Neon

I feel more aro than ace. I believe this is because it has a bigger impact on my life.

I didn't do stereotypical wedding planning as a child. However, I did have an ideal: as non traditional as possible, ending with me objecting and leaving. I do still think that would be very fun, if only to make a statement. Edit: I just realized this should have clued me in to not wanting to get married way sooner.

(Before I start, I want to blanket this as me not being mad, frustrated, etc.. It's not meant to be an attack, just an examination. My tone can come off weird through text so I want to make sure you know that I don't have some kind of personal vendetta. I just like the current flag and think it works) You linked the original explanation for the flag (which I had previously tried to find and couldn't, so good on you) to defend the idea that the ace and aro flags are linked. When explaining the black and grey stripes, the OP stated: "black-grey - the sexuality spectrum - acknowledging aro-aces, aromantic allosexuals, and everything in between because we are a diverse lot" They specifically said that aroallos are represented by the black and grey stripes. This is fair. But as far as we know, the platonic stripe is not meant to do anything but include how important platonic attraction is to many aros. This is actually the point I'm attempting to make. The rainbow flag represents all queer people, so even if an individual doesn't specifically relate to one stripe, they are still represented by the flag. I'd actually argue that there is a comparison, as the aromantic spectrum is very diverse. The flag to represent all of us without having stripes that some of us can't relate to would just be the green stripes. Instead, the flag represents many things that are important to the aromantic community. Aromanticism/arospec, obviously. Then platonic relationships, as these are also important to much of the community. Then the sexuality spectrum, as this is important to much of the community. My point here was more about how the number of stripes doesn't typically call to mind the complexity or lack thereof of what it's meant to represent. Now, all that being said, I do have one problem with the current aro flag, and that's how it's often seen as a green asexual flag. I doubt that was the intent of the design (since you can't see any relation with the yellow stripe instead of the white), but it is kind of frustrating. Especially when people try to take that and run with it; adding and removing stripes of each flag to make them fit next to each other, proclaiming their hatred for how the sunset flag doesn't have the ace or aro colors in it (that's the point), claiming the aro flag is bad because it doesn't match the ace flag, etc.. But I don't think that warrants a redesign, just some people who need to engage with the community in more than just memes and flags.

This is very faulty logic. The same colors mean different things on different flags. The white on the ace flag means community. On the aro flag, it means non-romantic relationships. On the Colorado flag it means snow and silver. I’m addition, the idea that including one group excludes everyone who is not in it is bogus. Many aro people are also aplatonic, loveless, or similar. They aren’t excluded by the white stripe, they just don’t relate to that specific part. Furthermore, many aro people do consider their sexuality to be related to their aromantic identity. The aroace flag was designed with that in mind. The aroallo label specifically relates aromanticism and allosexuality. Non-SAM aros aren’t excluded by the inclusion of a stripe meant to represent the sexuality spectrum any more than aros who don’t feel platonic love are excluded by a stripe meant to represent that. Ditto with aromantic people not being excluded from the rainbow flag due to a single stripe meaning love. Finally, the number of stripes contributing to the idea that aromanticism is complicated is without any kind of merit. The lesbian flag has 7 stripes. The rainbow one has 6. The progress one has 12. The American flag has 13. The sapphic flag has 3. None of that signifies or implies any amount of complexity. While I do understand to an extent where you are coming from with some of the issues you’ve raised, they don’t hold up under further scrutiny.

I bought one at pride, but can't display it.

Exactly. I phrased it poorly, but this is what I meant. I, for example, am not grayromantic. I'm not represented by that section. But I'm not about to lop off the gray stripe, just because I personally don't identify with it.

Just as there are aro people to whom sexuality is completely different than romantic orientation, there are those of us for whom it's entangled. My asexuality has a lot to do with my aromanticism. The stripe being there to represent some aros doesn't mean it's there to represent every aro. By including it, the flag represents the experiences of every aro, both those who feel their sexuality is related and those who do not.

I'm not going to "give" you a label. That's a personal journey. However, I'd recommend skimming this: https://www.aromanticism.org/en/identity-terms I wouldn't obsess to much over the perfect label. I tried to do that and ended up confusing myself and getting really frustrated. So I "gave up" and just called myself arospec. When I finally started calling myself aromantic (with the meaning of no romantic attraction rather than the spectrum meaning btw), it came about naturally, and I didn't realized I had started doing that until a bit after. I'd recommend that instead of agonizing over finding the exact right label(s) for however long.

In my opinion, it's better to stay in the closet. Coming out in your situation doesn't seem safe to me. Even if your parents would never hurt you, the invalidation combined with whatever else on a potential daily basis would likely do extreme harm to your mental health.

Around 3rd grade. But I don't think any were serious until 7th.

At night, I do my best to come off more as a guy for safety reasons. But other than that, I don’t think so.

