NullVector

I thought the exact same thing! I assumed they were just copying what they'd seen adults do, or seen in movies, without there being much of an intrinsic drive behind it. It all seemed very silly

Interesting... I still haven't bothered to get mine!

Yeah, I agree with that. For example, in primitive cultures, even if you didn't have children of your own, I assume (although I've not done any detailed study of the anthropology) that you'd still play an active role in raising and teaching the children of the tribe. Whereas today most of that happens in the private context of the nuclear family setting and you're unlikely to have much intereaction with children if they're not your own (outside of specific jobs like teachers). So you're left a bit at sea re. partaking in certain natural human roles and responsibilities (like childrearing) outside of assuming very prescriptive and restrictive relationship archetypes. Hmm, interesting question. I dunno. The agricultural revolution? The industrial revolution? Something else?

I was training to be one at some point, but these days I'm barely able to comment on such things myself! (e.g. I couldn't make much headway with that Stanford article you linked ) Also, I never made a really serious study of General Relativity, aside from reading a few books and taking one or two undergrad courses on it. Einstein's field equations for General Relativity are kind of notoriously hard to work with and solve! Because of feedback effects between the matter-energy distribution and space-time backround, I think it is; the two co-evolve together and can't be treated independently, so only a handful of exact solutions e.g. Schwartzchild's are known. It's a lot easier when you have a fixed space-time background, like with Newtonian gravity (or Quantum Field Theory, for that matter, which still hasn't solved the gravity-incorporation problem)

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.

Martial arts edition: 36th Chamber of Bacon Bacon in the Eagle's Shadow The Legend of Drunken Bacon Way of the Bacon Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bacon Ong Bacon

Hmm. You got me thinking about "representation". What is it? Is it needed? Etc. Does it make sense to be "proud" of being aromantic? Perhaps not. I didn't put any effort into "achieving" it, after all. It's an orientation, something innate, as I understand it. I'm not "proud" of having brown eyes, for example. I still think aromantic representation can be helpful, but it probably works best when it's as a "by the way..." rather than a "look at me!" statement. What do I mean by that? I admire people for certain talents or qualities that they've worked hard to cultivate. The admiration stems from wanting to cultivate similar things within myself. So it's more an admiration of something the person has done or become, rather than something the person is innately. But I think it helps here to have acknowledgment within popular culture (and just culture in general) that aromantics are equally capable of cultivating worthy human qualities. Equally valid as humans. This is where "by the way..." statements can help, I think. For example: "I make beautiful art, look! (by the way, I'm aromantic)"; "I'm involved in this really cool research project, look! (by the way, I'm aromantic)". Etc. Perhaps that's all this thread is about? Identifying people who are likable for various reasons (personality, achievements, whatever) but just happen to be aromantic? So that everyone can go "oh, right, aromantics are just people like me too".

I just watched some and the first 30 seconds of her GIRL, NOT WOMAN video is perfection

This would have to be a mockumentary about an obese, retired batman battling against a crippling food addiction

That one was already baconed earlier, by @Zemaddog Fantastic Bacon and Where To Find It Also, I just noticed that on the food emojis, no bacon is provided This shocking oversight must be remedied in the site suggestions thread posthaste!

Horror edition, part 2: Night of the Living Bacon Attack of the 50 Foot Bacon The Bacon Chainsaw Massacre Bacon Without a Face The Bacon Rides Out Curse of the Bacon

Haha. YES. And for me the "I'll just try again in a few years, I'm still young" excuse/procrastination has lasted into my 30s (unfortunately I'm not ace. oh well)

@DeltaV Best song from Halfaxa? I've had this stuck in my head all day!

I tried some salsa classes a while back. I quite enjoyed them, but one thing that bothered me was that it was extremely heteronormative - traditional male and female gender roles were very much built into the way you could/should express yourself during the dances. Men 'lead', women 'follow', the hand gestures, the way of moving, etc. Are the modern dance styles you did like that as well, or is freedom of expression outside of the heteronormative 'box' more encouraged there?

Haha, nice

It has been like that for me as well sometimes. I find it really interesting how all the metaphors I've heard people on this site use to describe the experience of romance repulsion are kind of thematically similar. Drowning; suffocation; crushing (lol, that last one is a little ironic isn't it? ) And definitely 'fight-or-flight' can kick in for me too. @Ryan I guess it can seem pretty "alien" if you don't experience anything like the above, but it's really cool that you're making some effort to understand it intellectually Spread the word!

Hah, fair enough. I guess all I meant was that I don't experience any internal conflict between my male anatomy and my internal experience or conception of 'self' (which some people do and it might even motivate them to modify their sexual anatomy through surgery). So in that sense, I'm happy enough to accept the designation of 'male'. But, yeah, I don't really think about it much either! Wonder what some of our trans or agender folks make of this?

