NotHeartless

Yes, kind of. I've never thought about romantic interaction and attraction that much, even when it was thrown around practically everywhere (even in cartoons for children). My story is a bit different; I voted "I've tried but it never felt ok". For a long time, my relation to romance was ambiguous. There was a part of me who was very curious and wanted to understand what on earth the difference between romantic and platonic love is. Then there was the part who couldn't (still can't) stand romance and almost everything people seem to view as "romantic". This part inside me is way stronger. So, my attempts did not end well and I've never felt comfortable in a romantic coded relationship. It's a mystery to me how people can want this and stay in one but whatever makes one happy, really.

I guess I'm a demigod then. Not bad

(My thought process every other day ?) Source: arohumor.tumblr.com I like this thread, good one!

Here! I do like Steven Universe a lot, but I've only watched season 1 and a few eps of season 2 so far, still have to catch up. I wrote a commentary once in my German class about the show and how it manages to represent LGBTQ+ themes in a child-friendly way. Let's just say the teacher was delighted. Where the show really surprised me: I'm rather romance repulsed, but still I find Sapphire and Ruby are such a sweet couple. Garnet is one of my favortie characters but it's hard to choose one because everyone has something special about them, even the secondary characters. I adore the illustration of the relationships between the characters, be it friendship or love. The whole show gives me a secure and snug feeling for some reason, it's great.

Hallo from Germany back . A triple A, yay ?. I'm happy you've found your way to our community and I'm confident you'll find a lot of like-minded people here. Wish you a great time and many good conversations .

Hello Kiki and welcome to arocalypse! I know what you mean, with the lack of a basis for aromantics irl. Hope you have a good time here and lots and lots of great conversation and understanding .

Yeah, I rather dislike "boyfriend/girlfriend" too. The few times I attempted romo relationships, I used "my partner" most of the time because anything else felt too romantic to me (and made me repulsed). I like the term "zucchini" for a (queer)platonic partner because it's so unromantic and it makes me laugh for some reason (maybe because I have the image of a talking zucchini in mind whenever I read it). The closest I came to describe my feelings and relationship for/with someone is "close and very dear friend" or "someone who has a place in my heart".

Absolutely, thank you! Even if someone is aro today and in love tomorrow it wouldn't make their before felt "aroness" and the way they experienced the world insignificant all of a sudden. Then every feeling or view would be meaningless at some point and it wouldn't count exclusively for people who don't fit a certain norm at a given time. People who say "it's just a phase" seem afraid their (cast in stone) worldview could fall apart or they can't handle when someone feels a different way, which is rather sad. The person who feels this way could learn A LOT if they questioned why they have a problem with someone feeling a different way when it comes to topics like e.g. aromanticism. But if everyone would think so construtctive and self-reflective, we would live in a different society anyway. People would take aromanticism and other orienations more serious from the beginning or rather...everyone would be accepted the way they are. Which would be wonderful and better than trying to argue someone out of their emotions.

@Mark Thank you, I agree a lot with your words.

@nonmerci Me too! Or rather I forgot there is a type of general dysphoria as well, not only in regards of physical form or gender. Well, you never stop learning .

Dysphoria is often used in the context of sexuality and gender, as nonmerci already said. But I think your feeling of discomfort can count as dysphoria too. At least according to Wikipedia it says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysphoria *Gender* Dysphoria is obviously something different from general dysphoria. I'm not a psychologist but I think you could use the term to describe your difficult emotions because you seem to experience much unease and maybe even depression. I think everyone who doesn't fit in the "norm" experiences sometimes feelings of they are broken, not alright, an outcast, etc. I saw this a lot with asexual people too. It's very important to remember you are not broken just because you don't feel a certain way. I've felt broken a lot in my life, not only because of my aromanticism, and it helped me to remember everyone has their problems and difficult emotions no matter what the outer circumstances may be or who they are.

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Have you talked with her about these partifcular feelings? I don't have a concrete solution for your situation but know you are understood. The thoughts about you wanting somebody(s) to truly care about you are very understandable to me. I think it's the most important thing to talk with her about your emotions and maybe things turn out differently than you expect. The times I was in such a situation it always turned out bad because I communicated too little and got my head caught up in societal expectations - without actually knowing the expectations of my opposite. For example, maybe your girlfriend is cool with not using pet names (all the time) or is okay that she calls you in a specific way but you don't have to. There are times where it's important to step back and just observe before you put yourself in different categories even if it's hard for you to endure. I think it's very natural you feel happy someone cares about you in a deeper way and doesn't throw you away just like that (that's not okay at all). I see this independent of romance because many people feel better when they know they can really count on someone else - we are social creatures after all. It's a question of "what does each of us need to feel happy and comfortable?" and then you have to look if you can come together and compromise - or not. I understand you don't want to lose the feeling of being someone's most important person in life but you don't want to hurt her either so it's important you guys talk about what you want.

