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aro_elise

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Posts posted by aro_elise

  1. i get them often, have since i was a little kid.  basically i admire them and want to be friends with them, i love to see and talk to them, i think about them a lot.  what causes this platonic attraction is essentially their personality/demeanor, but it's hard to describe what exactly it is about each one--"something about them".  probably my most intense and longest-lasting one was this girl who was in a few of my dance classes.  she was so nice and pretty, i loved to watch her dance and just interact with her friends.  on my way to the studio i'd look forward to seeing her.  once when i went bra shopping i recognized one by the straps as one she'd worn so i bought it, nothing sexual about it, just to be like her in a way (i do see that that's funny).  but yeah i've had tons of squishes, they're fun.  

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  2. 7 hours ago, El011 said:

    I've gotta be honest, I think some people just make very overblown assumptions of how non aros/aces experience attraction. Like I've seen "allosexual" defined as "you regularly feel strong sexual attraction to people you don't know" and that's ridiculous, nobody just wants to bone five strangers a day unless there's a health issue going on. Nobody feels attraction 24/7 the exact same every day esp considering there are so many different factors that can affect one's attraction. Sometimes, even for people who are fully alloromantic allosexual, there are days when they're just not particularly feeling attraction and that's totally normal. And this description...just sounds like a typical allosexual person to me.

    i wonder whether you might be thinking more of sex drive?  like if i see a hot guy, yes, i pretty much "want to bone" him, but not necessarily at that exact moment lol like i'm not about to just go up to him and try my luck, i just think 'nice' and move on.  not 5 people a day, no--i don't think 'regularly' means that often.  and like when i'm with my friend with benefits, i don't want to have sex all the time of course but i don't stop being attracted to him when we're just hanging out, or when we're not together.  like, to the question "are you currently sexually attracted to anyone?"  i would include people i've recently slept with, people i've recently repeatedly seen and been attracted to (like a guy at my cottage whom i haven't seen since the summer but who occasionally crosses my mind), any hot celebrities i can think of...like, no person on the asexual spectrum would say that.  i don't mean to be argumentative, just giving my point of view, and of course it's all a spectrum so people who identify as allosexual could absolutely have a different experience to this. 

    @nonmerci, i can't give any insight into an aceflux experience besides to say that becoming not-attracted to a person or to people in general when you recently were does not match my allosexual experience. 

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  3. a post here made me think about this.  i can't remember seeing anyone say anything about gender being a factor in terms of squishes/platonic attraction but maybe that's because i don't expect to.  i've always had squishes on all genders, like it doesn't make a difference.  ok, if it's a guy, sometimes i'll also be sexually attracted to him, but that's unrelated--his gender isn't a factor in my platonic attraction to him.  to me, gender being a factor is a sexual and romantic orientation thing, except panromantic/pansexual, of course, but i don't call myself panplatonic or whatever because i thought everyone was.  so if your experience is different, would you explain that?  i hope i included sufficient options.  thanks.

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  4. hey!  hard to speculate about your romantic orientation without much information, but the indication that your crushes/squishes have all been on guys leads me to agree that you might be on the spectrum of heteroromanticism.  i say that because i don't think i've ever heard of anyone having squishes/platonic attraction where gender is a factor, like i'm heterosexual af (and aro af) and get squishes on all genders.  so it seems like a sexual/romantic orientation thing, but idk, now i wonder.  but your sentiment about being fine with being friends with them doesn't sound like something many alloromantics would say.  maybe gray-aro or something else on the spectrum?  i'd suggest just seeing how well you relate to experiences shared by aros here, and don't worry about choosing a romantic orientation label to describe your experience--if one feels right, great, if you're not sure, that's fine.   

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  5. i like hugging friends and receiving flowers just because i like flowers.  when my best friend and i go out to eat or whatever, if one of us were a guy, people might say it looked like a date.  we occasionally sleep in the same bed.  i don't consider any of this necessarily romantic.  but if the other person considered it romantic/was romantically attracted to me, i'd be super uncomfortable.  and there are certain things i wouldn't like in any case, like cuddling, regular kissing (i like making out because i consider it sexual), holding hands, or that freaky thing where they just look at you weirdly.  ahh or my guy friend who doesn't know i'm aro asked whether i'd like a guy to hug me from behind and kiss my neck, and i shuddered, like that legit triggered my romance repulsion.  i'm sure there's lots more.

