Tarantulapaws

I've also been through this, and I know it's very hard to do this. But it's important that they let them know how you're feeling (or not feeling.) Did they ever officially ask you out? If not, that's a place to start. Communication is very important in any relationship, romantic or not. If they never asked or pushed your boundaries to ask, that should be addressed. Not saying anything will just hurt yourself and potentially them as well. That all said: this is not your fault if you got pressured into this, your own feelings and boundaries are more important than letting others push yours, no matter how they feel about you. I'm sorry you're dealing with this right now and I hope it gets resolved peacefully.

banned for calling me out on banning someone in the past ten minutes- in the past six minutes.

Banned for not getting banned in past week.

My index finger is just slightly longer. I'm a nonbinary aro.

Banned for bein a square

On 7/24/2019 at 2:58 PM, Mark said:

On the other hand aros experience social rejection/exclusion along with minority stress.
The idea that aros won't "suffer the pain of rejection" or experience "breakups" is based on amantonormative attitudes. It's likely that disenfranchised grief is an issue for aro breakups.

I never heard of either of these terms, but they ring true to my experiences. Especially disenfranchised grief. When you lose a friend it's often like you can't even talk about it, as if the pain can't be comparable to losing a romantic partner. And maybe it's because I'm aro, but breaking up with a romantic partner never hurt me as horribly as losing a friend. So while it's possible to avoid some grief in not getting into romantic relationships... If you make connections with people, chances are you'll experience loss in some form anyways.

42% demisexual....33% aromantic, 8% the other two options... Hm. Kinda off. This quiz made little sense. Couldn't wrap my head around some of the options at all, none of them corresponded with my thoughts or experiences. Or they did and the wording was confusing.

On 4/6/2020 at 5:26 PM, Blake said:

First of all, I am sorry that you had this experience. Family can be super toxic, since they know only some information about you, and assume the rest. I wish that your mom gets around, but never think you are not valid, nor your fake just by chaning labels. A label is something that is used to better help yourself and others have a north to understand something, it is by no means something written in stone. Live your life, it is yours to decide, do not let anyone slut shame you, or -shame you of anything. If you need a vent, you can always message me. 

Thank you. I appreciate this comment a lot- sorry it's been a whole month before a response, but I'll keep all this in mind.

Just laying around. Might be mutually playing video games or saying something now and then.

On 4/10/2020 at 6:28 PM, Blake said:

Enjoying a walk with someone doesn't mean I have to sleep with that person, heck my dog sleep with me, and do people ask me: hey, do you have sex with your dog? No. they say: omg so cute! mine sleeps with me too!. (bit of rant but yeah)

Read this for a second time and almost spat my water out. 

And the thread had been intended to be about gender expression and aromanticism. Essentially, does the concept of gender expression (or gender roles) being tied to couple things, effect aros any way in particular? I'm sorry I rambled the way I did in the original post. I didn't quite understand my own question until nonmerci put it to better words.

Edit: Still messed this up. Intended to go on to say that I wondered if it affected the gender expression of aros.

Prefacing this by saying that it is nearly 2am and that I'm on here waiting on my phone to charge. I may not make much sense. I... think I could have been right about being aroace, just, I may be gray ace. This explains a lot to me. Realizing that there was a reason I feel a disconnect between my body's function and the act of actually doing things helped a lot. I ended up finally processing that I really have boundaries due to the conversation I had with the ace person who made me realize this (the story is really funny). That being said, I'm still attached to the label as a bi aro. I still relate to it. Leaves me feeling like I'm in this weird spot where both are technically right. I don't always genuinely experience sexual attraction, but when I do it's potentially to 2+ genders.

Basically, question: does the both is good gif apply?

On 5/5/2020 at 7:52 PM, The Angel of Eternity said:

What about us aros who are also asexual? What does that make us? Prudes?

Further context. I probably forgot to give. She identifies as demisexual. I think she's just in the mindset surrounding sex of 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'- so yes and no? Not about herself for sure but she is a hypocrite. Sometime I'll have to ask her what she actually thinks of the acespec community.

O: another aro bi! Awesome to see you here!!! I'm sorry about what happened with your friend... and I hope you like it here!!

18 minutes ago, nonmerci said:

Do you see this topic? 

Dangit could have sworn I looked for a thread before I wrote this.

19 minutes ago, nonmerci said:

if gender-roles pr coded things are linked to couple things

Also YES. This was what I was attempting to describe in not so many words!!

