Holmbo

On 2018-03-23 at 5:47 PM, mythlady said:

I guess I should have read the thread more carefully! Oh well, at least the explanation's up now, that's something at least...

I had use for it

I'm not romance repulsed but I'm kinda indifferent to it. Most in the time in stories I just ignore it and focus on the rest of the story. However there has been a few times when I've reflected over that I really like the love story  and that it adds to my enjoyment. Most recent have been two different books: Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold and Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I'm not gonna go into the books but I wanted to post the titles in case someone else had read them and wanted to comment. I've been trying to think why I liked the love stories and I think it's because there's no anguish abut the romance. In most stories about romantic love it's portrayed as kind of stressful and draining. The two main women of these books just know what they feel and act on it.
Does anyone else have exceptions to disregard of romance?

On 2017-06-10 at 9:12 AM, jenny_any_dots said:

@Holmbo have you talked to your parents yet? I'm in almost the exact same situation with my parents. Once the conversation is going it might be fine, but I have no idea how to start it because they never ask me about relationships. Anyone got some good lines to break the ice on this one?

Now I have talked to my mom. A year from when I first thought of it. It's just hard to find my family members in quiet situations without having to make a very big deal about it. But yesterday my mom and I had a quick lunch together and I asked her if she knew about the term aromantic and then explained what it was and that I was it. She actually made a much bigger deal about it than I expected (sorry to say to you others who are considering it). Yesterday she didn't have much to say but today she had thought a bit and came to me to talk about it. She told me that she had tried to read about the term online but not found anything and she was doubting that this was really something that exists and maybe I was just reserved and didn't want to let someone in. I didn't take this so hard though because I know that she, like myself, always wants to make up her mind quickly about things but is not hesitant to change it and doesn't mind if someone else thinks different than her.

She also wanted to understand better too and asked me questions about it. I gave her my standard example (which I seem to use for everyone that doubt the idea of aromantic) that if someone is hetero how do they know that they just haven't met the right person of the same gender yet? Also I assured her that I wasn't putting myself in some box and that I would always just do what felt right for me.

On 2017-12-01 at 9:58 AM, ladyasym said:

I do intend on having one child, as a surrogate for my best friend (basically a platonic life partner) whenever she decides she wants to have children. She has a lot of health problems, and is unable to conceive or safely have a child herself. I decided to be a surrogate for her back in high school, and have never wavered in this decision (though the whole pregnancy process is rather...icky). But in my mind, it has always been her child - even though it will undoubtedly be a part of my life as well (I think I'll be an okay aunt, even to young kids, haha).

I might like to do something like that if the option ever came up. Pregnancy is actually really fascinating to me. I'm sure it'd be very uncomfortable but also interesting to see all the weird changes of my body. Also that the kid can hear sounds in the uterus and taste the food in the amniotic fluid. If I knew someone who'd make a great parent I might have a child for them. I doubt the opportunity will come up though, which is probably just aswell because what if I wouldn't want to give the baby up. Hormones can do crazy things I've heard

Today was my last day of work for 2017. Vacation until 8th of January

It seems to me that the most commonly used gender neutral pronoun in English is They. I feel kinda uncomfortable about this term because it feels weird for me to use a plural pronoun for one person. I suppose that maybe native English speakers have a easier time with this since it's kinda an extension of using the same word for second person and fourth person. I just feel like all my childhood years of English classes crashes in my brain when I try to think of They as a single person. Am I being silly and should just gt used to it? I'd much rather prefer a third pronoun. I've seen some different exponentiations on that, like xe or e, but they all seem kinda clunky to me.

What is your preferred gender neutral pronoun (in English or other language)?

Also a disclaimer, I'm quite uninformed about this topic compared to many people, so feel free to ignore me if I add nothing interesting.

20 hours ago, NullVector said:

 

It's not quite as cut-and-dried as "the Earth moves around the Sun and that's that!" I think about the worst you can say about a geocentric model (vs. a heliocentric one) is that it's a perverse coordinate system to use in a rotating system where most of the mass is in the sun. It makes the calculations harder. But my understanding is that it's not "wrong" as such. This article goes into more detail.

