Mark

This kind of conflates romantic and sexual attraction. In many societies there is no notion of "too young" when it comes to romantic attraction, whereas there is when it comes to sexual. If anything romantic behaviour can be encouraged amongst children. I suspect that many people do have some understanding of their romantic and sexual orientations before they are 10. Though may lack the vocabulary to express it.

"I'd like to do that, but not like that."

You might be better off saying "No." instead. It's very easy for "hints" to be misunderstood and most people struggle to make up excuses on the spot.

Consider what can happen when someone has an "in a relationship" status of FaceBook.

Or to consider the myriad of often ignored non romantic relationship possibilities.and/or romance without slavishly following the "relationship escalator".

Interestingly the Wikipedia article on eros describes it as 'passionate' or 'romantic' rather than 'sexual'. Which is almost heading in the direction of a circular definition. There's also mention of 'mania' which is a separate Classical Greek type of love. Even though romance appears to have co-opted a lot of erotic language and iconography I don't think that eros is that big a part of it. Since the kind of romantic relationships alloromantic asexuals seek are very similar to those of alloromantic allosexuals. This is also something which would only have involved a minority of people. There's even terms like 'courtship' and 'courting'. Even parts of modern romantic love which do date back that far may have been highly 'mutated' from their original form. The idea of romance being for everyone does appear to be relatively recent, from around Victorian times. There's also the way in which a great many social activities have become exclusive to romantic relationships. There is also a strong element of tradition. Even where these are actually recent Which in more diverse (and less normative) cultures might be little or no issue. Since much of Western culture is set up with the assumption of romance and couples. Kind of the way that Saudi Arabia is set up for Wahhabists. There seems huge opposition, on the part of alloromantics, to even the idea of doing these and other romantic coded things, outside of a romantic relationship. It tends to be easier for varioriented people to separate 'sexual' and 'romantic', than it is for perioriented. people.

As well as calling a purely sexual relationship/series of hookups a "Friends With Benefits" whilst deliberately trying to avoid actually being friends. There's also those who seem unable to be single. They'd rather be in a poor (even abusive) relationship. The reception bit as a big party sort of makes sense. But the rest of it.... Even where it adds little to characters or plot. When they have no control over these characters. Not like they are LARP or tabletop RPG characters. Not sure you could call it a "one on one meet up to see if you might be interested in kissing, sex, Shibari, etc with me later" though

I've found that my local scene can be very couple centric. To the point that many events are very much "couplefests".

I'd tend to see such games as being a fairly safe space to challenge normative assumptions.

From my POV Kissing != romance. Lack of kissing != lack of romance. To me the two person gestalt seems to have a lot in common with romance. Indeed it's things like merger, "two become one", "other half", etc which I find squicky about romantic relationships.

Quite similar for me. Physical touch, hugging, kissing, cuddling, nibbling, stroking, etc is something I very much enjoy. It's also something I'd ideally want to be able to do with trusted friends. That's just ewwwgh!. As well as "Why are you talking and not kissing?" Though I'd be fine with "This is fun." or "I enjoy spending time with you." The romantic and/or exclusivity thing is a hard limit for me though. Bored is not as bad as feeling repulsed or that something good has become tainted. Or maybe they are less into kissing than you. Even seeing it as a step towards something else, rather than enjoyable for it's own sake. (Why is it "foreplay" rather than just "play"?)

I was trying to find out how much influence she might have had outside of the British Empire. Especially mainland Europe and The USA.

All of these appear to be too early given that the shift towards the romantic marriage becoming normative appears to have started in the 19th century. I'm going to guess that the "something else" is a person. Queen Victoria.

A tribal group seems a sensible social construct to me. Whereas a couple dosn't.

Without considering that social isolation is often harmful to people's mental health. Including specific examples of physical contact such as kissing or hand holding. But an allo who will abandon friends for a (new) romantic interest or turn down a QPP with someone they have known for years, apparently, has no such issues. It's the idea that everyone who dosn't fit with social expectations must have somehow become that way. Related to this is pathologising minorities, even to the point of quack cures. With there being no such assumptions if someone is allo (or heterosexual, monogamous, cis, NT, etc.)

I'm similar in terms of being AMAB, masucline-presenting, though genderqueer. Can also see some similar experiences. I'm not tall, IME, cis women as much as cis men tend to assume this about me. I find this too Even to the point of feeing quite excluded, more often with women's than men's rituals. I found it difficult to relate to the label "trans" due to not experiencing physical dysphoria. Even with a high degree of social and emotional dysphoria.

Some reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://www.npr.org/2016/01/13/462906419/everyone-uses-singular-they-whether-they-realize-it-or-not https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary-they

I wouldn't file kissing under "romantic". For me it's sensual. I would class marriage, along with even couple's stuff generally, as "romantic". As for dating it would be "romantic" if it was being undertaken as a means to get into a romantic relationship but not if it was being done for it's own sake or "casually".

Both versions?

I'm 48, often assumed to be younger. Really wish I was younger or the words had existed when I was younger. My experience is that people over 25-30 rarely get the idea of being aromantic at all. Thus I can often feel very much "born too soon".

I kind of wonder if you are looking at this backwards. Given that romance and romanticism havn't been a big part of human society until very recently.

Guess if you're going to enuguage in alien behaviour it makes sense to do so with an actual behaviour.

I like plenty of romantic coded activities, including hand holding and kissing. However I have very similar reasons for finding romance repulsive. It's the whole thing about identifying as "a couple". The whole "merger" idea comes across to me as the antithesis of being human. Also I see "partnership" as being distinct from merger... I don't always find it "fine" if others just want romance. It can make it impossible for me to have much to do with people I like. Also seen people putting themselves through awful things trying to find "the one".

LOL! Or you can't tell the difference between 'romantic' and 'creepy' in a book, movie, play or TV drama. Or they freak out if you try to touch them (never mind kiss them) because they "don't do that with friends".