Been meaning to ask for a while now, but does anyone feel that their aroness interacts with how you express your gender? While I am already a nonbinary person, I find that one thing that factors into how i present is that I'm not trying to attract anyone's attention in a romantic way if that makes sense. I also find that when it comes to not doing that I have a tendency to go for looks that are in other lgbt+ people's tastes rather than the tastes of cis straight men. I guess I was just wondering because I hear a bunch about gay/lesbian orientations and gender non-conformity, but very little about aromantic or bi and pansexual instances of this. Do aces do this too?

Edit: Maybe I should specify that what I mean above is that when given the choice to present femininely, I often won't. And when I do it's in non traditional ways. One reason I do this along with dysphoria and just aesthetic is that sometimes I really don't want anyone's attention. It often doesn't work so well when it comes to friends forming crushes on you as I've learned, but it's still something I've done for years that ties into how I look on a daily basis.

On 3/28/2020 at 12:07 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

From one bi aro to another, I'm really sorry you had to experience that. I've had similar experiences, though not quite to this degree. My mom eventually came around; I can only hope yours does too.

I don't really have a ton of advice, but I can at least say that you're not alone. If you ever need to talk, I'm open. (You're also welcome to add me on Discord or Tumblr if you prefer.) Good luck, stay strong ❤️??

 

On 3/28/2020 at 1:39 PM, Ch0c0 said:

People need to stop thinking that bisexuals just go along with anyone. Nobody will just go with anyone, not even animals do.

I think that bisexuality is very 'noble' because you can in a way see the beauty/sexual appeal of persons from different genders. Almost spiritual. (Sapios should understand the appeal of the personality above the flesh considerations.)

You are valid, specially not a slut and should not feel that way. I'm very sad that you had to experience this.

On 3/28/2020 at 3:25 PM, horriblegoose said:

I'm so sorry for how you've been treated, Korbin! That's awful. < / 3

You didn't do anything wrong exploring and discovering your identity. You didn't do anything wrong in changing your labels.

I hope you know that people who treat you that way haven't earned a place in your life. It's okay to take space from people like that. It's okay to not share everything about yourself with people like that. It's okay to keep people like that at arm's length. It's okay to do what you need to protect yourself and your mental health and your physical safety.

And most of all, it is okay to be you and experience your sexuality how you experience it.

Quick response to all of these. I've been really stressed due to a bunch of different factors, and its getting to the point that I need to stop with some of my hobbies which sucks but it's unrelated. Point being I have no energy and I'm sorry I left all this untouched for days. I'm grateful for all these words of support, it means a lot and reading them the first time made me feel so much better!!

I don't know exactly where to start this so I'll just go. 

I believe I'm experiencing internalized biphobia due to a history of being slut shamed regardless of my lack of sexual activity. That was an idea a friend in a server had and I guess I wanted to share and vent my frustrations a little.

My mother has been known to sex shame, I remember this once being directed at me when I was 14- telling me I looked like a sex worker (this is in kinder words than what she really said) in a costume I was wearing. Specifically it was about the thigh high socks with the colorful lacing on them, which covered more than they showed. I was a budding goth tween, and wanted to look like my goth teenage sibling. My sibling dressed like that and seemed to have fun, so why should I have expected her to say that? I thought it was cute, and it was, because I was a kid. Developing body aside, I really was a kid and I have no idea where she got it in her to say something like that. Along with that, while I don't think this part was implicit, she refused to let me shave. These things together caused me to cover up to avoid the bullying from home and school alike. I did this for years and only recently at age 19 have I come out of this self imposed shell.

Recently she asked me what aromantic meant. She is demisexual, and in her own words also sapiosexual (I could go on for a day and a half about how much I hate this word, but lets not open that can of worms tonight). So when she asked, I had first assumed it was in good faith. What instead happened was she scoffed at my explanation and then asked if that meant all aromantic were sluts, then. My pain at hearing that aside, in this conversation she'd learned I was aro. She didn't choose to retract this statement, she didn't choose to simply not say that.

Once I had a friend pressuring me to date and hook up with him. Long story short, we met up at his place under false pretenses and he continued to pressure me. I argued with him, at which point his mother came home. I went to leave, and she began yelling as soon as she saw me, blaming me for being there and calling me a harlot. Which.. another painful experience even if the use of harlot made me laugh a little.

I'm sure that my experiences overhearing slut shaming did not help either.

I used to think I was aroace. and I felt like I was broken. But even then, at least I wasn't filthy, right? And then I started actually growing into my own sexuality without being informed by what others wanted for me and that fell apart real fast.

