DogObsessedLi

I decided to see if we could start a lithromantic / akoiromantic / aproromantic discussion. I've just had an epiphany and have realised that I'm lithromantic - the attraction fizzles out when I'm in a relationship (when partners start reciprocating it by being romantic with me, which always makes me go cold in terms of attraction). It's not them saying "I love you", but the whole body language when they become romantic with me. It's highly frustrating. I'm fed up of my relationships going pear-shaped. I can crush on a celebrity for years or someone who doesn't reciprocate back, but once I'm in a relationship I tend to want out fairly quickly. I'm lucky to get a few months. Usually I end up alternating between women and men because I've always misread the lack of attraction. An ex has just come back in my life (not as a partner as yet), but I'm scared I'll hurt him all over again, I don't want to hurt anyone and definitely not a good 'un like him. I suppose with awareness comes mindfulness about how I then function in such relationships, helping me to have choice about how I then respond in a relationship (unlike being unaware and on autopilot that is). Are there any other lithromantics on here who could tell me their story and how they approach being lithromantic especially in relation to relationships (or have you given it

up as a futile attempt?) Can we get a lithromantic chat going? It's like I theoretically am attracted romantically to some people, but in practice it is just stressful and nauseating and I feel like I need to run a mile. It's not that I'm scared of commitment because I actually value commitment in terms of loyal and trustworthy friendships. 

Thanks. 

On 1/11/2020 at 8:43 PM, DogObsessedLianne said:

Games Afternoon
Sunday 9th February 2020, 2pm
Sugar and Dice Board Game Cafe in Liverpool. Please RSVP by end of January for booking numbers. Any problems on the day 07594607252.
 

Important notice: I'm rearranging the meeting today due to disruptive weather. Please accept my apologies for the late notice. L1 will be atrocious and there's serious travel disruptions.

Saturday Social
Saturday 18th January 2020 2pm
Meeting at Egg Cafe, Liverpool for our regular social.
As usual any problems on the day my number is 07594607252.

Games Afternoon
Sunday 9th February 2020, 2pm
Sugar and Dice Board Game Cafe in Liverpool. Please RSVP by end of January for booking numbers. Any problems on the day 07594607252.

Saturday Social
Saturday 29th February 2020, 2pm
Meeting at Egg Cafe, Liverpool for our regular social.
As usual any problems on the day my number is 07594607252.

Next meet: Saturday 18th January 2020, 2pm, Egg Cafe

Our usual Saturday social at the Egg Cafe. There is a suggested voluntary contribution towards the costs of Meet-Up of £1 to be paid on the day in person. As always, my number on the day is 07594607252 if there are any problems.

Firstly, I hate threads like this. The written language is so limited and we all need to look after each other in that way.

Isn't greyromantic (including any grey-attraction covered by this like demi) RARE attraction. And as such they have much more in common with us than the average alloromantic. They are not alloromantic in that way because the large part of their life IS aromantic and their life is affected accordingly. That is why they are included because they actually have more in common with aromantism than with regular alloromantics and as such we all need to be supportive of each other in an inclusive manner. In some ways it is seriously wrong to lump them as alloromantics because the larger portion of their life is aro and it's not for us to question this. As for the flag, it could actually be argued against a million different individual flag labels and to just have one that reflects the whole non- cishet "social normal". That doesn't mean I'm arguing against any individual flag here, I'm just trying to make the inclusive point.

On 11/12/2019 at 1:37 PM, DogObsessedLianne said:

 

Sunday 8th December 2pm at Sugar and Dice. Please rsvp by end of November so I can book a suitably sized table. Thanks ?

This has been cancelled due to low numbers. At the moment Saturday 14th is still on and will access the numbers next week. 

On 11/12/2019 at 1:37 PM, DogObsessedLianne said:

Next meets:

 

Saturday 30th November 1:30pm at the Egg Cafe, Liverpool

 

Sunday 8th December 2pm at Sugar and Dice. Please rsvp by end of November so I can book a suitably sized table. Thanks ?

 

Any problems on the day my number is 07594607252

Sorry, I've had to rearrange the Egg meet to Saturday 14th December instead of 30th November due to unforeseen family stuff. Maybe it can be our Xmas meet! Xmas jumpers recommended but by no means compulsory!

Please remember to RSVP for the Sugar and Dice meet on Sunday 8th December, thanks!

On 11/12/2019 at 3:49 PM, LBMango said:

Not to derail, but I think this is funny:

I live in the Boston MA, USA area, which we call "New England". And I have dyslexia, so I read things.... oddly sometimes...

So every time I see this thread, I see "New England meetup" and get excited...

No action is requested on your part or anything... I just thought it was funny that after multiple months, I **STILL** make this mistake... 

Sorry! North West England it stands for!!

On 11/12/2019 at 1:37 PM, DogObsessedLianne said:

Next meets:

 

Saturday 30th November 1:30pm at the Egg Cafe, Liverpool

 

Sunday 8th December 2pm at Sugar and Dice. Please rsvp by end of November so I can book a suitably sized table. Thanks ?

