SurrealEntity

Hey! It's perfectly fine to not be romance-repulsed and aro! I personally am a sex-positive ace-spec person. You might want to look into aegoromantic or cupioromantic though, it sounds a bit like what you described :).

Yea so I never got the memo that a crush was supposed to be romantic.. And I genuinely felt like I did experience crushes before realizing that I am actually aromantic. So it's really hard for me not to associate the word crush with whatever the fuck it is that I am experiencing ?. It kinda sucks. I hate that it implies romance. But basically how I define a crush is -Thinking they are aesthetically attractive. and/or -Thinking they are really cool. And a squish is -Thinking they are really cool and relatable. It's pretty vague. I get 'crushes' a lot, but squishes not so often. Also I barely have desire to act on it, and I don't want physical closeness because I'm touch averse.

Heya, to me it sounds like you are hetero-oriented, but you don't have to be hetero-romantic! You could be hetero-alterous, or hetero-queerplatonic. Basically there are other attraction types besides romantic, sexual, and platonic. And you can have relationships or strong bonds with people without it having to be romantic! (or sexual lol obviously). This might be what you're experiencing.

Well, you can't really help who you get attracted to. It might be some unconscious prejudice that causes it though, but that doesn't really change the fact you have no sexual or romantic desire for them. And I definitely don't think you're fetishizing them. It could also be that those particular 3 trans guys just felt more like friends to you.

I have questioned both my romantic and sexual orientation separately for years. Wow this is going to be very long. I've always had a really strong aesthetic attraction, but it isn't tied to any other orientation. There's just this loose, vivid aesthetic attraction that makes me appreciate visual beauty, but it doesn't form into anything else. It doesn't make me want to pursue people, it doesn't make me want to get close to them at all. I just like visuals, I'm a visual person. So I remember finding people pretty in my teens, and I remember that it was usually aimed at women and feminine people. I was way more picky with men and masculine people, and often preferred them more feminine. This paired with me developing a "crush" for one of my female internet friends, led me to believe that my orientation was aimed at women. Mind you, at this point I had absolutely no knowledge of the existence of the split attraction model or non-binary gender for that matter. I was however open to idea of liking men, but I wasn't sure, because that feeling I felt for my friend, I had never felt for any man before. This feeling, I wrongfully believed to be romantic, because that's all I knew. I thought, people can either be friends, and when they fall in love with each other, they get into a romantic relationship. I always viewed sex separately, I knew you could have sex without love, but at that time I did think that all people in romantic relationships would eventually have sex. So I guess I didn't realize that one could feel sexual attraction, I just thought it was something people do either because they love each other, or just because they want to have sex. I got introduced to the term aromanticism fairly early. It resonated with me, because I always hated romantic movies, and was (still am) repulsed by how romance is portrayed in media. However, I knew I could feel intimate feelings for people, and I desired intimate relationships, so I quickly ruled out the option of being aromantic, and just thought that I wasn't a super romantic person instead. I unconsciously knew that I didn't actually want to be nor feel intimate with the kind of people I like aesthetically, but still I couldn't actually grasp this concept. Somewhere along the course of time I learned about the prefixes pan- and demi-, also I noticed that people were referring to their orientations as 'sexualities', so I thought that one's romantic orientation was their sexuality, still utterly oblivious to the split attraction model. Also still utterly unaware that the thing I was feeling wasn't even romantic. At this point I still hadn't felt intimate feelings for a man. But still the demi- and pan- labels resonated with me in the sense that I needed an emotional bond, and didn't really care about gender. I knew I was attracted to people's personalities, despite simultaneously having really strong aesthetic attraction. At this point, I really should've put two and two together, but alas. So far, I have had no physically intimate relationships, and basically no desire for them. All my relationships were online, and I'd only ever felt intimate feelings for this one friend. I knew other people were more preoccupied with dating and such, but I just thought again "I wasn't a very romantic person". Later I did end up developing feelings for a guy. It felt similar as what I felt for that girl years back. So now I had confirmation gender didn't matter to me. I'm pretty sure I identified as pansexual at this point. It felt accurate, I could develop intimate feelings for any gender, and I aesthetically liked any gender, it made sense for it to be my sexuality, right? I'm really not sure at what point it started clicking for me that sexual attraction was separate, and for awhile I also just kind of gave up at trying to understand my orientation. When I finally did get introduced to asexuality, it didn't resonate with me like aromanticism did. Because, despite not having had much sexual desire at all, I did have sexual fantasies, and had some sexual interest in the people I had intimate feelings for. Although, I'd never actually had sex, and I had trouble envision myself actually having sex. So at the least I was demisexual, I thought. Now, being pan didn't really feel right anymore. Because I knew I visually liked all genders, but couldn't really imagine myself having sex with any person, but I also wasn't asexual? I kinda gave up again. At some point I got introduced to the split attraction model, of sexual and romantic feelings being different, and can be split for some people. After asking advice, many people told me I'm supposed to identify as demisexual and panromantic, but it just did not feel right! I had a hunch that it was something else that I was feeling, cause romantic just didn't sit right. Previously I'd lumped all attractions into my 'sexuality', but having my supposedly romantic orientation highlighted like this, just made me want to tear my skin off. I think I just started identifying as queer at some point, because it was all too confusing. Started questioning being ace again, after realizing I really just had no desire for sex like in real life at all? Well, sometimes I kinda flux on the idea, but generally just don't want it. So I tried to look up more information about asexuality, and join communities. After having conversations on an ace discord, I had a better grasping of splitting my sexual and romantic feelings. But I still didn't realize that I felt no romantic feelings. I still mistook my intimate feelings as romantic. However I did finally realize that my demi orientation applied to my intimate feelings, and not my sexuality. It all clicked when I finally found out the full split attraction model. Not only could sexual and romantic attraction be separate, but there wasn't just those! When I saw the term queerplatonic, I knew this is what I had been feeling all along. It didn't take long for to finally piece together, I'm aro after all. I just want a close emotional friendship and be life partners, not a romantic relationship with r o m a n c e. So yea I'm demi and pan queerplatonic. That took a whooping decade. Now my actual sexuality had to be sorted out? I started to realize that I never actually like to include myself in sexual fantasy, so this one was a lot easier, after splitting my intimate queerplatonic feelings and non-existent romantic feelings from my sexual feelings, I could finally understand that I am aegosexual. I don't want to personally be involved with sexual acts, but I do enjoy sexual acts in thought. When I'd have sexual thought about people I found attractive, or people I had intimate feelings for in the past, I would always make myself look not like myself, or completely remove myself all together and insert a different person(s) instead. I didn't really know I was doing this cause I guess I didn't grasp the concept of using your real life self in sexual fantasy because that seemed unnecessary to me. Lmao idk what else to include.

