ApeironStella

The questions on romantic attractions leaves a lot to be desired, yeah. Even with asexuality, as an aego, I am only comfortable imagining/thinking about sexual stuff when it doesn't involve me, so even the kissing question stumped me because my answer would be more along the lines of "I'm probably uncomfortable if it is a movie and tired of stuff like that being showed in movies but chiller if drawn characters and it sounds very unsanitary to kiss people so I really don't want anything beyond maybe a peck at most if anything", etc, etc. My results were 42% aroace, 33% demi bc I guess saying "I'm not into it but if I ever seriously did something romantic/sexual I would probs trust someone I'm close to to try it with" translates to that here, 17% alloaro (the wording of that result comes really close to "maybe you are not aro after all" and almost has the aroallophobia lurking underneath and I hope it's just me reading into things) 8% alloallo, 0% alloace. Kinda funny how I'm likelier to be alloallo than alloace apparently

If it's not in a space where I know there are other queer people who knows about the terms and/or has familarity with the community in some way, I just tend to give answers with some humor to them usually (Ie. now that I'm 22, when my aunt on dad's side keeps talking about how I surely have an interest in someone, I gleefully inform her that nope, I am not, and if pressed on if I don't want a boyfriend, my answer is usually a "what use would I even have for a boyfriend? I don't need one, so I'll pass" etc) since I've always been a bit of an odd ball and on both sides of the family, I'm not the only one who's not into relationship stuff/early settler since said aunt's daughters for example are closing to their fourties too. I did mention about it to my mom and I'm not sure whether she thinks I'm a lesbian at this point or not bc my go to with her is throwing her off with a "so what if I ended up with another woman instead?" and at this point, she is just "Well, I guess I would just have to live with that, then." so ? And I think being autistic also plays a bit of a hand in that too, as while I was never officially diagnosed, I was always the youngest and "weird" cousin one way or the another, talking about my hyper interests they would say were childish and I would grown out of (while instead I'm very much planning to work in those fields as a translator now lol) and more of the loner type who got good grades/was the "smart kid", so I think that also plays a bit of a hand in lack of pressure from family overall since I still have the 'excuse of' studying for post graduate stuff. (And I'm lucky enough to live closer to mom's side of the family than dad's as former probs just assumes that like their daughters who focused on their studies and found partners at work, I'm just focusing on getting my own shit together before settling down with someone than latter's extremely patriarchal expectations.) With friends, if the topic comes up and I tend to say it and I don't hide my confusion about romantic and sexual attraction if the topic goes there, but that's really only applicable for people I meet irl bc I never really hide I'm aro online, and don't use any accounts linked to family/people who aren't in my inner circles so.

A lot of this is a big mood, especially breakups with "romantic partners" being far less impactful than long time early teen years friendship breakups hitting far harder. (In fact, I similarly had a guy I dated when he confessed more out of curiousity and wanting to see if I would develop those feelings back, and when he got afraid of how chill I was about the possible commitment side of things and wanted to break up, I was more or less just "yeah cool, figured as much" and got felt far worse that my bestfriend at the time got really sad and angry on my behalf than about the break up itself lol) And some people just do look good, yeah. It's the good old "you admire a Monet painting but you don't want to have sex with it" but applied to romantic side of things too. Especially the "A best friend that you were comfortable with being close to (as in: living with, calling "partner"). Someone to travel with, talk to, share bills with. Basically a person to just walk through life with. None of that cringe-y stuff you see on TV." part, which was weird to my highschool friends when I mentioned that's how I saw myself ever being a thing with anyone. Also, since I didn't see this part being responded to, it is essentially a catch all umbrella term for people who have brains function differently compared to what is considered "normal" by social norms, ie. the most common example given is people with ADHD/people on Autism spectrum but it also applies to personality disorders/people with mental health issues as well. From my experience, there are a lot of aro (and/or ace and/or nb) autistic people, though it doesn't necessarily mean all autistic people are at least one of them. I didn't see stuff like that being brought up much on AVEN for what little time I was on there ages ago, but I see aspie community fairly involved in aro groups, really. I hope this wasn't an unnecessary addition since you already decided to use the label, just wanted to add some additional context for the last part and chime in that a lot of your experience sounds familiar to me?

