Neon

3 hours ago, Scoop said:

I need to know romance is coming and then they have to meet my expectations. If I'm picking up a sci-fi novel say and there's going to be romance in it then it has to be secondary to the plot. The story can't divert off into a romance, that's not what I signed up for. 

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:

1. It is unhealthy, but still happens
2. It takes over the main plot, or causes the characters to be stupid
3. It is the only character motivation, or replaces existing motivations
4. Love triangles exist
5. When it becomes gushy
6. Cliches/overdone plotlines occur
7. One of them is super creepy about it
8. Boundaries are ignored to begin with
9. Most enemies-to-lovers things happen (sue me)
10. They don't trust each other and/or forgive and ignore things
11. One of them lives up to a bad reputation, and it is ignored
12. If either of them was ever afraid of the other
13. One of them makes huge sacrifices and the other doesn't give anything back
14. A great action sequence is interrupted for a declaration of love
15. 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...

On 10/14/2020 at 4:00 PM, neth said:

I would say that in comparison to alloros, I treat my aquaintances more like friends and my friends more like romantic partners. I have noticed this ends up disappointing many of my aquainatances who believe we are friends until they realize thats how I treat everyone. It also leaves me vunerable to my friends who treats me more like I would an acquaintance. Which in turn leaves me upset, disappointed, and isolated. This disconnection has made me realize I simply cannot do interpersonal relations the same way as my peers in my environment.

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.

On 10/19/2020 at 2:01 PM, a tiny tortoise said:

Hold up...I thought that everyone did this? Because I purposely avoid saying I love you to my friends in fear of them thinking I have a crush on them, and I don't snuggle with them for the same reason even though I love snuggling. But allos don't do this with anyone they don't have a crush on??

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.

On 5/19/2016 at 9:53 PM, DannyFenton123 said:

Somebody That I Used to Know is another one with a cool melody. The lyrics aren't bad (what would I know about a bad love song) but they're completely unrelatable to me

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.

6 hours ago, RepublicServicesVolunteer said:

Interstellar, because it's about space exploration and time travel. There's no romance (or sex), but it's about a close relationship between a father and a daughter, who are both interested in scientific topics.

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

Awful Babies Yonder Slide Short Instruments Noting Interesting Animals Nearby

ALLITERATION

1 hour ago, RepublicServicesVolunteer said:

Who can relate? I remember when I was in middle school to early high school. Some people were already in relationships and whatnot. For some reason (probably because I thought everyone was too young to be serious about such stuff), I couldn't take the romantically active students seriously, and I thought they were kidding. Only during my sophomore or junior year, however, did I come to realize that they weren't kidding, but were serious the whole time.

Ha ha, yeah. I have only recently come to realize that people in relationships weren't just in them to fit in.

43 minutes ago, emmafriendly said:

Honestly while I am aroace, I always find my aromanticism to be way more important than my asexuality. I will definitely speak on ace stuff as an ace person, but I just find myself more reflective upon my aromanticism more, and I feel like it shapes me as a person more, so I tend to focus on it.

Me too! I wonder if it's because I spent my entire life being bombarded with the definite romance in my future while sex didn't join the discussion until much later.

That sucks. Even as aro and ace, I see them as completely different things. Sorry that's happening to you.

35 minutes ago, FaerySilverwings said:

Hello fellow aroace peeps!

Out of curiosity, did anyone else here have trouble realizing their identity because they just... didn't get into situations where it would come into play? (For example, I was never around other people my age until I was in uni, so a lot of the "wait, I don't experience what other teenagers seem obsessed about" moments I've heard other aro and ace people describe just didn't happen to me at all.)

Not exactly that I didn't get into the situations, but I tended to avoid them and didn't realize anything from them. I've never really hung out with the type of people who obsess over their relationships/crushes, and when they did talk about it, I kind of just went in my head "that will happen someday." Spoiler alert, it didn't.

Hi there!

I am asexual as well as aromantic, so I can't speak to wanting a sexual relationship(though many aros do as they aren't asexual).

For me, romance does seem like an awful lot of work, but that's not why I see myself as aromantic. In fact, some aromantic people do desire romantic relationships, just as some alloromantics prefer to be single. I consider myself aromantic because I have never experienced romantic attraction. I've never had what can be accurately described as a crush, and I don't fully understand romantic love. However aromanticism is a spectrum and people who identify as grayaromantic for example rarely experience romantic attraction, though it does occasionally occur.

At the end of the day, only you really know. If aromantic is a label that works for you, that's great. If not, or you don't want to use a label, that is fine as well.

Hope this helped at all.

Hi! I sort of wrote a mini-essay, but I hope it helps.

I'm not sure if you've deeply explored aromanticism yet, but you may find yourself of the grayromantic spectrum. Grayromantic is where one experiences romantic attraction very rarely, perhaps only a few times in their life. This includes demiromantic, where romantic attraction only occurs after a strong bond is established. I personally consider myself aromantic because I have never experienced romantic attraction.

In terms of "attraction," did you mean sexual? If not, it seems like you are describing aesthetic attraction, which is where you admire a person's physical traits separate from being sexually attracted to them. As an asexual person, I personally think people are just wonderful to look at, but I don't feel sexual attraction to them. If you did mean sexual attraction, many aromantic people still experience sexual attraction.

If you haven't explored much already, there are some great online resources where people talk about their experiences much more eloquently than I can.

Finally, only you can decide your label. If you think more about it and come to the conclusion that you are on the aromantic spectrum, great! If you don't, thats also great. If you use aromantic then decide it doesn't fit, that's fine as well. If you decide you don't want a label, that's perfectly fine.

For alloromantics:

Online there's a bunch of signs that you have a crush/are in love, but the way I imagine them playing out is very similar to how I do react when thinking about things and people I love platonically. For example, I can get super into a book to the point that I am constantly reminded of it by random things and I always want to be reading it, but I don't want to date the book(not that I'm entirerly opposed to it).

So besides the whole people vs inanimate objects thing, how do you know it's romantic attraction and not something else? Is it just instinctual for most people?

(Sorry if it's already been asked, I didn't see it with a brief skimming)