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17 hours ago, Guest Max said:

I don´t have a clue how it should feel like.

It shouldn't feel like one, specific, objective thing. If you don't experience anything you would or want to label as romantic, then you don't experience anything romantic. It's up to you. No one can know your feelings better than you - even when you're unsure of your feelings. After all, feelings are personal to you. 

17 hours ago, Guest Max said:

It feels like I only can have sexual relationships and platonic relationships , but isn't romance the combined feeling of that??? 

For some people, maybe. For me, it was a very distinct Other thing. 

17 hours ago, Guest Max said:

I´m question if I ´m aro or not

Do you want to be aro? Do you want to try it out? There's your answer. 

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Not much you can do about other people's feelings. All you can do is take whatever steps you need to protect yourself, such as not being touchy-feely with a person, communicating your own feelings, and/or stepping back from a relationship that makes you uncomfortable. It is an unfortunate fact that a lot of men have been raised to not be interested in friendships with women (or folk they see as women) or who feel they can't maintain a friendship with someone they have romantic/sexual feelings for. Not all men, but it's a balance you'll have to figure out for yourself on how many chances to give someone to find out where they stand on this regard. 

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Ooh, I'm in a bunch of different book groups online and someone mentioned City of Girls, which sounds relevant. It sounds like it definitely includes relationships but also so much more. 

"It was one of my book club books.  Not my usual horror reads.  It had a profound effect on me.  It is about a woman through the 1900's growing up.  It shows so many things that affected women and their decisions through the decades.  It was an absolutely amazing read.  It covers all of the topics from women being "encouraged" to marry, to going from privileged to being on your own, gay rights, Womens' rights,  and none of it being pushy through the story.  It is just told through her eyes as she goes through life."

Oh, and I was wondering if Anne Lister might be an interesting avenue. More non-fiction, but I believe her diaries have been published and Steidele did a biography that looks pretty good. I will say that the TV show Gentleman Jack made her out to be rather emotionally abusive, so just a potential trigger warning. I have no idea how much of that aspect was inspired by her diaries or made up for entertainment. 

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Oooh, like fictional books are fine! I was stick on non-fiction, sorry. 

I wonder how you might like The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher. It explores really a couple of different things with a focus on the main protagonist as an old woman and her place in society and how she's viewed by others. It also touches on dealing with things like anxiety and PTSD. It's fantasy, about an elderly woman who is marked as the Chosen One to defeat an army of dragons and how no one believes in her. I'd say for a teen to young adult audience. 

30 to 50 Feral Hogs is about a woman who defies really all societal expectations of women. She's muscular, queer, loves to fight, non-feminine. It's about how she carved out a place for herself in the world and that all came crashing down on her, so now she's hiding out in a tiny little town hiding from her own shame. 

I'm not sure how you'd feel about the Paper Girls trilogy. It's a YA fantasy that explores the impacts and devastation of sexual assault and how wrapped up in oppression it is. But it deals a lot with societal expectations of women and the damage it does to them. 

There is a prominent romantic relationship (polyamorous) in Iron Widow, but I still really want to suggest it. The protag is technically nonbinary but that's not a concept that really exists in the world (set in a fantastical/sci-fi influenced historical China), so she presents and is treated as a woman at least through the entire first book. But it's got a ton of themes about misogyny and class that are more central to the plot than the romance. 

I have the book sitting on my shelf but have only watched the movie, but I feel like The Secret Life of Bees might be a fitting book here. It's about a lot of women who've carved a niche out for themselves kinda off in their own little world taking in a child of abuse who's trying to come to terms with her past and figure out who she is. It's a lot about finding your place in the greater world. 

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy has an aroace protagonist and def heavily explores themes of intersectional feminism, so might be good. 

I may be reaching with some of these. I'll keep thinking. 

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12 hours ago, Via said:

I guess the definition of a romantic is feels a little to no, romantic attraction.

Yes, aromantic is rare to no attraction, with rare also encompassing "attraction only under specific circumstances", and as always with something as personal as identity, you can choose to ID as aro for a whole host of reasons beyond that. For example, you may feel attraction similar to the default expectation but have little to no interest in romantic relationships and therefore find aro a useful term for yourself. 

12 hours ago, Via said:

What does that mean if I can ask?

Oh, it just means what I was saying earlier. It's someone who is aro because they feel their romantic attraction was "cut away" by trauma. So, I used to feel/ID as alloro but don't anymore after trauma altered my feelings. :)

12 hours ago, Via said:

The person who actually told me that is also a Transmed… so if that gives you an idea of her beliefs. 

Yeah...wouldn't advise spending time with them, much less putting stock into anything they say. =X

23 hours ago, hemogoblin said:

I'll have to see if I can track it down on desktop later, but there's a great post on Tumblr about how aromantic is a personal identity but also a political one (probably true in many aspects for all identities) that feels relevant to share here. 

Found it!

https://www.tumblr.com/glimblshanks/705075867989262336/i-dont-know-how-much-this-has-actually-been

From glimblshanks:

I don't know how much this has actually been discussed in online spaces, but when I talk to other aros irl it's pretty widely agreed apon that being aromantic is both an orientation and a political identity. By which I mean that being aromantic requires a massive shift in world view, including the dismantling of amatonormativity, the deconstruction of what the word 'love' even means, and the realization that you have control over what your important relationships look like.

All of those things can have a major impact on your political outlooks, social outlooks, and simply the way you view the world. I've said before that even if I did experience romantic attraction some day I would still identify as aro because being aromantic has shifted my view of what relationships even are to such a degree that like... romantic relationships barely make sense as a category to apply to myself anymore.

Everyone I know who identified as aro or questioned if they were aro before experiencing attraction and identifying as allo has ended up poly for what I suspect is this exact reason. Polyamory is one of the only relationship models out there currently that allows for romantic relationships outside of the typical amatonormative model and once you've done some work dismantling how society views relationships slotting right back into traditional monogamy doesn't have a lot of appeal.

So anyways op, I know a lot of folks in the notes are taking this to simply mean 'not wanting to date' (which is fine, that is still a radical notion in our society that I'm glad the aro community can make space for) but I think your tags are absolutely right about pushing amatonormativity out of our spaces as an aro value that people can (and should!) believe in and benefit from even if they're not aro.