Sadly the "you'll change your mind" continues into adulthood too, at least in my experience. But yeah, that's a whole another can of topic how you are expected to "change your mind" on that even if you've been firm on your lack of desire for marriage (and/or having kids, thanks heteronormativity). And well... Friend groups doesn't necessarily have to do with sexuality, I would say? It would be also linked to what interests you had and other things that might play a factor in who you "got along with" (Ie. as someone on autistic spectrum, I always had one female friend I would latch onto and learn to emulate the attitude of while as an aro, I definitely did not feel at home with most other "normal" girls) so that's only something you can answer by thinking back and keeping an eye out for if you have feelings for same gender? That's also a possibility, of course. And like @nonmercisays, I actually do like romance in fiction too- Or rather, in my case I often like writing it for the drama and emotional hurt/comfort chance that brings, as well as fandom spaces are so shaped by people's preferences in ships that I essentially tend to find two characters I'm interested in exploring the characters of enough and find someone who is also down to spend months hyperfixating over them with me if I'm lucky, and focus on it, so I would say there are definitely aros who can enjoy it and/or be actively curious about what romantic feelings even are like my confused teen self lol Also on the topic of attraction to the same gender- that's always a bit funny of a topic to me, mainly because while I was identifying as pan, two out of three people I online dated were girls I very much cared about and thought were amazing people, but once I actually started to date with them, it didn't... feel as natural to do nice things for them? As in, I was talking about making music sheet origami roses to one for being a musician, bc I like making origami gifts for friends, with no real romantic intention behind it besides knowing she liked that sort of cheesy romance stuff a lot, and when we were "officially" dating, I found it felt really forced and... wrong in a way I can't quite explain. That and also my "asking out" to her was asking her how crushes even feel and if what I felt for her was a crush bc I had coined the term "admiration crush" without knowing squish was a thing to essentially describe it as "short intense bursts where I really get obsessed with wanting to get close to one person bc I think so highly of them and want to be close and important to them, however it fades once I'm close enough without a desire for 'more'." so. Also I'm glad it was some help ?

I think it was somewhere around either late highschool or early uni? Might be early uni actually, but it's hard to tell because I had a long time I considered myself pan, then panromantic demisexual, then ace, then aroace. It has to be at least 3-4 years by now given I definitely had known it about a year at least before I switched to my current tumblr blog. And on the topic of how early is too early with labeling yourself as aro, I would say pay attention to how your view of romance might differ from your peers, and if their description of crush fits for you? Because I sure do remember thinking friends mentioned celebrity crushes as in celebrities they admired/really liked rather than having genuine romantic feelings for (Ie. as a teen I really liked David Tennant bc I would be so down to go to adventures with 10th Doctor and what I saw of him personally gave me some older brotherly/fatherly vibes than making me desire him doing romantic coded stuff with me) and even for younger celebrities I had "crushes" on, it was similarly me admiring their personality and having more of a feeling of "I would like to be comforted by this person/I would be so down to hear their opinions on XYZ/go to adventures with them" etc. That, and I never got why people treat marriage of convenience as a bad thing, because most would often describe it as "you wouldn't marry a friend, would you?" and I was always just "Why wouldn't I? Why would I want to marry someone I'm not good friends with first and foremost? Isn't all healthy marriages based on two good friends deciding to live together (with implied sexual content in between [because that's what's expected in marriages right])?" And honestly, whether you are on the spectrum or not, it's not something that would harm to try out as a label if you feel it fits currently. If it starts to not fit, you can simply take whatever label that seems to fit better in the future- easier said than done, I know, but I would say by 12 I had classmates going on about their crushes and girls around me being into Twilight etc at the time while I didn't really find it romantic and mostly boring, so I would say it's worth giving it a try as a label if you find you relate to experiences of other aros to see if it feels right.

At this point if Avocado man isn't aroace I will eat my nonexistent hat This entire post puts it better than I could: https://ririruby.tumblr.com/post/167837460432/tumblr-ver-of-my-aroace-amami-receipts-thread-on He even has aro color scheme given his hair often looks almost green come on-

Spoilers for Danganronpa V3, you have been warned.

