treepod

What the absolute heck. I give up. I give up!!

mistake, oops. I can't figure out how this works

I Am the Winter _ The Family Crest (reminds me of what it's like to let someone down who wanted to date me, very pretty melody too) Love Song _ Sara Bareilles (very sassy, I've loved this one ever since I heard it on the radio as a kid lol) Crush Culture _ Conan Gray (watch the music video for this one omg it's so cathartic) The One _ Jukebox the Ghost (doesn't fit perfectly but I feel like it speaks to the anxiety of dealing with someone who's attracted to you) Best Friend _ Rex Orange County (trying to convince someone to stay platonic with you, I guess) Good Friend _ Cloud Cult (a nice reminder of the goodness of love between friends )

I got so sick of all the love songs I’ve had to listen to at my work that I made a cleanse playlist of songs I actually relate to that are aro-sounding (and ace). Now I gotta listen to it every time I get off my shift

Sorry I should have been more clear there. What I meant was that the therapist should recongnize that they are the ones who need to broaden their understanding, and if the patient makes it clear that the therapist’s opinion is a real issue, than the therapist should make an effort to change. I only approached it from this angle because they mentioned that they’ve seen this therapist for quite some time and so dropping her might not be the preferable option. But yeah if the therapist refuses to budge, than obviously choosing not to see them anymore is very understandable. I just wanted to explain how a good therapist should respond.

Oh, I hear ya! Especially what you said about not registering the romantic subtext. I can be pretty uh, enthusiastic, with my love for my friends, and I love getting to know new people on a deeper level and helping them feel good about themselves. So I guess all that can mislead some folks... but I don’t think you or I are really to blame for those incidents. You just wanted something different out of that relationship than he did. It’s not your fault he assumed you were interested in him romantically. Stuff like that can happen to alloromantic people too, I think, because unrequited love happens all the time. People with crushes are the real blind ones; they only see what they want to see because they want the relationship to happen so bad. And I don’t think you can really equip yourself with a set of signs that your friends might have a crush on you. Everyone handles things differently. Believe me, I know the paranoia because I lost a friend to this kind of situation once. With most of my friends, I don’t have to worry because they either aren’t attracted to men or are already in relationships. But recently I made a new friend who is bi, single, and seemed to taking a special interest in me. At least, that was what I was afraid of because it was giving me deja vu with the afore mentioned friend that I lost. I could feel the paranoia I was getting was creating a lot of anxiety for me and was making me want to distance myself from her. So to do away with that awful feeling, I just decided to come out to her via text shortly after we exchanged numbers and went home. And in this case at least, things worked out totally fine! We still get together often, and I really appreciate her as a friend who is also super enthusiastic and loves to hang out with people one-on-one. And she’s like that with everyone, really; it’s not just that she’s lying to me about her feelings for my sake. So what I’m trying to say is it’s better if you can find a way to be more generally open and casual about your orientation. I know I used to think it was something really private that only I needed to deal with, but being able to come out to people regularly, as awkward and scary as it may seem, is definitely better than being paranoid or creating a misunderstanding. At least then you know whatever happens on their end, you won’t feel guilty about it.

Sorry to interject, but I have a little bit of experience with this. (please don't let this scare you, but I think it's worth being prepared) My therapist flat out assumed I was gay for whatever reason, and when I said "I'm not really attracted to anyone," he was all "Don't worry! One day you'll see an attractive young man walking down the street and you'll just know!" I'm not seeing this therapist anymore for a variety of other reasons, but anyway, just in case you encounter a similar opposition, I want you to know that this should not be the breaking point of your relationship to your therapists. Therapists are supposed to adapt to the individual needs of each of their patients, and especially to inform themselves about new subjects they do not have a personal understanding of. She's probably trained to recognize a disinterest in relationships/sex as a possible side effect of things like depression or trauma, and so she's just encouraging you to grow. When my therapist did this to me, I just brushed it off because I thought we had more important things to talk about, but ultimately it damaged my trust in him to leave it unresolved. To help bridge the gap, I would try to explain how the labels of asexual and (possibly) aromantic help you navigate your life and get in touch with your feelings. Good luck!

