Neon

I really like physical touch. But I don't like it when it is unexpected/unannounced. Someone I am close to just coming up and hugging me from behind is not okay, but that some person doing it after I am aware of their presence and intentions is welcomed. This is more nuanced with people I am not as close to.

I agree with all the sentiments above. I think there's probably a good way to say something like "something IS bothering me, but you've expressed to me before that it isn't something you are comfortable hearing about. I appreciate your concern, and something you can do to help me is _____ (helping me find a therapist, just being there with me, etc.)." Because you don't want them to think you are hiding things (because you aren't), but you don't want to cross a line, especially one tied to trauma.

I assume that this one comes from the conflation of aromanticism and asexuality. Since people think only humans feel love (probably false), if they think asexual = aromantic, they think asexual people are like animals. It also may come from people who mostly see domesticated animals in media, and thus do not associate animals with sex.

I found Izzy, Iz, Indigo, and Iggy.

oh its more embarrassing than that, I just flat out forgot that people date

Some people in a discord I was in were complaining about how they had to cancel valentines plans and it took me 15 minutes to figure out why people have plans on valentines day

This. There's a concept called the "social clock" and it's milestones that you are supposed to hit around certain times. A big one is marriage, and even before I knew I was aro, I knew I didn't want that. But I assumed it would happen, whether I liked it or not. And it's a strange feeling. Because accepting I was aro lifted the weight of that expectation off my chest. But not the expectation of the expectation.

I personally don't have specific goals. I want to be happy, however that plays out. Personally, I think that having a specific passion, mission, goal, etc. is unhealthy. Because if you lose interest in it, then what do you have left? If you don't succeed, how do you not see your life as a failure? If you spend all your time zeroed in on one thing, how can you appreciate other things for everything they are? I don't have anything that exists where an interest in romance would have. I doubt I would be highly interested in romance even if I wasn't aro. I just have a lot of things that bring me joy.

I love the stacked flag (the top left) but I am particularly fond of the sunset flag (middle of the second row).

Pills

I used aromanticism.org a lot in my own questioning, and still send people there if they have questions. I would highly recommend it.

Yep! I can send you the sources I used and some additional ones I've found since once I get some sleep. I would also be okay with sending you my outline, as well as some specific arguments for you to reference if you are interested.

Before I knew I was aroace, I knew that if I was queer, I didn't want to "come out" in the traditional "sit everyone down for a big announcement" sense. I even said that if I was queer, I would just come home with my SO one day, and that would be how I came out. And after years of repressed thoughts, I realized I was aroace. And I just felt so free. The first people I wanted to tell were my parents. But I really didn't want to have that announcement. So I decided to engineer it coming up in conversation. Plus, that way, I could "test the waters" and back out if need be. And it turned out that that did need to happen. When I brought up I was doing a project on amatonormativity, my mother insisted it wasn't real. She said that people who don't want a single SO to marry and spend their lives with are "aberrations." Months later, when I asked her to review my writing for the project, she again insisted that amatonormativity wasn't real, and that I should do my project on the etymology of the word instead. She kept saying that, even when I explained that doing so would not fit the requirements of the project (which was to make an argument, mine being that amatonormativity affects everyone). Eventually I gave up, at which point she talked at me for an hour (I was looking at the time) about how people without spouses die early. Since then, I have, for the most part, been more clear about my stance on issues and refused to entertain inaccurate, harmful, or hateful comments about any topic. This has led to my mom commenting about how I'm going through a phase where I'm against relationships and gender roles. Those instances cemented in me that I'm not coming out to my parents. However, during college, I decided to come out publicly. I had been flirted with and my number asked for multiple times since the start of school, and the weight of people perceiving me like that was getting to me, as well as feeling like I had to hide it. So I put pins on my backpack and flags in my room. I still didn't tell my parents. Recently, my mom had to undergo surgery. That, along with just being away from my parents more, made me realize that I really want them to know that I'm aroace. My dad has been in my room, though he hasn't said anything. I just really want them to know this about me. I want them to ask me questions, and I want to answer them. I've accepted I'll probably have to deal with a few months of weird comments, and I'm okay with that. But I still don't want to come out. It has to be mentioned naturally, and it has to be in an appropriate situation. Overall, it's just really frustrating, and kind of exhausting. Anyway, if you read this far, thanks.