Now that I see the marriage topic, I remembered that as a kid, only reason I was interested in getting married was because I realized how much money was put into that one day and that while in the country I live in it was done in a lot more conventional way, but people in especially American/Western movies doing stuff like bursting out of cakes, some other shenanigans happening during the party, it suddenly turning to a musical etc so I was just "swinging down from a rope with a long fluffy sweet dress and kicking some infiltrator butt and maybe pulling a musical number in a party that is based around my favourite series/themed after things I like, and since this is some "once in a life time event" I could rationalize it to my parents like "you would pay just the same if we did it conventional way, this is once in life let me have this"? That sounded fucking sweet to me. Like, the fact that it was supposed to be a tender and romantic and emotional thing was the least of my concerns, and the groom was something I didn't think much about because ever since I was younger, I have always been of the opinion that "If I ever marry someone that honestly would be a bff who I adore the personality/way of thinking/someone I respect as a person and enjoy spending my time with and knew for a good long time, and if they asked for marriage sure, only thing that would change is that sex would be added to stuff we do, I guess" way, so my assumption was that if I was ever marrying someone, they would be the type to enjoy that sort of party/'quirky' stuff too so it would be pulling a giant fun party with a bff, surrounded by friends who enjoy that with us as well. And of course, I would do something like making bunny ears behind his head as we take the wedding pic or smth because of course it would not be complete without me pulling an annoying, childish trollish thing. (Now that I think about it, most ""romantic"" type domestic scenarios I could think of often had more of a dynamic of "annoying lil sister type with an exasperated yet loving older sibling-ish friend type of relationship even when I was thinking I was/my OC was crushing on a canon character. Like, there would be some random stealing kiss moment, because of course there had to be one if they were a couple!, but honestly it was more in a way of "Ha! Caught you off guard!" way than any sappy, truly emotional and tender thing? The latter type of scenarios never sat right with me/always made me feel uncomfortable and I would often end up imagining it turning to something funnier/some funny background event happening to disturb it, so huh. I think I always just felt uncomfortable with my character actually being romantically involved with other character despite other character being a character I really love/admire/want to pinch the cheeks of and felt genuine connection to/affection towards but the point was that I would want to be involved with that character in a platonic manner than romantic and/or sexual. Even my "celebrity crushes" were all "I admire this person so much that I would love to meet them and for them to be an older sister/brother figure who mentors me/be people I can learn from and earn the respect of as well, I would be so happy if they ever found me admirable too" way. Before I knew about squishes, I used to call those "admiration crushes", as anytime I had that with a friend I was getting closer towards, it just ended up going away the moment we became a "couple", and often times, even without that after a while it always fades once I know that friend well enough to be good friends- once I am someone close to them and the bond I so strongly desired is accomplished and I know that I have a place in their life and vice versa. I still care about them a lot, but not as actively waiting for their responses, if that makes sense. Though, honestly I often almost always only talk about common interests with people so at least half of that eagerness is eagerness to be able to talk about that story/topic we are both so into, with someone who is genuinely as into the thing as I am, wanting to share tha experience with someone, than a romantical/sexual interest? But ye.)

Oh. Okay, I just saw this and makes sense with your other questions then. Agreed with others on this thread, you can't be a sexual abuser/predator if you respect it when other people don't give a consent, and you are open about what you are looking for while approaching someone. Being trans and/or alloaro isn't inherently predatory, and if people you are surrounded by is pushing down that TERF/RadFem bullshit on you, then it is likely for better to limit your interactions with them as much as you can. I'm sorry you were abused in such a way as a kid, and I hope you are able to avoid people who abused you, but their abuse doesn't define you or make you something inherently broken/dirty/an abuser- the fact that you actually worry that you might be abusing someone even while trying your damn best to avoid that sounds to me like regardless of the abuse you went through, you still have your heart in the right place. And of course, if that label makes you feel more comfortable with yourself, then that's how you identify yourself as, end of the line. Just please know that there is nothing wrong with being alloaro either, and that you are always welcomed here as others have said ?