I don't know either but your story reminded me of the time in elementary school where I had a male best friend and I reacted upset whenever somebody would only suggest we had a crush on each other or said we were cute together. I also panicked as I thought another boy in my class had a crush on me. Very interesting you had similar feelings in such situations (and so early in life).

I see where you're coming from. The exclusivity of romantic relationships may be difficult to understand, especially to an aro. Affection between friends is definitely possible but you need to find the right people who are open to cuddling with you or even a kind of "friends with benefits" situation. That's rather hard to find because a lot of people, who are able to develop romantic attraction, often fall in love with the person they have sex with. On the other hand, there are people (aro or not) who could maintain such a relationship - it depends on the person. I once had a friend who was really open to cuddling, he actually made me familiar with the whole "friends can be affectionate too"-thought. There are people who draw a sharper line between "romantic partner / friends" but there are a lot of people who don't define it that much or feel like the lines are blurred between platonic and romantic attraction, etc. I can't really answer your questions because I've never been seriously in love. But! People describe it as an obsession over a particular person, the person gives them very good feelings (to put it simple), like butterflies, they feel happy just at the thought or sight of the other person, they need to smile a lot around them and they seem to put them on a kind of pedestal. I'm not very qualified to talk about such feelings but I think the person you are in love with stands out because of the hormonal changes within your brain, too. Being in love or having a crush does have an impact on the reward center within your brain, for example. I guess a lot of idealization comes into play as well. A lot of people open up on a different emotional level when they are in love. They seem to feel a lot more vulnerable with the person they are in love with because e.g. they have high expectations on their love interest (like, the other person being their source of happiness *forever* or for a very long time, at least). Now, at the beginning of a new romantic relationship everything could fall apart more easily because the "butterflies" (hormonal influcenes) can disappear and sometimes only then people seem to realize if they fit with the other person or not or if the relationship could last. There is the saying of "love is blind" <- that's exactly what the sentence hints at. Romantic love seems like a drug to the brain and after the drugs fades, romantic realtionships are based on enjoying the other person's company, sharing much of each other's lives with each other and being happy this way. For allosexuals, sex plays a huge role in romantic relationships too, which is often equated with intimacy (ofc intimacy can happen in many ways because it depends on what someone understands under the term). I don't get the whole romantic relationship thing myself and why it's so different from friendship - that's a central aspect of how I realized I'm aro. We like to call this a sexual crush, or "lush". It's not uncommon in aro folks who are not asexual. That you want to know as much as possible about the girl you have this attraction on signals your platonic attraction to her for me. Finally, my thoughts on your personal situation: I can only write from the information you provided about yourself but I was depressed, emotionally instable and anxious for a long time. I kind of enjoyed breaking hearts (and feeling guilty right after it) because I had all these negative emotions within me which affected my treatment of others (and of myself ofc) in a strong way. I was suffering so I made other's suffer too, maybe to feel not as miserable (which did not help at all but I lived in the illusion it would). I think, when you act like an asshole or in a psychopathic way (I'd say it's probably more egoistic than psychopathic) it's to protect yourself because you are hurt and scared - especially when you have had very bad experiences with realtionships in general. And let me tell you: it's easier for us to act in such a way than facing what hurts us upfront. We often try to avoid the pain but in doing so, we create more pain. You wrote it yourself: you act like you don't care about other people's emotions. You may feel this way because if we want to deeply care for others, we need to take care of ourselves first. You can't help or love someone (in which way ever) when you are not at peace with yourself. It sounds cheesy, but it's the truth I've experienced. Laughter (especially on heavy topics like death) can be a reaction of deep despair. All of this can have an affect on you feeling (or not feeling) romantic attraction, but your other sentiments (like not really getting the difference between romantic and platonic relationships) does sound aromantic to me. The term fictoromantic (or fictosexual) exists for people who get crushes on fictional characters, but fiction isn't reality in my opinion. You can feel certain feelings for fictional characters without ever experiencing them IRL for people of flesh and blood. If you want to differentiate it or if you would like to call yourself aromantic, only you can know and decide.

Hm, yeah I observed the perception of romance changes from time to time within me. Before learning about aromanticism I was rather positive about romance (provided that it wasn't directed towards me and I always found romantic movies very boring). Now I have times when I'm more repulsed, another time I can feel more neutral again. Once I realized I don't feel romantic feelings myself I stopped pushing myself to feel something I just don't and it changed my perception. It's connected to the media I consume, too. Such lyrics as you wrote down can make me shiver sometimes, other times I'm less or not bothered when I really like the melody/beat of the song, etc. However, cheesy romantic comedies or "serious" romance movies make me very repulsed most of the time. It's boredom mixed with a feeling of "ew" for me so I stay away from watching them (there can be exceptions, really depends on the execution).

