LBMango

I've recently seen a lot of emotional health things going .around saying "You are valued. You are special. You are loved." And I understand that to a lot of people this is an important thing to be reminded of. And the 1st two I have no issues with... But I am not sure that I'm loved. I'm LIKED, I have plenty of friends. I understand that there's platonic love, and familial love, etc, it's not just romantic love. But I'm not sure that I experience any of those either... And it bothers me that not feeling "loved" is equated to valuelessness... Is that part of Aro? Is that part of being vaguely (VERY VERY VAGUELY) on the Asperger's spectrum? Is it just part of depression?

yep. Especially bad when I feel the need for cuddles or other physical affection.

I'm pretty sure that the answer to your question is "squirrel".

My feeling is that labels aren't contracts. A label describes how you feel when you give it to yourself. You're young. You may well change various labels many many times. Other labels you may never change. You're 16. It's a phase. But everything is a phase, and that doesn't mean that a given label doesn't describe how you are feeling right now. At the same time, if you change your mind next year, or in 15 or 30 years, no one is going to track you down and punish you for being "wrong"... (At least I hope not. That would be really rude)

Not to derail, but I think this is funny: I live in the Boston MA, USA area, which we call "New England". And I have dyslexia, so I read things.... oddly sometimes... So every time I see this thread, I see "New England meetup" and get excited... No action is requested on your part or anything... I just thought it was funny that after multiple months, I **STILL** make this mistake...

I mean, yes I am a misanthrope... but that has nothing to do with my romantic feelings or lack thereof...

I found I was aro when I found out aro was a thing.... I accidentally offended an ace-but-not-aro couple by being confused by the concept... and sort of derived the existence of aro from there...

I like variety. Some times I need to be alone. Sometimes I need to be in a big group of friends, sometimes I need one-on-one... Sometimes I need to be alone reading on a park bench in a busy park or in a busy coffee shop...

I think it's extra easy to be undiagnosed aro in (at least) American society, where we put an unrealistic emphasis on "finding The One"... So a lot of people who are actually aro have been trained to think that they just haven't found The One yet... OTOH: I, at least, tend to assume that everyone else is just like me until proven otherwise... So, I think that subconsciously I assume that everyone is aro until evidence shows otherwise... Clearly I'm wrong, but that's just how my brain works... (By "extra easy to be" I mean, it's easy for that to happen. Not that it's easy on the individual, in case that was unclear)

Do most animals experience what we would call romantic attraction? That seems like a uniquely human thing...

Pretty much all of the "early signs" I just interpreted as "I'm an awkward geek", or an mostly emotionless wall... I never dated in high school or college. I've dated very infrequently since then. When I do date, I never really understood what to do... of course, I didn't understand any of these signs until I met a romantic ace couple and was confused as to the point... When I was 45...

Speaking from one set of experience: You are clearly overthinking it. Unfortunately, also speaking from experience: knowing that you're overthinking it doesn't actually help solve the problem... I don't know how to answer your actual question, because I don't really know what any of these things really MEAN... I guess it comes down to : What do you want to DO with A? Hang out with a group of friends? probably not a crush.... Again, speaking for me, I often say "How do you know I'm overanalyzing? I'm breathing." So take all of this for whatever worth you find in it... B-/ Sorry to not be more help.

XNTX: 100% N, 100% T, exactly 50/50 on the other two...

I guess I'm never anxious about other people's responses to me expressed feelings... I'm not sure what that says about me...

I haven't seen a FAQ about internal site stuff like this... and it's not like it actually matters, I'm just curious what distinguishes "newbie" from "Member" from "advanced member" or whatever?