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  6. i like pretty guys, you know, delicate features, no facial hair.  slim and fit (i love abs ?) but not muscular.  my own waist size of 28", height of 5'10", and age of 22 are practically my upper limits.  i often prefer white guys but not necessarily (my fwb is from bangladesh).  i like alternative guys and long hair but not important.  personality doesn't play much of a part in sexual attraction, i just have to generally like their vibe.  although certain talents are attractive.  there's this cute guy at my cottage who's a great tennis player (everyone up there plays, i do) and watching his matches is like, wow ?  also, they have to be comfortable with their masculinity.  if they can put on a dress or like, jokingly flirt with a guy (or actually, if they're bi) i'm like ? we love to see it.  

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  7. @DeltaV alluded to this, but i'm going to try to expain it as briefly and accurately as possible, checking some sources again--forgive me if i'm not super successful.  the person who coined the (translated) term 'platonic love' was not plato, but marsilio ficino, in the 15th century.  he did base it on a concept by socrates referenced in plato's symposium: forms of love exist in a ladder/hierarchy where love of a particular beautiful person (which we can interpret as an instance of sexual attraction and which i would argue doesn't belong in a classification of love at all, but anyway) is at the bottom and 'love of beauty itself'--heavenly beauty--is at the top.  according to ficino:  "the passion of a lover is not quenched by the mere touch or sight of a body for it does not desire this or that body, but desires the splendour of the divine light shining through bodies, and is amazed and awed by it."  i can't tell whether this vision of love necessarily excludes sexual attraction or activity, or romantic, actually, but i'd guess not.  (also consider that romantic love wasn't as big a thing in society back then.)  it is believed that couples of the time who considered their love an example of ficino's concept prioritized the romantic aspect over the sexual.  in the 17th century the concept was called neoplatonism.  james howell decribed 'platonick love' as "a love abstracted from all corporeal gross impressions and sensual appetite, but consists in contemplations and ideas of mind" (so excluding sexual attraction).  some people found this pretentious, and relationships which included sex more 'natural'.  later, platonic lovers were described as choosing celibacy, not necessarily lacking sexual or romantic attraction to each other.  in 1846, george henry lewes defined 'platonic love' as "the love of a sentimental young gentleman for a woman he cannot or will not marry".  in all of this it's hard to distinguish what we (particularly we aros) currently understand as sexual from romantic, and romantic from platonic.  now, the casual way people use the term 'platonic' is pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum of importance compared to the original definition.  word detective alluded to this in 2003, saying that the phrase 'platonic relationship' "turned up in english around 1630 and various people have claimed to be in 'just platonic' relationships ever since.  they are, of course, almost always lying."  i myself am not exaggerating when i say i'm in platonic love by the centuries-old definition with my best friend, and i'm going to use the term even if it doesn't communicate what i wish it would.

    On 10/1/2020 at 11:49 PM, treepod said:

    Lol, I kinda wish "friends with benefits" didn't just refer to sex

    i remember this being discussed here before, and i agree.  i refuse to call my current sexual partner my fwb because i don't consider him a friend--not that i don't like him as a person, you understand, just that i'm not that emotionally close to him, at least not as of now--i say we're acquaintances with benefits.  as i mentioned in another post, my roommate has what i'm sure we'd all agree is an actual friend with benefits.  the other day we were wondering whether there was a term we could both use for our partners and i somewhat jokingly suggested 'lovers' (as @Rolo mentioned); my roommate found that hilarious so now that's what we call them (not in front of them ?).  of course i have to come back to the point that i don't actually think it makes much sense since we don't love our respective lovers, or they, us.  it's probably another word whose meaning has changed over time. 

    On 10/2/2020 at 4:37 AM, nonmerci said:

    We say "sex friends".

    no kidding, now that's funny.  like "j'ai passé hier soir avec mon sex friend"?  my study of french has been too academic to cover that one.  it sounds awkward in english, but maybe it wouldn't so much if it was commonly used.

    On 10/2/2020 at 2:18 PM, Holmbo said:

    I wish there was a term that could be used for a committed sexual non romantic relationship. It feels strange to use the term queer platonic relationship for that since most people associate platonic with non sexual.

    hmm, would i hypothetically describe a relationship as both platonic and sexual?  yeah, because there are cases where i describe my attraction to someone as platonic and sexual (two different types which happen to exist at the same time). would i call it a qpr?  man, idk, it's kind of hard to imagine having sex with someone i'd consider a qpp.  i guess it's like the idea from so long ago, that pure, heavenly love, incompatible with sexual attraction.

    summary: language is...hmm.  i'm just gonna go on saying whatever, you know?  whatever feels right.

