Mark

Rather sad that all you want to do with these characters is to make them into a boring couple. How about something like: Alice: An aromantic pansexual who is really into dating with no interest in being "in a relationship". Bob: A panromantic asexual who's desperate to find "the one" whilst being fairly indifferent to dating. Whilst dates between Alice and Bob are mutually enjoyable they ted to be infrequent. Bob cares more about them never leading to romance than Alice cares about them never leading to sex. Maybe after a series of failed romances, maybe a divorce or two, Bob will change his mind and start enjoying casual dates with Alice.

In mainstream society any strong attraction tends to be considered a "crush". Regardless of if it any part of it involves romantic attraction or not. Though it's just as problematic to regard any attraction as a "squish". Which can happen in parts of the aro community. Even someone who actually is "too young to know" would not be challenged if they labeled themselves as "straight", "allo", "cis", etc. It's actually far more common for aros to grow out of an "allo phase"... Just as it's very common for LGBTQ+ people to have a "cis straight phase" when they are young. If someone was motivated by wanting to fit in they'd likely identify as "cis straight". Maybe also "mongamous" and "vanilla" anyway.

An issue with the Digging Deeper part is that many parts of it are rather US specific. Most obviously is health insurance reference. Imperialism and colonialism does not need to involve settlement or other forms of mass (even forced) migrations to change societies. Rather understated is the role religion, especially Christianity, in terms of colonialism. Marriage, including monogamous marriage, long predates romance. With romantic marriage and amantonormativity replacing arranged marriage. It's also notable as recently as the 19th century, maybe into the 20th, arranged marriage was still commonplace within Europe. A connection with "capitalism" fails to explain how amantonormativity exists within Eastern Europe, the former USSR and China.

A couple of things which might be worth adding would be Mononormativity: the belief that exclusive dyadic relationships are the default, preferred, or normal mode of human relationships, especially intimate ones. Romantic Coding: the belief that certain activities and behaviours are an essential part of romantic relationships and should not happen in other forms of relationships. Other examples under "Structural/Institutional" Are social events, including those connected to employment, where attendance "with a partner" is the expectation or there is a substantial discount to tickers/membership for couples.

Most estimates appear to be in the 1-3% range. Though I do recall one, specific to a BDSM community, which came up with 6%. Considering how obscure aromanticism is even 1% is a surprisingly large minority group. There's the 2020 Pew survey of single people in the US showing that 14% of single people actually conformed the stereotype of single mindedly wanting to be coupled; 50% were entirely uninterested; 10% interested only in casual dating and the remaining 26% somewhere in the middle. (This would correspond to ~7%, ~25%, ~5% and ~7% of US adults.) This could mean that aros are rather more common that about one in fifty; allos are rather less hyper-romantic than popular culture portrays or both.

Something interesting is that only a minority (~14%) of single people fit the stereotype of focussing on becoming coupled. Whilst the majority (~60%) are entirely uninterested. As shown in this recent survey. IME both couple seeking and coupled people tend to have "couple mindset" which I can't relate to.

The most obvious relationship between romance and toxic masculinity is the expectation that, heterosexual, men should obtain emotional support only from their girlfriend or wife. The other side of this coin being that, heterosexual, women are expected to only offer emotional support to men who are their boyfriend or husband. This has the effect that emotional support is more strongly romantically coded for men than women. Which can also happen with physical affection.

The context being "available for what?" There's even evidence that the majority of single people are not interested in being coupled anyway. Would "married" being an acceptable answer of the basis that marriage people are "available for divorce".

This book on Consent in Gaming both recognises romance as being a consent issue and being distinct from sex.

