Mark

I think there's a why as much as a who dimension here. In that aros potentially being interested in dating and hookups for the "wrong" reasons from the allo POV. IME LGBT+ communities can put couples, marriage and amantonormativity as much of a pedestal as mainstream society. It some cases advocating "marriage equality" can look like "matrimanial fanaticism".

Is this the point at which alloromantics start to prioritise (even experience) romance. Which would be interesting given that younger children certainly can understand philia and storge. Probably philautia, agape and ludus. I've never really understood the singular part of this. (Even without the romance part, as is the case in some QPR definitions, the soulmate/other half idea is something I'm at best indifferent to.) This sounds like "romantic coding" feelings. The other side of the coin is that having or seeking "closeness" can be interpreted as "romantic love"...

I'm sure there are also examples of multiple English words which translate into a single French word. This kind of thing is part of the reason why mechanical (AI) translation is difficult. A similar example is how eight words from classical Greek translate to "love" in modern English. I'm not sure if the site notifies people who have voted if a poll is altered.

No. No. No.

I wonder how much romantic coding may also be an issue with Quality time, Receiving gifts and Acts of service. Since "Positivity Posts" are Words of affirmation only.

That's certainly its dictionary definition and colloquial English usage. Does anyone know when it started to be used to mean "not romantic" and "not romantic, but possibly, sexual". At that time there was no "aro community". Possibly it even predates any "aro ace community". Thus I think the "...can be sexual" bit is aimed at "sex positive" aces rather than allo aros. It has a narrow enough definition to appear in dictionaries as either "non sexual" or "non physical". (The latter including the former.) Slang or jargon uses or words are often confusing, especially outside of the context they were coined. Doing this so as to make a word its own antonym is likely to be really messy. There's no actual reason for the aro community to use the same jargon as the ace community.

Something which rarely seems to be considered is how sexual orientation affects the experience of aromanticism. Do aro allos and aro aces experience being aromantic differently? If this is the case does it also matter if aros are heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, etc? (Often intersectional analyses treat can treat characteristics as binaries. Even when they are clearly more varied.) Ditto for greysexual, demisexual or quoisexual aros.

I think it matters if "straight" means "heterosexual", "heteroromantic" or "heterosexual and heteroromantic". With only the first one making much sense to aros. There can be such a big assumption of periorientation that "heterosexual" gets used to mean "heteroromantic"; "homosexual" to mean "homoromantic"; etc. Which I think can cause complications for any varioriented allosexual.

These are specifically for platonic, with it's regular meaning, friends. Similarly these are platonic friendships. Which alloromantics, especially those who are "friends first", may wish to "upgrade" to romantic relationships. Though ir seems to be very much an aro thing to want non-platonic (including Queer Platonic) friendships. Not all aros will be interested in any kind of "Platonic Partnership". With FWB having all sorts of issues. Both in respect of the term itself and being interpreted differently by different people. There is a site called Adult Friend Finder. However it's a swingers site. Thus catering towards alloromantics.

I always suspected a strong ace input. Because of the likes of "Queer Platonic Relationships can be sexual". Which is oxymoronic. With allo aros having no reason to want to go into ace spaces in the first place. But we can find ourselves having to do so. Because that's where most of the aro resources, still, are. Exactly.

I was thinking about this kind of issue. In terms of aplatonic along with squish and alterous. Were these also coined in an "ace-first" environment? I think it's also worth asking which terms originate from the "aro community"?

This could be Toxic Positivity or a case of wrong Love Language.

AFAIK there are no such meetups near me. Though, if there were, I'd find "mostly ace" a disincentive. (Even more so if that translated to "mostly alloromantic".)

I came across this article on Queer loneliness and friendship. Which whilst it does not, directly, mention aromanticism does mention issues which may be applicable.

I found quite mixed reviews of this on the, Android, app store. Including complains about too many allosexuals using it. Another app which is sometimes mentioned is Patook, which is exclusively for platonic friendships. Many mainstream dating apps do have a "platonic friends" option. My feeling is all of these are written by and for alloromantics.

Specifically romantic dating and seeking romantic relationships. Which are not too dissimilar from what other alloromantics do. Indeed allosexual alloromantics who are "wait until marriage" might go about dating in exactly the same way as asexual alloromantics. Dating websites/apps typically have mostly platonic matching criteria. On the other hand there is little consensus of what a date without romance would look like. Even though everything people actually do on dates is romantic coded... Similarly for non-romantic relationships, especially those which are sexual or otherwise non-platonic. Even more so as long term relationships...

What is going on here is best described as a "double empathy problem". There's also the situation of alloromantics: privileged majority and aromantics: dis-privileged minority. What this leads to is the allo (privileged) position being seen as default position or "human nature" with everyone including aros (dis-privileged) expected to understand romanticism. Conversely there's no expectation on allos to understand aromanticism at all or to feel guilty for not doing so. This is a "privilege thing" rather than an "aro thing".

The difficulty I see here is that of a small group people: aros who realise are aro, rather than thinking they are "broken allos" combined with a wide variety of possible relationships: QPRs, non-romantic sexual relationships, deep friendships together with others which fall outside the false dichotomy of "(sexual) romantic or platonic friendship".

This is also the case for "you're not the right kind of queer/aromantic/trans/etc". That's before considering "twue aro" metrics which only apply to minority of aros.

Do you know how many people this involves and which question they stopped at? This might itself be useful data.

Part of amantonormativity is to dissuade questioning of the premise that these kind of relationships are (best) for everyone. Hence ideas like "wrong person", "not ready for", etc. There are similar attitudes related to heteronormativity and mononormativity.

I've always been more interested in dating than being "in a relationship". With most other people appearing to be more interested in the latter.

With "family" meaning "extended family", sometimes very extended. Rather than anything like a "nuclear family". It's also a lot about money and property. For high status people this often included politics and treaties too. (In some cases marriages only to end and prevent wars.) IIRC the greedy marriage is a recent thing even within Western societies. Yet the myth of marriage being "community building" persists. There's also the "Bridal Tour" which could involve travelling with or visiting relatives and friends. Which appears to have fallen out of fashion.

It would be interesting to know what these relationships were called at the time, rather than about a century later. It would also be worth knowing what romantic relationships typically looked like before the mid 19th century. These kind of relationships falling out of fashion as amantonormativity came in certainly seems significant.

They are always depicted as Vees rather than triangles. Though I've always found the "pick one" rather than "both" or "neither" seems more of a plot contrivance than anything else. why would anyone want to be a fractional person in the first place?