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  8. i agree that you have to be able to look at a specific person and want to have sex with them (or some sexual activity, making out or whatever).  and as @CharCharChar suggested, for me at least, that's pretty much as soon as i see them, i don't have to know them or whatever.  important note: that's not necessarily to say you would in actuality have sex with a stranger, or even ever with anyone--just that you find them attractive.  and if there's a gender you're not attracted to, in my case women, and it sounds like yours, @Robin., the idea of sex with them will surely repulse you.  even if they offered me exactly what i want, i wouldn't want it with them.  i have a hard time believing people who claim to be heterosexual but express a favourable or neutral attitude toward sex with someone of their gender...but what's it to me, right.  and to your other point, considering how many people are not sexually/romantically attracted to their own gender, i hardly think they're all just dealing with internalized misogyny/misandry.  those things mean you don't believe men and women should get the same rights, opportunities, and respect.  as for the other types of attraction brought up: aesthetic is just thinking someone looks nice, the same way a flower does.  like the way i think 'wow, she's so lovely' is quite different from the way i think 'damn, he's so hot'.  'she has a great figure; i'd like to get her in my dresses' (as a model--i design them) vs. 'he has a nice body; i'd like to get his clothes off'. ? as for non-sexual physical activity like cuddling, particularly as you said that the same thing in a platonic context is "not the same," i can't speak to that except to say that some people call that sensual attraction.  i don't get it at all, to me it's either platonic, romantic, or could be either depending on context, and that decides whether or not i'd want to do it.  just as i'd like to go out for a friendly dinner but not a romantic dinner.  then there's queerplatonic attraction, the object of which is often called a 'squish,' which i do have--to me it's almost like platonic infatuation, as opposed to the 'regular' platonic attraction/love one would have for a friend.  oh, and i don't understand the "need to cuddle"--you know that 5 love languages thing, well when i took it with platonic love in mind, physical touch was last; i hug my friends but other than that it's like, whatever.  but that could easily just be an individual thing.  (quality time was first, btw.)  well, i hope some of that helped.

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  9. yeah i'm not sure it'll become a well-known thing in society, or any standard way, just individuals can do whatever they like.  i'd like to do something with my best friend, i'll kind of leave it up to her how much weddingy stuff she wants to incorporate--guests, rings, vows, formal dresses, cake, etc.  

  10. @hemogoblin has a point.  i don't intend to speak for all heterosexuals, but i believe i'm as heterosexual as you can get, and i'm not attracted to guys because of their genitals.  i wouldn't have sex with anyone with biologically female body part(s) like a vagina (or watch porn featuring any such person) because that's off-putting for me--i imagine it's similar to how sex-repulsed asexuals feel about all people/bodies, and i hope that's not wildly off-base.  but i could absolutely be attracted to a trans guy with his pants on.  and i wouldn't be attracted to anyone, including cis guys, whose presentation and demeanor were more feminine than not.  

    for the record, i have seen naked women and men in illustration class, and that's different because i'm focused on drawing them; it's like drawing anything.

    On 4/16/2020 at 4:14 AM, hemogoblin said:

    You can find someone or parts of people aesthetically pleasing without being sexually attracted to them. You can certainly have sex with people without being sexually attracted to them as well.

    certainly i can find women very aesthetically attractive.  if in my fashion design career i ever have models, i'll choose them based on that, both their face and (clothed) figure.  and again, i certainly cannot have sex with someone without being sexually attracted to them.  i understand this statement was about people in general, and that it is of course physically possible, but i don't get how it could be enjoyable.

    On 12/18/2019 at 5:54 PM, TripleA said:

    I enjoy flirting sexually with men

    yeah, that doesn't sound straight.  when i came across your post the first time i did say bisexual.  but idk man, as others have said, it's up to you.

  11. On 12/3/2019 at 3:18 AM, nonmerci said:

    It's not something I ever think about it. Is doesn't care a cis thing, or are there cis that actually cares?

    i suppose you could say i care, i mean i definitely identify as a woman.  i can't tell you what makes me feel that way, besides my biological sex and upbringing--i don't think my parents imposed too many gender norms on me (they didn't know until i was born, so my room and first clothes and toys were gender-neutral), and they let me pick pretty much everything as soon as i was able to.  i chose girly clothes, lip gloss, dance classes, books about fairies, dolls/fashion stuff (partly because i've always known i want to be a designer).  some gender-neutral stuff too, of course.  and obviously boys can dance and wear pink and all that, you know what i mean.  and now, even though the life i want could hardly be further from the kind of life women were supposed to want/have back in the day, that just means i'm not conforming to traditional gender roles, not that i'm not a woman.  