The AVEN survey, which is presumably aro ace biased, does show a majority towards romance-favourable. Interestingly the terms "sex-tolerant" and "romance-tolerant" are not used on either survey. I wonder if it would be useful to split the analysis of the AUREA survey by sexual orientation. Possibly also by age group, gender and nationality. Given that the responders were rather skewed in terms of some of these demographics. There are also other social differences. Sex: Private, Not Safe For Work, inappropriate for children. Romance: Public, Safe For Work, appropriate for children. Within amantonormative societies the assumption tends to be that everyone is expected to want sex only as part of a romantic relationship. This raises issues for alloromantic asexuals; a different set of issues for aromantic allosexuals and another set of issues for any aromantic asexuals who may be interested in (non-sexual) romantic coded activities. It's also plausible that allo aces and aro allos might more interested in attempting normative (romo-sexual) relationships than than aro aces.

Aro characters who isn't also asexual. Since these are conflated far too much. Likely who also arn't philematophobic or haphephobic. Given that these are also common aro stereotypes.

Maybe you should have asked them what makes them so sure being alloromantic isn't the result of some trauma....

Possibly it depends on the cost of the gift. Even if it's small, it can still feel uncomfortable subsidising privileged people's lifestyles.

Someone of any sexual orientation, including asexual, can be sex-positive. Thus it makes little sense to attempt to use it as an antonym of asexual.

Maybe this bunch of bigots should be called "non-allosexual" :) Moreover it was the asexual community, i.e.AVEN, who coined "allosexual" as an antonym of "asexual".

An effect of intersectionality is that privileges and disprivilegees do not "stack" in any simple way. Aro aces having perioriented privilege doesn't really count for much. Ditto for hetero aces having heteroromantic privilege or hetero-aros having heterosexual privilege.

I'd define it was wanting to be in a romantic (or similar) relationship with someone. With romantic relationships being those where ideas like being "in a relationship" or "in a couple" are very important. Possibly even more important than what happens within that relationship.

Perioriented people tend to conflate romantic and sexual. Even though many of them, with the obvious exception of aro aces, can experience only romantic or only sexual attraction. Thus you find "sexual" used where "romosexual", even, "romantic" would be more accurate.

I wonder if there might be something within mental health training which bolsters faith in amantonormativity. Considering some the behaviour of allos, when, in romantic relationships it might more sense to see them as a sign of immaturity.

AVEN is a resource for asexuals primarily those who are also alloromantic. At best the definition of aromanticism is from the limited perspective of aro-aces. (Likely excluding any who are romance repulsed.) An issue with the first definition is that a large minority of allos are uninterested in romantic relationships. There are a couple of issues with the second definition: Absence of "romantic attraction" is a much more abstract concept than lack of desire for a romantic relation. The term "crush" is highly subjective. It's also unclear how a "crush" could reliably be distinguished from a "squish"; intense sexual, sensual, aesthetic or other type of non-romantic attraction. Especially be someone who's never encountered the idea of attraction having,, at least, five flavours.

Just out of interest how did the PC ad NPC compare in terms of stats? Also was that a plot-critical NPC or one you could afford to lose in a combat encounter? This sounds like some troublesome PvP behaviour. PCs can behave in all sorts of inappropriate ways towards NPCs. However NPCs can either run away or attack PCs as they see fit. It's also perfectly within the rules for a harmless appearing NPC to be a high level monk/sorcerer/druid/etc or a (polymorphed) dragon.

It would be nice if allos would stop using "friend" as a euphemism for "romantic partner".

Many chromosomal duplications are lethal to the cell in question. The Y chromosome is small so it being duplicated or omitted makes little difference. Whilst X is a large chromosome only one is typically fully expressed in a cell. Where there are multiple X chromosomes present all except one are Barr bodies, with the majority of the genes inactivated.

Its notable that there are RPG systems, such as 7th Sea, which specifically support aromantic characters. For those unfamiliar the Game is set in a fictionalised version of 17th century Europe with page 89 of the Player's Guide stating "On the other side of the fence, the romantics sing about a new kind of love, a love between two people no other can experience, share or understand It is a fire that flares up without reason and burns forever." With one of the character creation questions being "Is your Hero in love? Is he married or betrothed?" (The guide does poorly when it comes to gender inclusive language.)

Even if they don't mention they are also ace having only aroaces gives a very limited perspective on aromanticsm. Including that, like other perioriented people, aroaces can more easily confuse and conflate romantic and sexual.