DeltaAro

It took me a while to see the cat's face, LOL. That main circle ...

😟

@P4R4D0X there is no reception or Wi-Fi on Maui, don't you know?

Bon voyage!
🏝️

Yes, a bit too quiet IMHO ...

Congrats!

We should have compassion for real romantic problems, but not of the sort "She hasn't texted me back for 7 minutes!".

No, there is no good "cringe culture". At least if we define "cringe culture" as coming from a desire to mock and shame innocent people. This is indefensible, no exceptions. Good that I didn't defend cringe culture then. And blaming victims of online harassment is just awful. Good that I didn't engage in that.

Some threads here on this board admittedly give off a very strong cringe culture vibe, e.g. "Things you've never understood about romance". Similarly, all the many posts like "Isn't <something romantic> weird?"

And yes, this may feel hostile and off-putting for those who experience romantic attraction or are favorable towards it. I understand that.

(That was the context, very obviously, not some hypothetical aro who uploads screenshots from a dating profile of a neurodivergent kid and mocks it. Such a person cannot be defended. Does anyone seriously think otherwise?)

Yet, to put those posts in the same category as the "furry / cosplayer / ... cringe compilations" is strange (to put it mildly). Because what's radically ignored here is: "Isn't <something romantic> weird?" and the like can be interpreted charitably. It might not have a nasty motivation but come from genuine frustration, confusion, cognitive overload or anxiety.

I'm all for efforts to be nicer and quit / restrict / hide the stuff mentioned. I wouldn't miss that stuff. But maybe, maybe, members of a marginalized community, in their own space, should be interpreted charitably? And that's seriously lacking sometimes. I know that a couple of users left because of this.

@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.

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 aro community doesn't speak with one voice, it just appears that way because of group dynamics.

So when a topic like celebrity / fictional character crushes comes up, the ones with a strong negative opinion post their opinions, while the rest keeps quiet.

Imagine Aro-cade would count ... 😛

Welcome! 😸

So complicated usernames y'all have. It's like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Aro Club Band.

The darkest day ...

This vampire can!

😢 Heartbreaks are always downplayed, even the word is strangely cutesy. While I also don't "get them", at least I understand that they are very traumatic and painful and wish you healing!

Oh, ok. And I was already worried.

What does "Pogued" mean?

IMHO, sadly for the first job, grades are important, after that they're pretty much irrelevant.

I don't think so. I've only reported gambling spam, and those posts were just gone after a few days.

Arocalypse

• works well - at least better than X.com (formerly Twitter)
• is not owned by a deranged billionaire
• has users that are nicer to each other

OMG, 2 weeks, how did you cope?

🕛🕧🕐🕜🕑🕝🕒🕞🕓🙈