Depends on the day (ie did I see more people talk about sex or romance, and thus how did I feel more alienated?). But normally romantic.

In real life I've only seen the scale used three ways: misogynistically (gross), jokingly (still weird), or to body shame someone (also gross). As far as I know it originated as being misogynistic.

I've seen it time and again how when discussing asexuality in a vacuum, alloromantic asexual people feel the constant need to clarify that they are not aromantic and still feel romantic love. And while I don't think that's inherently bad, it often comes across more as separating aroaces than it does ensuring that asexuality and aromanticism aren't conflated. I've felt at times that the alloace community doesn't really regard aroaces as a part of it. The phrase "ace people still feel (romantic) love" and variations of it is treated by the alloace community as the most important thing to know about asexuality, and a given for all ace people. Which implies that aroaces aren't really a part of ace spaces. That we are less important, or even a threat to the "real" aces. And while the aroallo community also emphasizes that they are not asexual, the rhetoric is totally different. It focuses more on how aroallo people aren't talked about enough, and how not all aros are ace. Aroace's existence isn't treated as inconvenient or ignored like we often are in ace spaces. And I also want to recognize this isn't just an aroace thing. Aroallos and non-sam aros are also harmed by a lot of those implications. At this point though, I have to wonder if it's just me reading into things that aren't there. I've never really put words to these ideas before, and I haven't seen others do so either. So I'd really, really appreciate other people's thoughts on this.

I think you are more thinking of amatonormativity. Alloromanticism is just being alloro, whereas amatonormantivity is the assumption that everyone wants and is looking for a relationship, and the subsequent societal effects. Some resulting issues from that I can think of are: Pressure to be in a relationship causing people to not leave toxic situations. People being seen/seeing themselves as less than for not wanting a relationship. Exploiting the idea of love to gaslight and manipulate people. Exclusion, bigotry, etc. towards arospec people. Attempts to deem who is “worthy” of love (and then all kinds of bigotry from that). The list goes on, as you said. As for specific statistics and facts, I would look into why people stay in unhealthy relationships and scholarly writings on amatonormativity. Final advice, don’t sugarcoat anything. Allos can get very defensive when their mindsets about love are challenged, so it’s best to be blunt from the get-go.

My friend refused to leave a toxic relationship because then she wouldn't be dating anyone, and she thought that was worse. (They did break up eventually)

I'm back with a shorter name. Hi, I'm Neon. I was here quite a few months ago as Neon Green Packing Peanut, I stopped being super active around the time I decided to just not bother with AVEN anymore (I found it rather toxic to arospec people outside of aro-specific threads. Also all the big accounts were alloallo people talking about being late bloomers). I didn't mean to stop checking here, it just kind of happened. But yeah, I'm back, with a better feel for aromanticism, and my own identity. I realized that being aro and being ace are tied together for me, but are also separate experiences. A bit paradoxical, but that's just how it goes. I also found I feel a lot more connected to being aro than ace, because it affects my life more. I decided to not label platonic, aesthetic, or similar attraction, because it just wasn't working for me. I've recently gotten really into Steven Universe and Our Flag Means Death. I don't really know what else to put here, but I'm open to questions, comments, etc.. Hi again I guess.

I've found that some people just don't think two headcanons can coexist. They take every dissenting opinion as an attack on their own, rather than individuals each having different interpretations. I think it generally happens more with aspec and trans headcanons (and canon characters), simply because we are an easier target at the moment than other parts of the LGBTQ+ community. And then there's the one's who will say anything to justify a character not being aspec. The most common one I see is that being aspec inherently infantilizes characters. And just.....no. If you think that, you're infantilizing aspec people.

I know that it's just a bunch of grown adults trolling, and that makes me angrier. They are hurting us and people in the acespec community because they just can't help themselves from being bigots.

True (its fun) TPBM has a cat

I'm only out to specific people (some friends and my sibling). I plan on coming out to a few more people, but not anyone else for the time being.

At this point, I'm just kind of iffy on my thoughts. As well-intentioned as it was, the video still had some aphobic and ableist statements. And while that's not inherently her fault, part of me feels like she easily could have used a pseudonym and just asked people in the community if she was overlooking important things. Besides, even if it was a genuine mistake and there was no way around it, that statement was still harmful. The fact that it was a mistake wouldn't minimize the harm done. In my mind, it's a bit of a double-edged sword: we have more visibility, but there's also a massive amount of people who will come out of that video with harmful views. I hope she is able to have a conversation with people that she hurt and grow from it.

You can't choose which plant I can travel in and out of books

Add folders to your bookmarks bar, so when you bookmark something, it is easy to find again. That way you can close tabs without losing them as well. If you’re like me, and incapable of keeping things neat around you for more than a few days, have a time every few weeks where you organize it. If you are like me in that you use whatever is nearest to you to take notes, despite having specific places for said notes, make sure you eventually put everything in the same place.