Hmm... that is an interesting point. But my impression was that people think 'playing hard to get' is attractive because it's enticing, like foreplay or something idk. Or like a challenge to beat the odds? With me it's more like this: I've been in plenty of scenarios where a potential romantic relationship was brewing, but the fact that how they felt about me was so different from how I felt about them turned me all the way off. I think what's 'attractive' to me about someone who's arospec is that theoretically, they'd be more understanding of my greyaro ways whereas an alloromantic person would just think I was being fickle or losing interest, or at least they would find it confusing. I should probably clarify that what I consider an ideal 'romantic' relationship still leans much closer to a QPR. I /love/ the idea of getting to become really close friends with someone else who's arospec and then discovering together what (if anything) beyond that is worth exploring romantically. You might say I've been doing some big thinks, and it seems to me that that's the only situation that would make me feel comfortable. So I guess that's what I mean by 'being attracted to the idea that someone isn't attracted to me.' What was making me feel weird about the whole thing was, like I said, it seems disrespectful to want to pursue a not-so platonic relationship with someone who might feel totally repulsed if they knew what I was thinking. I know from experience how awful that can feel. I guess it all just depends on what their mindset is toward me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Neato! I can’t say I’ve ever experienced the fictional character thing, but I appreciate the similarity there with me being kinda attracted to someone who is also arospec. My nearest guess as to the reason (not that there has to be a ‘reason’ for being lithromantic) I go back on my feelings so easily is that I realize they don’t want the same things I want, and if we tried to be in some kind of relationship, I’d be left floundering trying to keep up with their drastically different level of attraction and romantic needs. So I guess the appeal of someone similar to me is that the chances of it being more balanced are much better. And same goes for fictional characters, too. They will never show themselves to be interested in you in ways that make you uncomfortable, so I totally get it! Thanks for the perspective, I think it helped me feel less weird about finding a lack of attraction attractive lol

I wonder if some of their concern stems from the ever dreaded scenario of being the third wheel. It’s so widely considered to be a really awkward and depressing situations to be in. And idk about you, being the third wheel genuinely doesn’t bug me at all. I’m just happy they’re happy, and they really don’t need to worry about me (like you said). Maybe it would click with them if you explained that with being aromantic, it’s really more about displays of romantic affection directed /at/ you, and not so much others’ relationships.

Hey there, I'm brand new here and I thought I'd try starting up a conversation. I've known I'm asexual for quite a few years now, but until recently I kinda just lumped my romantic orientation in with that (as in, if someone asked "are you gay or straight or...?" I'd just say I'm mostly not attracted to anyone and leave it at that). But lately I've been realizing that my being greyaro (or something) is complicating my life enough that I should really sort it out and stop being so vague. For my own sake. So on the one hand, people being attracted to me has always freaked me out. No matter their gender or whether I think they're good looking, any time someone has flirted with me I just get really defensive. Usually, this just results in mildly awkward situations where someone I barely know starts taking an interest in me and I have to explain that I can't reciprocate. But the worst is once when I was a freshman in college one of my close friends fell for me hard and had a really tough time accepting that I couldn't feel the same. The resulting fallout ended our friendship. It made me feel so awful and guilty but also now I'm really paranoid about it happening again. I've definitely thought I had crushes before, but if by chance I found out they liked me too, I'm done. Whoops, no more feelings. (I already know that's pretty lithro) And besides, any """" crush """" I've had is really more of friend crush, I think. On the other hand, I really wish I could have a romantic relationship. That's really the only grey aspect of my aromanticism. Otherwise I'm super aro. But I feel like lots of other aro people are always talking about how romantic relationships seem so odd to them. Makes me feel bad for claiming I'm aro too. Now, I'm not saying "please validate me ahhh" Like, I realize we're all different and there's room here for all sorts. I guess I'm just curious if there are other folks who feel the same? One more thing, and this is what's really throwing me for a loop: recently I /might/ have developed some kind of feelings for someone else who's arospec, and it's almost like that shared identity is what drew me to them. But... I think I'd like it to be more than a QPR type of thing. Maybe. Idk that almost feels gross because it's like I'm disrespecting the fact that they're aro. And why the heck would anyone be attracted to the idea that someone isn't attracted to them?? .-. Anyway, I'm pretty psyched to be joining this site. Feel free to say hi