venomous

I would ask yourself if you’re seeking a romantic relationship with this person, or if it’s another kind of relationship you are thinking of when you say “partnered”. Perhaps something like a QPR would be better suited if you don’t have any desire for romance as this might give an opportunity to set your own boundaries without it feeling like a big divergence from a normative romantic relationship script, like the build-your-own-relationship concept in the relationship anarchy community.

Having recently had a long distance exploration of a potential romantic relationship, it took me longer than I would have liked to recognise that I like the other person in a queerplatonic way. We broke things off but still talk. One of my friends was helpful in reminding me that I had just assumed that people outside the aromantic community wouldn’t want a queerplantonic relationship just because it’s not the common way to do things in an amatonormative society.

Maybe the best way to approach your problem would be honest communication with the person you’re seeing. Do they know that you are aroace? Are they aware of what that means for you specifically? If you feel uncomfortable being touched in specific ways with specific intentions, I think the best way to prevent getting into a situation that might be harmful to yourself is to talk to the other person about what you are open to and what you are not open to. I feel a bit hypocritical saying that as I have yet to do it myself, but it’s something I plan on doing if my own something progresses. 

Hope any of this was helpful for you and that you remember that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to with this other person. You deserve a fulfilling partnership that doesn’t include things that cause fear in you. Best of luck! 
 

Does marvelling at beauty in the world count? Nature, art, music, cities and cultures interest me a lot. I find a lot of meaning in that. Also having great conversations with friends and acquaintances. 

9 hours ago, the more the merrier said:

Yes! Being here, on Arocalypse, feels like this to me. This gradual easing of the residue of dread, which opens up more expansive and relaxed worlds.

Where did you first come across QPRs, if you don't mind the q., @venomous? Thank you for your lovely post!

I don’t mind at all 😄 It was on YouTube. I think it was an Ash Hardell video with a lot of different people talking about various identities and relationships. I remember being a bit like “I can have emotional intimacy without having to perform romance for someone”? I’m very grateful that we now have resources for understanding that not all intense emotions are romantic in nature. This site has also helped me so much over the last few years, I really can’t stress how invaluable it’s been. 

So I recently tried to get back into dating. I’ve never really been interested in it, but I wanted to see if I would be able to feel something more when dating women as opposed to men (since I realised I was gay during the pandemic). I was talking to someone and we made plans to meet for a beer, but life just got in the way and things were dragging out. We hadn’t really talked much about ourselves, kind of saving that for in person, but she said she was really excited to meet me and I had some kind of overwhelming feelings about that. The next day, I was feeling a lot of dread. The same kind of dread I had felt when dating men. It seems that romance in general, especially with people I don’t already know, makes me feel all kinds of wrong inside. It feels like being made to pretend to feel things I don’t know how to feel, and that’s not fair to anyone involved. I do, however, feel like it was something I needed to try to feel sure in myself that it’s not a sexuality thing if that makes sense. 
 

I decided to not pursue dating any further after that, but that resurgence of dread reminded me when I felt the opposite of that feeling. It was, of all things, because of the movie Catwoman with Halle Berry. It’s not a great movie, but something about the ending really hit me as a teenager. While she has feelings for the police detective, she feels that her independence and desire to make her own way in life is more important to her. I remember feeling so blown away by that.  I don’t think the option to choose yourself and what you want in life over a relationship had ever been introduced to me before then. Thinking about that now, I’m not in a position where I’ve had to choose between someone I have genuine feelings for and what I want out of life, but I constantly feel like I’m choosing between the idea of a future relationship and myself. When I tell people I have no interest in having children, they seem to become sad for a potential partner that doesn’t even exist. Like I’m preventing this hypothetical person from having kids. It’s really strange. 
 

Has anyone else experienced a situation where you suddenly realise you don’t have to get into a romantic relationship and you see a whole new world open up in front of you? Finding out about platonic partnerships made me feel a similar thing, and my friend had the same kind of response when I told them about QPRs so I’m curious about if this is a common thing. 

I really want to thank everyone who replied to this post. I feel a lot less alone and isolated about this subject now. I think in general that arocaplyse is the most positive community I've come across on the internet, and it really feels good to see people genuinely want to help you and suggest things that might work for you.

On 6/8/2021 at 5:21 PM, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

I'm bisexual, not a lesbian, but I absolutely feel the disconnect from the sapphic community. Honestly, femininity in general tends to be pretty heavily associated with romance. Plus, in order to push back against the "predatory lesbian" stereotype, this weird ideal of the Soft Pure Wholesome Fairytale Romance Sweet Pure Soft Wlw Couple Uwu thing has gotten really prevalent, which pushes away those of us who are sexual. Basically being a sapphic aro is just a bad time all around lol

I had honestly not considered the predatory lesbian stereotype when I posed this question. Perhaps that's because I haven't been exposed to a lot of that discourse and my friends have always been very accepting and non-weird about my being attracted to women. This puts the Soft Cottage Lesbian Vibe into perspective a bit for me so thanks.

On 6/13/2021 at 3:15 AM, PissLover2 said:

Yea I feel this. As someone who has a lot of lesbian friends and has seen a lot of what goes on in the community I totally understand where you come from. I seen post about asexual lesbians being called a certain word back in the 90's(I forgot what it was called but it was a positive nickname) and how everyone was saying how cute it was. I see almost nothing about aro lesbians. I feel for all my aro wlws out there. I hope you guys get the rep you deserve 

Thanks for the support!

