roboticanary

I  agree with the others, you made the right call.

Lets put it this way, if you waited and it didn't change, you became more comfortable in your aromanticism. If you were in her position would you rather you were told now or if you found out maybe months later. I think most people would prefer to find out sooner. 

And maybe it would have worked out, or gone somewhere. I don't know you well enough to rule that out.

  but this phrase

23 hours ago, homonoromo17 said:

I thought that it's just that I have to get used to it

that really isn't a healthy bedrock for any sort of relationship, and given you say she knew for a while that something was wrong I think calling it a day was the sensible option.

It certainly wouldn't work out if you had 'just waited'. just waiting doesn't make issues go away, you would have needed to bring up your aromanticism anyway, either in name or explaining how you feel and working out how you would each work with that in a relationship. Otherwise she just gets more and more frustrated by the fact that something is clearly wrong and you know but won't say.

welcome, hope you have a great time here

also, really cool that you have a puppy. Being an aro in lockdown really made me desperate for a pet just to have some permenant companionship.

4 hours ago, Holmbo said:

when my plate is not as full.

yeah, this is the problem I find with a lot of RPGs, long campains that tend to need a lot of time to prepare and multiple weeks to run. 

My way around it has been avoiding DnD style stuff and playing around with some far shorter, simpler RPG systems. For avoiding romance I do like laser kittens, the game uses a hand of cards for each player rather than rolling dice and whether you can perform an action lands on a simple bet between you and the person running the story, very easy to do as a one night run even if coming in no-one else had heard of the game.

I know some people really like the complexity that something like DnD offers with so many options and competing rolls but I find it often just leads to one round of combat taking a needlessly long time. Also before you even start you have character design which can be tonnes of work in itself.

5 hours ago, Holmbo said:

It seems like a better game system than Expanse to be honest

I have only played one expanse campaign and that as a player, but to be honest I would agree that DnD beats it if you want a serious, long running campaign. Expanse was good fun but I think suffered from being a fairly recent release. Not sure how it is now but when I played it I don't remember using expansions and some parts of the world, especially the ships, felt threadbare. DnD just has far more years of expanding and tinkering to make a more elegant set of rules. It also of course has far more material for a GM to design a campaign around.

Hi

welcome, you seem really positive about being aro in a way that is great to read. Hope you enjoy being here.

Also good to see some love for physics, the best science (according to physicists)

Hi, welcome

man that sounds rough. One of the first things I noticed in this forum was that being in my late twenties was old compared to most here and feeling kind of sad that so many people had found their identity with less blind staggering around in hopeless relationships. To realise that after turning 40 and having that self hate is a pain I cannot begin to imagine. 

Hope you are in a better place now, and in agreement with hermi1e, surround yourself with aro acceptance and those who understand. Have a good time here.

If people want to use it then fine.

Personally I doubt I ever would, friends with benefits has a few bad connotations but it is also really useful because it is a term so many people know and understand. Maybe as well I am less bothered about being regarded as scum than most people but I don't know.

 Practically I have had a couple of fwbs and both times we have been fairly comfortable being friends in the ways you suggest, watching movies and hanging out, usually by meeting and chatting in a local bar. we were, after all, friends.

On 8/12/2020 at 3:38 PM, Rolo said:

the only thing I can ever think of to say to him is "Seriously mate, forget having a girlfriend, get a cat."

On 9/30/2020 at 6:08 AM, Neon Green Packing Peanut said:

I would also be happy alone (with at least 2 cats in any situation)

The cat numbers are rising.

On second thoughts this is much better than my initial plan to just have a pet, I now really want a family entirely of cats. They are generally much tidier than people I have lived with, they don't tend to snore as loud and all their relationship drama is settled outside by sitting on a fence and screaming.

Hi, like the other reply I have no idea about AVEN but am really enjoying this site. hope you have a good time looking around here.

It is good to have a site just for aros to explore aromanticism, there have been a fair few intros here which pretty much start with a sort of 'eeeurgh AVEN is being a pain and now here I am' so I reckon you will be in good company.

Hi, sounds like a fine impulse decision to me.

agreed with the love of cats, I know it seems stereotypical for a single person to keep loads of pets there is a bit of me that really wants a house full of fluffy animals. 

aaw, thats so brilliant. her reaction sounds so chilled out and humorous.

very, very rarely.

Its not the sort of thing that comes into conversation much and to be honest, the places it could turn up are when people I know are talking about their love life and I would much rather shift the conversation away entirely.

