Mark

It's very much a recent thing to define "polyamourous" as being specific to "romantic relationships". The person who coined the term is on record as saying they intended "amorous" to have it's regular meaning of "sexual". With this FAQ, from 1997 not mentioning romance at all. (If it's anywhere it would be as a subset of "emotional".)

This appears to use yet another definition of "alterous". Not sure how well these would apply to people who are demi, quoi or disagree with the definitions given. The definitions appear to be somewhere "asymmetric". Sexual Attraction: The desire to have sex/perform sexual acts with someone. Rather than desire for a sexual relationship. Romantic Attraction: The desire to have a romantic relationship/to do romantic things with someone. What are "romantic things"? Sensual Attraction. The desire to give or receive touch. e.g. cuddling. kissing, holding hands, etc. All of those being romantic coded. Aesthetic Attraction: When you are attracted to someone's appearance. Alterous Attraction: To desire a deep, emotional bond with someone but not in a romantic way. There's also a rather obvious flaw with the second part.

The term dysphoria is actually rather general. Most references are about gender, often also physical rather than social. Personally I don't see that much difference between trying to fit into an amantonormative society or a cisnormative one. In both cases there's the mismatch of "social paradigms". Even though the details differ.

This kind of relationship may or may not be "platonic". Depending on if the term is being used to mean "non physical" or "non sexual". With the additional complication being that kissing may or may not be sexual. IMHO how "romantic" it might be depends more on how much the people involved identify as a couple. Which isn't stated. It's not something I would especially want. Maybe without the bed sharing. TBH I'm quite ambivalent about if this is called a "romantic friendship" or "QPR".

I find couple culture quite intimidating and alienating. Whilst also pervasive, even far beyond (romantic) relationships. e.g. the "split into pairs" meme which commonly appears in education and training.

I wonder if this is especially common in English speaking countries where terms like boyfriend and girlfriend are common euphemisms for romantic partner.

I'd have though if there were a need for a term to describe such relationships it would be expressed by allo aces. AFAIK they use "romantic", to describe such relationships. What I think is more lacking is recognition (and terms to describe) non-romantic sexual relationships. The adjective form of "friend" is "friendly". With platonic lacking an obvious noun form. I don't understand how these words have become linked.

The definition "platonic" meaning either "non sexual" or "non physical" is what you typically find in English language dictionaries. The usual way it's associated with friendship is the term "platonic friend". The notion of "platonic" meaning "friendship" appears to have originated within the ace community. Plato never made use of the term. TBH it has about as much to do with him as "romantic" has to do with the Romans It can be used for both "in between A and B" and "neither A nor B" which are somewhat different.

Is this London Group you mean? Which dosn't appear that active and currently unable to offer ace, rather than aspec, events. AUREA lists a group in New Jersey (which may be the New York one). This also does not appear to be especially active either.

I'm not sure that there are any genetic factors involved in romance at all. Even allowing for the possibility of horizontal gene transfer it dosn't seem plausible that something could come into being and spread so rapidly. Whereas cultural imperialism does seem a plausible explanation for near global amantonormativity which currently exists,.

Linguistically speaking there is no issue. Nor is there with the original definition. Where the issues occur is that many polyamory groups are highly couple and romance centric. I think how to navigate societies where conflation of sex and romance is normative. It's, ironically, something I think the ace community can do better....

This sounds rather like quoiromantic. Though do be aware that there are mis-definitions of the term are to be found on the likes of Urban Dictionary.

Ironically groups for gay men are fairly common. The issue I have with many "A-spec" groups is they are, defacto, ace groups. All of them appear to have started off as ace groups which have attempted to diversity. These are the same kind of issues which would arise with a gay or gay & lesbian group trying to become and LGBT+ group involved. This isn't how things happened with ace meetups. AFAIK these happened from having a good and extensive online community. This is something which is, IMHO, very much lacking for aros.

Guessing you mean the Visibility, Articles, and Meetups forum. Which dosn't have that many posts about meetups, TBH. If you look for aro meetups using meetup.com there are very few which are actually ace groups or subgroups of ace groups. Similar with aces & aros with additionally their "world map" only really covering two countries.

Who's him? I would understand "platonic" to mean either "non physical" or "non sexual".(The former including the latter.) Thus "platonic attraction" does not make much sense to me. Hence "quoiplatonic". Whilst I do find "platonic relationship" to be a useful term. I see "platonic" and "romantic" as different concepts which are not at all antonyms. Effectively "between platonic and romantic" being about as meaningful as "between temperature and colour". Nor do I see any reason a relationship cannot be both "platonic" and "romantic". I do see "platonic" and "sexual" as antonyms. With terms like "platonicish", "partly platonic", "mostly platonic" being descriptive of a between.

One possibility would be to give aro allo members priority in terms of facilitating/leading discussions.

It's certainly a romantic coded idea. But for some people in may be a sexual or other physical intimacy thing. Similarly for wanting to share a bed with two or more people. I was thinking that this would come under "group". Though plausibly a large group. Which of the group options would depend on if this were separate rooms or some kind of dormitory.

What would be your idea situation? Assuming there were no practical concerns or limitations.

How would you ideally like to live? Assuming that there were no practical issues constraining your choice.

Reading a review of the Hinge app your experience makes sense. Unfortunately allos tend to equate and conflate "serious" with "romantic". Though IME Tinder also has many people seeking romantic relationships. How do your family suggest you meet people? In practice in person meetings are likely to be the most dangerous.

I wonder if there is a way to "beta test" surveys. Since these kind of issues are not uncommon. I've encountered those which are impossible to complete, due to logical fallacies, but are unfixable because of "sunk costs".

There's a meme which goes: “Diversity is having a seat at the table. Inclusion is having a voice. And belonging is having that voice be heard.” How will that help allo aros with inclusion or belonging? This tumblr covers some of the reasons why aro allos might be uncomfortable in aspec spaces. That would only address diversity, rather than inclusion and belonging.

I was surprised when I put up this poll how uncommon squishes appear to be amongst aros. When most aro related articles imply that they apply to the majority of aros. It's similarly possible for someone to have a non-sexual crush on someone else and threat them poorly. Which might even be seen as more morally pure than a crush with concurrent sexual attraction. Which could be a possible complication with romantic harassment. The difficulty here is that purely sexual attraction, along with interest in non-romantic sexual relationships, can be highly pathologised. Including self pathologisation. If you are constantly exposed to toxic ideas it can be difficult to avoid internalising them. I'm left wondering why squishes are talked about so much when they just arn't that common. It's not just movies. This trope appears throughout drama and fiction. As well as being pushed through peer pressure. The deception aspect would also apply to the "nice guy" trope.

"When did you first start identifying as aromantic?" with the option of "before 1970" does not really make sense. Possibly if there was a question like "When did you first realise your attitudes towards relationships and romance differed from those of most people?"

Something important to me would be avoiding conflating aro with ace. Also something which wasn't just for students.