Hello! My name is Ava (rhymes with "Java", she/her), nice to meet you all!
I figured out I was ace a couple of years ago, and over the last few months have started to suspect that I'm aro as well. I'm in my late 20s at this point and have never seriously dated anyone, and I'm thinking it's probably because I just don't want to!
I never really cared for romance in media as a kid, and was often kind of annoyed by romantic subplots in my favorite books. As an adult I have chilled out more and can appreciate and actively enjoy a good ship lol but I still never really think about romance as something that would happen to me.
I've also had some particularly intense crushes in my day which is what really threw me off in my ace/aro-identifying journey, because I figured if my crushes were that intense then I couldn't be ace/aro. But in retrospect, looking back at any one of my crushes, I never actually wanted to date them...I think I just like...thought they were really hot and wanted them to think I was cool?
It's happened to me a couple of times where a guy who I knew and liked (and even had a little baby crush on!) asked me out on a date, and then as soon as I actually went on the date I just felt completely uncomfortable with the whole thing, even though these were people that I enjoyed spending time with otherwise.
I think I just assumed that eventually I'd start dating and get married and have a partner and children and it would all just happen someday, so I never really questioned it...and then my early 20s went by without me ever having had a partner, and then my mid-20s, and now I'm in my late 20s and I think my parents are getting worried because they want me to find someone, but I'm just like...do I actually want to? And I think the answer is no.
Other things about me...I like to draw, code, read, occasionally write, and hang out on the internet. Back when we were allowed to be around other people (?) I enjoyed losing at bar trivia with my friends.