Mark

3 hours ago, UncommonNonsense said:

I'm another one who doesn't understand the 'joined at the hip' aspect of some people's relationships.  You know - when you never see just one of them.  If A is there, B is automatically there (and they are usually in some sort of prolonged physical contact that starts to feel veeeeery awkward after a while to those who are in their company) and you will never, ever see one without the other.

As well as how these people refer to themselves. Even to the point of no longer appearing to lose individual identities.
I've never been able to see this as anything other than a negative thing. Yet just about everyone else appears to desire and enjoy this.

3 hours ago, UncommonNonsense said:

I don't get that.  I'm the type of critter that requires enormous (at least by other people's standards) amounts of alone time.  This is how I recharge my batteries, so to speak.  Interacting with people drains me and makes me feel fatigued and overwhelmed - autism thing - especially since when I'm with people, I am faking being neurotypical, using what I call my Neurotypical Emulation Software, a very cognitively demanding set of scripts and rehearsed actions that allow me to operate among non-autistics without attracting so much of their negative attention, so being alone is how I reconnect with my authentic, autistic, stimmy self, shed my anxiety, and regain energy lost to having to run such demanding mental software all the time and suppressing my natural autistic stims and coping mechanisms.  If I am forced to go without my alone time, I get really short-tempered, depressed, exhausted, anxious, really vulnerable to sensory intrusion and overload, emotionally vulnerable and oversensitive, and just plain wiggy.  So to me, a partner wanting to be with me aaaaaallll the time is threatening, not positive in the least.

Neurotypical Emulation Software is a good way to put it. It's also worth remembering that being aro is considerably more common amongst NDs than NTs. Possibly "romance OS" runs better given an NT neurology.

What I find is in addition to requiring "alone time" (also known as "space") when I desire "people time" it it can specifically be with a group of people. Even when I desire one to one interaction it would not always be with the same individual. Indeed I've always found the idea of wanting all human interaction from one individual quite baffling. Something I would never seek myself or expect to be treated like myself.

3 hours ago, UncommonNonsense said:

I also don't understand why so many people now are willing to drop beloved hobbies, interests, and friends if their partner has no interest in them.  To me, having solo interests is important, and that's the kind of relationship I saw modelled by my own parents.  Dad loved cars and car racing, and Mum loved home decorating.  Dad watched races and went to car shows (often inviting me to watch or go with him) and Mum enjoyed shopping and fixing up our home, which had been bought as a fixer-upper and was eventually quite a showpiece.  And both had lots of friends, mutual ones and otherwise.

This behaviour of dropping interests not shared by a partner, only doing things together, appears fairly recent. Nor is it quite universal.
Even as recently as 50 years ago it seemed fairly common for married people to continue with individual hobbies and interests. Even to retain pre-existing friends (especially same gender).
Hence people often describing a different pattern of behaviour from their parents and/or grandparents.

4 hours ago, UncommonNonsense said:

To me, dropping interests and (especially) friends in a relationship is crazy, dangerously isolating, and just plain wrong, abandoning aspects of personal identity for the sake of someone else... that just raises my hackles and makes me shudder involuntarily.  

I'd also find it difficult to be on the receiving end of this kind of behaviour.
A "partner" abandoning aspects of their personal identity would make themselves less attractive to me.

10 hours ago, Kaiger Pufflehugs IV said:

Same here. Also, surely it's possible to love someone but not live with them?

Cohabitation is part of what is known as the "relationship escalator".
Which the vast majority of alloromantics appear to follow as a kind of script.

Interestingly I did see this article this morning. http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/08/whoopi-goldberg-is-done-with-marriage.html?mid=fb-share-thecut

You might find this useful.

6 hours ago, Dodgypotato said:

I thought dating was for finding a partner? I thought it was exclusively a romantic action?

The term "partner" need not imply "romantic partner".
Even some regular dictionaries say it can also be about sexual partnerships.
There are also terms like "friend date", "mate date", even "masturdate".
The vast majority of dating is more romantic coded than romantic anyway.
Maybe a "Queer Platonic date" should be called a "coconut"...