Now I feel wrong telling my sibling that I was wrong about my being aroace. I feel dirty. I feel like my bisexuality proves these people right. Especially given the fact that I fit the stereotype of bisexuality just being aro, not making romantic connections. Sometimes I really want to stop using the sam model and just be aro to avoid this.

1

banned for the adorable good turtle

1) I'd like to see a human aro. Like nonmerci said, mental conditions and stuff are fine as long as those things aren't linked.

2) Nope, never seen something fit this very, very small criteria. Literally all you would have to do is write your run of the mill protagonist and make them aro. Doesn't even need to be a main one.

On 7/24/2019 at 9:07 AM, TripleA said:

Are those who are Aromantic less susceptible to mental illness because they don't need/want to pursue romantic relationships, therefore won't suffer the pain of rejection, the friendzone or a breakup?

Honestly, sometimes I feel like my lack of romantic attraction has exacerbated and fed into my mental health problems. Especially when it comes to feeling not good enough or unwanted and unworthy. And being rejected by friends can be just as painful, and sometimes it can feel even worse when you don't have the safety net of a romantic relationship. You begin to feel like all your friends will leave you for singular partners and that you'll be alone- and friends actually leaving each other behind because a partner told them to does not help this line of thought. Societal expectations of love are designed for a nuclear family set up, which is a reason why being aro can be so scary. When I first realized I was, I was terrified.

4 hours ago, Lokiana said:

*squints* ......I wish I could understand how you're coming to these conclusions. If I turned to one of my friends, linked to this thread, and said, "So as you can see, people listened and were cooperative," they'd think I was being sarcastic.

I'm not sure how to articulate this but something about how this is worded is getting to me. I haven't been able to 100% follow this thread, and even if I did, it's quite a bit to read through. From what I understand, this whole thread is meant to be about how qpr misinformation is not an appropriate vehicle for aro community building. Accusations of people doing this on purpose aside, has that goal not been met? Have we not been informed of the problem?

1 hour ago, kernsing said:

Mostly I got the impression that a lot of miscommunication went around.

Yeah. There seems to be a bunch of miscommunication here.

9 minutes ago, pressAtoQUEER said:

Perception is differing from intent here, and that is a problem. I agreed the tag was a problem a couple months there and everything was just cross-posted stuff from the asexual tag (even like pride posts that contained the ace flag but not the aro flag), but that's not even what's in the tag anymore. The tag is successfully an aromantic-focused space now where aromantic people are getting policed for the slightest little personal post about their own personal experiences or a post not being 100% laser focused on non-ace aros. The policing needs to stop because we are causing people to fear posting aromantic content in case it's not some arbitrary standard of "aromantic enough", and that shouldn't be what we want.

I had no idea about this as I had been avoiding the aro and ace sides of tumblr alike for a long while due to my own issues. I only just now about a year ago bring myself to identify as aro again myself due to violent exclusionist rhetoric. The one post I did see about it recently was this post here:

45 minutes ago, LauraG said:

I once saw a blog accidentally tag a post that said something like "it's okay to want romance without sex" as aromantic.

I had no idea it was this bad and I am sorry.

10 hours ago, Skittles87 said:

I'm a writer. I've never found it particularly hard to write romance because there's so much of it in the media, I know how it's "supposed" to feel. But I generally give more weight to platonic relationships because I get more emotionally invested in them.

 

Also, I recently wrote a blog post about aromantic characters (or lack thereof) in fiction: https://corastillwrites.wordpress.com/ 

I'll be sure to check this out!!!!!!

11 minutes ago, LauraG said:

What would you prefer we call it? Harassment? Vigilante modding an unmoderated space? Somehow I doubt those two come across any better... (this is mostly a joke)

It was gently reminding the op that aromantic and asexual were not the same thing, as did others. On my part at least. I will admit that the op who posted the screenshots of what I responded to sometime ago was an asshole about it. 

13 minutes ago, LauraG said:

I appreciate this, considering I'm 95% sure that that's me? Even if I'm not completely sure what you mean by this. But thanks

I don't think it is. I don't really participate in discourse all that much, and it wasn't a post that had been widely reblogged yet. It just showed up on my dash and both the op who took the screenshot and the person who responded were jerks.

21 minutes ago, LauraG said:

I once saw a blog accidentally tag a post that said something like "it's okay to want romance without sex" as aromantic.

 In fact, I believe this was the post. Good to know they miss tagged it.