I definitely had this a couple of times as well. After someone elsess wedding I would imagine what it would be like for me but not with any particular person, just for the awesome party.

I also remember daydreaming about a perfect date, which turns out was just a really chill day with a good friend and I had no interest in who that person actually was.

Hi

I definitely relate to a lot of what you have said. Not recognising when someone likes me, that has happened quite a lot, as has feeling uncomfortable talking about romance with friends and family. I get the frustration at people in romantic fiction being dumb as rocks as well. 

Given what you have said, gray-romantic does sound like a good fit, hope the label works well for you and good luck exploring your identity.

I love the rpg all the related  stories here, it seems they are on the one hand wierd and uncomfortable but on the other can be an amazing way to explore your aro identity without being confronted in real life.

Anyway here's a little story I had from a while back.

Me and a few friends were playing a game called 'everyone is John'. basically everyone takes control of part of John's brain and tries to get him to complete tasks ranging from simple to impossible without John becoming bored or being knocked out. (although in our version John is a robot and we are parts of his faulty programming). 

One of the features is that each player chooses a skill for John which activates when they are in control. So your aspect of John could have x-ray vision, say or have some form of mind control. Or in my case, have incredible sex appeal and try to solve every problem by dropping his trousers infront of crowds of people. (then they would turn a blind eye to me stealing a parachute, or throwing a cat at the pope*).

This went fine until the GM made one of the NPCs react by asking to take things slower and go for a meal. I instantly thought this would cause failure by boredom and ran naked out of a petshop. Looking back before the game we had spent a while talking about a cat cafe that had opened recently and I suspect this was the GM being clever and helping me find a convenient kitty without making the game too easy. But my aro-brain had, despite not knowing the word aro yet, decided that a romantic meal was a plot to make me pass out from boredom.

*for context, not that you want any. My impossible goal was to appoint a cat as pope. So my plan was to fling a cat at the pope, then convince the college of cardinals that there was an ancient rule that the title of pope could be claimed using trial by combat, and that the cat won fair and square, hence pope kitty the 1st. Yes this is a very stupid game.

The dolphins say 'So long and thanks for all the fish'. They leave and earth is destroyed.

I wish I could drink as much beer as I want without getting drunk.

Definitely not keen on the name gros. either too close to gross in english or as @nonmerci says, fat in French (and I'm pretty sure similar in other European languages).

grace for grey ace works, that sounds fine, but really not keen on gros when greyros works fine.

I'm not sure whether or not you are. 

As you can see from the other answer, you may be describing aesthetic attraction.

From your question I cannot infer much but here are are a couple of questions you might want to ask yourself that may help:

* when you considered a future with these crushes what do you imagine? do you see that as a romantic future or more like a best friend?

* what makes you think people are attractive? This should give you a better idea of if you are describing aesthetic attraction

*would you act on those crushes you describe? how?

@Queasy_Attention what a chill idea, perfect mix of showing someone why aromanticism as a separate identity matters, but also not being unneccesarily cruel.

I do joke a bit about being allo aro. Or more accurately I joke about being a sleaze sometimes, play up my liking of more casual hookups.

Also I am not up for a fight for more general LGBT+ rights. Not that I won't stand up to abuse, but I don't do much to support the movement. I don't really get involved with local activist groups and (at the moment) I am not in the position to financially support any wider movements.

My way of a little closeted pride has been my drawers of craft stuff. Whole load of small stuff packed away in a cupboard so few other people see it, and I have slowly been painting bits in so the front of the drawers are in aro colours.

hi

I think pretty much everything I would say has already been covered. One thing I would add though is that there is not really a complete agreement on what people see as a romantic action. So sometimes I look at people's ideas on here of how they would like to live with best friends and what they would do together and I would think of that as too romantic for my liking, but they might not see any of those actions as necessarily associated with romance. This is fine.

Hi

That experience does suck, but I'm sure you will find plenty of people here who have went through similar things. Good to hear he took it well though, always nice to hear people being decent about a breakup.

Hi, hope you enjoy being here.

I don't know about dealing with it, being aro still gives me some sadness, but generally i just try to look on the bright side of finding the term. I wouldn't be any different not knowing about aromanticism, just a whole lot more confused and dissappointed.

Welcome. 

I can empathise with the idea of not liking to put labels on myself, hopefully this label is useful to you.

She becomes president of Nauru. Nothing much changes in the world but the people there become confused and angry

I wish my back didn't ache