    now, the purpose of the following exercise is actually to differentiate individualist cultures from collectivist, but i thought it would serve to illustrate my point about gender identity too.  the task is to complete the sentence "i am (a)..." with the first thing which comes to mind.  someone from a collectivist culture would most likely identify themselves in terms of a relation to someone else, ex. "i am the daughter/wife/mother of so-and-so," while someone from an individualist one (like mine, canada) would name their gender, occupation, nationality, main personality trait, etc.  when i did the exercise, the first thing which came to mind was "i am a woman."  so i think that proves not only that i view myself on an individual level (as expected) but that my gender is a prominent part of my identity.  *note: that doesn't mean it's the most important, just the most immediately obvious.*  actually, i have to wonder whether those of us in individualist cultures give more thought/value to our gender and orientations overall, like how familiar are collectivists with aromanticism?  well, that's a whole other thing.

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  12. sometimes, like if it's relevant, like if we're talking about dating and i contribute my attitude or experience, i might follow it up with "'cause, you know."   the implied end of the sentence being "i'm aro, so ?‍♀️".  like my roommate was talking about the concept of eventually getting bored with a partner and i said "i'd get bored with them in like a month, but, you know."  and if i say something like that around someone who doesn't know, i might tell them.  occasionally with my best friend i'll talk about deeper stuff like my fear of my friends not having time/love for me when they get married or whatever.  sometimes people will ask me questions, like my best friend asked me to help her understand demisexuality because she thought my understanding of sexual and romantic orientation would make for a good answer, and i kind of explained the ace and aro spectrums.  but you know, there's only so much of the topic you can really talk about with allos and understand each other, especially without some preliminary lesson.  like a lot of our discussions here, i wouldn't have with anyone else.  

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  13. absolutely, i did that as a kid.  my friend and i even used to 'plan' weddings in a notebook, the season, venue, food, decor, like we were wedding planners.  as for mine, it never crossed my mind to give any thought to my future husband (i knew i liked boys).  i didn't think about the ceremony at all.  and now that i know i don't want to get married, i still think about the other stuff--especially the dress, since i'm a designer--just idly, for fun.

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  14. my roommate has a friend with benefits, and their 'friendly' activities include having dinner and wine in his backyard, going out for ice cream, and painting together.  upon hearing this, friends of hers insist that the two of them are dating.  she told me she doesn't have romantic feelings for him (and i believe vise versa).  they don't kiss, cuddle, hold hands, etc--pretty much their only physical contact is sexual.  to be honest, it sounds a lot like the sort of relationship i'd like.  however, she wanted to know what i thought since she said some of the platonic things they do she wouldn't do one-on-one with other friends, and she doesn't want him to date or sleep with other people, partly but not entirely because of covid.  while i couldn't relate to those last feelings, i said that if she and he agree they're "not dating or in a relationship" then they're not, and it doesn't so much matter what they call it, as long as they're happy with what it is.  since she knows i'm aro, she also asked how i would feel about doing 'date-like' things with someone, and i said fine--again it's not so much about the activity as our feelings; if i knew or felt that the guy was romantically attracted to me or considered the activities romantic, i wouldn't like that, but if we were on the same page, great.  she seemed to follow that, and surely applied it to the way she thought about her relationship with this guy.  i suppose i'm just sharing this because it's not often i can have a conversation about relationships with an alloromantic where we share many feelings/attitudes, and it was cool.  and i wanted to point out how amatonormativity also affects allos (which i know is well-established)--remember how people tried to label her relationship as romantic just based on a description of it without understanding the actual feelings of the people involved.   

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  15. hey!  

    On 8/29/2020 at 1:10 PM, Bad Things said:

    F22, cis, aro

    same ✌️

    i'm glad you found the term and community, it is a relief, isn't it?

    and the whole thing about sex being associated with romance, yeah, it's so great when you're comfortable with your orientation and can be comfortable going into a sexual experience knowing it's just what you want.  back when i was dating my ex and kind of in denial about being aro, it made everything complicated--stuff i'd normally enjoy, like hanging out and making out with him, but when it's romantic for him, it's uncomfortable for me.

    you're totally not alone and i'm glad you like it here.  

