Neon

Honestly, that is kinda scary that people see romcoms and are like "that is a perfect relationship!" Ummmm, no. Its intended to be nonsensical (which is why I can enjoy milder romcoms). Also, before my most recent post, I went on a rant about the unnecessary romance in Recursion. Just, people doing awful stuff "in the name of love" is 1) a horrible excuse and 2) the most boring possible character motivation

I am a pianist, but funnily enough, my favorite period of music to play is Romantic, closely followed by Baroque. I am playing Clair de Lune right now, and my setting that I use to summon the "right" feeling was just the moon (and an empty recital space). But recently my teacher asked me to do research into the motivation behind the song, and every single article was speculating if it was about romance. With no evidence besides "the moon is romantic." I just wanted to find Debussey's process, not that nonsense.

False! (I hate cheesecake and am allegic to raspberries) TPBM is/was a paleontologist

Hm... I'd say there was an apocalyptic event that wiped out all life on earth. After which, an extraterrestrial being placed a glass of pure water on the surface. However, the atmosphere is now toxic, and after a series of chemical reactions, the water and the cup become parts of a combustable material. It then spontaneously combusts.

I like that one, if it's absurd enough. Romance is where I have a strong tendency for black humor. In the Overlord light novels (an isekai story) there's one human adventurer who falls in love with the humanoid looking non-human Narberal, who despises humans and can barely disguise her hatred to not ruin her stealth missions. She rejects him with utter scorn and threats of a violent death but he still keeps going on flirting with her In the book I am reading right now, the guy: commited genocide, ethnic cleansing, enslaved her people, burned her city down(killing millions in the process), murdered her family, nearly killed her multiple times, lied to and manipulated her, and stalked her. Yet he is still somehow the love interest and all of that was excusable because he thought she was dead and was really sad. And now that it is 18 years later, and she is alive, he is now a good guy. It is so uncomfortable. And it is sad because the rest of the book is so good. The story is fascinating. I could just do without the clearly horrible pairing. I am personally hoping he dies.

I recently read a phenomenal book (Recursion by Blake Crouch), and this happened. It was a fascinating book with amazing twists that you had to pause to even begin to wrap your head around. But, by the end, it stopped being about the actual plot, and just about the relationship between the main characters. It was so annoying. Minor spoilers : I am generally okay with romance existing in books, but only because I've come to see it as unavoidable. I find it annoying when: It is unhealthy, but still happens It takes over the main plot, or causes the characters to be stupid It is the only character motivation, or replaces existing motivations Love triangles exist When it becomes gushy Cliches/overdone plotlines occur One of them is super creepy about it Boundaries are ignored to begin with Most enemies-to-lovers things happen (sue me) They don't trust each other and/or forgive and ignore things One of them lives up to a bad reputation, and it is ignored If either of them was ever afraid of the other One of them makes huge sacrifices and the other doesn't give anything back A great action sequence is interrupted for a declaration of love Other less common things that don't immediately come to mind (That was a lot, and there are more) At those points, it goes from mildly annoying to uncomfortable.

Romance is Boring by Los Campesinos https://genius.com/Los-campesinos-romance-is-boring-lyrics (The music video ruins the aro part a bit so I posted the lyrics instead)

The list is very long, and still incomplete, so I put it in a spoiler for the sake of everyone's sanity: Not sure if this indicates I read too much, my standards are too low, or both. EDIT: just read a new one, Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. It was amazing. I would gush over one particular section and the genius writing that it is, but it can easily be seen as a spoiler.

Today I realized that people have had crushes on me. I was told by these people as well as by third parties of this fact. I technically knew, but my brain just comprehended the fact and went, "Hey! People liking you means they had a crush on you which means they had the crush stuff towards you."

Dude, you do too care what people think of you. You can be yourself without trying to prove it to everyone. Also, hold onto your friends, its okay to be the first to reach out. (Also telling myself what to do to avoid some events I'd rather just forget)

I am scared of dying, and scared of being alone, but not together. Also, I generally agree with the idea that we all die alone, even if surrounded by people. Maybe I'm just not afraid because I've always seen it as a fact...

