Lovebird

Thank you so much 😭

And the "cringe culture" bit is straight on the nail, it makes no sense to me.

We have multiple aspect regarding our stance towards romance: attractional, emotional, social, political, philosophical. Some contradictions can be resolved by carefully looking at the aspect regarding which something was said. One can find e.g. fictional crushes weird and explain one's thoughts, but still support the freedom of people to engage in it free from hostility.

IMHO, the question boils down to: Should we keep strongly negative emotional attitudes about things other people find of supreme importance (romance, religion, ...) to ourselves? On the one hand, creating an aromantic equivalent of reddit.com/r/atheism (an endless stream of obnoxious ridicule thrown at romance - what will people, allies, grayros ... heck, even romance-favorable fellow aros think about us??) is awful. OTOH, some aros need a space where they can share such suppressed negative emotions. It helps them. Very tricky issue ... perhaps they should come with a content warning? Anyway, pleading for people to stop won't change anything, we'd need to change and enforce the board rules for any effect.

@The Newest Fabled Creature to be fair, compared with what alloromantics do to themselves, even the worst "cringe" posts by aros that I've seen are harmless. Look at the rampant dating app screenshot shaming, often combined with doxxing (when it clearly becomes harassment). X (formerly Twitter) is full of it.