metelyk

Oh no! I found this forum recently and it has been nice to use, I hope, that it will continue to exist. I wish I could help but I have little money and little time

I chose maybe for marriage. I do not want to get married, but I can not say I will not change my mind in the right circumstances (for example, with a qpp), even if it is very unlikely. For children, I chose biological children but I also wanted to choose adopted because I have no preference I have always wanted children and being single will not stop me from having them haha.

I think, dreams do not always mean much. I believe, that they have symbolic meanings, yes, but not literal. Maybe flying means you feel free or light, but it does not mean you can literally fly. The same is for dreaming of a crush. Maybe you have been thinking about her lately, and your mind interpreted it as "what if things had been different?" so you dreamed of that? I had a similar dream 2-3 weeks ago. I do not normally dream of romance or romantic feelings (I think, I have had maybe 3 romantic dreams in my whole life) but this time I dreamed I was with a guy, that I almost dated last year. In the dream, he was in love with me and did things like hold my hand, cuddle me, etc. Instead of being uncomfortable or indifferent, like I am in real life, I liked it and felt like it was right. I thought: "hey, maybe I can do this." I was confused when I woke up and wondered if it means I am not aro after all. But as I said, just because the brain can imagine something does not mean it will happen in real life, and even if it does, it does not mean it will be enjoyable. I mean, one time I dreamed of being Voldemort and killing Harry Potter. Does that mean I will actually kill someone and enjoy it? No, it just means I have a good imagination.

Titanic was my favourite movie as a child/teenager, but the love story went WAY over my head... I loved it because I like history and I thought, that the ship was cool. To me it was "this is historical drama where two people meet on a ship, but then it sinks and one of them dies, which is why it is important to always have enough lifeboats". I did not realise until many years later that people view it as a romantic story (Also, little ace Metelyk did NOT understand "draw me like one of your french women" scene hahaha)

1. I went through multiple periods of questioning. For a long time I was straight by default, then a friend came out as gay, so I started thinking about my orientation. I could not decide between bisexual and asexual. In the end I decided I was bisexual, then I questioned again and thought I was biromantic demisexual, then greysexual, then bi asexual. Only then, I started questioning being aromantic. It was a long process. 2. Discovering I am ace helped me discover I am aro. I think I first had to accept that it is okay to not experience sexual attraction, before I could accept it is okay to not experience any attraction at all. Even if I already questioned being aro a little bit before discovering I am ace, I was not confident to explore it until after I knew I am ace. Also, the fact that the communities are so linked helped. 3. I chose "related" but I actually think they are... can I say "separate but related"? They are two different things, but they mix so much that I find it hard to cut them apart from each other. Like two different sides of one coin. It was also the fact that they are related, that helped me realise I am aroace and not bi ace, because I could not tell where I stopped being biromantic and started being asexual. I could not draw a clear line and say "I have desire for these things but not for these things". In the end, I realised I had desire for none of the things. To me, it all feels like a lack of attraction but it manifests in different ways, if that makes sense.

I also had an aro dream recently. I dreamed, that I was dating a guy (usually I never dream this). We decided to go on a holiday together to a village in the mountains. In the dream I did my best to NOT get tickets for the same bus and also booked my own room in the hotel. Then, halfway through the holiday, I forgot completely, I was with my guy, and I joined a group of American tourists instead and went skiing with them and had a lot of fun

Wow, I relate to everything in this thread. I was feeling alone (my friends have been talking a lot about romance at the moment) and now I suddenly feel much less alone. It is great to know other people have the same experience and also do not understand romance

Hello Amanda I also cried when I found out I am aro. Well, I cried several times in the process (first when I realised I am probably aro, then several times because I felt bad to be aro, then when an aro friend told me it's okay to be aro) - but I also felt very happy that finally I have an explanation for, well, my whole life. It is a complicated process. It is important to give yourself time with it I also feel guilty sometimes about the people I have dated in the past. I know that they loved me, and I did not know I was aro so I could not explain why I loved them, but also did not love them at the same time. Sometimes I wish I could write to them again to apologise. But I don't think that will help. I did not know I am aro back then, I was only doing my best with what I knew about myself. It was not my fault I was confused about my feelings, and it is not your fault either. At the end, I am me and you are you and we are aro and that is just the way we are. Nobody should need to apologise or feel guilty for who they are.

Yes! I love her, and the 9 year old who said "mmh, I guess it's a mystery". Also the 26 year old who said "knowing you are with good peeps, it doesn't have to be romantic"

I found this video, with title "70 Women Ages 5-75 Answer: What Does It Mean to Be in Love?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2oD2sZlQlw I thought, it will be fun to see how far I can watch the video and still relate to what they are saying. I can relate to the children ages 5-9, and after that it feels like the tone changes. Suddenly there is talk about butterflies and wanting to be with the person all the time. A lot of the descriptions I do not experience at all, but a lot of others, I do not understand why they have to be romantic? A lot of the time it just sounds like these people are describing close friends. Like 18: to be happy and feel like you are safe. Why should this only be one person, your partner??? Why it is not a friend? I am confused. That is what is most interesting for me in this video, that I can relate to a lot. I feel a lot of these things, like being vulnerable with people, understanding and being understood, feeling safe, etc. I just do not feel them as romantic. I wonder if these are actually NOT romantic, but just closeness with people, but when allos start having crushes they put all those feelings of closeness on one person instead of sharing them with many people outside of romantic relationships (like little children do, I think). So society begins to associate them with romantic love. And then when aros say we are aro, allos assume that we do not feel that same closeness because they think "closeness = romantic love". But in fact they are two different things. Does this make sense? (Also, I know that not all aros feel or want to feel the things I mentioned, and that's okay But I do feel them, which is why I consider it is interesting to discuss them.) What do you think? Can you also relate to some of the video, or is it all strange to you?