I would disagree they are more "privileged" by any means. As an AroAce, personally only time I actually need to bring my sexuality/romantic orientation up is to say I really am not into dating, which people rarely raise an eyebrow over since I'm known as that sort of weird but nice girl who is also kind of childish. Of course, being infantilized isn't good either, but it still means that only people that actually cares about my romantic life at all is some family members who are extremely into romance/sex, and aside from that, I don't get any active hatred for my orientation, mostly disbelief or "you will grow out of it" which again, isn't as good, but it is not being demonized for my orientation. (Though, it is still extremely arophobic and amatonormative which really gets on my nerves, but that's another topic) Allo Aros on the other hand, often are portrayed as the heartless cis-white-male-who-just-uses-girls-because-heteronormativity or slut-who-sleeps-with-everyone-because-we-only-sex-shame-AFAB/Female passing-people, it is something they likely end up facing a lot of people who does end up developing feelings for them/making them feel guilty for their orientation far more often especially if they are sexually active, from both family/friends and sexual partners/friends they also have sexual partnership with even when they try to make things clear right off the bat. I think you are downplaying how much many cultures/especially ones with Abrahamic religions as the major belief of the population, tends to demonize sex without marriage, even if they do go "sex with your Godly partner is sacred and valuable". So both from the general sex-shaming point of view, and also from the fact that fictional portrayals of such characters are rarely shown as anything good, often having some "dealing with their 'intimacy issues' and finally 'tying down' with a good pure partner they have a monogamous relationship with and 'learning to love', and if an antagonist even turning to the 'good side' because they 'learned how to love'", no. I don't think there is any privilage there.

" Even if you're fake, you don't know just how much you've saved me. " " It’s just like in a masterpiece of a movie, like a manga that gives you goosebumps-- Just like a child, running about with their emotions overflowing-- This beautiful wonderful world-- this ugly pointless world-- ! Is breathing on even now, somehow, off of someone's lies And I’ll live on too, somehow, off of this fiction... " Being a sucker for fiction in general, one of my favourite producers making a song about it while also seeming to have a better life and more uplifting songs now, I can't help but love this song with every fiber of my being. Sure, while I was an angsty teenager, I adored the constant existential crisis in between daily mundane things vibe of his songs, but it is just good to see that he feels better too, you know?

Grew up in an Islamic country, but honestly my parents never were extreme type of believers, my mother always openly being fairly critical of things that makes no sense to her when it comes to customs around it, while my father just kinda assumes that if you try to live a honest life then it is none of his business despite being religious himself. So I grew up being allowed to openly question all about "God" and existence and other religions, so I can't say I was ever truly believing in any religion since I knew myself. I go with Agnostic rather than Atheist, though it really is mostly that I really feel like I know or can know enough to call possibility of any, by our terms "supernatural" thing as complete bullshit given our limited senses, but I at the very least do feel like I know enough to know any major religion claiming to have the "knowledge of the world" and is built upon social power hierarchies that somehow always seems to absolutely coincidentally beneficial to whoever was in power at the time AND also to people trying to still stick with such rules sounds fairly dubious to say least. So somewhere on the agnostic/ignostic line of reasoning with functionally being an apatheist, open to possibility of but not actively into spirituality in the shortest terms.

This song is so platonically wholesome and the group singing it is amazing that it brings tears to my eyes even now Edit: This song too!

The Teacher from the Alice Mare is a huge hc for me. Also Mikado from 1BitHeart though he probably wasn't... Alice from Pandora Hearts most likely AroAce. Most likely Jack Vessalius too but... yeah. Allen Walker from D.Gray-man for AroAce too ?? Probably more but can't think of atm. Also my AroAce OC though I guess that's canon

