Rolo

Like you, I relate to barely any "common" aro experiences. I actually love romance. I read romance stories, I ship fictional characters, I'm not at all uncomfortable with PDAs. I didn't even start thinking about my romantic orientation until I was 24 because I didn't experience any sense of being "different" from any of my friends, plenty of them didn't really date due to concentrating on studies and career. None of that makes me any less aromantic though, I still don't experience romantic attraction, I still don't want a romantic relationship.

Welcome It's a lot quieter here than on AVEN but I hope you like it here 😄

Well I've never thought of it as "fear of dying alone" but I do worry about being one of those miserable lonely old people who goes for weeks at a times without seeing anyone but their professional carer, especially if I experience some level of mental degeneration in old age which makes it difficult to maintain friendships. And with how life expectancy continues to increase but health span is not keeping up I find it highly likely that I will experience that, most likely for several years. I saw it with both my gran and grandma, in their final years dementia wasn't crippling enough to make them need to be in a home, or make them forget who they were or the people around them were, it must made them difficult (at best) to be around, and if they didn't have children and grandchildren who felt obligated to spend time with them no matter how unpleasant they were, then they would have been completely alone in their final years. I can either hope that at some point over the next 50 years there will be revolutionary treatment for mental and health degeneration in old age, which is certainly possible, or that I have a nice quick death before I become completely decrepit, or that my nephews will grow up to love me enough to want to visit.

I often "ship" fictional friends as romantic partners.

Yeah I agree.

I'm the youngest, with one older sister. 3 year age gap. I am the only non-straight person in my family.

I will never understand why so many people seem to put aromantic and asexual in the same box, it makes absolutely no sense. The existence of the term "aspec" which includes both aromantic and asexual identities is confusing. And I say this as an aroace person who cannot perceive them as separate orientations in myself.

It is perfectly normal to not have experienced romantic attraction at age 13, maybe if you were 17 it could be considered being a late bloomer. This is very possible. Again this is pretty normal. Many people experience crushes based entirely on appearance, but for many people it is necessary to get to know a person first, and then romantic feelings are built over time with intention. The way the media commonly portrays romantic feelings is only one of many ways in which people develop and experience them, and not a very realistic one at that.

Personally I don't feel the need to label my relationships at all 😆 But if I did I wouldn't use the term "queerplatonic" as I really don't understand what that's supposed to mean. I would just use plain English however it best fit the relationship... close friend, best friend, housemate, life partner, lover etc. I don't understand this attitude at all, there are lots of words which we use to mean completely different things to what they used to mean. Do this people also refuse to admit that "gay" means homosexual, or "cool" means good?

Some romantic relationships are unhealthy, just like some platonic or familial relationships are unhealthy, but not most. Sounds like you have a very narrow and unrealistic idea of what a "healthy" relationship should look like. I'm not romance repulsed to I can't really say anything on that.

I hate it, just thinking about kissing someone makes my skin crawl. I don't see it as innately romantic or sexual though.

It was the same for me. I had friends who never even mentioned crushes, and we would laugh about how silly our 1 friend who was really into dating was acting. I didn't feel "different" at all. Then at uni the social culture shifted so that there was just far less emphasis on sex and relationships in general. Plenty of people didn't show much sign of dating, those that did where quiet about it, again I felt perfectly normal in not being interested in relationships, though this was the stage where I realised that I was asexual.

My understanding of the definition of "platonic" is that it refers to close, intimate, or loving friendship, that is not sexual or romantic. So casual friendships would not necessarily be a platonic relationship. Another less strict definition of "platonic" is simply "without sex or romance". You can have sexual relationships with friends, which would by definition not be platonic.

I have a friend who was so severely dysphoric about her breasts that she thought she was trans and was going to have them removed as part of transitioning. Her parents insisted she see a therapist first. She eventually realised she wasn't trans and managed to work through her dysphoria around her breasts.

I didn't mean to imply anything, I was just answering the question Sorry you don't find it helpful, I hope you find something that is. It may well be very uncommon, I have no idea... but so is aromanticism, so you are in good company regardless. Not to me.