~Aurora~

I would really like to join the discord but the link seems to have expired, could you post a new one :)

I feel like I'm somewhere grey aro as I think I have had 2 crushes (may have been 1 as not sure if the first one was an actual one of if it was a mix of being lonely and thinking I'm at uni I'm meant to date now and decide to have a crush on a guy who was nice). I am also prone to mini squishes so may just have had much stronger one of that second person so I get it confused. Its also a kind of thing of I forget about it until I see them and then it goes away after and not strong enough to really feel like I need to do anything and I would be happy with just a friendship and hanging out with them. Leads me to think a QPR is overall better for me but basically would be so hard to find. For me I'm not opposed to a relationship in any way but I would only want an emotional connection and someone to rely on plus I have someone to hang out with and ideally go to concerts and travel with rather than go alone which is what I currently do. I am however also ace so that makes things harder but also pretty much touch repulsed as well - cant stand kissing (not that i've personally every tried it but it just grosses me out) and can only deal with the extremely occasional hug (not like long close ones just sort of a half hug when leaving somewhere) or cuddling during a film. I do think the traditional romantic things are a bit weird a lot of the time and if anyone tried to do that to me I would be dying of embarrassment rather than anything else. But yeah I also find valentines day just completely silly and in the rare future event I may actually have some kind of relationship I would just be like please do nothing for it, if it wasnt for media everywhere before it I would forget it existed as well.

I've never got valentines day, it just seems very commercialised and I forget it happens unless it was for the shops or the social media posts. I highly doubt it will ever change ? Also love the username, starkid for the win

Sure @roboticanary and @MindBeam are you happy to added to a group chat?

Im not northern but I am in the UK and would be up for an aro meet up somepoint next year when we actually can meet up. Or we could potentially set up a group chat on here for UK aros

Travel - hoping to go to Vietnam next year (virus permitting) to celebrate finishing my masters. I really want to go to South America though, top of the list is Peru, Bolivia and Chile. Plus a 'few' other countries - Vietnam, Mongolia, Indonesia, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Madagascar. even those will last me quite a few years and I seriously need to find a holiday friend to go with and share flights for them all. Otherwise I love going to concerts of my favourite groups when they actually come to the UK. Actual everyday stuff I enjoy is doing ballet and archery, also want to learn medieval sword fighting in the future. Otherwise I just relax with my laptop, a film or a good book I also enjoy photography and get happy when I get nice photos, I like taking photos of landscapes and nature (what i see on holiday along with ancient stuff) and have photo albums of each holiday with my best photos in to look back at.

My sleep deprived mind has just thought of something hilarious this was pre knowing ace and aro existed I was 21 at the time, had gone away on a holiday with small group from a university society and they were predrinking and i was just hanging out with them till they went out and I went to my room. playing have you ever with fingers counting down - needless to say a bunch of uni students against and aroace I really won that with the topics they were saying. I said never had I kissed anyone, at the time I was very proud of myself for not giving into peer pressure and doing the norm like everyone else, not realising of course that most people are actually attracted to people. looking back I feel like they probably thought I was insanely weird, although they never said anything about it which was quite nice of them as at the time it would have been really confusing to me

I can probably find much more but this is all I can think of right now When I was 17 I was on a youth holiday with people I had known for years and they were talking about crushes and I said I knew who this other girls crush was from a previous conversation. Turned out you dont keep the same crush over a couple years, really confused me who had yet to have a crush, I think I just assumed you would keep liking them unless you had a falling out which they hadnt. More aro ace thing, as a side point for this I am not anti relationship - Thinking about marriage and just wondering why people want to ruin their wedding day by having sex, and then also how to get out of that if I got married. Then also wondering if you had to kiss in the ceremony or if you could get out of it somehow. Also at school (I went to an all girls school so would have had less dating than at mixed) and not actually realising people got attracted to each other as teenagers and the people in my year who had boyfriends were just dating for popularity with the idea it was cool as it made them look more mature as they were doing an adult thing. Oh at the school discos when we were 10 and 11 joint with a school that involved boys, the boys would always ask (or get their friends to ask) if girls from my school wanted to go out. I always said no (I hope I didnt hurt anyone looking back) as I was just thinking we are too young to date and with the number of boys doing this it wont be real and some kind of competition to get the most yess. In films I always got awkward and looked away at anything like kissing and was always mentally complaining when they ruin good sci-fi/fantasty with romance as the reason I watch them is I dont want to watch romance films.

Hi, been skulking around here for a couple months now but thought I would finally say hi. Ive been debating if I am on the aro spectrum for a little while now and am slowly coming to terms with it. Currently I am calling myself grey aro but closer to aro as I have had a handful (could easily count on my fingers) 'crushes' in my life I know thats not many with being 23, plus they faded extremely quickly in all but 1 case which goes away till I next see them before going away again. Also becoming aware that some those may well be squishes of I want to be closer friends with you, but they have all been on guys. Although I like the idea of a relationship of sharing life with someone and supporting each other I feel uncomfortable when talking about anything beyond a friendship with a guy (and I know i would only have a relationship with a guy). I also find traditional romantic activities such as surprise gestures of flowers and valentines day just silly or embarrassing and have no interest in kissing at all, and even feel very awkward when seeing people do that in real life or films (only having got past the look away when I got to about 15/16 I still do sometimes). I think my main worry with being aro (I am also ace) is that in the future I will end up being pretty lonely when others start having families and also getting married making me stand out and just not fit in. Plus I like the idea of assuming I didnt find a relationship I was comfortable with, of adopting a couple of kids which then has the problem of working full time and looking after them and finances because of one income making it harder. So debating if a QPR is right for me or what as I know it would be very hard to find someone else also liking that or even a support platonic friend (without the QPR part) also wanting the same things to work together. Although I am not apposed to a romantic relationship if I did find someone who I had a crush on (unlikely as its been a pretty long time aside from 1) I feels unlikely that I would be able to stick with it and feel comfortable in the relationship. i think my best option would be an alterous relationship but as its not well known it might be hard to do. As you can see im still pretty confused on what this will mean in the future for me and worry about it a bit. And also if im really aro or if im to emotionly scared to let myself have feelings for someone (I am someone who very much bottles up emotions and struggles to understand them) and being a non huggy person who isnt romantic has got me confused as to if I am aro. Sorry if I dont make much sense as Im still trying to understand myself. Also any others in the UK feel free to say hi or let me know if there are any aro groups/meet ups anywhere (after the virus)

Im doing a masters in environmental consultancy now and hope to do environmental research either though a PhD or in a company