Apathetic Echidna

Because you said it I decided to search it. Now I am having heaps of fun on this site http://derhobbit-film.de/rune_generator.shtml#rune Amatonormativity is hard enough to spell in english but the Feanorian Letters translation is insane

that would be amazing if you would! I don't have Tumblr, and without an account it sort of is it's own fortress. I figure that sharing anything positive is important because alone it is sort of hard to find things to be positive about now ?

Hi all I'm hosting the June Carnival of Aros and wanted the topic to bring a bit of positivity into people's minds. The theme is 'Most Precious' and all the details can be found here: https://mesotablar.dreamwidth.org/15144.html Basically, if you think something is precious and influenced/effected by your aro-specness then make an entry! I will be active on Arocalypse so feel free to post links to your entries here as well.

Interesting that you looked at it in a binary way of good/bad when I saw the question as finding a presence/absence binary. An alternative to saying 'non-amatonormative', for situations where amatonormativity isn't present or is actively resisted.

I feel like I should put mine in a spoiler because I'm fairly sure I could/should have gotten the authorities/police involved. I'm fairly sure you are asking from romantic rejections, and well, mine just fall into the category of 'rejections are when I say no'. Warning for stalkerish and bad drunk behaviours on a lighter note in University I invited a guy to the movies with me and a friend, I didn't do it as a 'date' but I should have been warned because he did keep staring at my chest, then he invited us for drinks afterwards. We both turned him down because we had early experiments the next day so we had to get to sleep, it was only 9pm, and he called us both 'old grannies' and never spoke to me again.

this is exactly why I felt so driven to find a microlabel. I wanted to find something that accurately described my experience so that I would have that label as a shortcut word to throw at people if they started making assumptions about my sexuality because I am aro. I don't want to tell every random person about my experiences, but having a label as a shorthand version of that was a very attractive option. Too bad almost no one knowns what that label means, but then it is not something they can make random assumptions about because I identified with it so random internet definitions are good enough to give them an idea. TL;DR: I found myself a microlabel because people shouldn't assume I'm ace or allosexual because I don't identify with either of those experiences

well this one fits two categories as it is French, and it may not (yet) be explicitly stated within the show, the creator of Miraculous Ladybug has tweeted about the characters. I don't actually follow the show, but apparently fans are not surprised but they also seem to not think will actually be named in the show. https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/616144855708696576/omg-astruc-just-said-on-twitter-that-max-is-rather

I don't have a ring sizer so I prefer to try before I buy, but if you know of stores local to you maybe think about giving them some information on what you want and get them to hunt because they probably know many more contacts/products. I got an ace ring from a local fashion shop, I told her what I wanted and she had stock in storage. Apparently not on display because it was 'too simple'.

I wasn't interested in asexuality when I first found out about it because it was quite soon around the time of me experiencing sexual attraction, flash forward a decade or so and I rediscover asexuality yet I still didn't think it fit me because I had those experiences, plus the ace community was pushing the 'aces can love' line, which was in line with all the gay marriage support slogans that were EVERYWHERE. Apocalypse was a real escape from that. Then some instances of gatekeeping and general disrespectful behaviour on ace platforms had me quite alienated. I just hung around until I could find myself an ace-adjacent microlabel that I liked. Then I fully dropped ace spaces and never looked back. I don't even really use my sexuality label, once I found something I basically got bored with it and now I seem to be basically ace anyway. Personally I think SAM is useful as a basic tool rather than an actual descriptor. I found it useful to separate out my attractions but when you say 'I'm a SAM aroace' or a 'non-SAM aro' really very few people will understand, especially not if you expect them to understand your exact meaning/understanding of it.

Over the years several of my friends have been in hookup relationships, I hesitate to call them FWB because outside of the bedroom they weren't friends. Only one friend did it longterm, and she was friends with him to a certain extent, but I never met him because they decided to keep their friend circles separate. Maybe it helped keep the relationship 'less real' or something to avoid catching feelings, I don't know.