5 hours ago, Dodecahedron314 said:

I heard the finger length thing was related to how much estrogen/testosterone you were exposed to before birth--longer ring finger = more testosterone, longer index finger = more estrogen.

With there also being theories that these hormone exposures somehow determine sexual orientation.
So it's a sort of C causes A and B, thus there is a correlation between A & B.

In the process ignoring that "gender" is not a binary of "man" or "woman" nor is it the same thing as "sex".

Sexual orientation is not binary either. With polysexual and asexual people typically being ignored.

1 hour ago, Dodgypotato said:

Hahaha I can't believe a team of reseachers actually bothered to do a study about this! It must have been an extra thing they just noticed with some random other study...

Considering some of the things I've heard about being studied I can believe that this is real "research".

5 hours ago, aussiekirkland said:

So I know there's been studies done about the length of your index and ring finger corresponding to your sexuality with gay men typically having longer index fingers, straight men with longer ring fingers, straight women with even finger lengths and lesbians with longer ring fingers. I was wondering how this data fits the aromantic community so post your data in the comments

Interesting. No men with equal index and ring fingers or women with longer index than ring fingers?
Looks like a study of monosexuals only. As well as it being very unclear if this is ment to apply to sexual or romantic orientation.

I'm male bodied, aromantic, pansexual (my sensual, aesthetic and platonic attractions also "pan") with ring fingers longer than index fingers. 

3 hours ago, LunarSeas said:

I can almost see myself sharing rent on a house with a platonic friend before a sexual partner, honestly. Not that the two couldn't be the same person, but experience tells me that's unlikely. In sharing living space, I just know that i absolutely need a room or two that are mine and only mine. I don't mind being with people, but not indefinitely. I must recharge in solitude. Romance kind of says that's not desirable. xP

I suspect that many alloromantics can do themselves harm by denying that they need space.

3 hours ago, LunarSeas said:

The sexual relationships I honestly remember fondly have been friends I just happened to have sex with. But it was also treated as something that we'd "grow out of" past college, and we'd go off and find regular romantic partners. I felt bad about not really wanting to. That just hanging out with a friend, watching movies or cooking or doing whatever, and if we felt like it, anything on the spectrum from cuddling to sex was fine FOR NOW, but when we became adults, we'd be immature doing the same thing. Fucking why?? 

Wanting to ride the relationship escalator is seen as a sign of "maturity". As is also implied by terms like "settling down".
With sexual friendships (even non-monogamous ones) sort of tolerated, but discouraged, amongst young people.

To allo aro people these kind of relationships are far superior to any romantic relationship. (Even for aros who can tolerate being in a romantic relationship.)

On 9/1/2016 at 2:15 AM, LunarSeas said:

How on earth does one come out as aro when you're allosexual? It's not the same as just "not interested," because, damn it, I am interested in sex and physical affection.

I think I know what you mean.

I commented elsewhere recently that most literature about aromance appears to have been written from an aro ace (possibly also touch repulsed) POV.

On 9/1/2016 at 2:15 AM, LunarSeas said:

One of my first google searches on allo aros hit on an AVEN thread where the first response to the idea was "omg heartless monsters who use people for sex!!!" Even worse was when I hit frayromantic, and it's rather descriptive of me, but the first opinion was "that's everyone, romance fades for all" and...it's more than that....ugh. 

AVEN is intended primarily as an ace resource. Never heard of frayromantic.
 

On 9/1/2016 at 2:15 AM, LunarSeas said:

I'm not heartless. I just don't want to live with someone forever just for the privilege of sexual contact. And I really want sexual contact. I know there's no easy way to do it, but AAAGGGHHHH, this feels impossible to navigate and I feel like I'm making no sense at all. Dx

Guessing you want is at least one sexual friendship.

On 9/1/2016 at 7:21 PM, LunarSeas said:

Being heterosexual also gives me a huge feeling of "outsider" to the lgbtq community, not just because there are actual people within that community that deny I exist, but, well, I've considered myself "straight" my whole life.

