Violet Stars

On 11/12/2020 at 4:14 PM, PeepsInTheChiliPot said:

I just got my aroace pin in the mail! I really like it and I’m excited to put it on my bag. Anyone else have aro/ace trinkets? 

I made friendship bracelets in the aro and ace colors respectively! I might do a combined one eventually, but I would probably have to get more colors for it (my favorite is the orange and blue flag, it's soo pretty. My friends have dubbed it the "tidepod flag" )

On 9/17/2020 at 5:24 PM, nonmerci said:

So I never relate to the "all my friends say that and I feel alienated" because my friends don't talk about crushes. The only time they did, well they were not really my friends but people of my class. They wanted to know my crush and I said the name of a cute guy. That's it.

Kinda same here. My friends talk about crushes... rarely? I'd say like once a month, max. It immediately gets really awkward for everyone when they bring it up, though. Lots of "you're so lucky to be aro!" ? I can't be the only one who hates when alloros say that.

50 percent aroace

17 percent aroallo

17 percent alloace

8 percent alloallo

8 percent demi

Weird how my results are all tied lol

Eldest here. My younger sister hasn't properly "come out" but I would be really surprised if she wasn't aspec like me, we share a lot of the same mentality about things.

Aside from I think one gay cousin I barely talk to, my family is full of cishets. 

5 hours ago, Rolo said:

Yeah I get that too. When people are talking about QPRs I'm either thinking "so... you want a romantic relationship under another name" or "so you want a close friend with a fancy label". Each to their own ?

I think the appeal of QPRs is the exclusivity of it. The whole idea of having your "special someone" to hang out and chill with. That, and I would imagine most people in QPRs wouldn't get into romantic relationships, removing the ever-present fear of losing your BFF because they pay more attention to their romantic partner. That's my theory, anyway. Personally, if I had a close friend who was aro or not interested in relationships, I wouldn't care if it was a QPR or not.

No one is around a lot of the time, there aren't any new posts, and if there are they're just people having fun with games. I honestly wish there was more discussion because it feels like there is barely any.

I totally feel this way. I guess the solution is what @Holmbo described—not ranking things? I dunno, just a theory. 

11

Of course it is! You're never too young/too old. If you end up feeling attraction someday, it's not a big deal. If you don't, it's also not a big deal.

On 6/6/2020 at 8:26 AM, John Rando said:

Question : are INTX personalities overrepresented here because of our comon experience as aro or just because it's an internet forum about a niche subject requiring introspection to sort out ?

 

Maybe, but I'm an INFP so . Sometimes I get INFJ, although I think I'm more of an INFP myself. As for nature... depends how confident I feel lol

On 9/4/2020 at 1:38 PM, Pumpkins_and_penguins said:

I found out about aromanticism firstly through a YouTube series the ABCs of LGBT by Ash Hardell.

Haha, same here ! I discovered by aromanticism (and asexuality) through them as well. Not their videos, but their book. My local library happened to have it (I live in a very pro-LGBT+ area lol). 

3 hours ago, Oatpunk said:

A funny thing (Read: actually really fucking annoying) is that since we have all these negatives stereotypes, there are also a lot of people trying to combat them by instead pushing the idea that aros are super soft and fluffy and warm and sentimental and touchy and, most importantly, normal.
"Sure, aros may not want a romantic relationship, but we still have queerplatonic partners. It's pretty much the same thing! And sure, aros may not fall in love, but love is still the very core of our existence with our love for cats or art or nature! Just like a normal person!"

As if touch-repulsed aros, aplatonic aros, promiscuous aros, loveless aros, etc, are nothing but negative stereotypes and not real people who may very well consider their aromanticism to be integral in shaping the way they see the world.

Just curious, what are aplatonic aros and loveless aros?  

I've only ever had one real rejection story, but I don't know if it counts because the friend never officially said that they liked me... however it was heavily implied. It was over text and incredibly awkward. There was also this time where some girl told me some random boy on my bus liked me... he had been trying to make what I interpreted as a few moves towards me but he eventually stopped. It was really weird.

Sometimes I get jealous my friends don't get crushes on me but it's probably due to my own amatonormativity more than anything else. It would be really awkward anyways, so  

5 hours ago, nonmerci said:

For what you say, you can be an aromantic who is interested in queerplatonic relationship. This is not unusual at all.

Yep, not at all (Hello from AVEN )!

As @nonmerci said, aros wanting QPRs is perfectly normal! 

this one is such a mood.

1. Honestly I just want variety. Aro guys, girls, enbys, allos, aces, anything goes. Same variety with genres too—fantasy, sci-fi, contemporary, you name it. I would love a story where a character is just... aro. It's not a big deal, it's not a major plot point. We're far away from that but I would love to see it someday.

2. Loveless by Alice Oseman is one of my top aro book recommendations! The main character is aro ace, and there is a gay ace side character and a (minor, sadly) aro bi one too. For anyone looking for aro book recs, aroace author Claudie Arseneault made a handy database (https://www.obvibase.com/p/N7SD6v1F4mrVBWzV/?location={"type"%3A"table"%2C"databaseId"%3A"N7SD6v1F4mrVBWzV"%2C"queryPath"%3A{"recordPath"%3A[]%2C"columnPath"%3A["1"]}}) for this exact purpose!