This... this explains so much. I have been internally explaining it by placing people into categories with complicated descriptions, but this makes way more sense! It also explains just so many past interactions.

I haven't ever been in a romantic relationship, so I may not be the best source, but I can relate to being super uncomfortable with people expressing those feelings towards me, though not to that extent. It could just be romance repulsion, which is not an indicator of aromanticism on its own. Regardless of the extreme disgust, it seems a bit like [edit: I messed up on terms, it is correct now I believe] lithromantic, where romantic feelings fade upon reciprocation. Of course, no one but you can say for sure, and I encourage you to continue to look into it. I hope this helps. Note: I previously said frayromantic; that is actually where romantic feelings fade upon meeting someone.

I suppose it depends on the person. But for me, there was a time where I would not interact with a boy without being forced to. I also find it very difficult to say "I love you" to my friends, even though they say it to me. The only time I didn't is when we specified "I love you platonically" but I fell out of touch with that friend unfortunately. Also, most of the people at my school tend to use the term a lot towards even people they don't know very well.

Really just wondering if anyone can relate and/or advice. A rant, featuring feelings of inadequacy and confusion: I really, really hate that I can't understand romantic love. A little part of me does appreciate that I won't get sucked into that, but I don't even know what "that" is. And it bothers me. I keep finding descriptions that I think that I maybe understand but then I get those feelings singing in the car with my family. I badly want to understand it. Part of it, I'm sure, is some internalized amatonormativity and arophobia where if I understand it, I'll feel it, but its not just that. I try to understand everything I come across, analyzing anything, from a random rock to social interactions that happened years ago. And I usually get a satisfying conclusion. But this time, I keep failing to grasp at staws that I feel like I should be able to see, but still can't. It feels like there is a wall inside my brain preventing me from understanding it, and every time I realize I was wrong, it gets stronger. Which, true, affirms my identity, which makes be feel good, but also makes me feel frustrated and sad, like I failed again. At this point, I'm not really looking for even more explanations, because it seems doing so has been harmful to me. Still, it would be nice to know if anyone feels the same way.

Older of 2. Younger sister is ace-spec and bi. But I have a huge extended family (20+ members who are 1st cousins alone) who are all (to my knowledge) cisgender and heterosexual.

Um, wow, you "just" brought back some memories for me... I found this song after I had moved houses as a kid, and I related to it so much because I connected it to missing, but no longer being connected to, my old friends. It was my favorite song for a few months, but when I heard it years later (still feeling those feelings), I realized it was about love, and was upset that the song had been ruined for me. It's a good song, but most of its appeal to me was its relatability.

I choose 1 person, not sharing a space, but I would also be happy alone (with at least 2 cats in any situation).

In seventh grade I was such an asshole(cold, distant, rude, just generally awful) to every boy because I didn't want people to think I had a crush on anyone. Random tangent: So I have always been a huge reader, and in 7th grade we got mints every time we passed a quiz on the book we finished. This one kid was co-librarian and he (per his own words) absolutely despised me, and that was made worse by me constantly asking for mints. So this one day, I finish the quiz and his partner asked him to grab me a mint, and he tossed it across the classroom and I caught it(it's not bragging if it was an anomaly). Later that day, he was talking to his friend about how much he hated me, and didn't realize I was 3 ft away. I brought up what he said a few days later because I thought it was hilarious, and he acted all apologetic for a few days after. I still think the whole thing is super funny. Anyway, YMBAI you deliberately avoid situations that could be misinterpreted as romantic/having a crush on.

And it is a really good, though-provoking movie besides that.

So basically, I am doing a project for school that talks about the impact of amatonomativity. I told my mom about this because she had been helping me choose a topic, and her response was...less than great. She then proceeded to state that it is in human nature to "pair up." I told her that that completely ignores a lot of people (specifically I mentioned polyamorous relationships and she interrupted me before I finished with anything else). She responded that "there will always be aberrations" (I had to look up that word, and it does not have any definition that could really be excusable for use in that context). So yeah, that was great. But I have this topic for the whole year, and this conversation is going to come up again. How should I proceed?

Checkmate

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