Stockholm Syndrome is a Thing... B-/

This came out of another thread. I'm trying to figure out if I'm conflating two different things, or they're actually related. (So the answer of "no it's not a romantic concept" is totally plausible) I have never understood the concept of "emotional vulnerability" because I never felt that there was any possibility of me coming to harm. "vulnerable" means (to me at least) that there's some risk, or danger. I'm not closed off. I'll pretty much tell anyone anything, if they care. But I have never felt "emotionally vulnerable" because I can't imagine the danger... Pretty much I imagine it like, if I share something, a person is either going to be an asshole about it, or not. I trust my own judgement that the people I share with aren't going to be assholes. But if I'm wrong, I trust my ability to cut them off... But like, with a romantic partner, why would I want to be in a Relationship with someone I didn't trust to not be an asshole? OBVIOUSLY many people are, and people are in, and remain in abusive relationships. But I have never experienced that, so believe that I would be able to avoid it (I may be wrong, but since I'm aro, I'll probably never find out) So, is this related to aro? or is this just me being a 100% NT on the Meyer's Briggs? Correlations? Causations? Anything?

Both of these have ALWAYS confused me... So what if it's just a phase? This is where you are now. The question is (usually) "why aren't you dating?" PRESENT TENSE. And that's the answer. No one knows that anything is forever. And what is there to be afraid of? I think that this may be part of my aroness, but I've never understood the concept of "emotionally vulnerable". I mean, I'll share anything that I think someone else might care about... but basically I trust my judgement that my friends aren't assholes (or they ARE assholes, but in predictable ways at least B-)). "vulnerability" implies fear or risk to me... I just don't feel like there's anything there to risk...

So, today is National Coming Out Day in the US (why would different countries have different coming out days?) It occurs to me to wonder, do I qualify? I've never considered myself LGBTQ. I'm heterosexual aro, cis-male. As such, I don't think of my aro-ness as ... interesting enough? There's certainly no situation where I would experience active discrimination because of it... Just a vague sense of unease and out-of-placeness... and difficulties in relationships... Basically, I don't feel any right to the rainbow flag, more than any other cis-hetero gay-rights supporter. So, does saying I'm Aro count as "coming out" in this context? Do others who's only "queerness" is aspec consider themselves LGBTQ?

I've only told two friends and my therapist so far... The therapist was like "Huh, that's a thing I'll have to research!" My friends basically said "huh, interesting. is that a thing?" Basically all of my friends are extremely analytical, so pretty much everyone I expect to take it as an intellectual exercise.. which is how I take it, so that's ok... Basically, the reason I haven't told more people is because I don't think that they would care...

I'm assuming they meant the binary gender references...

I think that for MOST people (allo) they are the same, and indistinguishable. At least that's how it's displayed in the media... At least that's my impression, and why it took me so long to figure out that I'm aro... I accidentally really insulted an ace couple once because of this... made me re-evaluate...

It occurred to me that one of the relationship styles that I could see working for me is what I'm tentatively calling "fractionamory". Because I only want part of the relationship that other people want, it might make sense for anyone I'm in a relationship with to be in another relationship that satisfies the parts that I can't. Is this a Thing? Basically an aro person being in one or more secondary relationships, but not being anyones primary? Is there a better word for this?

I felt that way, until I learned about asexuality. At that point, I was like "wait, WHAT?" and had to re-evaluate my entire definitional structure... The term aromantic wouldn't exist if what we both initially assumed were actually true... nor would asexual... So the only assumption I can make is that there IS something else that I don't know how to see. It's like everyone else has a sense that we don't have... We always assumed that they were talking metaphorically about this extra sense, but no, really they do have it and we don't... I sort of look at it like physicists with dark matter. They know it's there, because there's a hole in the model that needs to get filled. They know the shape of this thing, because they can see where there's this missing stuff, but they can't actually tell what it IS. That's what romantic attraction/love is to me. I can see where it fits into other people's reactions and the things that other people say, but it's basically a giant invisible hole that I can't actually see myself... Being new to the aro community myself, I am not sure if this is a common way of thinking about this or not, but it helps me...

Is there a list of meetups or aro groups? I see several locations post things here, but it doesn't seem to all be in one place, which would be useful, maybe?