Hey Pessimism and welcome to our aro community . I know what you mean and I'm happy our forum is enriched by people like you who can provide a different perspective (like every single one here) or maybe even help confused aros a little out . Because yeah, feelings are definitely confusing and they can mislead us so much. I wish you a great time here!

Hello to all of you and I welcome you to arocalypse . I think the activity fluctates but compared to other forums (like Aven's) it's a bit quieter indeed. Be free to talk about anything you'd like to discuss here; I wish you a great time .

Maybe that's just my inner hippie speaking but I find it scary how we are raised and then as adults, we can only get touch under (very) specific circumstances. If you do not want to meet the requirements, too bad. I mean, yeah, it's clear you should not touch someone randomly who does not want to be touched (basic respect for others and their personal space) but reading all of your entries, all these social conventions are making my head spin! I guess...touch should be and feel natural. I was affected by all of this too; I felt weird as I cuddled with a friend for the first time. After that, it got better and now I can gradually hug my friends just like that, stroke their hand when we sit together, etc. (only do that with the friends of whom I know they like and want it). I really grew to like touching others, even strangers, and it does not have to be a very big or long lasting touch. To give a silly example: Few weeks ago, I was on a train ride and talked to an elderly woman about the situation in the train (it was crowded and very hot that day and the personnel overchallenged). We stood in the middle of it. The brakes got activated and I touched her shoulder lightly to indicate I would hold her if she couldn't find something to hold on to. She smiled and laughed a little at me and it made me smile just as much. It created a small moment of warmth. I think it's really important to give this topic a voice because it's often overlooked in our strange society, where people are so distanced to each other.

Hello Clarke, welcome to arocalypse! You've come to the right place. Here are several people who feel a similar way as you, you'll see. It is possible to be in a relationship without all the romantic fuss, as you already mentioned, because there are far more forms of relationships than romantic ones. From my POV people who really want to get you will see and accept the aro AND the bisexual part, not only one part of your identity. Your story reminds me a bit of my own as I only realized beyond my 20s that I've never really felt romantic attraction. It was surprising at first, a bit scary too, but it extended my horizon in regards of myself and our society as a whole. And most importantly: It was (and is) liberating to understand myself better. I understand you feel afraid but I hope your fear will be transformed into comfort and confidence eventually. Hope you have a great time here!

I feel genuinely happy you guys will remain friends and for everything else I wish you all the best! I'm also glad we were able to comfort and support you but that's what our community is here for.

I doubt it was a mistake even though it was (probably) shocking to see them in so much pain. Imagine you would not be aro but still would have a problem with being so close and doing the things you talked about (whispering sweet words, etc.). It's something you can talk about but if the other feels their emotional needs are not met when you don't participate in such actions, it remains a problem for both sides. You can make compromises but if you are too far apart for an agreement, it can't be helped. Nobody should do things they feel uncomfortable with (on a regular basis), not for the other person's sake either, IMO. Now, you are aro and they knew. They could have tried to be more considerate for your needs, too (I can only tell from the things you told us). Sometimes, we can't make it work besides everything we try. I think I know how you feel because I witnessed heartbreak because of me as well. Makes you feel really bad or even guilty but you did not fuck up. I think it would have been worse to stay together with them and not being honest or only trying to play along for them. They don't deserve that and you don't deserve that. I hope you can still stay in contact or remain friends one day (even though that may be very naive of me).

- my roommate and I are under the constant suspicion of having a "secret" romantic relationship - people misinterpreting your kindness/friendliness/warm nature as flirting and wanting "more" (simultaneously: you don't get it seems like you're flirting because you're only yourself) - not having romantic heartbreak and being viewed as "icecold" for it - not understanding romance at all, constantly questioning the presentation of it in various media where it often feels out of place and it can spoil an entire film for you - people reacting shocked or disappointed when you tell them you don't want to get married / you are not looking for someone - getting annoyed at the "aw, don't worry, you'll find someone too"-comments - wanting to roll your eyes on tasks in classes where the teacher says something like "now, imagine your ideal partner" (had to describe a date in my French class - oh, the horrors) This are some things that make life as aromantic person a *little* annoying or hard for me. Most of the time, I'm just not keen on the whole social construct around romance, like certain interactions with my fellow human beings (cuddling, sharing possessions, having intimate conversations) should be limited to romantic relationships, apparently. It's interesting how basic assumptions by others can make your own life harder than it should be.

lol, I'd take the piece of paper and tear it apart or fold a paper plane out of it, if I was in the mood, and make it fly. I'm always wondering how such cringy things (yeah, I see it that way too) work on others. It's better for your health not to care.