Being aro is often a problem here, even if you are not heterosexual...

On 9/1/2016 at 7:21 PM, LunarSeas said:

If I want to have any sexual or sensual contact in the future, and I do, I'll have to talk to whoever I want that with. This will need to come up. And while I know there are some guys who are truly ok with "casual sex" (not just say they are), I also want to be treated with respect, not like a slut. And that's exceedingly rare. 

I have heard of allosexuals describing that part of "casual sex" can be a role play of being in a relationship. Which is an obvious complication for aros.

On 9/2/2016 at 8:03 PM, Saaaro said:

I get pretty frustrated with comments from ace-aros, even on here, that talk about aromanticism and asexuality like they're the same thing.  There's do much in the aro experience and advice threads that doesn't apply to arosexuals at all. Like no, I can't just avoid people/relationships entirely and still be happy.

In terms of active members aro aces appear most common here. Though I suspect that aro heteros are the most common aros...

On 9/2/2016 at 8:03 PM, Saaaro said:

 For a while this had me wondering if I was really aromantic. Because does this romance thing that I'm not wanting actually look like. But after talking to a friend I realised it was the 2 becoming one I don't want.  The sharing the same bed forever and having kids together and slowly becoming half of a pair. I could consider buying a house with a friend/partner, but never sharing a room (I tried it for 3 months and it was a nightmare).

There is the term "nesting behaviour" which rather more concisely describes this. A part of this you didn't mention would be merging/entangling personal finances. The whole "becoming half of a pair" isn't always slow. Personally I very much dislike the term "other half", who'd want to be half a person?

On 20/08/2016 at 11:28 PM, Nakaez said:

Cheating.  I could never understand why someone would get into a relationship with someone, but at the same time be romantically and/or sexually involved with somebody else without telling the first person. Seriously. Why not just break up with the first one? Or if they are soo importand that you "can't live without them" not cheat? 

Or just not have the sexual exclusivity requirement in the first place.
Though that would require negotiation rather than just following the amantonormative "script". (Allo)romantics do seem to have a big thing about (all sorts of) exclusivity, regardless of if they actually want it...

On 13/08/2016 at 5:00 AM, Quinoa said:

I was a young teen reading some book about puberty and crushes, and it said that sometimes people get heartbroken when their crush gets married. Of course, back then, I thought a "crush" meant you thought someone was cool and wanted to be their friend. I was so confused. So what if your crush got married? They can do what they want! 

This can still  make sense if you are aro. Because they may well spend all of their time with their spouse and thus you no longer have a friend.
Even if they still want you as a friend they might refuse to do certain things with you (because you are married) or insist of telling you how wonderful being married is.

5 hours ago, aussiekirkland said:

Also this weird desire to have all of your needs met by one person. It seems really unhealthy to me to just drop everyone else in your life to have all of your emotional needs met by this person you barely even know. Do people not need their friends for that sort of thing?

Unhealthy to the point of self harm. Both by rejecting your existing support network and assuming that one person can replace several.
I just find this baffling since I instinctively look for a "team" to meet my needs and don't expect to be able to meet anyone else's needs on my own.

5 hours ago, aussiekirkland said:

Also also why do couples spend so much time together? I remember being in relationships and feeling suffocated because of how much time they expected me to spend with them. Cause I was at school they expected me to spend all of my recess and lunch breaks with them instead of my friends and to me that was just baffling because we already had dates and Friday night dinners for that? Why do you need to spend hours everyday with me!?

Similarly why could they not spend the time with their friends? Is not the major reason for wanting to spend time with someone mutual benefit?

On 31/07/2016 at 9:13 PM, Cassiopeia said:

The We-Must-Do-Everything-Together. What if they aren't into your hobbies? Doing something in a group is nice, but having the same group for everything is a bit unrealistic? Are you clones or what? Are you just repressing your personality?

