bananaslug

Very dependent on the context. With friends or family that I've come out to I deffinatly do, but I don't talk about it much at work or school

Yep this is a thing! Personally I find that wearing bulky sweaters (when it's not to hot to do so) really helps when it comes to dealing with unwanted family hugs and such, but if you're in a position to safely set that boundary then that's probably better. If you're looking for more threads on this topic I would actually check out AVEN sense touch aversion tends to be more widely discussed in the ace community

When I was in middle school I made a "rule" for myself that I wouldn't go out with anyone until I was 15. All of my friends knew this. One day one of my guy friends asked me to go to a school dance with him "as a friend" and I said yes. Then, about a day before the dance, I was informed by another friend that he was telling people we were dating so I stood him up and never apologized (he never apologized to me either). Not exactly an awkward way to reject someone, but it certainly wasn't kind, and to this day I think I could have handled it better.

I know of at least on aro/ace meet up group in Germany. Here's a link to their events page https://www.facebook.com/pg/AceAroBonn/events/?ref=page_internal They're in Bonn. Not sure how close that is to you, but it's on the right state.

skildpadde (Danish) and cantankerous (English).

My partner and I have been together for 5 years so we're sort of past the point of dates, but I guess if I had to pick an ideal date going to a history museum is always a good time

There's ACEapp. As you can probably tell by the name, it's more ace focused and a lot of people on their are alloaces looking for dates, but there is an option to look specifically for friends.

Welcome to the Arocalypse!

I'm finding that the Grammarly chrome extension is no longer working when I try to use it on the forum. Has anyone else been having issues with their extensions working sense the server transfer?

I'm dyslexic... which I guess would fall under neurodivergent on this list although learning disabilities are often classed as there own thing.

I grew up in a poly household, and almost everyone in my friend group and religious community is non-monogamous so well I have a strong preference for non-monogamous relationships that's mostly just because it's the relationship model I'm most familiar with

ACEapp is *technically* an aro inclusive app, and it does let you filter for people who just want to make friends, but in my experience it is still pretty ace centric, and unless you live in a big city it really doesn't have enough users to be helpful.

I... don't get what the problem is? Most queer flags include more specific identity groups in this same way. The trans flag has a stripe for nonbinary people even though enbys have their own flag. The ace flag has a stripe for acespec people even though most aspec identities have their own flag. And similarly, the aro flag has a stripe for arospec folks. We design flags that way so that they're more inclusive. Some arospecs prefer to simply identify as aro because more people know that term. Some people are questioning and don't know where they fall on the aro spectrum. Some people know they're somewhere on the aro spectrum but don't like using really specific labels. If we exclude arospec folks from the term "aromantic" and any flag associated with that term then we end up excluding all of the people above from having a community. So to answer your question, that's why there's no "aro specific" flag. That kind of thing would lead to gatekeeping and exclusion and nobody wants that. Aromantic is an identity but it's also an umbrella term for everyone on the aro spectrum. That's been true for as long as I've been part of the aro community, and I hope it continues to be true for a long time. If that confuses some people then so be it, but I think what's most important is that we make sure all of our community members feel included.

I think it really depends on the person. For me, emotional vulnerability is mostly about expressing feelings even when I'm anxious about other people's response to them. Some people might only be willing to do that with a romantic partner, but other people might do it with friends, family, counselors, etc. So I think whether or not emotional vulnerability is romantic is really dependent on the context and the person.

I have a lot of trouble with this too. I usually just say "I don't get crushes" or "I'm not really into romance". The second answer gets tricky though cus a lot of allo folks interpret that as not liking big romantic actions as apposed to not liking romance generally. I've also tried saying "I don't really date" but a lot of straight allo women in praticular interpret that more as me just being tired of dating men which like... idk there's a lot of assumptions to unpack there