DeltaAro

It's really interesting how much the split attraction model is becoming vindicated (I feel for heteroromantic homosexuals or homoromantic heterosexuals, they probably don't have it easy). I was skeptical about the split attraction model first, too, but it is more easily to accept if we notice how effortlessly the brain manages to give us a mix of different inputs/sensations/feelings/etc. which then seem totally unified to us in normal circumstances. For example, persons with normal eyesight are not consciously aware that they have light-intensity-receptors (rods) and colored-light-receptors (RGB cones) in their retina. When the light becomes dimmer, it's not like abruptly switching to black and white vision, no, we gradually shift to black and white vision. The “split-color-vison model” only becomes apparent if something goes wrong or we do a special experiment, like seeing chimerical colors, that can only be explained by this model.

@Screw Amatonormativity your link does not work. Google Translate... well, translates a random Japanese hashtag I saw just a few minutes ago. Is this a compliment? Another random stupidity: FORTH LOVE? IF HONK THEN Wonder who understands this (googling for it is cheating)...

you know what I'm going to post now, right? or maybe that's more fitting: Still, psychologists lose. Okay, another problem with all of the Myers-Briggs questionnaires I have seen (I have no access to the authoritative one) is that getting a high score on “thinking”, doesn't necessarily mean you're a rational thinker. It only means that you believe you value reason, mainly try to use logical arguments to convince people and have a lower tolerance for views which don't seem rational to you. But, of course, you may mostly think irrationally, you may often use faulty arguments and dismiss views as objectively wrong which may be justifiable. I guess Ayn Rand would be a very strong T, but to see her as a good example of a rational thinker ... no, no.

cumtrapz

Of the INFP, which I get, I only score closer to the 50% regarding the F/T-part. Myers-Briggs may not be scientifically validated very well, but we're talking about psychology here anyway... not exactly the hardest of the sciences. And if you score close to the extremes, it seems to be pretty useful. A mixture of the descriptions of INFP and INTP applies to me really well, with the INFP description more strongly. (Ok, you see people claiming such things about horoscopes, too. )

Also, the first two albums were “self-produced” to put it euphemistically. At least Halfaxa was done with more expensive equipment so it's not very noticeable. I personally don't mind it, but it's still surprising that Geidi Primes was even taken seriously.

@NullVector Grimes rules. Visions is far more removed from mainstream pop than Art Angels. The older albums are even more experimental. But I love them all.

I remember that feeling sexual attraction kicked in when I was 12 and it happened relatively fast. Okay, it was not from one day to the other but developed in perhaps a few weeks. I was attracted to guys first and became gradually hetero over the course of a couple of years (nb: I never had crushes on guys. Being aro was a constant). When I began to feel sexual attraction, it felt really wrong, because it was so strong. I thought I was a pervert and was ashamed that I just randomly got aroused in the most innocent situations. There was one very hot sexy boy who drove me C-R-A-Z-Y. His mere presence would get me aroused and this was not just theoretically thinking “Oh, sex with this hottie would be fun” like I do now, no, he literally made me stutter and weak in my knees. I couldn't think straight when I talked to him because I was blinded by a haze of vivid sexual fantasies. Sometimes getting a boner. Uh... I wonder why sexual attraction dropped that much over the years. Maybe the male brain develops a tolerance to testosterone? But then there are also guys who tell you that their sex drive didn't decrease at all. With sexual attraction, sex is anything but relaxed, no, it's very exciting. I'm hesitant to describe it as aggressive, because this will probably be misunderstood as if there was something REALLY bad about it, like hidden violent impulses or being rapey deep down. It is of course not aggressive in this way. But still, sex is so strongly focused on the other person's body and doing those peculiar physical things and achieving satisfaction, that this word kind of fits (=> I can understand that it creeps you out if other people are sexually attracted to you). Sexual activity usually ends with an orgasm for me. My first orgasm was a bit shocking because it was so intense. I knew about orgasms long before puberty, but didn't understand they should feel like a seizure. But directly after experiencing the first, I quickly concluded “... this must have been an orgasm”. The quality of orgasms varies very much. The lowest quality, which happen rarely, could be described as ”botched”. Like in my teens when masturbating and suddenly mom knocks at the door. Physiologically something happens but I don't feel anything. The majority of orgasms are “okay”: nice, but nothing special. And then some have earth-shattering quality. Because of my unwillingness to be in a romantic relationship, I'm usually celibate for long periods of time and so plain vanilla sex with a reasonably hot woman, is usually all that's needed for an orgasm in the earth-shattering range. Yes, it sounds really, really pathetic to be that easily “impressed” but that's my aro life. Those earth-shattering orgasms are the most intense pleasurable feelings I can experience. I have very limited experience with drugs, but this is the only thing that compares to it. Never did anything besides cannabis, and this only two times. I can't stand inhaling smoke, so once it was by eating hashish (dissolved in a lot of fat) and the second time it was with a vaporizer. The vaporizer didn't make me slowly feel happy, silly, sedated and zoned-out like eating did, but instead gave me an “energetic” high, culminating in a wave of extreme pleasure for a few seconds. The quality was of course different to an earth-shattering orgasm, it was more a “spiritual” experience, but the intensity came very close to it.