I think they can. As you said, it's possible for a trans person to not be dysphoric, so it must be possible the other way around, unless I'm also missing something and that logic is flawed somehow.

Wait.. Platonic doesn't mean friendship?? Then what is the attraction type for wanting to be friends with someone?

Okay so, liking penises does not equal to liking men (trans women and AMAB non-binary people exist y'all) and it's entirely possible to have sex with someone you're not sexually attracted to and enjoy it. So, nothing about the points you wrote actually indicates that you feel sexual attraction towards men, which would be a requirement for being bisexual. Therefore you aren't bisexual. It does seem like you might have a sexual philia for peni?

I can't give any insight on the romantic aspect, but I relate to having 'skewed' perception of a platonic relation. It might be because I'm demi-platonic and need a lot of time to grow towards someone, but I need a deeper emotional connection to truly call someone a friend. This requirement to most people would probably seem ludicrous and already threading past platonic territory. So... I guess at the point where I would consider someone a friend, is where other people would already consider them romantic, queerplatonic, or alterous interests. I don't know lmao. But there is no line for me past that, because I don't feel/want romance. Once I have feelings for someone they'll always be and remain platonic and emotional, sensual and queerplatonic could be added to the bunch as well.

For me the nuance is a bit different, I would be perfectly fine having an intimate relationship with only one person, but I want there to be the freedom to include one or more persons, or start new intimate relationships. I just don't want the relationship to be limited to monogamy, if that makes sense? But like, I also don't necessarily need to have multiple partners to feel fulfilled, so I wouldn't consider myself to be poly. Yet it isn't ambiamory either, because I would in no circumstance be okay with a strictly monogamous relationship. It's confusing. FWY the relationship I'm talking about in this hypothetical context, would be a queerplatonic relationship.

CW: Possible triggering topics in here, but they're only briefly mentioned. I was once in a similar situation, some person I met online was begging/forcing me to date them and emotionally manipulating me with threats of harming themself if I didn't. I didn't know them very well so I didn't feel comfortable dating them and had no emotional connection to them. Especially because of the way they treated me, I knew I would never develop an emotional connection to them. It was a very scary experience, but I ultimately blocked them. What they decide to do to themselves is not my fault, I am not obligated to date anyone. It is emotional abuse and I am not responsible for other people's decisions. I don't regret blocking them, they were way out of line.

I use romance-repulsed. I am also romance-averse, but the general concept of romance repulses me even when it doesn't involve myself at all, so romance-repulsed works better.