Well, that is true. Maybe I can just think of it as a coordinate transformation problem and I'll be less upset

On 2017-11-23 at 3:39 AM, Apathetic Echidna said:

The kids will probably be fine, they will feel confused and left out in science class when it comes up, especially if they speak up. They will also probably fail all the tests associated with the solar system, so maybe they will have to choose between grades and inflexable beliefs. Hopefully whatever school they go to has an effective anti-bullying system if they do get targeted if they do speak out. If that sort of thing happens and you still have contact with the family I guess reassuring them that the targeting is not because they are Muslim, but because they are ignoring science, which is a highly regarded collection of information in ALL western countries. I'm fairly sure most religions (Christianity, Judaism, Chinese folk religion/Taoism, the ancient Indo-European Religions such as the Roman and Greek Pantheons, Ancient Egyptian, Hinduism) had Earth as a fixed presence with the sum moving above. Really I even think the celebrated Islamic scientists of the 13th century, or before then, had the planetary orbits around the sun worked out, far before the Mediterranean and European cultures stopped punishing people for saying it. 

 

I don't know how you could help them see it differently. They would have to want to scientifically educate themselves. Change cannot be forced upon the religious, they get even more steadfast if they feel their beliefs are being undermined.  

 

I guess the main point is that, to them, their beliefs are their knowledge, they know this stuff to be true. They may understand differently in the future, but for now maybe tell them that their knowledge is different from your, and the majority population of Sweden, knowledge. And your reaction, however inadequate or bad you think your reaction was, it is probably the standard reaction they will get from other Swedish people on this topic. If the family is accepting (or at least tolerant) of different religions having a differing viewpoint shouldn't really be an issue between you as long as they understand that their view is not common (or even particularly tolerated) where they are now. 

I hope you're right. I'm just worried this will make them feel like outcasts. Hopefully they will teenage rebel by reading Charles Darwin or something.

This is VERY off-topic but I think people on this board give good advice in general and are not judgemental, so I'll give it a try.

I'm a participant in this language buddy program where native Swedish speakers are paired up with new  Swedes learning the language. I'm parried up with a woman from Syria who is married with three kids. She's a very sweet person who works very hard to learn the language and I enjoy hanging out with her and her family. She's very religious, which I'm not used to since Swedes in general are very indifferent to religion but she's never judgemental about it, so it hasn't been an issue between us.

However, the other day she brought up that she doesn't believe the earth moves around the sun because the Quran says the sun moves around the earth. I couldn't help to respond that it's not true. To ignore basic science for religion is just too strange to me. Her 11 year old son got involved in the conversation and both he and his mother stated that everything the Quran says is true. I knew they believe in Islam and follows all of it's rules but I didn't think they took everything literal. I worry about the children growing up believing this, to me it seem akin to child abuse to convince them of such a rejection of science. I'm afraid such a view will make them feel like outcasts in Swedish society. Most Swedes would mock such thinking as extremely ignorant and even find it offensive or threatening.

I think the way I handled it was the total wrong way, to just reject it outright and say that it's wrong. A better way would have been to ask questions about it and try to make them see it from a new angle but I'm not sure really how. I tried searching for advice online but only found a bunch of Islamophobic stuff. Then I tried instead of searching for advice about people taking the bible too literary but this gave me the opposite problem in that all the search results was about how to convince people who didn't believe in the bible

Does anyone have reflections or advice about this? Maybe I'm overacting and the kids will be fine.

I just rewatched Zootopia and I just wanted to state: that is one good movie. My favorite animated film, I think. Who else have seen it?

On 2017-10-28 at 5:33 PM, Lex Barringer said:

 

Sure, I see what you're getting at but most people don't go out of their way to say, "Oh, by the way, I'm aromantic", [...]

Maybe more people should

Go Sweden @Josie
I'm from there too.

Sydney in I Love You Man. He is not interested in any romantic relationship and his old friends are all married and doesn't have as much time to hang out anymore.