On 6/27/2021 at 3:24 AM, PyonPyon said:

[self-id: alloromantic sapphic]

I'm not sure if this is positive for you to hear, but... it seems that where I live, it's kinda the opposite. LGBTQIA+ groups in general are quite appreciative of the expression of sexuality in a free and positive way and sapphic spaces have a specific tinge of extremely focused on horniness, sexuality, etc.
I'm alloromantic asexual, so you may think my perception is flawed - well, maybe it would be, but this is not my perception (I'm not in any sapphic groups), but what I was told by many of my allosexual sapphic friends (even an aro lesbian!).

What I'm trying to say with this is... don't give up hopes? I fear more "public" spaces like tumblr may be more subjected to that kind of "discourses" @Jot-Aro Kujomentioned, and be annoyingly focused on "the Soft Pure Wholesome Fairytale Romance Sweet Pure Soft Wlw Couple Uwu thing".
But many other spaces definitely aren't! I don't think it's my country only, I think groups may be better than "open spaces" like tumblr for that, maybe?

Hope you find a space that makes you feel seen :)

That's really interesting how it can differ so much depending on where you "hang out" so to speak. Thanks for the support, and I agree that it might be better to look elsewhere for community.

On 6/27/2021 at 9:19 AM, Holmbo said:

Most of my experience of the lesbian community is from what a friend has told me. She's said it's very common for gay women to be coupled up in long term relationships, compared to gay guys that can often be single and in casual relationships.

 

However, she's also said by those who aren't coupled up there are a fair amount who are non-monagamous in various ways. Which might be more something you would enjoy being a part of? But that's in Sweden so it might not be relevant.

That's definitely something I can look into. I haven't had the best experience with this in the past, but I like the idea of creating your own relationship dynamics without being pinned down by how things "should be". I suppose that can be said for a lot of aromantics.

On 6/28/2021 at 9:04 PM, Izel said:

That's actually how I figured out I was aroace! A couple of years ago I thought I was a lesbian and just scrolling through the posts I couldn't relate to a single one of them which led to here. But you're right, I've never seen an aro lesbian post and of course if there are any they're just sexualizing lesbians, which leads to the soft wlw thing:

No winning there. There are a couple of good aspec Discords that have people all over the spectrum. Maybe you'd be able to find someone who relates more there. 

Here's one: https://discord.gg/vFbnTYru

Thanks, I will definitely have a look at the Discord server.

49 minutes ago, ilse said:

late to the party but as a lesbian, yes, there is a lot of focus on romance in a huge majority of lesbian and sapphic spaces.

being arospec, sometimes i fear i look at women through the "male gaze" whenever i find them sexually attractive and also fear that i am propagating the "predatory lesbian" stereotype by doing such. i am allowed to find women hot, i am allowed to find women sexy, i am allowed to feel sexual desire for women and i am not "damaging" the lesbian community because of it.

i believe the term you're looking for is bambi lesbian, which did in fact become popular on lesbian tumblr.

and yes, with the whole "soft cottagecore uwu girlfriends" fantasy being incredibly popular in most if not all sapphic spaces it is quite alienating to see all of this people talking about what they think are universal experiences. posts about aro lesbians are usually about how "valid" we are and that's it, it's hard to find stuff about aro lesbians talking about their experiences (at least on most sites i've been, or we are just mentioned on posts about lesbians in general).

in all honesty, the lesbian community could use more diversity when it comes to this type of things, it does get annoying seeing the same "i want to live in a cottage with my wife and do her hair while sitting on her lap ? uwu" type posts whenever i search up lesbian content.

Oh yeah, I had noticed those validation posts too. I think the idea behind them is nice, but anyone can write those. It would be nice to talk to more people you can identify with. I appreciate the validation, I do, but sometimes I need more than the "you are allowed to exist exactly the way you are" thing.

I'd like for there not to be any universally acknowledged experiences for sexual and romantic identities in general, but I think that would take away from some people so I realise it's not a realistic ask.

The slightly funny thing about this vine in the sapphic community is that I'm not against the cottage core aesthetic (I feel like I can't be since I have a vase with wildflowers on my dining table right now that I picked yesterday evening as the sun was setting over the fields), but the way it's very much romanticised (and I mean that both as a way of life and the way it's been applied as a sapphic life goal) just doesn't appeal to me. I picked my wildflowers with my best friend, and the experience was so much greater with her as a platonic thing than any date I've ever had.

I don’t think we have couple’s discount as much in my country. My best friend works at a spa and I get discounts through her. I’ve brought her to work events when I have wanted to attend and no one raised an eyebrow. My work place doesn’t really get discounts, but we do have a lot of activities when we’re not in a pandemic and we can bring whoever we’d like to those.

Yes, very recently figured out I’m a lesbian at 27 years old, but I’ve known I was on the aromantic spectrum for years. Compulsory heterosexuality and amatonormativity are terrible.

Apologies on the long intro, but summing up my question was a bit difficult.

I’ve known I’m on the aromantic spectrum for years, but I recently came to the realisation that I’m gay (or lesbian, whichever term you prefer). It seems like a lot of people are experiencing similar things during this time so I have been in good company.

However, when scrolling through tumblr, it seemed like there was barely any posts about aromantic lesbians. I felt quite discouraged by that since I didn’t feel comfortable with the general lesbian/gay culture tags my friend recommended. I eventually came across a post that summed up my anxiety: wlw culture is very centred around the experience of romantic love. The post itself gave the example of falling in love with your female friends as a very common lesbian experience, and I’ve never felt that.

It’s not just the experience of romantic love, it’s the wanting romantic relationships even in the abstract. There are so many posts about wanting a wife to stroke your hair, and I cannot relate to any of this. I’m all for this content for the people who can relate to it, but I just felt so lonely and unrepresented in a space I had hoped would make me feel seen. I’m not romance repulsed, but I would say I’m a little adverse.

Has anyone else experienced this? Perhaps I’m hanging out in the wrong place on the internet when I’m not on arocalypse.