I think I liked Drive though it was full of romance but showing how absolutely weird it can be. An anti-romance romantic movie. “Lotta guys fall for other mens' wives, but you're the only one I know robs a joint to make it up to the husband...” (Shannon, the auto shop owner) And gradually the unnamed Driver goes from being this pure knight of courtly love to a complete psychotic...

Interesting, I'm too aro to even notice such subtleties. Or maybe I was too distracted by the scientific inaccuracies. But compared to Star Wars with sound in space, I'm not complaining. It was a great movie.

I hope that you don't leave out some experience which may feel great to you because of what I say, but I'm going to state the obvious, that I doubt as ace you'll miss much if you don't have sex. As a very young child (like five?) I had, for whatever reason, an unquenchable curiosity to figure “all that stuff” out. At some point, after repeatedly, over and over being told that I'm too young to understand, my mother finally gave in and (since I didn't easily give up asking) explained it to me in detail. Though I engaged in some kind of child-like pleasuring myself, at this age I didn't experience sexual attraction at all, of course. Because of this I imagined sex as some kind of relaxed mutual masturbation “with the help of another person's body” (really like many aces do) and thought something along the line “Ok, sounds interesting. When I'm older, I might try that.” But sexual attraction changed everything, it made sex from something that “sounds interesting / maybe nice” to a high I get without drugs.

Haha, I get INFP. Probably I missed INTP because of too much math. I just can't be bothered to think logically outside of a mathematical or CS context anymore.

Well, sex is an activity that has to be approached with some seriousness. So I much prefer that I can trust someone and there is mutual respect, which would be the case with friends. But it doesn't bring me emotionally closer to someone at all and an already existing emotional connection doesn't make it more enjoyable for me.

without this restriction 80% of the list would be historical war movies. Anyway, does Cube (1997) count? What about Worth and Leaven? Or was there some romance hinted at in the end? This movie, for all its depth, probably qualifies even as “aplatonic”. Floyd is a slightly sinister yes-man, completely professional. He doesn't even show genuine emotions when talking to his daughter and he effortlessly deceives his Russian friend. On the Discovery One, when Bowman gets the birthday message from his parents, he is not moved at all. And when he tries to save Poole, he behaves stoically and it seems he is mainly driven by his professional duty, it's not like he shows emotions desperate to helping a friend. HAL 9000 is somehow more a human than all the real humans (which becomes his undoing).

I really liked Dredd (2012) just for audaciously avoiding any romantic subplot which I really feared would happen. Still it was very strong on like any other emotion. It even had it's “*sigh*!” moment when Anderson shows mercy to Ma-Ma's poor computer technician. Probably they believe it's something the female audience just wants. Or that the tone of the movie would be too dark without it. I don't think it would be really difficult to just leave it out in many cases, as artificially tacked on as it often seems.

Glad you liked it. I was afraid of being verbose. It's not that I disagree with the idea behind AC. But it's not going to gain acceptance, there is a limit about what can realistically be achieved. Like Esperanto just isn't going to be the universal second language. (Pure) Romantic flirting can be seen in G-rated movies. It's flirting which is not sexually charged but hints at the obsession, the possessiveness, the rose-tinted glasses and the yearning to emotionally merge deeply with the object of desire, which is so peculiar to romantic attraction. You just don't say “I keep getting lost in your eyes” to a friend, right? (Pure) Sexual flirting is about creating sexual innuendo. Needless to say it is the most risky variant of the three. The sledgehammer version of it is making crude sexual jokes (bonus points for being unoriginal and making them at inappropriate situations). Now, for allos, I think, there is only flirting in different strength. Why? Of course, they usually mix 2. + 3. (and 1.), but that's just stating the end result. The explanation lies in the strange connections between sex and romance for allos. Naively, one would think that since sexual attraction is more common than romantic attraction (in terms of numbers of “targets”) and so can be experienced “purely,” there should be no confusion. But for the typical allo, sex is a strong crush-inducer, it produces emotions of closeness and intimacy. And because of this, there is a good chance to be able to f*** your way into a relationship (= If you already got that far, the rest should be easy). Romantic attraction, on the other hand, seeks (except for romantic asexuals) its fulfillment in sexual activity. Because for whatever reason (going back to the Bible where sexual activity is described as “knowing someone”), it is seen as completely natural that sex can provide a nigh mystical, deep emotional connection between two persons. Sorry to sound so unromantic, but this is an idea which strikes me as nearly obscene. I experience sex as a raw and rather animalistic act. And that's all there is to it. Dirty fun. Really. How on earth should this activity bring me emotionally closer to someone? If I want that, I rather talk about my feelings. I haven't uncovered all the subtleties of this amalgamation, and all this are just very general observations. But somewhere here must also lie the explanation that allos conflate and mix romantic and sexual flirting. And, most people aren't that good with coming up with romantic-deep or clever-sexy responses, so body language, looks, tone of voice and so on become more important*, which are even more ambiguous than language. * a Folgers 2009 commercial is a fine example of this. If you make actors play siblings, better make sure they aren't attracted to each other! Though completely innocent in what is said, there is a strange tension “brewing” (if you excuse the pun) between those two, which makes this commercial really just very weird. 100% based on non-verbal communication.

But you can't find every woman in your age group hot, can you? Yes, it's very bad that there are no clear-cut rules. Something like affirmative consent (which would be pretty clear cut) simply does not work as long as we have firmly implanted ideas (which were true when Ovid wrote his ars amatoria as they are now) how romance should work... like “You do not ask for the first kiss.”. For AC to work, people would have to be much more relaxed about asking... but not too relaxed, right? Language itself can be obviously inappropriate. And it stays so on the meta-level. If someone feels uncomfortable about sexual innuendo, it will surely not help if someone says “Excuse me, I now want to create a bit of sexual tension. Am I allowed to proceed?”. AC is really right from the ivory tower. So I would say that it is impossible to flirt without potentially coming across as pushy or inappropriate. Gaffes are a part of life. Harassing is a different thing. Wouldn't the bad flirter back off when he gets a negative reaction? Exactly! The harasser, on the other hand, does not care. Also, the harasser makes advances in environments where people feel trapped, like the workplace. I doubt you would do something like this, so you're fine. You seem like someone with a driving OCD (and it is actually true: no level of cautiousness, skill and responsibility can guarantee one won't run over a child. But one should not give up driving because of this fact). You can always search for eye contact (is this correct English?) in casually friendly situations and practice that way / harden yourself Of course romantic eye contact is a different matter, it's like staring into someone's eyes. Super weird. Also my family puts pressure on me. I hope that my sister soon marries and has many children, maybe they leave me alone then. I just accepted that there is no one I would click with romantically. Plus, I'm 100% incompatible with allo women. Case closed. And forcing yourself may make you remove your question mark in your profile and replace it with “aromantic”. Now again to flirting... for allos there is flirting in various strengths, but I think we should rather distinguish different types: friendship flirting (for the lack of a better word) romantic flirting sexual flirting As overwhelming empirical evidence suggests, romantic flirting really is as cheesy as suspected. Only some inexperienced allos do 1. though they want to do 2.! It's not enough to be inventively charming and nice and make your flirt-recipient elude bashful smiles. That's just green hearts, not red ones. No, no, after some warm-up the allo should really want at some point stare the near total stranger in the eyes for four seconds, make a tacky compliment, touch the stranger's face and so on. And before investing more than 3 hours in the person the allo goes for the kiss. Jeeeeeeez... I'm sure with sufficient training many aros can learn to romantically flirt, but not only is any natural instinct missing, they are probably mega weirded out by themselves. It's like a horse playing a stegosaurus, sure, it's possible but honestly just sad and not at all nice for the horse. Since I know about the concept of aromanticism, everything fell into pieces very fast and this makes intuitive sense to me now. But before, I found this extremely confusing / nonsensical, too! Not only it's “romance first”, it's seen as profoundly wrong to want it differently. Hey, even Randall Munroe gets it: (hint to lurkers: if you find this comic confusing, you might be aro ) To me, minus the secret crush, it doesn't get better than what this girl would have got!

(Warning, TMI ahead) I'm not relaxed about societal pressures. Sometimes I still think “Wouldn't it be wonderful to find this mythical aro woman who would become my best friend and tolerate all my quirks, so we could emulate a romantic relationship and nobody would think that I'm abnormal?”, that's how bad it is.So I think you have it easy. I hope you don't mind if I ask, but how and why are your relationships with women awkward? To me there is nothing scary about them. And honestly, why should I care if I embarrass myself in front of one? It's not like they are my ticket to happiness in life... (omg that such people even exist.... but they do!); I can understand that guys who are dating may act awkwardly – it's like a job interview for them – but why should you? Okay, very strong sexual attraction might be problematic, especially if a “physiological response” (aka boner) might be noticeable. This I understand. Where I live some people think it's a good idea to publicly bath butt naked. So if a stunner parades around naked in front of me, I (wearing briefs, as it's customary) may act awkwardly (being afraid of a physiological response). Maybe I would be more relaxed in such a rare situation if I had more sex? But it would have to be MUCH more sex (though my number of partners may be “normal”, in absolute numbers of sexual activities I'm certainly in the lowest 1% for my age group, lol.)

Don't cut yourself! I should really watch this movie...

Though there is one objective argument about shaving I can come up with. But it's against shaving. Most shaving is bad for the environment. Razor cartridges are impossible to recycle.

I didn't want to imply that the OP in the linked post was unreasonable or mean. Yes, but aside from zir good intentions, the OP still believed that aromanticism is something that should and can be therapeutically treated (no moral condemnation, this is just a fact). That's something we really have to consider when we encounter “why?” question. Now, what could we answer in such a case? Some obvious truths: There is no way to turn an aro into a romantic. Even if this was possible, the ex-aro might be worse off! Some romantics are chronically not able to engage in a romantic relationship and can suffer a lot because of this. And there is no reliable, successful method to help people with this problem. Aromanticism is not by any measure a “condition” which would justify compulsory admission.

1.) We read “A Doll's House” by Ibsen in school. What a confusing play, far too much romantic love in it! I managed to get my teacher quite angry with my... unconventional interpretations. 2.) I was known to never “admit” that I had crushes on anybody (I never had them). Then I once made a not so nice remark about a new girl in our class “X is so funny... with her accent. And her silly old-fashioned braids.... who seriously walks around like this? She's like from a Dutch cheese commercial, ok, that would be kinda cute. <chuckle>” And now my friend started to tease me that I had a crush on her. Yeah, but I didn't and I was extremely annoyed by it.

Some people think like this and by asking “why?” they attempt being an amateur therapist to cure you.

I agree that monopolization itself is an alloromantics thing in general. But monopolizing while not committing, that's a behavior I mainly noticed in het men. Questionable behavior as this (well, questionable “even” from an allo POV), is usually not called romantic. We have a no-true-Scotsman-fallacy built into our language. “Romantic” is contrary to “sexual” always positive. We say “Stalking is not romantic!” and the like. It's like the only adjective we had for describing something sexual was “sexy”. Would you wanted to say “sexy assault”? (no!!!!) Probably that's one reason why some people still would think “Aromantic men... hey, isn't this like black darkness?”. Which annoys me to no end. My opinion would depend on the details. Is this exclusivity valued by itself or does it result from something else by rational considerations? The latter I could relate to... but the former is weird to me (repulsive would be too strong). I guess, if the consequences for the victim are benign, it's ok to feel a bit gleeful about it, lol. But then there are stories which make you cry. People being scammed out of their life savings, going into debt, committing suicide. Of course such scams are only the most egregious examples of the dark side of romantic love. Other behavior, like pushing for an apocalyptic divorce of a marriage with children and a mortgage... for no other reason than “falling out of love” (!), is something far too many can sympathize with. (disclaimer: I'm not against alloromantic people engaging in all the romantic love they want, of course! This is just about the ridiculous adulation of romantic love)