roboticanary

it would be nice to understand it.however I know enough to know how to deal with other people being romantic to get by. if I was regularly surprised by how people in relationships treated me I would have more interest in understanding it.

mid twenties now and discovered it a few months ago. I feel a bit old now.

On 11/23/2020 at 2:33 AM, Aroacerabbit said:

I’m just wondering if anyone else has struggled with that fear of saying their identity out loud

yes, definitely. I still get that fear and am still not comfortable saying my identity.

as  for what I have tried. whispering it just to yourself might help, get used to the words before you have to talk to other people. Or perhaps describing your feelings out loud to yourself if you are not comfortable initially with the words. 

as @Kallie says, there are other ways to express yourself. one thing that helped me was finding an old green t shirt I had, some black trousers, boom I'm dressing aro and no-one needs to notice. get used to making small signs of your identity and slowly you might find it easier to say it.

51 minutes ago, Queasy_Attention said:

I've been trying to get into Pratchett, but I have no idea where to start-- it seems like all his books are sort of one-off stories set in the same universe. Which of his books do you think could serve as a good intro to that universe?

aaah, not sure.

Not all the books are one offs in the same universe, in the sense that there are various threads of stories where one sort of follows another. if you are interested in working out what follows what I am sure someone on the internet will have wrote a guide which books follow which broad threads

so here are three suggestions if you want to start reading a series of similar books:

Guards! Guards! - start of the city watch group of books

Equal Rites - start of the books about the witches

Mort - start of the books about death

If you would rather have a story which is pretty much a one off and is good fun I would recommend Small Gods. 

this seems like a good idea, weekends would be preferable for me for something like this, I am far more likely to be around.

Agreed with @Erederyn, some form of introduction, what you identify as. not sure I would be comfortable  talking about someone important in my life on a first meeting but some sort of chat just to say who we are and what interests us would probably be a good way to start.

welcome

this seems like a familiar story on here, person has some form of attraction, doesnt really know if it is romantic or not. I'm sure there will be plenty here to help you understand what you are feeling.

Welcome

As far as 6am decisions go joining this forum seems to be a fairly sane one. My 6am decisions tend to involve starting a wonderful friendship between a statue and a traffic cone, though I suspect that may be because alcohol impulses are dumber than sugar impulses.

Anyhow, welcome to arocalypse, hope you find some answers to your confusions.

no idea what to do about it, but this does hit me as well. It sometimes helps just to know that other aros are feeling the same struggle. It is frustrating, it seems like a point of doom and gloom, but there are at least people who can hear my complaints and sympathise with how I feel.

@~Aurora~ , sure, go ahead

1 hour ago, nonmerci said:

BUT there are people who will tell you that Joe is the good guy! That the girl doesn't appreciate him enough and all the things he does, and that he is so romantic.

damn thats scary, stalking, murder but no, how romantic. it makes me kind of worried that these people might end up in a relationship with someone even half as wierd as that. 

honestly I usually don't mind that much, but there is a bit of me which is constantly thinking 'what am I supposed to be doing' so I very quickly feel awkward.

1 hour ago, Arokitty said:

Dunno if any of this sounds right to others tho. 

I mean, its your experience. It isn't wrong.

I think this is similar to what i have thought in the past, thinking someone  is cool and wanting to spend time with them. caring for them. a whole lot of things which are sort of what I want in a friend but more intense.

hi, this seems cool stuff, did you get a video out of this.

If so it would be awesome if you could put in a link, sounds like something I would be interested in seeing.

nice find Holmbo

relationship anarchy seems like a useful idea in general for an aro, it links in really well with figuring out what parts of romance in particular makes me uncomfortable.

still wanting to be with someone but not getting dating and being close bothering you, that seems to come up a lot around here. However there are ways to work with that. What I would suggest is working out what in particular you would or would not be comfortble with if you were to get in to some form of relationship. This could at least give you some idea of how to get closer to what you want. Maybe look at what other people's ideas for a qpr are and how they sort out some form of relationship which they are comfortable with.

The other thing is to ask yourself why it is you scared about never dating or getting together with someone. For example if the fear is to do with loneliness how can you adjust your friend groups to make that seem less of a worry. maybe it turns out never getting together isnt that worrying.

5 hours ago, Rolo said:

"If this guy wasn't good looking and the woman wasn't an idiot it would be a crime novel"

Wow, that is a great description of what I would accept for a romance.

6 hours ago, Neon Green Packing Peanut said:

But, by the end, it stopped being about the actual plot, and just about the relationship between the main characters. It was so annoying.

Yeah, looking back that sounds about right for what really puts me off, the romance taking over must be a big part of it.

It is a pain, i think in my case I am slightly annoyed that being 'normal' is something I am supposed to do not for a general benefit to humanity or some moral argument, or even for my own benefit, but simply for the sole benefit of the person asking me to act normal. If it was followed up by some appeal to ethics or sense that would give me a reason to behave normally that would be fine, but usually it is just someone thinking of their own comfort.

This is I guess directed at the subset of aros who are ok with reading fiction that involves romance.

I have this swinging between one story with some romantic subplot being fine for me, but then the next story I read I get really frustrated or feel awful trying to slog through it. I am guessing that there are some things within those fictions that I can tolerate and some things I just can't but I am not sure i can describe exactly what it is that turns me away.

does anyone else experience anything similar, and do any of you have specific things about a romantic part of a story that would put you off reading it?

I relate to the experience of pushing people away and I definitely relate to having very few friends. Certainly 2020 has hit me with a feeling of loneliness from the few friends I have, but usually I get through alright.

I love that the journey to finding out I am aro has led me to interesting thoughts on friendship and the weight put on people by our ideas of love and what a relationship would do. If I wasn't aro I would likely never have heard of the idea of amatonormativity for example, despite it explining so many things even for people who aren't aro. I probably wouldn't have heard of relationship anarchy either, or basically any idea of how to live life besides grow up, get married, have a couple of kids.

Also while there is a cost to being single it is freeing to be in control of my own income in  way which is not possible in a relationship. I can make the financial sacrifices I want to save money if I am comfortable making them without worrying about whether someone else would agree to that. Similarly anything I get as a luxury is defined by what I want, I don't have to worry about being in a relationship with someone and having to come to agreement over what we are allowed to get.

finally got around to reading this, very good find there Holmbo.

just had a look. According to wikipedia, which as we all know is never wrong, they sing:

Once he hears to his heart's content, sails on, a wiser man.
We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured
on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so—
all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siren_(mythology)

On 11/5/2020 at 11:33 PM, senACEay_11 said:

if someone was starving and had a hankering for some baked ziti, the siren could sing about baked ziti? 

even if I wasn't starving that would be a tempting option. maybe the sirens could offer aro icecream

Theres plenty of war based movies which as far as I remember have little romance, focusing instead on the relation between soldiers. for example Saving Private Ryan comes to mind, it ends with Ryan standing by his wife but it is not about romance but rather he asks her if his life was worthy of the sacrifice made to save him. When done well war based films are my favourite alternative to romance since rather than just not having romance they offer another form of relationship which is seen as at least as powerful and important.

On a completely different note, as far as I remember four lions doesn't have much in the way of romance, if i remember right someone gets squirted with water pistols for keeping his wife in a small room and that's about the closest it gets to acknowledging romance.

welcome

more animals is always great, axolotls are insanely cute creatures and cats are the best (according to my family cat)

I swear I remember seeing a discussion on this from somewhere, but generally what they offer is not physical, they offer Odysseus truths. It was only later the story was made more about love and implied sex.