Momo

People's likes and dislikes change over time. Someone can agree to something they genuinely want at the time and then some time later (lets say, 2-5 years) it is reasonably common that they may not like it any more. As an example, in my late teens and early 20's I genuinely enjoyed the romantic relationships I was in. In the last 3 years, I discovered that I was aro and I'd been treating my partners rather poorly, not out of malice or anything else, we just... drifted apart every time because I didn't have that attraction. And after coming to the realisation I was aro, romantic things make me feel icky - a reminder of the harm I've caused in the past, I guess. No one is capable of making a promise over all time. Situations, circumstances and tastes all change and cause our decisions to changes as a result. It absolutely could, and in fact there are multiple syndromes described in these terms. Too much avoidance is just as bad as too much persistence and rigidity.

Welcome! Anyone is welcome to be here, as long as they're respectful. We don't disallow alloromantic people here, and there's even an entire subforum dedicated to that. But do please keep in mind that this is a space for aromantic and aro-spec people and the rules are written to protect us in our own space. As long as you follow the rules, you are welcome here as is anyone else.

Welcome! I went via pansexual on my way to ace personally. There's a pretty fine, very grey line between "I have the capacity to love everyone equally" and "I don't have those kinds of desires" for a lot of people since the second statement is technically also a subset of the first one. Good luck figuring out everything!

Since the moderators are generally active now, it's been suggested that we should have a way to distinguish between Official Opinions and moderation actions and personal opinions. Going forward, official posts will be made in moderator green and regular posts will be in regular colour. This is an example post that you should pay attention to. This is my personal opinion, take it with a grain of salt.

@Coyote @TripleA my note was mostly aimed at TripleA, I only quoted you Coyote to make a point about what would be OK to talk about from the original post. I'm locking this post as of now. If the OP comes back and wants more help, they should feel free to start a new thread.

I like this. I'll raise this with the other mods.

Lets keep this to conflict resolution (ie. how to deal with the friends issue) please - we're unlikely to get input from anyone directly affected, given this is a forum for aromantic people, in order to deal with the issue of which side is in the right.

You are always happy - painfully so. The horror that you call a smile has long since frozen in place, the muscles atrophied and painful. But the pain only serves make you happier. You live out your days in a blur, one day more blissful than the last but ultimately meaningless. I wish people would respect boundaries.

Winner? No one ever wins this game, we just constantly scramble over each other in a constant effort to be on top.

Normally, cuddling would be an accessory to some other activity, talking or tv being two common options. The cuddle really only ends when either person wants it to, there's not a set time limit like say a hug because it's an ongoing activity.

Content posted by guests (people who have not yet registered an account) will now go through an approval queue before appearing on the site till further notice. Unfortunately we're having some issues with some people trying to work around the systems in place. This will remain in effect as long as we feel it's necessary. Sorry to the lurkers for the inconvenience!

Yes. Along with transphobic trans people, homophobic gay people, etc, etc. Just because you are part of a group doesn't mean you necessarily have the best view points on that group especially in queer circles where we often grow up in generally queerphobic environments.

@Sleepysloth1234 you may like to jump in on this conversation:

Hi! Being lithromantic can be rough to deal with, but you're definitely in the right place. I'm not lithromantic so I'm not sure I can help with your issues personally but you're definitely in the right place. Welcome.

This is a statement I can get behind but is definitely not what you said initially: This statement implies genitalia should have nothing to do with it and that the OP listing what they like is inherently problematic. This is a line of thinking I hear a lot from trans people but that I personally disagree with entirely.

As someone who has been through this already, this. You can't control other people's feelings. If she is hurt, let her be hurt. Give her time and space to process and readjust if she needs to. That you don't want to break up will probably be some consolation. I can't promise that everything will work out, but I can relate my own experience as perhaps some reassurance that it doesn't have to end poorly. I am also quoiromantic! I was in a 6 year long romantic relationship when I started to get some indication I might actually be aro. I ended up having a frank conversation with her about the situation. In my case it was this: I did want to break up. I still valued and cared about her. We were living together at the time and sharing a bedroom. I reassured her that she didn't need to leave but that when we moved house in a couple months time I would want separate rooms. She was welcome to stay living with me as long or as short afterwards as she liked. She was understandably very upset. Very, very upset. But we kept talking things through and she stuck around and now, a little over four years later, we're still living together and having a blast. She has another boyfriend now, and who knows where that will lead in the future. But for the relationship between us I strongly feel like having that conversation helped strengthen our relationship overall. I got out of a situation that was rapidly making me more and more uncomfortable and, unknown to me, she'd been harbouring fears that I didn't actually like her because I wasn't doing romance the way she expected or wanted which were completely unfounded but now she knew why that was. Seconding all of this.

You missed a wonderful opportunity to call it HexA! Welcome! Hope you enjoy your stay here.

laughter

No. There's no relation between the two for me. That said, I'm agender. I don't think that my agender side and my aro side influence each other, but they do definitely come from a similar place and feel similar in a lot of ways (I found out I was agender because I was aro!) but that's really as far as the interaction goes.

Bard fight

As there is no way to back out of the automatic updating of text emoji like :) into emoji, this is now disabled. If you want a real emoji, there is a button in the editor window that will give you a full search experience to find the one you want or you can still use the shortcodes like : smiley : which show an inline search while you are typing.

There's been a few attempts that I'm aware of. "Friendship" apps invariably end up being used as dating services by people the app wasn't intended for so they need massive amounts of moderation which in turn takes effort and ultimately money. It also has a tendency to err towards gatekeepery behaviour trying to keep people who aren't there for the right reasons out so as to reduce the moderation burden. I'm not aware of any that have been successful and popular. Ultimately, while it's a good idea, the practicalities end up getting in the way and I haven't seen anyone tackle the problems in a way that I'm comfortable with so I haven't ended up using any of them.

So, back when the elections were going on I promised to provide a way for people who were pledging money to help the forum to provide it. Today is the day that happens! First however, I have an apology to make. Since the migration, there has been a half dozen or so downtimes. I have monitoring software on the server and I want to assure everyone that the only downtimes I'm aware of are directly because I messed up server settings and was on hand to fix things as quickly as possible. I'm sorry if this has caused anyone any problems, but things will get better as we move forward and server configuration becomes more stable. Second, I want to make clear that the forums are not in danger of closing down for the foreseeable future. Especially in the current climate of great uncertainty, please only donate what you can afford to. Now, on to the business end of this topic. I want to be as transparent as possible with everyone before taking their money but what this looks like exactly will probably change a little depending on exactly how generous everyone is during this initial round of donations. To that end however, I want to share what the bills look like as of today. All dollar values are in USD unless specified otherwise. Once off migration costs: Invision License ($300 - Forum + Pages) Ongoing costs: Invision License ($40 / 6 months) Webserver Costs ($70~80 / month) Domain ($12 / year) Email ($10 / year) That's about $80~85 a month, total. The team has already raised $150 from team members but now we're opening up to everyone who wants to contribute and a big thank you in advance to those who do. Thank you also to the people who can't - thank you for making these forums a place where people want to come to talk and to share. To donate, use the button in the menu at the top of the page. If you have any questions, then please either ask below, send me a DM or my email details are on the staff page.