 

Any problems on the day my number is 07594607252

This is only a suggestion for those who feel able to do so, and no pressure on anyone who at present can't: Some of you might be aware of the costs of running a Meet-Up group (this group would not run without the Meet-Up platform). The latest bill was £90 / 6 month period. The exchange rate has not helped matters. Now, I've always had the attitude that I refuse to charge at the expense of putting people off joining or attending (you will notice that other Meet-Up groups have official charges for joining and/or RSVPing to events). I've always prefered to encourage people to get together (that is the purpose of Meet Up in my eyes) and not put up any barriers to anyone. This is why I'm only suggesting a voluntary contribution of £1 per attended meet (but feel free to be flexible for your own needs with this) towards the meetup organiser subscription costs (in person or contact me directly otherwise). I am also a volunteer who is an unemployed student, so any support would be greatly appreciated. But I stress there is no compulsory requirement.

Next meets:

Saturday 30th November 1:30pm at the Egg Cafe, Liverpool

Sunday 8th December 2pm at Sugar and Dice. Please rsvp by end of November so I can book a suitably sized table. Thanks ?

Any problems on the day my number is 07594607252

Hi everyone, 

Sunday 10th November 2019 2pm

Sugar and Dice Board Game Cafe in Liverpool. Please RSVP by end of October for booking numbers. Any problems on the day 07594607252.

Note: Next Liverpool A-Spec Social Tuesday 29th October 7pm Egg Cafe, Liverpool. 

I thought I'd share this "poem" I wrote inspired by my latest squish. I say "poem" because I'm more interested in the therapeutic aspects of creative arts than the rules and regs. I haven't yet given it a name, or I might leave it untitled on purpose due to socety's sidelining of close friendships:

Are we all friendship-starved? In a romance obsessed society

that puts emphasis on the item as an independent one,

where has the best friend gone,

or the childhood-mates once so close?

Have we grown up from friendships

to adult relationships?

If that is the case I’d rather not grow up!

“Romance” with my “other half”

all from a double-attraction stance

that stands as the sole criteria

for love, companionship, connection, life…

but in its shadow is its loneliness

of separated, isolated independence,

a heart’s dark, unspoken sickness,

that when I get one moment of friendship

I realise how seriously starved I am.

I've finally got my head around my October diary ?:

Saturday October 12th 2pm at Egg Cafe

Tuesday October 29th 7pm at Egg Cafe.

I am hoping to schedule the next Sugar and Dice meet in November, though details tbc.

As usual my number on the day is 07594607252

Hope to see some of you there, Lianne 

I do relate to the difficulties with general labels also as none seemed to fit and just leads to people misunderstanding, though I'm using queer more and more. They are definitely different, though I can see why those with matching attractions can't distinguish, for example a heteroaesthetic heteromantic heterosexual hetero through and through will probably not see any difference for example, and the same for generally bi, gay or anything else, and I understand that. I have a much more identity with my aromantism and panaesthetic aspects though because they affect my day to day life most, which I think is the question that is relevant for how strongly someone identifies - it's relevant to how it affects day to day life and how different it is from the social "norm"

Once I realised that all my previous experiences in relationships were related to me being aro and not necessarily ace made a big difference. I was putting down my repulsion to kissy kissy romantic belonging to being ace but now put it down more accurately to aro. Now as for my sexual attraction I know I'm at least demisexual, though it doesn't fully fit. I know it's definitely not obvious and I don't see anyone as "hot or sexy" and definitely not as others describe, but there's a definite "physiological interest" so not sure whether that's heterosexual or grey-heterosexual. I usually just say greysexual. It also doesn't help matters that I'm strongly panaesthetic, so much so that I actually thought I was gay at first because I have a particular attraction to the beauty of women (though don't want to sleep with or date them being realistic).

Well we mutually decided that it wasn't working. Thankfully she had also come to a similar conclusion though much more reluctantly. I totally agree with the couple-based cogs in the capitalist machine idea, the whole of society (at least here in the UK and similar places) is based on couplings.

It would be really good to get these stories into print in an anthology of some sort. There is a massive offline aromantic gap in the sexuality bookshelves and I was asked by the lady who served me at the local alternative bookstore if I knew of any good titles. It would really be good to have some sort of not for profit community effort to get our stories offline and more visible at a local level. I will personally have a look at your link in the coming week and will try and contribute myself. 

I got talking to the lady at a local alternative bookstore in Liverpool about the lack of books on aromantism. It started off because I was buying an asexual based anthology book and she asked me if I knew of anymore. I pointed out that even more thin on the ground is books on aromantism (irrespective of the sexual orientation). In fact, I think I've only come across one feeble kindle book that I actually sent back for a refund it was so bad. Has anyone else found any good titles on aromantism that I could recommend to this bookstore? She did actually suggest I write one, and I wouldn't rule out editing a community effort to get an aromantism anthology/information book together, especially as there's a massive aromantic gap on the sexuality bookshelves. Would anyone be interested in working with me on this? It would be good to have contributors and design help from across the aromantic community irrespective of sexual attraction (in fact the more variety of experiences the better). There seems to be a lack of offline awareness in this regard. What's people's initial thoughts about this?

