Holmbo

Haha sounds like a very aro thing for your mom to say. I'm thinking it's like nomerci says, people choose whether to act on their feelings. I think there also the act of dating and people maybe conflating that with the actual romantic feeling. Because when you date you usually bring in practical aspects to like does this person seem like they would make a good partner. If they do seem to make a good partner that can increase the persons romantic attraction to them too, and make it seem like they choose their attraction to them.

I'm never repulsed. I just don't meet anyone I want to have sex with.

I want to share a reflection I have recently. It's not a huge thing for me so I'm not looking for advice, just wanted to see if anyone relates. I ID as aroace but the ace part took me really long to figure out. I'm sex positive and I enjoy depictions of sex in media when it's done well. I also feel sexual arousal, and at times it can be brought on by a person. For a long time I considered this to mean I experience sexual attraction. It wasn't until I posted about it on aven that another person pointed out that sexual attraction tends to be defined as actually wanting to have sex with someone. To feel arousal but not want to act on it fits under asexuality. That made sense to me and I decided to from then on ID as asexual. Experiencing sexual arousal from people but not wanting to act on it makes me feel contradictory. I enjoy appreciating for example actors who I find "hot" but I also want to be honest with my asexuality. I don't want it to feel like I'm making up crushes like I would do as a teen. There's also an element of sensual attraction which is hard to distinguish from sexual sometime.

Even if you don't need it atm it might help you if something goes bad later. And it's not gonna hurt so why not try?

Has anyone else read this? It's about a teenager grieving their dead sister. She's aroace and I found it very interesting that she's very unsure about what it means for her. I can't decide if I liked the book or not but the representation was very well done. In fact all of the character work was excellent.

I'm reading Summer Bird Blue with an aspec main character who's grieving the death of her sister.

I think it depends if it's only in the internet context you have a crush on them. Do you think if you went on a date with them and had a irl interaction you'd still feel romantic attraction to them? Of course that's hard to say but if you've only been romantically attracted to someone you've not interacted with in real life it seems different than how most people experience romantic attraction.

I suppose that could be a case of the Turing test though. If the AI makes art that seems like it was made by a human with quirks and a soul, is it then art. I'm thinking in the future artists will distinguish themselves from ai art by bringing in their own life experiences in their art. This is already done in a lot of cases but it will be even more explicit. There will be services that verify that the art is based on the artists real life experience, for example by looking at documentation or holding interviews.

Too many Hollywood stories about protagonists who "learn to love"

To me it helped a lot because many of my friends were wondering why I hadn't been in any romantic relationship for years. But I don't know your situation so I don't know if it would be useful for you.

@Dobbythanks for explaining. It makes more sense to me now. It sounds like you feel you've tried to communicate with her about your relationship and she's just not open to that. I understand why you feel her reaction is not based on care, it can happen sometime that people overreact to things to have an excuse to pull away from the relationship.

You're kinda contradicting yourself I feel like. On the one hand you're saying you don't feel you did anything wrong about going offline without notice. But then you're explaining that before you would have told her but now you don't want to because she hurt you. And you wanted her to discuss reducing contact but you don't feel you should be expected to inform her when you reduce contact with her. I think if you usually talk/text to her regularly it would make sense to let her know you'll be offline. Unless you two have specifically agreed that you can go offline without warning. But your hurt about her pulling away is a separate thing. Have you told her how you feel about that? And have you asked her how she feels about you?

It's only first names so I don't think it's any breach of their integrity

I've never heard of it. Gave it a listen but it's not for me.

Attraction is not something you make happen. You could try going on a romantic date if you want to see what it's like. But you can't try romance, either you get the feelings or you don't. However there are lots of different aspects to romance. You could look up relationship anarchy smorgasbord and see if there's some activities on there you want to try out.

Hehe I'm not even gonna read it because I'm already convinced all Britts hate cooking. If anyone wants more weird British food you could listen to the comedy podcast Off menu where each guest describe their dream meal. I listen to the episode with Nick Mohammed and his meal was very weird.

You're not obligated to tell anyone. If you want to tell do if not don't. You can always tell later.

Do you know the term squish? Used to express platonic attraction. https://aromantic.fandom.com/wiki/Squish

I definitely get the "hoping the relationship fails" part. I think it's ok to feel this way as long as we aknowledge it's just one of many feelings. It's like if your friend would move away for her dream job/education. You'd be happy for her but also sad for yourself.

Great topic! One thing for me is I'm good at self care.

I think it's more important for us to understand ourselves than to fit perfectly into a label. You feel that you experienced romantic crushes but you didn't like being in a romantic relationship with them? That seems to me within the aromantic spectrum.

Thanks for sharing. About the micro label, any specific reason you want one and not just aromantic?

That sucks but unfortunately it's fairly common. I suppose most people only want one really intimate relationship in their life. When they don't have a romantic partner that relationship can be a friend but as soon as that changes the friend takes a back seat and the partner is the one they confide in. If you feel hesitant to make intimate friendships again I'd advice you to try with people who have non traditional values about relationships. Look for relationship anarchist, polyamourus, and of course other aromantics. Maybe also queer people in general, but that can depend on the context.

I don't think necroposting is any concern for those kinds of threads. The book record of a spaceborn few has a character which states she's aromantic. She doesn't use the term but no other character labels their romantically or sexuality either so she's as explicit as she could be.

The best way to figure out is to learn more about other aros experience. When it comes to relationships maybe should try dating polyamorous people or relationship anarchists. They're going to be more open to different ideas of companionship.