that he feels uncomfortable with it, and that he just wants to be left alone. This leaves the girls in shock and confusion, never having seen Josh lash out like that. Josh then tells Tyler what transpired, and they set up a time to discuss it with a counselor.

During his appointment with the counselor, Josh doesn't hesitate to tell it like it is, passionately and angrily telling the counselor that he just wants people not to crush on him, etc. Then, Josh starts to cry in front of the counselor, because of the years of trauma built up inside of him from all the romantic, sensual, and sexual attraction directed at him. That night, Josh cries himself to sleep.

The next morning, Josh awakens refreshed, having figured out why all these girls have been crushing on him. An aspect of himself that he's been "showing" to the world is being mirrored back to him in the form of girls hitting on him. With that realization, Josh starts to find that girls aren't hitting on him as much. Even Shiva and her friends stop hitting on Josh (Josh visits Shiva and her friends later, and they apologize to Josh for their behavior around him). This makes him feel holy.

Fast forward a couple more years, and hardly anyone hits on Josh. Now, he can focus on his Earth mission, which is to help the environment by finding ways to recycle more. He does this through activating his 12D Christos Self, as he helps birth the new Earth he wants to see.

END

Now, I don't know about you, but this is what I call a romance story with a happily-ever-after!

I am a vegetarian, mainly for spiritual reasons. One day, however, I plan to attend a workshop to become breatharian.

I don't know of any academic journals on this. I'm sorry about that. However, the media has made me think that romance was a normal, but it never made me feel invalid or that I was wrong. I just accepted it, I suppose. I guess you could say that I was viewing it objectively. Thankfully, I've never been pressured into a romantic, sexual, etc., relationship because of the media!

I took a Spanish class last semester. Romantic stuff wasn't discussed a whole lot, but I remember, on Valentine's Day, there was a group activity where you had to write a love letter to a person, whose picture was on the letter. All I did was say things I'd like in a good friend!

Also, recently, in my Independent Living Seminar, there was a sex education lecture. During this lecture, there was not only talk of what you'd want in a specific person, but pictures of private parts. Mind you, these were all students with disabilities of some sort, so I wasn't alone in my feeling of discomfort.

If you click the "What's on your mind?" box, a text box with a cursor should appear, and you should be able to post your status update. That's how it has worked for me.

I am neurodiverse.

2 hours ago, nonmerci said:

Now, this guy really had a crush on me. My best friend at the time thought I was too, so she arranged a meeting so he can ask me to be his girlfriend. I said "No, sorry", and I left like a boss.

I like it. If anyone asked me to be their partner, I might do something along these lines (depending on their personality and how much I like them as a friend).

1) Other; My sister introduced me to the term 'asexual'. I thought I was "straight by default" beforehand, though.

2) Yes; discovering my sexual orientation helped me discover my romantic orientation.

3) I see them as related because they're similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSvEO-M93n8

1 hour ago, Cake-Loving Dragon said:

"You can't be asexual, you're not a plant."

 

"You're just a late bloomer."

 

 

Fight me.

¡Let the psychological warfare commence!

5 hours ago, nonmerci said:

I know a girl who ask the police for not having her ex boyfriend come near her, and broke up with him because of the way he behave. He refused to accept the break-up. Maybe people would call that sexual rather romantic, but it was because he was in love with her, in a very fusional way : wanting to do everything with her, be with her all the time; she ended it after he wanted her Facebook password. She needed space and he won't let her.

 

OK,  she was allo, but still, she needed the police to get rid of him. So I think romantic harassment can be threatening too.

I hadn't thought of that level of extreme but if someone were doing that to me, I might be threatened if it were pushed onto me enough. With that level of neediness from that guy, though, I don't blame this girl for her reaction. Once it gets to that point, it's definitely time to activate your declaration for independence.

On 4/8/2019 at 11:29 PM, Apathetic Echidna said:

Me? well I would coyly laugh at the kissing girls comment and say I am trying to emulate Gerard Manley Hopkins rather than Shakespeare. Hopkins wrote about environmentalism and God, and how industrialisation is a cancer and what can faith be when Nuns are drowned? then throw in one of the darker quotes from one of the more depressing poems, 

Quote

 NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;    
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man    
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;    
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

Poetry can really be about our "inner worlds" so to speak. Here's a poem I wrote, explaining deep moments of anger I've had.

Trigger Warning: The following poem mentions death and killing.

Quote

The Demon Inside Me (A Musing of My Dark Side)

This force inside my bones

infiltrates my thoughts

revealing in others' loss.

It says,

"I want you dead. Next we meet I'll put a bullet into your head."

Sure, in these times I'm mean and callous

but let this reveal its malice.

This being inside me

is growing in its cage

in a fit of fury and rage!

This entity in me roars one more time

and I feel evil's surge as I undergo the purge

to conquer the demon inside me.