English: symphony, quixotic, sixpence, petrichor Variety of Aboriginal Australian languages/dialects or Anglicised versions used for town names: Narrandera (Town), Tiddalik (Frog from Dreamtime), Wilcannia (Town), Tjilbruke (Character from Dreamtime), Uluru (Ayers Rock), Anangu (Tribe name/dialect name), Kudlila ('Winter' in Karuna language), mulla mulla (Plant/place name)

Me either. There certainly have been times in different areas where new marriages were very very rare (war/diseases/natural disasters), but I'm sure even then you might find some weddings, and it is also a short period of time we are talking about. Marriage is too enshrined in most cultures to be gone for too long. I'm no expert either! cultures, especially of large populations are so complex I doubt there are any full experts! I know there have been studies in the 80/90s showing that in traditional Japanese marriages (businessman/housewife) there was a spike in divorce rates around the time the men retired because being home drove their wives crazy. I'd be very interested to know how things are going in COVID isolation. I've seen a study that said the divorce rate is spiking in China, while at least anecdotal data (I'm sure there will be a study eventually) many pending divorces have been withdrawn in New York. There might be some interesting comparisons.

it would help if the umbrella term was one word, just to increase searchability. Does relationship anarchy cover single/non-partnering acceptance? I'm not good with latin, but could a derivative of lifestyle-variety-acceptance be a possibility?

I don't see how you could think cupioromantic and lesbian are possibly mutually exclusive. I am not great at understanding the intrinsic values of non-romantic orientation labels and terms like lesbian (there are some members around who are much better than me at knowing that stuff) but at least with cupioromantic you can designate a target for your interest. You can say cupioromantic lesbian the same way I can say aromantic hetero-greysexual. And of course you can chose to use just one or both depending on how you feel or in certain situations where you feel comfortable or not.

@Emerald Cheetah oooh I'm flowing onto the unrelatedness here. Interesting song, though I'll have to dig out the lyrics in a different format because that clip is far too distracting for me to read them, at least first time through. The Japanese stuff I did sort of cut off around 2010 so in the decade since then who knows, maybe love is seen as a disease? though in that song's case computer virus would be more accurate! From the lyrics I did get it seems the 'funeral' is the conclusion of the love disease, and in love-elevator terms the conclusion of love is marriage, so marriage=funeral? Is the modern Japanese thought better off dead than married?

I have a feeling I mentioned this somewhere else but.. I think it would be nice to separate the posts asking for help (those 'am I aromantic/lithromantic/other/???' ones) into their own forum. Some people coming for that sort of thing only do a few posts and it would be easier to find if they weren't buried in Aromantic Discussion. Maybe putting it in the Welcome category would be appropriate? Basically I just think that these two segments of the Aromantic Discussions description can stand on their own now.

There have been some great thoughts already in this thread, and it is great @Mark has already commented to blow the constructed/assumed 'long history' of romantic love to smithereens. I will just focus on this point because it is one of the things I studied. So Japan had a big Economic boom that peaked in the 80s, yes we can all agree on that. Were women part of it? not really. Traditional gender roles were still fairly strong. Women were generally relegated to 'office flowers' who hung around until they got married or maybe once married they stayed around until they had a child. BOOM. your future is as a housewife. I know there are exceptions but in general they experienced traditional gender discrimination, be a wife then a mother and make your house your life. I'm sure there were a range of feelings and reactions in that time, but once the economy began shrinking and things were no longer so 'stable' women started breaking free. So suddenly you have women fighting for continued employment, men no longer able to financially support a non-working wife and kids, and a whole generation of women just entering the workforce who don't want to be housewives. Enter the Parasite Singles, not kicked out of their parents houses because they are unmarried yet not looking for husbands because they don't want to be boxed in by gender roles. With an income and few/no bills they live luxury. In the 90s and 00s they were looked up to as rolemodels/influencers/aspirational to all the young girls who want the next newest Gucci bag. Men had to go through a shift too. Suddenly independent women were more open in relationships that didn't have marriage as the final goal and culturally it was more acceptable to create, explore and join in other alternatives. So Japan has changed so so much in just 35 years and the old society standards broke down, a society that had very strict relationship and marriage roles for both genders. A sustainable social culture has not developed that maintains population and is appealing to the masses, digital reliance is probably just making it worse and the western fetishisation of the traditional submissive Asian wife ideal. So it is not quite so simple as Japanese people are seeing no point in marriage or dating, because they are talking about Japanese Marriage (and practices) and Japanese Dating (and goals). Though it is completely statistically true that higher education in women lowers the birthrate, and Japan has such a focus on education that it plays a big role too. For every other country experiencing a drop in birth rate you can probably point to that one factor as being a major influence.

