rain of arrows

1841~

I'm experiencing the exact same problems as you both. From what I've heard talking to other aros, I think it does fade and go away after some time. I mean, we've spent so much time being told that being in love is the height of humanity, of life, so to figure out that we're not gonna do any of that is...jarring, to say the least. I don't know about you guys, but for me, I guess romance was something I always vaguely considered to happen in my future, even if it was in the far, far future. The expectation for it to happen was there, and I guess knowing that it probably won't is somewhat saddening. But that's probably the amatonormativity speaking. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it'll go away as you get used to it. Maybe in the future, there will be more positive media written about us, but even before then, as we consider other things as goals and the heights of our lives, it'll hurt less. Maybe someday it won't hurt at all. At least that's what I hope.

Taekwondo

An incredibly sensitive sink faucet that only gives mildly lukewarm water when turned 43° to the right, and then 38° to the left. Any other attempts will produce ice cold water.

98

1836!

There's this distinct and utter panic I feel every time I'm asked out on a date by someone I thought was just a friend. I think I wouldn't have such a hard time turning them down if they were just a stranger, but with friends I often feel almost betrayed (?) when I'm asked out. I'm not out to many of my friends, just my closest ones, and they're all people that are a) already taken, or b) gay guys and heteroromantic girls (I'm a cis female). For example, I recently reconnected with one of my friends from elementary school, and we immediately hit it off. I kept thinking to myself, "Wow, what an awesome guy. I really hope this friendship works out." Eventually, about a couple months later we arranged a meet up to go out to the movies, and I honestly didn't think about the romantic implications of it all. So when he asked me out a couple of days later, I was completely blindsided. I panicked for hours, analyzing our every interaction for the supposed romantic subtext I missed. There was this like sinking feeling in my gut, because when I eventually rejected him a day later, he accused me of leading him on and I felt like such a jerk. It made me feel like I should be analyzing everything I do with all of my alloromantic friends just to make sure I'm not hurting anyone, which is something I never want to do. Does that make sense? Is this even something that's really specific to aros? This has happened so many times now that I feel like I really should be looking for this stuff, but it never occurs to me to look at my interactions with people I firmly consider platonic friends (and ONLY platonic friends) and analyze them for potential unwanted romantic feelings.

I'm Vietnamese! My dad is pretty conservative, and he used to be very uptight and strict about not dating until after college when I was younger. I feel like I should have felt restricted, but I honestly didn't want to date at all. I chalked it up to just being too young to want that kind of stuff. I figured that when I became older, maybe I'd be more rebellious and sneaky and want to date? I guess? When I did get older, though, he became significantly more lax, which honestly threw me for a 180. At that point, like you, it made me start to wonder what exactly was holding me back, since he wasn't anymore. All of my friends began to experiment and date and I just. Didn't want to, I guess. When my friend came out as ace, I started looking into ace resources and forums and found out about aromanticism.