I thought of some other ones .. kind off

The way way back (though the kid is the protagonist)
Uptown girls (I think she does get together with the guy at the end but he's not important)

Ex machina

On 2017-09-13 at 5:21 AM, IceHurricane said:

Even though I'm obsessed with shipping and I read fanfics all day, I HATE when ships become canon in the actual show/book/movie. Shipping should only be a fanon thing. I can't stand it when there's unnecessary romance in shows and books. Like, if I wanted to watch two people getting together, I'd watch a romance novel. And this isn't it. I'm here to watch people kick ass not drama and love triangles. And this is how ship wars happen and division in fandom. I'd rather no ship become canon (because the show's not about that) than having one win and make half the fandom upset. No matter how much I ship someone in fanon, I would never want to see them together in canon. Ever. It's happened a lot, and I feel it just ruins the ship. For example, I loved Emma and Hook from Once Upon a Time but once they actually got together, I grew tired of them. I started to hate the pairing. Part of the fun of shipping is the endless possibilities there are for your pair. There are many different ways they can meet and share their first kiss and all that stuff. Once you see it on screen/paper, it's final. It limits you. And sometimes no matter how budgeted your film or book is, your imagination will always be greater when seeing your pairing together.

That's an interesting take on it. I can why someone might feel this way. I feel a bit similar in that I enjoy the shipping as a fandom activity, separated from the actual show. I don't read fanfics but I enjoy reading peoples arguments for an against peoples pairing. Because mostly it all comes down to how they see them as characters and what people they'd connect with. Also I like the silly shipping like these two are pretty and should kiss. It's fun.

Mysteriet på Greveholm (the mystery at Count Island) is the earliest thing I remember scaring me. It was my bogeyman for years. All the most terryfying nightmares it was that skeleton man chasing me.

Look how terrifying!

The only thing from when I was a child that still scare me are some of the ghost stories. Like of people stepping out mirrors or stuff.

On 2017-08-31 at 5:15 PM, starstuff said:

 

I found out the day I left my old job working at a diner that this one guy I used to chat with who came in to eat like 1 or 2 times a week for like 2 years was apparently flirting with me.  

 

He had left a present for me since it was my last day and I was like "Why, I barely know him???"   And my coworkers were like "...you do know he has a huge crush on you, right?  Like...everyone knew..."  and I freaked out and for awhile I avoided going back there during the times he generally stopped in for lunch.  

 

I thought we were just chatting about comics and nerdy things and stuff we both liked and that we were becoming friends....  Apparently not....

 

(I opened the present later and it was a painting he had done of a comic panel of Captain America kissing some girl with a note in french on the back that I haven't brought myself to translate.  I shoved it to the back of my closet cause I have no idea what to do with it and it freaks me out a bit when I see it (I think I'm a little romance replused...), but also I feel kinda bad about just throwing it out cause clearly he put effort into it..)

It's always sad when someone you think might be a potential friend romozones you
It feels impersonal somehow. That maybe they talked to you only because of involuntary romantic urges rather than a conscious decision.

On 2017-08-25 at 5:57 PM, Apathetic Echidna said:

John Tucker Must Die? maybe that is less anti-romance and more anti-heteronormative dating and cheating reactions?  

I was thinking about that one too but wasn't sure if I'd put it in the same category. I think it do belongs to it.

On 2017-08-25 at 6:25 PM, DeltaV said:

I don't think this qualifies as anti-romantic. But it was surely painful.

On 2017-08-21 at 5:20 PM, DeltaV said:

More examples, please!!!

Now when I actually think about it I realize some of them are books and most have "the other guy" as a new love interest for the woman. I always forget about the other guys because I don't care about them. A few examples though:
Sliding doors
Legaly Blond

Tina - What's Love Got To Do with It
Her ( )

(-:&=3

Those are great
I wish I had some to share in return but I can't think of any.