Thanks to everyone for your answers Yes, I know the concept of QPR and I have always thought it is something I want. (Even before I knew I was aro, I have said it was basically my ideal relationship.) But I did not know that QPR is also a way of feeling about people. I thought it was just a type of relationship that you can have. Is there such a thing as QPR attraction? Like romantic attraction, but instead of wanting to be in a romantic relationship, you want to be in a QPR. That might be able to describe how I feel. That sounds EXACTLY like it. I want the kind of close friendship children have I actually used to have a friendship like that, when I was 8-11, but when I was 11 my friend said she had "grown up" out of it, and there were rumours I was a lesbian because I showed too much affection for her, so she did not want to be my friend anymore. Since then I have always wanted the same kind of friendship that we had, but I am also afraid people will assume I have romantic feelings, like my friend did, so I stay more withdrawn than I would like to be. But at the end of the day, what I want is a best friend, nothing else. Thank you! That also makes sense. And thank you for the links as well, they were interesting to read

I feel like the way I love is not how people are supposed to love. I will try to explain. Sometimes (so far it has happened four times in my life) I will meet someone I feel a connection with. Like we have known each other before, like there is a deep part in me that recognises a deep part in them. I would say almost like soulmates, except the kind of soulmates were you have many, not just one. I love these people very, very deeply, and I want them to love me back the same way. Some of the things I want to do with them are: call ourselves best friends forever; chat about everything (often we have many things in common and I want to have conversations about them); be physically affectionate, with hugs, cuddles, and being "allowed" to touch each other without worrying that they might think it's romantic; tell them how amazing they are; hang out, but not all the time, but when we do it is quality time; tell each other all our secrets; be there for each other when things are bad; make things for each other, like write stories and draw things for each other... That is the general idea. I used to think this was romantic love, but it is not a love that makes me want to date them, or say and do romantic things, or be a couple, or even be each other's most important person. Imagining those things with a person makes me uncomfortable. I can also feel this way about several people at the same time, and can want to have the same friendship with several people. It is not a "one and only" kind of love, where I think about them all the time and feel like there is butterflies or… I don't know, whatever romantic love feels like. I am now almost sure I have never felt romantic love before. The best description I can find for this love is "best friends" (but not because we already are best friends, more like, we could be). I have read lists of friendship quotes on google and that is how I feel. But at the same time, it feels more intense than what people expect in friendship. It seems like most people want to be close to friends, but the only person they love as deeply as this is their partner. This makes me feel like the kind of love I have is "wrong", because it is too much for friendship but there is still something missing for it to be romantic. Either people will want this love + romance, or they will not want it at all. I also worry that it is too much for me to be aromantic. I know I am aro, being aro makes so much sense to me, but maybe the kind of love I feel is still too close and intense (or at least, society makes it seem that way) and aromantic people are not supposed to experience it either. Even though it does not feel romantic to me, it just feels like… love. Just deep, platonic love, and some kind of recognition. So I am wondering, do other aro people experience this? Does anybody know what it is called? Does it even have a name? Am I mistaken and it is romantic love, even though it does not fit any of the symptoms and desires I have read, except for it being very strong and wanting to be close? Thank you, I look forward to knowing what you think

I am in the 20-25 age. I discovered aromanticism on an online forum around 2015, but I did not think it would apply to me, because the aromantic person was romance-repulsed and did not want any kind of close relationship, and that did not sound like me. (I also thought then, that romance was "I really like this person and I want to be friends", and I experience that a lot, so I believed I could not be aro.) My friends asked me several times if I was aromantic from 2015-2018, but I still did not understand what it was and I wanted to be "normal", so I refused to consider it. In 2018 a friend came out to me as aromantic and that is when I started researching it better. I only started identifying as aro this year.

Another early sign that made me laugh today: I was reading an old story I wrote, in which one character falls in love with another. The female character was, in a way, intended to be an alter-ego of me. These are some passages (translated into English, I am sorry if it sounds strange): "- Is it true, she said, that you love me? He barely heard himself answer: - It is true. - You will have to teach me to love you back, she said." "So many days, he thought about her, he hoped to see her again; for a long time, he listened to his heart beat, knowing that it only beat for her. (continue for two more paragraphs describing his feelings) That was what he kept thinking to himself. And what did she think about? Nothing. She felt nothing." I really, really should have realised something was going on when so few of my stories contained romance, and those that did, were about people who did not know how to love romantically...

Hahaha, I had the same thought! I never imagined my wedding, except when other people asked me, then I came up with random ideas (lanterns sound nice as decoration, right?). Once, I applied for a writing job and the recruiter asked me to write an article about "romantic ideas for weddings in winter". My immediate thought was "why do you expect me to know what on Earth is romantic??" - and I didn't even know I was aro then. But I think there are many other life milestones that can be celebrated with a big party like a wedding Maybe not as extravagant or expensive, but nothing says you can't celebrate things like buying a new house with a nice dinner and cake.