hemogoblin

I wasn't there, and I don't know you or your (former) partner, but from what I'm reading, I don't think you irrevocably messed up or that you need to be so hard on yourself over what happened. I think possibly you both didn't handle things perfectly, which - you're both human: that happens. It sounds like you got excited about where you were headed with this person and talked about something that you possibly knew was off the table (?) but thought that they may have changed their mind instead of asking them about it and having a conversation. It sounds like your partner could have chosen to talk with you about this at any point about how yes, they wanted to spend their life with you but didn't want that to include marriage. It sounds very possible that your partner was also having other doubts that they chose not to communicate with you and so things compounded and they panicked and chose to withdrawal as a defense mechanism. I think you both didn't have a conversation where a conversation could have really helped clear things up. (To be clear, the conversation still might have lead to a separation but maybe you'd both feel like you had more closure, if not any less hurt, if it had happened this way.) I do think that the break-up and them avoiding you is a clear sign not to push things with them right now, though. I can think of several possibilities of why this person suddenly broke things off, but all we know for sure is that they decided to break things off and avoid you. That hurts. And I'm so sorry you're experiencing this. I know it can't feel good. One of the great advice columnists I follow has a saying, though: "closure is the gift you give yourself". Be gentle with yourself. Give yourself time to wallow. But don't ignore the boundary they're holding up now. By ignoring you, they're telling you - even if in a very hurtful way - that they don't want to engage with you. And don't hold yourself back from experiencing life by getting too caught up in waiting for them to realize you two can still patch things up. You have no idea if they want to patch things up or if they do, how long that would even take them. So how can you take care of yourself right now? What other relationships in your life (friends, family, other relationships) can you foster right now? What hobbies and passions did you perhaps not give as much time to when you were with this person? What new things are happening in your town that you want to participate in? What self-care habits would feel good right now? No one can predict what will happen in the future. All you can do is live for the now. Your former partner has cut off communication. It seems likely that they know you are open to talking and meeting up. If you haven't been contacting them a whole bunch and have been mostly leaving them alone, I do think it would be okay for you to leave them one last message wherever is most reasonable/within boundaries saying that you're open to talking if they want to but that you're going to respect their boundary and back off and let them be the ones to re-open communicate with you if they ever want to do that. As the person who has cut off communication... it's up to them to open it back up and approach you, especially since you're open to that. Which means, yes, I think you need to let your ex go. If they want to talk, they'll let you know. And to answer the root question asked in your title: yes, I do think it can work between an allo and an aro... but that doesn't mean it will always work between an allo and an aro. ?

I think it makes sense that an identity that doesn't apply to them is only meaningful to them in understanding you! That's definitely reasonable. I do have one friend from my past who unfortunately has taken to pestering me about getting a pet or mentioning she wants to hook me up with random men (and only men for some reason even though I was previously bi/pan before I was aro) in her life, including my boss and a friend of hers who they think is also rather aroace because I came out as aro and she "doesn't want me to be alone" even though I'm perfectly happy with my status and in fact would be unhappy if partnered up - even with a roommate.