I am more prone to seeing sexual harassment as threatening. With romantic harassment, I could only see it as annoying unless it involved actual touch. If the person knew where I lived, I could easily lock my doors, turn on an alarm system or whatever and just ignore them should they decide to stop by. 

As far as experiences go, here's a thread I made a little while back:

14 hours ago, aspecofstardust said:

do you mean just like a discussion group where you talk about certain topics?

Basically, yes.

I would back @TheLostDragon on the social aspect of such a space. It's needed. To add my own thoughts, I've been to a queer space on my campus and they had speaking activities. I think it would be a good idea to have speaking activities there, too. For example, people could talk about romantic and/or sexual experiences -- including what members think of the sex and romance lives of their peers. I don't know, I may be getting too generic. Speaking activities to get to know the other members could work, though. 

On 8/11/2019 at 2:06 PM, nonmerci said:

I never think about it (Belle being one of my favorite princess) but yeah, the fact that the Beast can love romantically and someone reciprocate makes him dignified to be turn into a human again? And what if the Beast was aromantic?

The movie is now ruined for me.

I've watched this movie as a kid and thought nothing of the romance stuff. Your comment makes me wonder, though, does this movie make people think it's ok to force romance onto another?

5 hours ago, Aliyiah said:

That sounds like my mum, just with kids.

She insists I would be a great mum and everytime she meets one if my friends she asks if they're my SO and if I'm dating someone. I told her a couple of times I don't want kids but she's just like, you still have time and you'll change your mind eventually.

 

Also I'm 20, like I'm in uni and don't have any free time so great idea to have a kid.

I would really hope that, if she sees you as a good mom, she isn't meaning "HAVE A CHILD RIGHT THIS MOMENT!!!"

On 8/7/2019 at 5:38 PM, nonmerci said:

For what I read, the soulmate concept come from reincarnation theories. The idea is that souls reincarnate into groups. The members of your groups are your soulmates. They are not only one person, and it can be any kind of relationship. Someone who was your father in a previous life can be reincarnated as a friend or a teacher in this life for instance. It is also possible to reincarnate alone, and in this case our soulmates won't be there in our present life.

Since I'm someone who is really interested in Eastern and New Age spirituality, this resonates with me. It describes my relationships with other versions of me on other timelines with whom I'm energetically in contact and can "channel" when I desire.

The way I see it, never mind what others think. People will be people.

If you do want to educate someone, though, I would say that sexual/romantic orientations can vary widely. If there exist people who have heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic tendencies etc, you can tell them it only makes sense for some people to have aromantic tendencies.

@treepod I can completely relate to this (though I do not have as many examples as you do). Unlike what you mentioned, I do not plan to have a QPR in the future. I plan to remain completely single. My example may have made it a bit more "explosive" to bear than were I planning to have a QPR.

Anyway, here's my example:

My dad had shown me the movie trilogy of Back to the Future in late June or early July 2019 -- somewhere around that period. There was a character in there named Emmet "Doc" Brown. Emmet is a mad scientist who focuses on his crazy invention ideas. I envisioned him as an ace/aro because he had not had any romantic/sexual relationship pushes in the trilogy (he even reminded me of a teacher/counselor at my university who looked like Doc AND was good at math AND whom I suspect may be ace/aro! -- I greatly respect this counselor/teacher.). During Back to the Future III, it was revealed that Doc had fallen into love and, at the end, had children with the woman with whom he'd fallen into love. I was a little disappointed about this, realizing he would never live up to my "ideal" of what he should be. I still like Doc just as much as before, though, and I have accepted this revelation. After all, it's not wise to be too attached to one's expectations of what another should be. That will be detrimental to one upon realizing that person cannot and will not live up to those expectations.

I have tissue on my heart and am about to get a stint. Does that count?

This video comes to mind for this thread. It's not so much 'aromantic' as it is 'anti romantic', in my opinion. It resonates with the personality of X Yu, an entity I channel. It's my internal reaction for if anyone directs romance my way.

1 hour ago, raavenb2619 said:

So am I romance-repulsed? Well, yes and no. When it comes to romance that's directed at me specifically, there's no question; I am romance-repulsed. When it comes to romance in media, it depends; sometimes I'm romance-favorable, sometimes I'm romance-indifferent, and sometimes I'm romance-repulsed.

That's actually my experience with romance, too. When I'm involved somehow, it definitely makes me angry. I am definitely averse to romance but my attitude toward romance in media alters. When it comes to romantic relationships between spiritual people, I can become a little favorable. I get a little repulsed when romance becomes too "flashy" (as being flashy is literally an anti-force to one of the aspects of myself) or when characters get partners when I thought they were ace/aro (Back to the Future III where Emmett "Doc" Brown falls into love, marries and has kids).

10 hours ago, Coyote said:

Does the sound of it resonate with you, or are you just curious?

I was just curious.