aesthetic mess

here's the obligatory "how do you know if you have a crush" post lol okay so i have these two friends that i like very much. i've known both of them since the start of this past school year, and over this past semester we've been hanging out a lot more and getting closer. a few months ago, we started cuddling regularly. (we all lived in the same dorm, so we did that pretty often.) since school's gone online, we've been keeping in touch -- they've actually been the only ones that i've regularly talked to from school -- and we all met up a few weeks ago for the first time since march. over that weekend, we all started dating. sort of. i'm aro, and i've talked w them about wanting a qpr before, so it's a qpr on my side and romantic on their side i think, i'm realizing as i'm writing this that i'm actually not sure. so i should ask about that instead of assuming. but i'm pretty sure i saw them kissing? i don't know. when they asked me to date them it was pretty lowkey. she just said "hey remember when we were talking about doing a poly qpr thing wanna do that?" and i said "hell yeah" bc of course i want to. and then we said that we can all call each other girlfriends. (i'm fine with that even tho it's a qpr bc explaining to ppl is annoying and also words mean what we say they do.) also we're moving in together in like a week. when i think about them, when i'm reminded that i'm dating two whole people, even when i'm writing this post, my heart is beating faster and i feel more jittery and full of adrenaline. i think about them pretty much all the time, and recently they've been in some of my dreams too. since i started dating them i've been questioning my orientation again. i settled on quoiro bc who the fuck knows how to tell what attraction feels like amirite?? but i don't know man. especially with it being pride month. i feel suddenly uncomfortable being loud and proud abt aromanticism, i think bc of a mixture of questioning and feeling invalid bc i have two gfs. i'm waiting until we move in and we're all together to ask about the physical boundary stuff bc i want to do that face to face but do i have a crush? how do i tell? what even is attraction yall??? is my heart beating faster bc i'm nervous about them?? am i nervous about them bc of anxiety or bc i have a crush??? any help would be appreciated, i don't know wtf i'm doing lol (also if this is in the wrong forum lmk it's been a while since i've been on here)

oops Sorry, I should have caught that. Thanks for letting me know!

I'm doing a project for my sociology class on how the focus on romance and lack of awareness in our society affects aromantic people. I need as many responses as I can get, so please feel free to share this with your aro friends after you take it! Here's the survey: https://goo.gl/forms/ltqySLHtbm6iaYuI3 if you have any additional feedback for me, feel free to respond to this post below!

Recently, I've gotten a lot closer with my friend. I've known him for years, but now we're cuddling and shit. It's great! We've discussed how great platonic cuddling is, so no worries there, but I think that I might have a squish on him. I think I had a squish a few years ago on someone who I was talking to for the first time and who I am now great friends with. But those feelings weren't as strong as these feelings. Since we got closer, I've seen him outside of school at least once a week, far more than I hang out with my other friends (I'm pretty introverted). But we haven't hung out by ourselves again, and I find myself wishing that we could just cuddle by ourselves instead of going anywhere with our other friends (probably also something that could be attributed to being touch-starved, but that's a whole other thing). I've even written a whole song about that first week we got closer (the perils of being friends with a songwriter lmao). Everything I write about it comes out sounding very cliche and romantic unless I specify that we're only friends. I don't know if this is a squish. I think it is? But I'm not sure. I don't think about him all the time, but sometimes stuff reminds me of him. I really want to cuddle more. I love hanging out with him - we have very similar senses of humor. I don't get butterflies in my stomach or whatever. I don't daydream about him. Having typed this all out, I'm even more certain that it's a squish. But I'm worried because he has a girlfriend. I don't know her that well and they only started dating recently. I've told him about the concept of QPRs and I've told him that that's probably my ideal type of relationship. I don't know if I want to be in a QPR with him though. For one, I feel like its very fast to ask, so I would probably ask in a few months or at least not, like, now. I know this is a Whole Mess. Sorry for the incoherency. Basically I'm wondering how to tell if it's a squish or a QPR squish. Thanks.