Besides that, there isn't much unfortunately. Proper representation would really help our visibility.

On 8/9/2020 at 7:43 PM, nisse said:

@Jot-Aro Kujo and this is why the "asexuals aren't broken, we feel/fall in love" line chafes SO MUCH. it may not be in use anymore, i honestly don't know, but it definitely was when i figured myself out around 2011/2012/2013 (i am extremely bad at remembering years and what happened when,  but i was ~15 when i started having inklings), and that isn't that long ago. i really wish there was a bigger push for aromantic awareness within the ace community, considering how big it is and the reach it has now, with AVEN and all. we really do need the reach and influence they have, if we want to be visible to kids (and adults!) in the situation you were in.

Agreed!

YMBAI if people dating when they're emotionally immature sounds weird to you

(I guess it isn't exclusively an aro thing, but whatever)

I don't really know. I'm years away from being financially independent so I don't really have time to worry.

Living alone sounds like nice, but so does chilling with one/a few close friends! I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to... well everything. I'm also a perfectionist who wants everything to be at least aesthetically pleasing lol.

My dream is to rent a loft apartment, ideally one with a little area above the main floor. They're very spacious and get a lot of natural light, things I am both a fan of. Unfortunately they're quite expensive.

I can't really imagine sharing a bed. I fidget a lot in my sleep and would be prone to elbowing/slapping my sleep partner across the face.  

1 hour ago, WilmaW said:

I'd say frogs. Get a necklace with a green frog. It's not like official or so but I feel that we own the frogs.

We made the frogs aro.

2 hours ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

When I mentioned infantilization of asexuals, what I meant was a little different from what aromantics get. I was talking more about the "Ohhhh you're such a naive innocent baby uwu" kind of infantilization. Yes, aros are often treated as if it's a phase we'll someday grow out of- But nobody's ever treated me like I'm innocent and naive for not dating. I hope that makes sense?

Oh yeah I guess I just interpreted it differently lol.

ay-roh-poc-co-lipse

51 minutes ago, aroscorpio said:

It’s good to hear of someone who get the same way about all of this. If I’m being honest I’m even still questioning some about my identity in regards to aro-aceness. If you’re interesting in that you can read my other threads but it’d be a lot to reinstate in one comment. ? But I may check out that book, actually! Do you know where I could read it?

Hmm... you could probably find it on Amazon, bookdepository, Barnes & Noble... pretty much any place where books are sold. It shouldn't be that hard to find. It is VERY in-depth and comprehensive, even going so far as to discuss romantic orientation as separate from sexual! I would highly recommend it!

This is an attempt to form a megathread, a union of the aroaces across this site. Come here to chat, to share your experiences, send memes, and plot your villainous schemes while the others are busy falling in love/having sex. With this, the alien invasion can truly begin, MWAHAHA!

On a more serious note, a discussion about aromanticism in relation to asexuality made me realize we do not have a dedicated space to talk about our own experiences, so I'm making one! Feel free to talk about anything you want here. Aroallos and others are welcome as well!

18 hours ago, aroscorpio said:

Like I said, no shade at all towards asexuals, but to me personally, my Aro-ness is a much bigger part of my identity and more greatly affects my day-to-day life than my Asexuality.

Same here! I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I think it's because what everyone is discussing here—romance is a far more universal part of life than sex. Sex is seen as NSFW, something to discuss behind closed doors. Romance is not, it's expressed openly and publicly. Therefore it's a much bigger aspect of everyday life. 

I'm not out to most people I know either, but I still heard the dreaded "you'll understand when you get older" when I ever expressed disdain for romance in any capacity. Part of the reason why I believed I was straight for such a long time as a kid was because of all these things people told me. When you're a kid, you haven't learned to question the beliefs of the adults around you. I discovered my aroace-ness when I was 12, almost 13. And it was all thanks to a book at my local library, The ABCs of LGBT+ by Ash Hardell. If I hadn't found that book or Ash hadn't included ace and aro-spec identities I would probably still be unsure about myself. Or maybe not, since a friend of mine mentioned asexuality once after I had discovered it. But even though I was still very young, I could've found my identity a lot sooner if I heard less of that. Mind you, I was a kid, but people should be encouraging children to explore their identity, not discouraging it.

This infantilization is not exclusive to aces. Regardless of whether someone identifies as aro or not, society treats anyone who isn't looking for romance as having something wrong with them. Sex is an important part of our culture, yes, but romance even more so. And being aro has taught me that whenever you try to form a definition of humanity, you're going to leave somebody out. 

On 8/2/2020 at 3:18 PM, emmafriendly said:

My two best friends and I say we love each other all the time! I honestly think that's probably why I ended up with them as my really close friends - they understand and value platonic relationships just as much as I do, and recognize that my being aromantic and whatever close platonic relationship we have because of it isn't gonna infringe on their romantic relationships. They're also friends who I absolutely trust not to bail on me because of romantic partners because I know we value each other very much.

That sounds really nice! One of the struggles of being aro is being left behind because your friends all get partners and completely ignore you.

I would say my aro-ness definitely impacts my friendships. I value them a lot more than an allo would, and with that comes the existential dread I'll one day be replaced by a romantic partner. A book I was reading triggered this in me, since a character in a relationship explicitly said they valued a friend less than their partner.