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  16. i read those descriptions, and i related to a few for squishes and a few for sexual attraction, like this one: "Most of the time, you’ll try and avoid them and just stare at their beautiful face from afar." ? the guy i'm into, whenever i see him i totally check him out, i think i'm pretty slick though.  mostly it's watching him play tennis (so he's not looking at me) and i'm just thinking 'nice serve, nice face, nice shot, nice abs.'  if he walked right by me i'd have a hard time looking at him or greeting him casually.  and i try to look good if i know i'll be seeing him, which, @wintergreentictac, you said you don't even do. 

    and i want a wedding but not a spouse, just the dress and party.

    and i started identifying as aro at 17, i'm now 22 and still haven't felt romantic attraction.  of course, you can only know your experiences up until this point, and if you feel that the term 'aromantic' reflects them, go for it, and if that changes, that's fine.

    not sure how helpful that was, feel free to ask me any questions.

  17. On 8/9/2020 at 10:52 PM, CloudlegtheVolcano said:

    But I know that for most allos (from what I’ve seen, I don’t mean to generalize) their partner comes above everyone else. Adults don’t really have best friends, because your significant other is supposed to be your best friend, right? So I know that as my close friends find partners (and have kids) I will become less important in their lives. It’s frustrating and hurtful to think that friendship just isn’t good enough for allos (again, don’t mean to generalize, that’s just how it often feels) and as an adult, I will be nobody’s number one.

    yeah i have that fear and i've expressed it to my best friend, as well as my logical belief that she won't actually love me less.  and i wish it were easier to find the kinds of relationships i want without worrying about the others being romantically attracted to me/having my romance repulsion triggered or whatever.  but i don't wish i experienced romantic attraction.  i used to wonder, you know, what it would be like, but you could wonder about all kinds of ways things could be different.  being aro is who i am and i like it.

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  18. @WilmaW since you mentioned hoo, i feel the need to plug my old post:

    On 5/28/2018 at 9:42 PM, aro_elise said:

    i found a good one today, lads.  so i'd read rick riordan's 'heroes of olympus' series and thought it would be awesome if there were an aro child of aphrodite but i hadn't considered piper, 'cause, you know, jason.  then they show up in 'the trials of apollo' series ('the burning maze' spoilers ahead) and they've broken up and these lines of dialogue had me like ?:

     

    piper: jason's great.  he's my closest friend, even more than annabeth.  but whatever i thought was there, my happily-ever-after...it just wasn't.

    apollo: your relationship was born in crisis.  such romances are difficult to sustain once the crisis is over.

    piper: it wasn't just that.

    apollo: *anecdote about an ex*

    piper: it was me.

    apollo: what do you mean it was you?  you mean you realized you didn't love jason?  that's no one's fault.

    narration: she grimaced, as if i (apollo) still hadn't grasped what she meant...or perhaps she wan't sure herself.

    piper: i know it's nobody's fault.  i do love him.  but...like i told you, hera forced us together--the marriage goddess, arranging a happy couple.  my memories of starting to date jason, our first few months together, were a total illusion.  then, as soon as i found that out, before i could even process what it meant, aphrodite claimed me.  my mom, the goddess of love.  aphrodite pushed me into thinking i was...that i needed to...look at me, the great charmspeaker (she has the power to bend people to her will with her words).  i don't even have words.  aphrodite expects her daughters to wrap men around our little fingers, break their hearts, et cetera.

    apollo: yes.  your mother has definite ideas about how romance should be.

    piper: so if you take that away, the goddess of marriage pushing me to settle down with a nice boy, the goddess of love pushing me to be the perfect romantic lady or whatever--

    apollo: you're wondering who you are without all that pressure.

     

    ohhh man.  it's perfect.  and rick's sooo great with representation that...i mean, not getting my hopes up, but how awesome would a canon aro piper be?  anyway, that's one of my favourite headcanons of all time.

    right?!

  19. 1 hour ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

    It also largely has to do with the fact that the queer community at large is used to being able to just tack "-sexual" onto any word and there you've got your orientation. God forbid people acknowledge that sex without romance is a thing, right? Or that attraction is nuanced, and sex and romance aren't a package deal?

    what i was going to say.  like, someone who identifies as 'bisexual' (and nothing else) is most likely also biromantic, but the former term is meant to encompass the whole attraction thing.  we generally don't see specific reference to romantic orientation unless it differs from sexual, for example i believe the most common combination is bisexual heteroromantic--i have encountered a few people who have identified themselves as such.  that being said, outside of the a-spec community, not a ton of people are aware of split attraction, so when someone includes ace representation, in their mind, they're not excluding aro--they may think that the two necessarily go together, or they may not think of it at all. 

    among those who are familiar with aromanticism as a separate orientation and (essentially purposely) exclude it, i don't know.  maybe it has to do with them not seeing it as valid, either as part of the lgbt+ community or at all.  

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