BuySomeCheese

Oh yea thank you, those should help!!

Idk if this is the right section for this? But one of my friends thinks they might be on the asexual spectrum, so I’m trying to help my providing a “comprehensive list to sexual orientations”, like we have here for romantic orientations. But I can’t find one for the life of me? I might just be looking in the wrong places, I just want to help them lol. I found some on the asexual wiki but it’s kind of annoying to navigate

I get the imaginary conversation part so much omgs, and the bi and pan parts My personal evolution story (that’s honestly such a cool name for this it reminds me of Pokémon) is a fun time lol. In 6th grade, I thought I had a crush on one of my (girl) friends. I’m afab and I thought I had an attraction to boys that was mainly just gender envy, but I ended up going on tumblr and identifying with the labels “demipanromantic asexual”. At the end of 6th grade, I was using that for my romantic/sexual orientation, and “non-binary transmasculine demiboy”. Eventually I grew into myself more and deleted tumblr, and found just trans ftm and bisexual fit me better. That was during 7th grade. During 8th grade I had my first relationship and a lot of it was not what I wanted, so I broke up with them. Earlier this year, one of my new friends had a huge crush on me and we had a little thing? Nothing official because “I wasn’t ready for another relationship so soon” but honestly I think the whole thing made me really uncomfortable after a month or so. Now I’m looking at arospec labels because they feel most comfortable right now. I still think I’m probably bisexual, I might be on the asexual spectrum but that might also be my dysphoria. Even if I end up being alloallo, I think there’s a good chance I’ll still be romance repulsed. It’s just not a comfortable position for me at all. Maybe something with polyamorous dynamics but otherwise no lol.

I was always this kid lol. I remember when I was probably in 1st grade or so, I had a little meltdown in the mall because I told my mom I was queer, meaning “weird”. She kept telling me to not say that, that that wasn’t the actual meaning and all. It’s kind of funny looking back, because I was right with both meanings of the word.

Hi!! My mom used in-vitro fertilization to have my brother and I. My neighbor just had her first son the same way. Both my mom and neighbor had been married to have kids and divorced, although I don’t think they’ve gone through the abuse you have. I’m glad you’re still here, and I’m glad you’re considering in-vitro fertilization instead of another relationship, I think that’s a great idea!!! I hope that if you choose that route, it goes well for you!!!

True!! I’m not super good at it but it’s fun TPBM knows French

Alex Fierro in the Magnus Chase series is canonically gender-fluid. Alex's default pronouns are she/her, but she wants people to use the pronouns that match whatever her currant gender expression is. She's amab too, which isn't very important but I feel like I see a lot more afab representation so it was refreshing to me ig. The series does mention that she was like kicked out of her house because of her gender fluidity, so maybe be a bit careful if that would be triggering to you. Overall though 10/10 great character great story great author. Magnus Chase and The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan is the first in the series Spoiler on her character relationships below (not like bad I just don't want to spoil the book for anyone lol)

I've told two of my closest friends that I'm questioning my romantic orientation. I told them because a. I trust them with my entire life so why wouldn't I?, and b. both of them have questioned their romantic orientation. One identified as aroace for like two years and is still somewhere on both spectrums, and the other is alloallo i think and did go through a long questioning period. They're both dating now actually they're really cute together and have been super helpful in me figuring this out.

It depends on how far we’re going- back to 5/6th grade, I’d tell myself to listen more to my one friend who used to identify with aromantic. Anytime before that I’d just tell myself about the LGBTQ+ community in general. If it were 7/8th grade, I’d tell myself that I don’t have to say yes to anyone (although I do think dating my ex was a pretty pivotal part of figuring this out, so maybe I wouldn’t say anything at all lol). If it were earlier this year, I’d give myself a bit more push in this direction, and maybe I’d get to where I am on my understanding of myself sooner y’know? But overall I don’t think I’d say much to myself at any age because my process of figuring my romantic orientation has felt very me and I’d like to keep that similar to what happened y’know?

No omgs I totally agree it strains my eyes for some reason lol

This one omgs so true

Oh thank you for suggesting him, he’s got quite a few videos on that and I think that’ll be really helpful!!!

That actually makes a lot of sense and is a lot easier than I thought it’d be thank you lol

Basically the title lol. I’m trying to identify the different types of attraction I feel towards people, and I’ve seen enough posts talking about what platonic attraction vs romantic attraction to have an idea about what the differences mean to me rn. It’s the difference between sexual and romantic attraction that’s not making sense yet so it’d be nice if some of y’all who feel sexual attraction could describe it!! Thank you!!

Hey homie welcome!!

I mainly play The Sims 4 and Nintendo games, especially Tomodachi Life. Recently I got into Minecraft too

I’m also INTJ/FJ, I get almost 50/50 for feeling and thinking lol

I wish I did lol, I had tried doing the image search thingy to find her but I couldn’t for the life of me sorry

Hey welcome!! I just wanted to say, I love your pfp. It’s the anime chick I used as my OCs face in 5th grade, before I knew I was trans ftm lol

Rain

Thank you, the points you made are really helpful!!!!