I have just never got this, it's seems weird. Also how do they choose which interests to keep and which to not?
Plenty of things where the ideal group size isn't two. (Maybe it's those which tend to get dropped.)

On 31/07/2016 at 9:13 PM, Cassiopeia said:

The phenomenon of the One. Do people seriously think their special person is perfect? Aren't there any flaws? Does that not worry you? It always felt unlikely, artificial to me.

This seems to relate back to "We-Must-Do-Everything-Together". But why one person rather than a "team" of people?

On 09/08/2016 at 10:29 PM, Snapdragon said:

Personally I'll never understand the difference between flirting and being kind to someone. Society tells us to be kind to everyone, but when you do it they think it means that you want to be romantically involved????? 

I've always though of flirting as being about sexual attraction.
Though it's not something I can do in most situations. Which I suspect has more to do with being on the autistic spectrum than being aro.

17 hours ago, Natkat said:

Beside many of the points already mentioned I don't understand why sex is seen as romantic.

I simple dont see anything "romantic" in rubbing your genetalia on each other (or whatever you are into.)

Along with a whole lot of other behaviours being "romance coded". Thus making them very difficult to find without the romance bit. Which can be very difficult and frustrating.
A bit like if all the food you could buy was covered in a sauce you didn't like (even were allergic to).
 

On 06/08/2016 at 10:33 PM, Juno said:

The other thing that people make a big deal of is saying "I love you" for the first time in a relationship.

Because of what's known as the "relationship escalator". Normative romantic relationships are expected to follow a somewhat specific pattern of "progression" and "milestones".

On 27/07/2016 at 2:20 AM, omitef said:

I don't think alloromantic people will ever fully understand what it feels like to be aro. Just like how cis people won't fully understand what it feels like to be trans. When I'm explaining that I'm lithromantic, I just say, "I'm romantically attracted to people up until the point they reciprocate. After that, I usually get repulsed." If they feel the need to question "why" I feel like that, then that's their problem. Because there is no why. It just is. It's not my obligation to justify my existence to other people. 

Your explanation of "lithromantic" sounds quite clear.

I'm had a similar response to saying I'm uninterested in marriage. Where being asked "why?" does not even make much sense.
 

On 28/07/2016 at 5:12 AM, Quinoa said:

It is hard to explain aromanticism to people. I usually just say that whereas most people have an intrinsic desire to be in a relationship with someone, I just don't.

For me it's more tricky because I do desire relating to people in various ways, which dosn't include romance, exclusivity or "bundling".

On 16/06/2016 at 9:55 PM, Punable said:

Well, loneliness did NOT make me fall in love, thank you very much.

Being lonely does not make me desire a romantic relationship. Even where the human interaction and company I might desire is, culturally, virtually impossible to find outside such a relationship.

On 05/07/2016 at 0:14 AM, PerformativeSurprise said:

 I've had to share a bed with friends and family members on occasion, and I hate it.  When I was little, I distinctly remember wondering how people in romantic relationships dealt with this problem.  Nobody could possibly want to share a bed, right? I remember assuming this was just another price you had to pay if you got married 

Things like marriage, monogamy, being a couple, living together, co-sleeping, doing everything together, etc. I have always seen as uninteresting, unappealing and burdensome.
Whilst everyone around me seems to enthusiastically want to do these kind of things. Whilst apparently oblivious that there are 101 other ways to go about things.
At times the world can feel like a giant romance convention complete with rabid fangirls/boys.

On 31/07/2016 at 4:24 PM, Dodecahedron314 said:

Why is egregious and obtrusive PDA in romantic relationships a thing? It's happened multiple times where I will actively be having a conversation with someone and their romo-person just comes up to them and starts putting their face all over them, apropos of absolutely nothing. I don't know what sets it off and it's honestly really disconcerting. Bonus points if, like most of these instances, it's happened multiple times and continues to happen directly in front of me and other people despite the fact that I am quite clearly and visibly really frickin' uncomfortable with all of this. 

At a wild guess I'd say this is about putting you "in your place" in terms of their romantic relationship being at the top of the hierarchy. Where as you who are "just talking" is a very long way down.