recently, my friend has gotten a girlfriend, and i'm happy for them and i want to meet her and from what i've heard she's very nice and my friend loves her a lot, but that's the thing. anytime i see them, half the time they're just talking about their girlfriend, which i totally get that they love their girlfriend and they have every reason to let the world know, but do they have to say it every five minutes? and then i feel like a dick for thinking that but i can't help it. every time they talk about how much they love their girlfriend it's a reminder that i'm not their First Person, i'm not anyone's First Person, and they'll probably end up distancing themself from me in favor of their girlfriend. and that's fine, they deserve to be happy, but a big part of me wants them to make me their first priority because i just want to feel important and loved and needed. but that's selfish and the chances that i'm going to get that without a romantic relationship are low, so wow i'm loving how my future's looking. and i have a different friend who is amazing and i've been friends with her much longer than the first friend, almost ten years i think? and she's amazing and i love her but she's in the grade below me, so when i go off to college there's no guarantee that we'll keep talking. and even though for most of our friendship, we haven't been going to the same school, i'm still scared. (also wow i'm reviving this thread sorry yall i just needed to vent, and, well, it's appropriately labeled.)

before i realized i was aro, i had been reading the selection series by kiera cass, and the entire plot basically runs on romance. i was midway through the second book and i literally could not finish it. i walked into the school library for the first time since realizing my aro-ness and it was like a switch had been flipped. every book i picked up had romance in it and i couldn't stand it. i used to be a big fan of ya novels; i would read any and all that crossed my path. now, i don't read them so much anymore because 90% of the time when i pick them up, i read the first paragraph, think "oh that sounds kinda interesting," and then see "and then she meets [insert boy's name here]" and i immediately put it down. literally the only time i'll read something with romance if it's gay or fanfiction. i'm just so tired of them shoving the same cis straight white tropes down our throats. they all have the same plot. i want some new, i want something different, i want something i can relate to.

coming out to someone as aroace, like i literally said "i don't feel romantic or sexual attraction" and my friend goes "oh, don't worry, you'll find the right person someday!" like i knew she meant well but could i spell it out any clearer???

just an update if anyone was wondering (which you probably weren't): i currently identify as gray/quoigender, which i interpret to mean "i don't know what the heck gender is and i don't know if i feel or not but if i do, it's probably less than other people do," or something like that. basically i feel a connection to the term quoigender and i feel a connection to the term graygender, so i decided to combine them. i think i'm lunarian (woman-aligned) but i'm not sure if that's because i am or if i'm used to thinking and presenting like i am. i don't really know about pronouns either, mostly because i don't really have friends irl that will help me try them out, but i'm been thinking a lot about they and ze pronouns, so that's what i'm putting on the internet. i'm going to get my hair cut pretty short in a few weeks and i am so ready. you have no idea how ready i am. every time i look in the mirror i can't wait to get my hair cut. i've also been experimenting with binding with sports bras, as my chest is small enough that if i wear a sports bra and a baggy t-shirt i look pretty flat. i've sort of been fantasizing about going out once i get my hair cut and binding and presenting more masculinely for a bit where no one knows me, just to see if i can "pass" as a guy. i think that's about it for now. if anyone cares i'll keep you guys updated. two weeks until winter break!!! (for me, at least)

thanks for all the replies. i was thinking it over, and i realized that i feel like a demigirl, but with the amount of "girl" changing (i think). is there a word for that?

I've been thinking lately that I'm a demigirl or maybe graygender, but recently I've been feeling more "girly". It could just be because I'm actually cis and just want to be "cool", but it could also be because I might be genderflux? The thing is, I don't know if my gender is fluctuating or if I'm just having doubts. I know that I'm really the only one who can determine my gender, but. Advice?

Most of my headcanons can be summarized as aro until proven arospec. Also this thread is gold. 👌👌👌

Simon Lewis from TMI is demiromantic and y'all can fight me