Hmm. I personally find the concept of romance to be a lot less "tangible" than either sexual orientation or gender identity. But I wonder if that's just because I don't really experience romantic attraction, whereas I do very clearly experience my gender identity (male) and sexual attraction (to women) (hehe, I remember descibing the latter to @pastelprincess in her welcome thread and how she replied ) So how are you defining romance here? As feeling a strong urge towards engaging in long-term monogamous pair-bonding and life-merging behaviors? Please go right ahead and bombard us with the science behind this

Linked palms during some of the more "interesting" positions could seem sexual But I take your general point. In the west, it's seen as mostly romantic. Although I understand that in India it's much more seen as a sign of platonic affection between male friends, so these things aren't culturally universal. Yes, I think that would probably be the preferred form of "therapy" for me Haha, yes, I love the way you've put this. Observing all of that initial "maneuvering" and "manipulation" (and feeling repulsed by it) lead me to have the thought: "I'd probably make a pretty good romantic partner, if I could just fast-forward past the early stages of the relationship somehow, which seems to often involve a lot of game-playing and economical truth-telling " (as in, I'd basically be fine once the initial "romance" was over with! which makes a lot more sense to me now). To put the "strategy" that some allo-romantics seem to intuitively follow here in rather brutal economistic terms, it's something like: "Get them sufficiently invested in this joint venture such that Sunk Cost Fallacy kicks in and takes care of any emotional fallout once I actually start to tell the truth about myself"* *Note for any allo-romantic allies reading this: it's again "phrased in a slightly hyperbolic way" as @DeltaV put it earlier! I'm certainly not meaning to imply that most or even a significant fraction of allo-romantics actually behave like this. It's a negative stereotype that probably only applies well to a small subset of allo-romantics. Similar to the negative stereotype that (sexual) aromantics would likely mislead allo-romantics about being interested in "more" than "just" sex in order to get the other person to agree to have sex with them in the first place. I guess all types of human (allo-romantics, aromantics, etc.) are capable of manipulative behaviors, it's just that how it manifests in terms of concrete actions would vary depending on the context of what they are trying to achieve through the manipulation.

Right. I meant "fine" in the context of not feeling repulsed. But in other contexts, yeah, not so fine! I don't like the "exclusive" aspects of romance (particularly romantic couples). Just one example of this: I have a female friend and back at university we used to have protracted hugs/cuddles. It was nice. Now she has a husband and I don't know if this is still "allowed". This sort of thing doesn't trigger any repulsion though. I just find it a bit sad. Then there's also the standard "I'm in a couple now so now I'm going to ignore you and do everything as a couple rather than a group" romantic trope. Which also "can make it impossible for me to have much to do with people I like." Yes. But understandable, I suppose, when there is a lot of cultural messaging that this is the only way to be happy.

Like a lot of people have already said here, I'm basically fine with romance in the abstract, but get squicked out by just the idea of doing it to somebody, or having it done to me. E.g. I think it's quite cute when my parents (married 30+ years) hold hands, but the thought of someone doing this with ME kinda squicks me out. Same with kissing. Not sex though. That seems like it would be fun to try I don't know why it is that my brain has categorised hand-holding and kissing as "romantic" and sex as "sexual" As they can all be some combination of the two... I think the underlying reason for my repulsion is that "romance" for me is associated with loss of an autonomous identity. So behaviours that my brain flags (rightly or wrongly) as "romantic" trigger my repulsion due to that underlying fear of becoming "merged" with another person and losing my separate identity. That's also, I think, why it only bothers me when directed at ME. If others want to "lose themselves in another", well fine, whatever makes them happy I guess, nothing to do with me, why should I care! But if they want ME to "lose myself" then no thank you! Romance Repulsion TRIGGERED

The album is called Aromanticism. Nice He sounds like an intersting person too. Quoting from the interview you linked: I think that romance is very obviously a political tool, and a capitalist device. I’ve even thought recently, it’s quite good for the economy: the amount people spend on weddings and gifts. Also, [romance] just can’t be separated from a patriarchal structure — like the idea that in a homosexual couple, one person is the masculine, and the other is the feminine. Ultimately we keep going back to those two figures on the wedding cake as the archetype, even for alternative relationships. Amen to that. And I suppose if/when those same hereto-romantic couples start having kids, it's even more of a capitalist economic bonanza

Maxwell's demon

Yep, sounds like a teenage boy to me I used to be one of them, so let me try to help out here! Unless things have changed a lot since I was one, teenage boys: Have all these new hormones that are making them totally crazy (I'm sure this applies to girls as well, hehe, but it generally manifests itself in a different way...) Have LOTS of social pressure to get girlfriends, so that they won't be "losers" anymore (pressure that they put on one another and on themselves) Must NEVER EVER talk about their feelings (and ESPECIALLY not to other teenage boys!) So, just bear these things in mind. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying you should let him take liberties with you because of them. Be a nice supportive friend, but stay firm about your boundaries, is what I'd suggest. I don't think you need my suggestions though, you seem to be doing a great job there already

@Apathetic Echidna Posting stuff from The Mighty Boosh in a "totally random" thread should probably count as cheating