Concise answers first! Yes, you certainly can! Nobody can really determine this but you, though. Identity is a personal thing. But having been married nor having children nor even being in romantic love precludes you from the aromanticism or the aro spectrum. Maybe! It's difficult re-analyzing your past through your current perspective, but again, this is something only you can decide, since it's your life and your identity and your experiences. Longer answers, if you want some aro and identity-based analysis. Identity is complicated and weird. This is because it's personal and completely subjective. You can't take any test and have it spit out the "correct" identity for you. There is no such thing as labeling yourself incorrectly, imo, only outgrowing a label or exploring labels and deciding they're not longer right for you. Howe we label should be based on what label we want to use, what label comforts us, what label feels most right to us, what label helps us best communicate with others how we feel, and/or what label best connects us with a community who has had similar experiences to us/that we can personally connect with/understand. How we label can be determined by whichever of those is most important to us at the time. But how we label is also totally determined by: our exposure to and knowledge of certain labels, not to mention it can be impacted by our overall headspace, place in life, who're we're around socially, etc. And we don't always have a clear understanding of what draws us to one label over another. It's like... you may crave spaghetti and eat it for a week straight and then the next week find spaghetti unappealing even though you like it perfectly fine and always have. Or it's like starting a new TV show but not having the headspace to take in new content and end up not liking the show, even though you try it again six months later and fall in love with the show. Our emotions and feelings are so subjective and impacted by so many little things and big things, and this can impact how we feel even about our own identity on a small scale and certainly in the long-term. When I was 21 - 22, I started questioning my gender for the first time in my life. Around 23, even though completely unsure and doubtful and not feeling valid enough, I decided to label as nonbinary. At around 25, I finally came to terms with being nonbinary and was completely comfortable identifying that way. Then at 26, I realized I also identified as genderqueer. For a while, I thought my gender, like my romantic attraction, was impacted by the abusive relationship I had recently escaped at the time of my questioning. In the following years, I know for sure the relationship did impact my romantic attraction (as well as me becoming aplatonic), but I've started to realize that the same probably isn't true for my gender. Looking back, I can now see several signs that could have pointed to me being nonbinary when I was younger and just not having the language for it or a big enough reason to cause me to really think about it enough to realize it. But in the end... I'll really never know if I was really nonbinary when I was younger or not because our identities? They're also largely impacted by our perspective and understanding of ourselves. We are continually discovering more about ourselves as we grow and understanding ourselves and our desires in different ways. We also experience more and what we experience can impact us, who we are, and who we understand we are, changing our understanding of our identity or making a certain aspect of our identity more or less important to us (in recent times, my aromanticism has become a bigger part of my experience than my asexuality, which was previously a much bigger component of who I was than my romantic attraction), or giving us new understanding of how we feel and what we want, making different labels seem more appealing/more accurate to us. So regarding your past. Maybe you were aromantic with an exception. Maybe you were a little more gray-aromantic and now you're less gray due to time and experiences and even natural fluctuations that could have happened with your aromanticism. Maybe you were in love but it was more queerplatonic or platonic than it was romantic, but a romantic relationship was something you desired and felt fulfilling to you. Whatever it was, whether past or present you feels aromantic is a good application for your past self or not, you are valid! It is valid to use a different label when you feel that different label suits you. It is valid to ID in different ways over the course of your life. It is valid to feel aromantic fits you now even if it didn't in the past. It is valid to not know if aromantic fit you in your past or not. You are valid. Identity is weird and confusing and complicated. It's never simple, even when it feels simple - or maybe it is simple sometimes but that doesn't mean it will always feel simple to you throughout your whole life. People are never clear cut. We're complex. We're enigmatic. We're walking contradictions, and that's okay. Labels aren't some inherent part of our existence. We create labels because we think deeply and like we patterns and linear understanding and sorting things into easier-to-understand boxes makes it easier for us to navigate the beautiful mess that humanity and the world at large is. I'm really glad you've found the label aromantic and that it's providing comfort to you! That's what labels should do for us. < 3 Hope this made sense and was helpful!

Your sexuality isn't a diagnosis or test - it's not about being quantifiably [label], so other people can't tell you what label is best for you. That's totally self-determined. How you label is down to: how you want to label, how you're comfortable labeling, what label makes the most sense to you, what label helps you best communicate with others, what label best helps you connect with a community of people with similar experiences, etc. Not wanting romance or anything romantic certainly sounds like an extremely good reason to explore what being aromantic might mean to you! Maybe check out Early Signs That You Were Aro and You Might Be Aro If... here on the forums and see how those threads make you feel and if you relate to anything in them. I can tell you that your experience certainly gives me aro vibes, but I can't tell you if you're aro or if aro is the best label for you because that's something only you can decide. So what if you tried out calling yourself aromantic? What if you let yourself see how it felt after a couple months of doing so? I don't want to throw too much information at you, but I think you might also be potentially interested in learning about queerplatonic relationships when you're ready. ^^

My "friend" is constantly equating aromanticism with loneliness and I'm so. got. dang. tired. Either I'll "be alone forever" so it's fine for her husband to leave work early (leaving me alone) to celebrate Valentine's Day (they didn't even want to do a date thing, she just wanted to go home...) or she's "scared of [me] being completely alone" and constantly pushes me to get pets that I do not want. It's things like this that make my aplatonicism reeeaaaally clear.