Sorry I’m really bad at titles anyways I’m just going to dump all thoughts related to my questioning of my romantic orientation here and we’ll see what happens lol. I love my 5 best friends more than anything or anyone else and I’ve tried to feel like that for other people (except romantic edition) but I can’t. I’ve seen some people describe being romantically attracted to someone as “being in physical pain when you’re not around them” but the way I feel for my friends are definitely not romantic even though my chest feels tight and my limbs get shaky if they’re hurting or I haven’t been able to see them. The 6 of us do have tentative plans and dreams of living together after we graduate for a bit, and when I tell you that that’s all I want, to be able to wake up and see them and cook dinner with them and know that they’re right there. The one time I was in a romantic relationship, we dated for 8 months and I was definitely attracted to her for at least the first four months (? about, maybe less) but after that I was just suffocated and honestly scared, and while it has come to light that she’s kinda toxic and not a great person or friend, I think I would’ve felt the same with anyone else. I also mainly said yes to her asking me out because I knew she liked me and I thought that that was how people started liking others and while that’s not completely wrong from what I’ve seen, it was definitely the wrong move for me to make. When I was in 6th grade, for about a year and half, I thought I had a crush on one of my 5 people. Maybe I did, I’m definitely more attracted to her physically than I am the other 4, but I don’t think any romantic feelings ever actually existed. I think I was confusing physical and sexual attraction with romantic maybe? I used to be really obsessed with romance and all but suddenly I really couldn’t care less? I’ve been reading fanfiction (not exactly sfw either unfortunately) since like 5th grade (and I honestly don’t remember why or how? But anyways) and maybe that skewed my perception of romance? But also I’ve never been a fan of romantic fluff or angst fanfiction really, idk. My mom is a single mother and I’ve never had a constant example of a relationship from her, so maybe that had also affected the way I see romantic relationships? She dated one person when I was about 8 and not for long, and now she’s kinda? with another dude but idk, I feel like I’d feel the same about relationships and romance no matter what she had done when I was younger, but maybe? I think it’s kinda funny that I’m questioning my romantic orientation when my best friends had gone to me to ask if how a crush felt when they were wondering if they liked each other (they did, they’ve been dating for over a year and are so cute together omgs). One of my friends (not one of my 5) has/had a crush on me and I feel pretty similarly to when I was dating my ex about it sometimes. Like, I’ve explained to them that I’m not ready for a relationship and I don’t want to hurt them and I’m really emotionally confused and unavailable rn, but I think they’re holding out for me to come around and I don’t think that’ll happen. I really can’t see myself dating them. When I first met them, I felt a lot of really strong emotions but I think it was just a huge rush of platonic emotions? Idk I feel like I’m leading them on a bit and I hate it so I kept accidentally ghosting them. On the topic of people having a crush on me, I’m usually really good at telling when people like me. Idk why, I just know that I don’t do anything about it. It usually doesn’t affect me much because idk I don’t feel much for them back in any way. I don’t know if this is relevant I just think it’s funny. Another thing relating to being the object of people’s romantic attraction- I think two of my friends (these people are part of the 5) think they have a crush on me. One of them is the girl I used to maybe like so I love that timing lol. I have been getting those vibes from her on and off for eh about a year now maybe. I don’t really mind that these two think they like me. I don’t think that either of them really do, one of them keeps jumping from boy to boy which is fine! but it’s mainly to escape from her negative mental health, and the other is really confused about everything all the time. Idk of course I can’t tell what they’re feeling unless they tell me but that’s just what I’ve deduced. I think I’m probably allosexual, which makes some things about romance feel confusing to me? I mean, I’m not looking to have sex anytime soon, I’m a minor and I’m also too dysphoric for that rn. But I do like the idea, in a fwb way? But then that makes me feel like shallow ig which is silly because I don’t think it is inherently but some part of my brain does apparently. I say I’m probably polyamorous because I don’t feel jealous ever really, I feel protective over people and I think I’ve mistaken that for jealousy in the past. But idk? I also say I’m biromantic usually because I feel the same towards different people of different genders, it depends on the person? Idk that one doesn’t make much sense I saw on the “YMBAI” post someone worded what I’m trying to say much better. I really like romance in theory (media, books, music, etc.) but in practice it feels icky. Idk I might come back here if I remember or discover more things Edit: O wow that really don’t be making any sense nice

I don't know how my mother identifies- she's been married but only for a short period of time when she was younger, and she did have romantic relationships when she was in high school but hasn't had any long-term relationships since she got divorced. Through sperm donation, she had me and my younger brother. I'm personally probably on the aromantic spectrum and I definitely want kids too, just not for a while lol. As a child conceived through sperm donation and raised by a single mother, I think its a great choice as long as you're sure that you're ready. And like with all kids, yours will ask some difficult questions, you'd just have to deal with some questions of a different breed lol. And like idk don't avoid questions ig? When I was in pre-k I told everyone my dad died in a war because my mom never explained that to me properly. Its kinda funny now but concerned parents, teachers and friends at the time so just a warning, stuff like that might happen XD But best of luck to you!! I hope this works out well for you!!

Hey!! I'm Gabe, I'm 15, I use he/him pronouns, and I'm new here. I've been lurking around as a guest for maybe a week but only just got around to making an account lol. When I was younger, I identified with the demiromantic label but I had never been in a relationship, so I had dropped it. But since I broke up with my first (and maybe only?) girlfriend about seven months ago, I've done some like introspecting I guess? I think this is a good place for me, I think I'm probably on the aromantic spectrum. I don't know where yet and I don't really want to rush into any labels anymore, I've had enough of that for myself lol. Anyways, I'm very glad to be here!!!!