!!! I have A LOT of headcanons tbh. Mostly aroaces, with a few aropans I think? The Author from Gravity Falls always just gave me... The Aro Vibe. He is just fine with chasing after mysteries than he is willing to actually marry or date someone and says that he finds that whole romance thing more mind-boggling than actual supernatural/alien stuff. More on weirder side for this but I kinda... hc Mabel as aro pan or pan ace? I can see either and with how much she overly focuses on romance, it somehow gave me the vibe of "overdoing to compensate for lack of it" but probably not. Not exactly headcanon but in a Gravity Falls AU called Transcendence AU, Dipper is canonically aroace. (More like grey-ro het in actual canon imo but honestly would love to hc him as aroace too) From D.Gray-man, main character Allen Walker honestly gives me a really strong aroace vibe? He is just. Not really interested and into those things, he would rather focus on the war first. With Lavi, it is probs again either panace or panaro bc this bunny /does/ crush on a hella lot people be it male or female BUT it also has this "admiration crush" squish vibe to them whenever he isn't just flailing about how beautiful a girl is so I can argue either for him but at the very least he gives a demi vibe for romantic attraction. Also not sure if aropan or aroace for Lena too because she is really Relatable about just wanting to be peaceful and safe with people she sees family, home with and doesn't really spend time on romance stuff at all from what I can recall? But also seeing her crush on Anita would be really cute so. But honestly, probably not. From Hetalia, my old fandom that I was in for ages, despite shipping him with many people, aroace Arthur Kirkland/England was always a hc close to my heart. Because honestly? I can see that. He really isn't interested in romance stuff and I do believe that Alfred/America is still like a little brother that he was more parent-esque than anything romantic. I really loved his friendship with Kiku/Japan in the series, it just reminded me my own BFF who I was in a QPR with and myself since we are both really similar to Arthur and Kiku respectively. Also pan-demiro pan-demisexual Matthew/Canada is a hc I refuse to ever give up. I honestly do want to hc some Assassination Classroom characters aro too but... maybe Karma and/or Nagisa but due to how manga is set, they are probably both hetero and probs will end up with a girl (possibly Manami and Kayano) so... Also Uryuu Ishida from Bleach is probs aroace too, now that I think about it? He was %9000 fine with just watching one of his BFF's box match during his break as he was working at hospital than ending up with someone romantically, especially with manga confirming a few ships at the end? Those are the ones I could think of on top of my head, might add more later on. Edit: HOW COULD I FORGET HARUHI. She is so aroace, yes! She was only shoujo reverse harem protag I could relate to. Ouran is like... one of the really few somewhat romance-focused shoujo series I could bear to watch and it was all due to her aroness and being the Sane One to Host Club Hijinks. Kyoya is really likely too, I have a fondness for him but not to "I feel you" level it is with Haruhi.