There are some lists on this forum of movies without romantic stories in them. I feel like there's also another category which aros could enjoy which is movies with messages against romantic love. Movies where the protagonist is in a bad romantic relationship and then leaves for the freedom and personal growth of being single. I know many examples of this but one that comes to mind, because I watched it last night, is 28 days with Sandra Bulock, where she is sentenced to rehab and has to confront her past and her addictions. She has this destructive romantic relationship which she holds on to because he is the only person that cares about her.

On 2017-07-26 at 1:09 PM, Mark said:

In 1989 someone called Tim Berners-Lee will invent a system for publishing and sharing information whilst working at CERN.
It might be worthwhile using what will become known as "The Web" to talk about the lack of romantic attraction even though bringing this information to the world around a quarter of a century "early" may create a temporal paradox. Creating a world where touch, affection and sex is acceptable between friends as it within (romantic) couples is worth that risk.

Of course it does depend exactly which younger self is involved. Utterly pointless telling my 13 year old self to "Look up 'aromantic' on The Web".

Whenever I do the hypothetical scenario of being able to talk to a younger me, or going back in time and living my life again, I always get stuck in such theorizing like time paradoxes and changing history. I always start with the small thoughts, like that I would tell that popular guy what a creep he was when he talked about Catcher in the Rye and he agreed with the protagonists view about girls and sex. But then I go into how if I was around at the time of some big disasters I'd have to warn people  and how would I go about that. And also how would I make lots of money and influence the direction of society.

On 2017-06-13 at 8:21 PM, James said:

The United Nations' best estimate for human population growth is at the very least,10 billion by 2100. That's near the estimated carrying capacity of the Earth. Granted, most of that growth will occur in Subsaharan Africa, which will easily be the largest population center by 2050. America, where I live, isn't really having trouble with population growth. However, I'm still not going to make another resource-consuming carbon-emitting job competitor. Many people are going to have kids, and probably enjoy that much more than I do. I don't intend to make their kids' lives even slightly harder by forcing them to compete more than they'll already have to. Just because they aren't in my country doesn't mean they won't compete for the same resources as any prospective children I have. 

 

The moral of the story is to never ask an ecology student about the side effects of reproduction

I want to nitpick this though with that further population growth is mainly about the boom generations growing up and replacing the smaller older generations. Birth rate is actually pretty close to stable at 2 children per woman. Hans Rosling desribes it well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E&t=19m16s
Carrying capacity has been estimated at much lower numbers before. And number of people doesn't seem to be that closely related to resource consumption, since a vast minority (17%) does a majority of the consumption (80%).

I suppose bringing down world population fast could be our best option since lowering consumption seems impossible. We will have to figure out how to deal with a much larger share of old population then with fewer working people to support them. Hopefully Japan will be forced to figure it out and we can learn from them. 

On 2017-06-12 at 7:54 PM, NullVector said:

 

I'd like it if there were more options to take part in raising children outside of work life too. I don't work with children, but I did my high school work experience at a primary school and it was fun. Younger kids can actually be pretty interesting to talk to: they haven't already made up their minds about a bunch of stuff (in the way that most adults have) and can be more open to questioning things. But I basically don't interact with kids at all now as part of my day-to-day work and/or social life (which I think is actually a bit weird for a human and would have been pretty atypical throughout human history). I'm not really aware of any socially acceptable avenues for doing so though - other than waiting for some of my friends and family to start having their own kids (which should be fun  Although I also worry that I will see them less...).

I don't have the option to involve children in my work either. But I have some options in my free time. I signed up to be language buddy to a new Swede who is married with kids so I get the opportunity to interact with them. And if I wanted to I could join a sport or cultural organization and help out with the kids there.
It would be kinda cool if one could incorporate kids into the work life somehow though. Maybe there could be more mentor programs or field trips for school children.

On 2017-06-17 at 4:32 AM, Harley_arogreyace said:

 

Honestly, because of those very rare times he had romantic feelings, I want to say Joey was grey-aro or maybe even demi romantic

 Could be squishes though?

30 minutes ago, DeMorgan said:

This is a public forum; let's not use that kind of language here. :<

I apologize