On 31/07/2016 at 8:13 PM, Cassiopeia said:

The We-Must-Do-Everything-Together. What if they aren't into your hobbies? Doing something in a group is nice, but having the same group for everything is a bit unrealistic? Are you clones or what? Are you just repressing your personality?

With the optimal group size always being two people?

On 31/07/2016 at 8:13 PM, Cassiopeia said:

The phenomenon of the One. Do people seriously think their special person is perfect? Aren't there any flaws? Does that not worry you? It always felt unlikely, artificial to me.

Sounds not unlike religious faith to me.

On 31/07/2016 at 9:01 AM, Sooty Owl said:

I, for one, can't possibly understand how a lot of people seem to find extreme jealousy romantic. I just saw a post where a guy said that if a girl wanted to marry him she'd have to cut off all contact with other boys and everyone was gushing about how the fact that he was so protective was romantic and cute...

No it's not, it's abusive.

I don't get exclusivity in the first place.
Though I do see a certain irony in this senario. Given how common it is for people getting into romantic relationships to dump friends even if their partner does not demand it.
Agree that someone demanding this is creepy, controlling and potentially abusive. It certainly isn't in anyway "cute"!
IMHO it's a possible "red flag".

On 31/07/2016 at 10:32 AM, Zemaddog said:

This has more to do with monogamy, but it is heavily tied in with amatonormativity, so I'll include it: cheating. I just don't understand the sense of ownership that people for others. I just don't get how people don't want their partner with another person.

I've never got why anyone would want monogamy. Interestingly "cheating" is not confined to monogamy, though seems crazy for someone to ask for something they don't actually want.
To me partners having other partners feels the most natural thing in the world. Whereas someone wanting me as their only partner seems somewhat immature, clingy and creepy.

On 22/07/2016 at 2:15 AM, SoulWolf said:

INFP here.

 

Very interesting how common INTJ's are here, considering how rare they are pretty much everywhere else.

One interesting thing, which was recently pointed out to me on another forum, is that there are personality traits these tests are not even intended to measure.
In that case those connected to relationship orientation. But they may also not address sexual or romantic orientation.

5 hours ago, Quinoa said:

 A lot of people think a relationship without sex would just be a friendship, even though the term "friends with benefits" exists. 

Exactly "benefits" does not equate to "sex", it could mean affection, D/s or something else not generally expected in a (platonic) friendship. IME many people do make the assumption that FWB implies sex.
It almost appears to be the case that alloromantic people will tend to equate FWB with FB (Fuck Buddy: a relationship which is mostly/entirely about sex). Whereas aromantic people will tend to view FWB as being more akin to QueerPlatonic and consider the "friends" part to be of primary importance.

On 25/07/2016 at 6:35 PM, Rising Sun said:

Honestly this test has more stereotypes than true characteristics of romance. There are items that can make the difference, but the majority of items is more associated to cultural influence on romance and delusional mental disorders.

IMHO society and culture are hugely important when it comes to both both how romance is expressed and how it can be treated as such an important (and expected) form of behaviour.

10 hours ago, hangryeowyn said:

My romo ace friend and I were watching this miniseries called "Dramaworld" where a girl had to go into a tv show and make sure the main couple fell in love, and the Big Rule was that she wasn't supposed to fall in love with the Leading Man. When they say this rule in the show I comment that if it was me that wouldn't be a problem and she turns to me and goes

 

"Oh yeah right, you would totally fall for him"

 

And I'm thinking to myself 'Girl, you know I'm aro, why are you like this???' 

Unless the TV show is something like Seven Days or Tru Calling my first question would be "What's the worst that can happen if X and Y don't get in a romantic relationship?" I'd also ask if a romantic relationship was an absolute requirement to defat Skynet; shoot down the alien mothership; banish Cthulhu; prevent a major war; etc. (Have a missed any apocalyptic movie plots here?)

More seriously it shows that alloromantic asexuals and aromantic allosexuals can have very different points of view.