As in romantic relationship.... kind of? Thing is, all three times we counted as "dating" but they were all a bit of weird cases. (All three were online cases as well, felt the need to add.) First one was one of the guys I talked with about Pokemon on fb, he was being all sad and needy and I was just being supportive towards him. Then later on he asked if we could date and I was just like "Eh what? Uh... I never dated anyone and I am curious actually, why not? Sounds fun." and we just spent about a week or two talking a lot and I just went all talking about a wedding etc (what? Pokemon themed cosplay wedding with a Latios and Latias cake would be really nice okay? I was just letting my zany imagination go nuts with all the themes we could pull with other fictional series too, it was more like he was just a "stand in" for me to imagine it, it wasn't a 'I want him' but more of 'Oh I gotta have someone with me at that spectacular party right') and then when he said he wanted to 'break up', I was just chill? I was just "Oh okay, sounds good." and funny thing is my bestfriend got really angry and upset in my place and what he said to her made her sad and THEN I was angry at him because no one hurts my BFF. Second one was a girl I used to rp with and we used to make our characters fall in love and all, and since I usually get far too emotionally invested in rps (Ie I can't play and at the time even was worse at playing a "bad character" because I would feel a compulsive need to apologize and stop doing all the horrible stuff even if it is fictional, I also was depressed for three days after a rp about two brothers with another bestie to the point of barely having any appetite while I actually eat a lot usually.) so I thought my positive feelings about her might be a crush. After we started 'dating', it was still fairly same though, since I would make 'we are wife and husband' jokes with my close friends all the times. Now it was just more 'official' of a joke. There wasn't any messy break up but I then found out she wasn't exactly mentally stable and that there were a lot of things I didn't know which ended up with talking less. (I barely knew anything about her real life and I never really even felt the need to ask about it and I think this should tell just how much I was removed from actual crush compenent of whole dating thing.) Third one is a bit different since she was a rper too but I actually was annoyed at her at-the-time-snobbish-looking-actions and started talking with her more as a challenge. Then found out that we were pretty similar and quickly became closer. And thing is, I get really excited when someone wants to talk about topics I care about. REALLY excited. And since we had so much in common in the way of thinking and things we liked, it was an instant "I want to hug your brain so tight and cry you are precious and I would kill anyone who ever dares to touch you ahhhhhhhhhhh idk what to do with those big emotions and I don't even know what they are but I just feel like b u r s t i n g"-ish and I actually ended up asking her how crushes worked. (before I had even an idea of what the word aromantic meant) She tried to explain it three different ways but I couldn't see how it differed from what I felt for her and any person I get really attached to (though maybe I should correct this since often times, I don't even know their real names and I am attached to the topic we talk about, their ideas thoughts and words than an actual living person with their own history?) and asked her if it would be okay to try dating. We tried but more and more I found it all awkward and fake more I continued- While as a friend I wanted to make origami flowers for her printing out music sheets because she was a musician and I knew that she would really like that kind of gift, as a 'lover' all I did was asking her to play Antichamber together and keep acting mostly same but feeling like I should've acted differently. Again, some unrelated things happened and as second case we never officially 'break up' but it kinda faded away as well. First one was more to "see what the all talk about this dating things was" with some "fitting in" thrown in, second one was "I really want to try dating someone and I really like you and you really like me so wanna try?", third one had that of second one too but also more of "I am fascinated by the person you are" thrown in too. But it just? Faded away as well, we would work a lot better as friends. So I guess I am not really grey or demi (I thought I was pan-demi for a long time because I mistakened those squishes as crushes as well as didn't understand what crushes were at all so my whole stance on romance was "If I have a close friend who I really like and find their thoughts similar to mine in key topics in life, I wouldn't mind marrying them and having fun with them and talking with them from life's mysteries to a video game lore because why would I marry someone who wouldn't match my mental wavelength wtf no also why would gender matter, I care about brains not outlooks". Again, not surprised that I didn't even see how 'being attracted to specific gender-s-" is an actual thing and not just being close minded.) I am 18 and all three happened when I was younger so for me, it kind of is not a question that I likely don't feel those crush stuff especially with those three cases? Basically, how I even viewed dating came from a lot more of playful way, as well as with some genuine platonic love thrown into the mix, but it never just 'developed into' romance even if I did try giving it a shot?

You will be alright. Things may seem and feel like a mess right now, but you will make it through and things do get better. It is hard for you to just relax and not overthink things, but also give yourself some breathing room: You are only human like everyone else and you aren't being fair to yourself even if you are trying to be understanding and fair towards others all the time. Give some of that compassion to yourself, you deserve it. Also, people start to make more sense as you get older- not in "they act more logical/sensible" way but more in "people never were designed to be constantly sensible/logical beings and we work with hormones so it is only logical that we are not always logical, we are just organic beings under countless influences including whimsical nature of energy/matter to start with" way. Also, maybe you should give a bit thought to if what you really want is a lover, because you don't even value actual romantic part of the relationship but only want some mindmate to yourself who you can relax and feel secure with. You will meet some amazing people and sometimes you will seperate your ways, you will have things you will feel guilty for but also things you will be proud of. So, relax. You will be fine. You are only human, I am repeating this because you never hold yourself to same expectations compared to what you expect from other people. You still will be a lil dweeb interested in characters, stories, personality theories though. You will also regain your childish&lively spirit you lost for a while.

YMBAI you always ended up making jokes about being "wife/husband" with your closest friends and you were always so close that you always ended up questioning if that it was 'something else' because society says if it is that close, it MUST BE 'stepping into romance zone' but anytime you try it, it just gets really awkward and off so you revert back to BFF status. EDIT: Oh gosh this so much. I had a friend I really respected and liked and would just love to hug her brain because she was WONDERFUL, but??? Since I obsessed so much over her, I tried to date with her but it then all felt weird. I just ended up 'treating her as a friend' as you say. We kinda never exactly break up verbally but it was obvious that we didn't work out that way and there were other reasons we don't talk much now but I would LOVE to brainstorm with her again. 10/10 would love to be BFFs and/or sibling-ish friends with her again.

I'd rather live in D.Gray-man universe than get married. Spoilerific image to TVTropes explaining what kind of world it is: