NullVector

Is this something you want? If yes, that's completely fine and valid, but it's probably not reconcilable with what your ex-partner wants (taking their reason for breaking up with you at face value) On the other hand, if this isn't a must for you, and you'd be willing to consider open relationships or polyamoury then there might be scope to rebuild the relationship on those terms? Just my thoughts.

It's an interesting topic this. When I was first learning about aro identities a few years back, I really resonated with some of the descriptions of lithromantic I read at the time. I'd fantasised about getting into romantic relationships in the past, but found it had never gone beyond that. Fantasising. Apparently I lacked motivation to take things further than that. My experience as a heterosexual man has been that if I don't actively pursue romantic relationships with women and seek to initiate them from my side then they won't happen. I won't have those experiences. I sometimes wonder how things might be different if I were gay or bi. I suspect I would have experienced romantic relationships by now as a result of being 'seduced' (and thinking 'why not try going along with this?'; which I think is easier than having to initiate it youself) and would have felt similarly uncomfortable to you, as partners tried to get romantically closer. But it's hard to say for sure without the direct experience.

Yeah. I'm cishet and my concerns around engaging in (or being seen to engage in) forms of cultural appropriation would make me quite wary about entering such spaces

Maybe Spanish and English are too similar languages (?), but I did some googling and came across this recent study that compared the brains of Chinese and English speakers and found significant observable differences. Dunno if it sheds any light on the gender question tho ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hmm, I don't think so. Several of the things you wrote are things I would like with friends, particularly this one: Most of the things you wrote about seem more common in close childhood frienships? Our culture does seem to make an assumption that these types of relationships are okay for children, but that we will "grow out of them" at some point and replace them with romantic relationships as adults. I've never understood that assumption and it seems to me to result in a lot of lonely adults (even in the case of adults who are allo-romantic and are in a romantic relationsip at the time, but especially on other cases)

@Anon95 Just wondering if you're aware that it's possible to be aromantic and NOT be asexual? IME, a lot of people come across the concept of aromanticism as part of the asexual community / AVEN and assume the two are linked somewhat; but they don't have to be. A couple of things you wrote make me think that you might be aromantic but not asexual. Specifically this: and this: Sex and kissing aren't inherently romantic IMO, although a lot of cultural messaging implies or assumes they are. Maybe you would want to try these things for real, but just not in the context of a romantic relationship and that is where some of your conflicting feelings towards them are coming from? Just something to consider (myself, I used to be somewhat touch-averse, but found that when I experienced touch more in non-romantic contexts, I got to like it) We were also just talking in this other thread about how the challenges figuring out aro identities are different for aro ace and aro allo people. Maybe that would be of interest as well? Good luck figuring out your identity

Princess Unikitty in the Lego movie is also a fun example of it Ugh, yes, being a Man™️ can be annoying like that. So constraining...

Well, I'm 'straight', in the sense of being a man who's sexually attracted to just women, and for me it's basically like you described. Bingo. I'm basically left feeling like I don't belong anywhere. I'm a heterosexual who doesn't like heterosexual relationship norms, but would feel out of place in queer spaces because of my sexuality. So, too queer for straight relationships and too straight for queer spaces ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@nonmerci "femme" is a lesbian identity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme (and yes, it comes from the French word for woman )

Yeah, I think we'll likely lack some degree of empathy in this context almost by definition. Empathy means literally something like "feeling in/into"; it implies to me some kind of resonance of your feelings with the feelings of the person you're empathising with. Whatever "resonance" an aromantic can generate for the feeling of romantic heartbreak is never going to be as accurate as what an allo-romantic empathiser can generate here, so we'll always fall short in terms of "raw" empathy, IMO. We might be able to compensate in other ways? But I think it means we need to be extra careful when responding to allo-romantics, as we're more likely to make mistakes because our empathy "machinery" won't be well calibrated in this context. I think I've made mistakes because of this in the past. I've tried to apologise where I thought I did; but I'm personally not super proud of everything I've ever written here in response to allo-romantics.

Welcome! I personally find the word "love" is incredibly unhelpful in this context. It's too broad/blanket a term, it doesn't properly capture the required emotional nuances and different means of expression. Other cultures can break this down more in ways that are quite helpful, IMO. I find the Greek terms eros, philia, agage helpful in your context. I reckon you can be 100% aromantic and feel and want to express philia and agape (friendly affection towards others and unconditionally wishing the best for them, respectively) very strongly, but not want to go all-in (or in at all!) with eros, in the way that an allo-romantic person would. I find our culture (your "the world") highly confused on this point to be honest. Like it can't wrap its head around the idea of physical affection being expressed outside of the context of a romantic relationship. Like it wants to put all physical affection into the romantic relationship "box". I think that's where your sense of there being a conflict between being "loving" and being "aromantic" is coming from: If you re-interpret "loving" in terms of concepts like philia and agape (or, say, metta, karuna and mudita from the Buddhist tradition) then I find that the conflict disappears. Hope that helps

Just wanted to respond in solidarity that if this kind of labelling as "bad representation" happens to you (or anyone else) then I think it's super messed up . The idea of an LGBT+ community actually shaming people just for how they experience attraction, instead of supporting them, strikes me as so blatantly contrary to everything that movement is meant to stand for (i.e. supporting and empowering people who experience attraction and/or want to practice consensual adult relationships differently to the mainstream).

I haven't known anyone get into a relationship like this (including myself). So, no, not common IME.

Well, I had to check the maths. Assuming he dropped 10 petals into the hat for a 10 digit phone number, that would make 10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2 possible permutations, which is (approximately) 3.6 million, like she said ? But if some of the digits were the same it would be less than that, so her statement is a bit imprecise in the sense that she only gave an upper bound on the permutations that result in a distinct number, which is what's relevant here ?

I'm pretty introverted and enjoy it in small, irregular doses, but find it takes a lot out of me. I wonder if aromanticism fits extroverts more naturally than introverts? Or, does it not matter too much and they each come with their own set of challenges? This is the most painful aspect of it IME. Friendship communities built up over years disintegrating as people move to take new jobs, etc.

I think you're right. I should have taken more time and care with my reply. That part about not taking aromanticism to mean that the relationship "never meant anything" to him in particular. I wasn't meaning to imply that I thought @Inez saw things in those terms. Just that someone might think something like that in a similar context; whereas the meaning for aromantic people could be felt as different but not lesser to the meaning for romantic people. But I think it was clumsily worded. Sorry @Inez

No, sorry. But I wanted to pick up on this: Why? If you've realised that your partner experiences their emotions based around attraction somewhat differently to you and recently encountered a label that captures some aspects of that difference, then why should that discovery be "devastating"? I don't know the details of your relationship, but I presume that it's functional on some level if you've remained partners for 13 years and raised 3 kids together? If people with quite different inner worlds are able to do that kind of interpersonal bridging then personally I think it's neat. Why should finding a word that captures some aspects of how his inner world differs from yours now challenge or threaten what you've built together? Him being aromantic (if he is) IMO certainly shouldn't be taken by you to mean that the relationship "never meant anything" to him. It might be that his experience of its meaning would be different to yours. But I would expect that to be true of any relationship and more a cause for celebration (that we can relate to each other despite our differences) than concern.

@aro_elise yeah, my answers are the same as your OP, pretty much word-for-word. Yeah, that's an interesting one! I did always think of myself as 'straight', but now I'm not so sure how well that works as a shorthand. One could argue that a homo-romantic gay person's experience of relationships is closer to traditional heterosexual (amato)normative relationship standards than an aromantic heterosexual person's. So, to say that only the former belongs under a broder non-straight/'queer' identities umberella doesn't quite seem right... So I guess I'd think of myself as 'straight-ish' or 'straight, but...' now, hah.

I don't really know where that would be! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm also a pretty hardcore introvert; I tend to find social interaction with lots of new people drains my energy very quickly and I get easily over-stimulated (I don't think I would cope well with something like a pride parade )

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets romance? Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to. But on a more serious note: what did you actually do to establish these connections, if you don't mind answering? It seems to me like "the system" is broadly enabling of meaningless sexual connections in a non-romantic context, or meaningful sexual connections in a romantic context, but not much else - and I'm not a very good hacker at the moment!

I did initially wonder this as well. Having thought about it some more, I now lean more towards the idea that romantic love is its own thing (at least to the same extent that sexual attraction and friendship are their own things). I think romantic crushes are of a different character to sexual 'crushes'. I don't know what it's like for you, but I don't think obsessively 24/7 about doing non-sexual activities with someone I'm sexually attracted to. That does seem to be typical of romantic crushes, from what I've observed of them or read about them. I wouldn't put it as "too stupid to understand their own feelings". But how certain are you really about that first sentence? (I'm inclined to agree, but I'm far from certain about it). It seems harmless enough to me to speculate that romantic love may be some sort of epiphenomena that can be explained in terms of more basic feelings. I mean, would you consider Buddhism's abhidhamma (which breaks down all mental phenomena into a finite number of constituents - cetasikas) or particle physics (which breaks down all physical phenomena into a handful of subatomic particle interactions) similarly offensive?

I guess what I'm postulating here is that in secular cultures that were formely Christian, when most people stopped believing in the metaphysics of Christianity this left a kind of 'meaning gap' behind that the newly secular culture tried to fill with romantic love. Which did not make a very good substitute IMO (eros and agape are not the same kind of love). What country are you from, by the way? (if you don't mind answering, that is)

I'm not aware of any "rules" per se. I'd say if you read an old thread and find it interesting then why not revive it? (Not that I'm a mod or anything; but I've done this a few times and I'm still allowed on here ) Yeah, I don't think that specific term has come up here. I'm not sure what to make of it yet. The idea that more stuff won't make you happier seems fairly widely accepted/ uncontroversial (albeit often more in theory than in practice!). But I'm not entirely clear on what is meant by Does this refer just to external material events that happen to me? Or to significant internal re-orientation as well? I can buy the former (e.g. inheriting, or losing, a fortune) not making too much long-term difference to my baseline happiness. But I buy the latter less (those sorts of experiences get broadly referred to as 'transformative' for good reasons, I'd suggest). Are things like a 'spiritual awakening' or major trauma being included here amongst 'major positive or negative events or life changes'? The 'hedonic' suggests reference to the impact of external (material?) stuff only to me, but it's not totally clear just from what you quoted. Then there's also the complication that extreme external circumstances can provoke an internal transformation. One that can ultimately lead to somebody realising greater happiness (or misery, I suppose; like finding a notebook that kills anyone whose name you write in it might turn you into a monster). The concept doesn't seem to account for that dynamic very well.

I think you can find those discussions on here, if you dig around a little. Myself and others have, for example, speculated on here that romantic love plays a significant ideological role in maintaining state-capitalist system hegemony. As in, people may be more likely to put up with the somewhat shitty 'stick' of our present social contract in the context a degenerating/failing overarching system, if the 'carrot' of transcendent romantic fulfillment is being ever dangled tantalisingly in front of them by that same system? In this sense, I think romantic love has come to take on a similar ideological buttressing role within late stage state-capitalist systems to the role that religious belief in the afterlife took on in a previous era (back when Marx was writing about it as 'the opiate of the people'). Romantic love gets taken almost spiritually, as something that can be expected to wash away all our worldly sins and troubles, finally bring fulfillment and wholeness to empty and fractured lives (just listen to the songs on popular radio and many of them strike me as having this underlying message). And, crucially, romantic love does this in a way that IMO presents no meaninful challenge to the ideological basis of the system that so disproportionaty promotes it (similar to how encouraging focus on fulfillment in the afterlife could be used to distract from agitations for fulfillment in this life).