On ‎9‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 11:54 AM, Mark said:

Ironically groups for gay men are fairly common.
The issue I have with many "A-spec" groups is they are, defacto, ace groups. All of them appear to have started off as ace groups which have attempted to diversity. These are the same kind of issues which would arise with a gay or gay & lesbian group trying to become and LGBT+  group involved.

 

This isn't how things happened with ace meetups.
AFAIK these happened from having a good and extensive  online community. This is something which is, IMHO, very much lacking for aros.

I understand that there's so many sides to the issue and there's no clear answer to it. It would be great if there was so many of us to have our own groups all over the place, and definitely we need more aromantic awareness though that's another issue. Actually we need more awareness in the difference between romantic attraction and sexual attraction, and it will slowly seep through society as technically speaking you can have any combination of the two (and it's my personal belief that it's more common than we think esp with monoromantic bisexuals or biromantic monosexuals for crude example), so perhaps we should be doing more to highlight mismatched attractions of all types rather than aromantism on it's own (as indeed every conversation I have when I mention my aromantism leads to just that topic). Sometimes this is very much from an alloromantic asexual perspective and that does need to change. It is always difficult to know what's best to do at local offline level as there's so many aspects that need to be addressed. My experience running an a-spec group is that there's so much variation in personal experiences that people are often confused by exactly what they experience. It's unfortunate that many come across asexuality first before even hearing about aromantism (again not saying it shouldn't change), but that is also across the board as my friend will describe something as homosexuality when in reality she is talking about homoromantism. I originally thought I was bi/panromantic asexual mainly because I'm highly sensitive to aesthetic beauties that I was pinpointing down wrongly as romantic attraction (I originally before knowing about asexuality thought any aesthetic attraction was sexual attraction and how wrong was I), and most of my problems during previous sexual encounters was really down to the romantic kissy nature mixed up with the "loving sexual embrace" described as sexual attraction by nearly everyone, so I misidentified this as asexuality (but with a lot of questions that led me to getting my ear bitten off multiple occasions on Aven). I just give this overview of my experience because it shows how some people know there's an A in there somewhere but can be a little confusing about what exactly they experience. And in that situation an aromantic allosexual could help a person with a similar confusion. So unfortunately it is complicated. And really, surely it is good for any group to improve it's stance. You could argue with your arguments that we need specifically bisexual groups (and then you have the issue of aromantic bisexuals or biromantic asexuals, or even another mismatched orientation), and the answer is most probably yes there is a need but it is all highly complicated and difficult.

Don't know of any specifically aro groups. Sometimes social events can be A-spec generally a bit like LGBTQIA groups are across the board and not just for one area like gay men, though there can be a need for specific groups though. Unfortunally you have to start broad and then if there's enough in one area perhaps then a specific aro meet and build it up from there. It's difficult though.

Next meet:

 

Meeting at Egg Cafe, Liverpool. Saturday 14th September 2pm. As usual any problems on the day my number is 07594607252.

For me, it depends on the need in question. A-spec when speaking generally can actually be inclusive of anyone who touches on the A be it romantically or sexually. In some ways it highlights how other orientations are also both romantic or sexual like biromantic and bisexual, and you can be one or the other or both. But ultimately it depends on the need in question

I apologise if this is in the wrong area of the forum, I wasn't 100% sure where to post this.

I want to hear from aromantic allosexuals or aromantic grey-aces. Basically, how do you describe your sexual attraction, and are there any aspects like position or passionate kissing or anything else that perhaps venture into the romantic side that you struggle with in anyway, for example the "missionary position" could be classed as more romantic (or romantically suffocating I'd say)? I'm thinking that I might actually be aromantic grey-ace instead of asexual and sometimes hearing other people's stories can help pinpoint my own. I'd say for me it's definitely on the rare/vague side, but it'll be nice to hear from both allosexuals and grey-aces on here (who are aromantic). Most people I've spoken to are both alloromantic and allosexual which often doesn't help matters, but I'm now wondering whether the things I've struggled with in the past were related to my aromantism and not my asexuality (like the face to face "passion" in most romantic-sexual encounters for example). It is still rare though (I can only think of one celebrity who I find "hot", and a couple of in person encounters that to be honest I find it very hard to describe (esp as at the time I didn't know there was anything "A" at all possible!). Most people I come across I look at aesthetically like a piece of art work or a beautiful rose or their "coolness", that I know for certain. Anyway, I hoped other people's stories might shed some further light onto this. Thanks in advance!

Yep, I feel you! The only reason why I agreed to be in a QPR is to make do with a bad societal situation, and even then it does trigger my romance-repulsion. But at the same time, I'd like some sort of committed lived community where we can share running a house and even adopt kids and give them a loving home etc.

Is it not possible to include pictures that don't have a weblink? I'm not very techno savy sorry. All I understand is uploading pictures from device and that isn't an option. I wanted to start a pet-oriented thread but then realised I couldn't upload a picture of my dog!