I agree with this, and am basing my response off it so figured I should acknowledge you said it. "Sexualize" is most often used to describe when humans just living their lives are stripped of their humanity in favor of the sexual pleasure they (with any intention to do so) provide others. It's often used in conjunction with discussions around fetishes for of people of a specific race. A specific example would be seeing a toddler and remarking "watch out ladies." While sexual attraction is involuntary, sexualization is a purposeful action. By only seeing what people can offer sexually, you make it clear you do not see them as people. I do think there is a bit of a blurry distinction between sexualization and expressing sexual attraction, but I think it comes down to intent and consent. Intent would be why you are making a comment. Is it to flirt, to share a harmless joke among friends, to genuinely point out something you admire? Or is it to laugh at someone, to value them only for your sexual attraction to them, to make people uncomfortable? Both lists go on. Consent would be if the people you are making the comment to are okay with the comment, and (when applicable, because it isn't always) if the person you are making the comment about is okay with it. A example of this is asking someone beforehand if they are okay with watching a horror movie. I think we can all agree that tricking someone into watching, forcing someone to watch, coercing someone to watch, or just putting on a horror movie without permission is kind of messed up. And if someone says they don't want to watch a horror movie, no one would argue that the horror genre is being censored. Trigger warnings are a way of asking someone if they want to see a specific kind of content. They are a basic courtesy.

A QPR boils down to the name. It's a committed platonic relationship. For some people, this is with someone you are friends with. For others it's with people you have a different platonic bond with. That's going to be on a person to person and relationship to relationship basis. So yes, for some, it's "friends who cuddle" but for others it's "life partner who I care about more than anyone else." The people in the relationship are the ones who define the relationship and their own feelings.

I hate how aromantic is seen as a microlabel for asexuality. Not only is it not true, but it isn't representative of most of the aromantic community. I know some aroaces experience it that way, but I don't. And that's not even to mention the complete erasure of aroallos. I know this is just one case, but I see it so often.

White house

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people

If a label feels restrictive, it isn't the right fit for you. The label(s) that fits you best will feel freeing. Along those lines, don't stress over microlabels. They may help, they may hurt. Just let it come naturally.

^^^^^^I don't see why massive amounts, maybe even the majority, of the aromantic community shouldn't get rep until the unquantifiable goal of enough mainstream acceptance of other aros. I don't see why none of us should see anything but a stereotype until, again, the unquantifiable goal of, enough alloromantics understanding us. I also don't understand how only having one aromantic experience will ever lead to understanding. Because if only one experience is shown, and that's what people base their knowledge of the aromantic community off of, they don't actually understand aromanticism. They understand a single version. Aromantic representation has to be varied so that alloromantic people don't come away thinking of us as a monolith. Best case scenario, aromantics are consistently consulted about us being represented, and that representation encourages alloromantics to learn more. That doesn't happen if all representation is a single picture of aromanticism. The only bad representation is that which is actively malicious, and even that can sometimes end up being accidentally decent. By imperfect, I just meant every character that was canonically arospec, made by allies or other arospec people, but then dismissed as bad in some way by the aromantic community. I don't think there's actually any such thing as perfect or imperfect representation.

why

The point I was trying to make here is that by bashing all aro rep that doesn't have an aromantic character who has never thought they felt romantic attraction, has never had a romantic partner, etc., you aren't bashing the aro rep anymore, you are bashing actual aromantic people for not being good enough aromantics. Beyond that though, depicting one experience over and over isn't representation, it's stereotyping. You could just as well argue that the only educational aromantic rep should be partnering aromantics, because that will ease allos into the rest of the community. But at the end of the day, no one's aromantic experience is more valuable, or more important to learn about, than anyone else's experience. Furthermore, by only representing one experience, no one is learning about aromanticism. They are learning about a single way to be aromantic, and will then go and say that anyone who doesn't fit that image isn't actually aromantic. The way we get acceptance by alloromantic people isn't by excluding vast swaths of the community from being represented until a subjective goal. The way we get acceptance by alloromantic people is by having a vast array of aromantic experiences in mainstream media that are treated as normal. Also, there are two kinds of representation. Educational, which I outlined above. But also representation that is specifically for the people within the community being represented. Not all representation is for alloromantic people to understand us. Some of it is for us to see ourselves in characters. The point being though, the only bad aromantic representation is that which is deliberately malicious.

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