wow it sounds like you have found someone really special, someone who understands friendship mow many of us aro-spec peeps understand friendship! The word 'friend' is understood in so many different ways. For example I had a friend who regularly claimed to love me like family, yet I never went to any of their family events and they moved out of the state without telling me. Or a more senior coworker calling me his friend when all I did was the social reaction of a nervous underling who wanted a promotion, we didn't even interact outside of work hours! anyway, those people seem to be in the majority, that is why those sorts of internet articles are so common. Long distance relationships are hard, and even harder if they are friendships because I find friendships are based so much on shared events and at least in my case there was misunderstandings about what friendship means and how (irr)replaceable it is. I think that you should stay with the people who make you a better person. Sometimes it is hard to know who that is, sometimes it is hard to do the staying together because of life and sometimes the other person won't want to stay. But if you have the chance or opportunity then do it!

everything @arokaladin says, as well as our brains do like to prepare us for events. Sometimes we dream of possible future situations so that we may react to them better in the event they actually happen. I know there have been some child psychology studies done on nightmares in kids and reaction times in threat situations but I don't have access to those online journals anymore so I can't back that up right now. Anyway, maybe you saw some stuff and thought of some stuff and your brain decided to throw you a 'what if' moment. You say your legs don't work well when you are emotional, well maybe because of this dream (and maybe more like it) if you are in that situation in real life you will have been 'practised' and your legs will work better for you. oh, yeah, if you aren't stalking this thread you won't know we've answered unless I tag you @Athena2905

Thanks so much for the article! I've not seen it broken down that way before, and so easy to understand ? I answered indifferent in the poll before I read the article, and it is true for sexual, social and structural. But as my pet peev is emotional cheating accusations I cannot see emotional monogamy as anything but limiting and harmful. I'll admit it might work for some people, but then they may probably be alloromantic and I only have a rough theoretical understanding of their bond. Whatever, I don't want that emotional monogamy anywhere near me!

Personally the repulsed/indifferent/favourable terms seem like they are taken from the ace framework in regards to general attitudes towards sex. I know there are social complexities and cultural differences but sex can be simplified to the act itself. Romance cannot be simplified to one universally acknowledged act, there is too much cultural input and diversity so repulsed/indifferent/favourable seems too ill fitting when most people will probably have a range of reactions to different aspects of romance-coded things. Personally I use the words repulsed and indifferent/neutral but in an entirely different framework of understanding. I see repulsed and indifferent/neutral as steps on the attraction framework in regards to specific activities, situations or people. I actually changed my vote, I originally selected romance-repulsed or averse because those are words I use, just not with that general meaning, and I have no connection with 'favourable' being the other end of the options. I did my own examples of what I mean here https://mesotablar.dreamwidth.org/13965.html

Peck on the lips kissing? that kissing was always a friendly thing or a game to me. I played kissy-chasey as a kid so then it probably means my first kiss was my friend's older brother? or a girl from my school class maybe? total guess here.... aw, now I remember my first open mouth kiss was a game too....actually the circumstances are a bit creepy if I try explaining them, so I won't. For some reason I remember enthusiastically making out with a friend's elbow during a game of spin the bottle after we had wrestled and he'd coped a feel, so I guess that is my first 'drunk kiss'? The rest of that night is a bit blurry First kiss to someone I was actually attracted to happened in a pool. Luckily it was a mainly salt-water pool so it had a lower chlorine content but it still tasted so gross. I don't know if these count as relationship kisses unless you factor in that I was friends with them when it happened and we later went on to continue being friends or dated without kissing or eventually did sexual stuff with or without kissing.

I have a friend in your situation, so I took the chance to strengthen our friendship by sending each other care packages. (postage takes ages and we make guesses about what the other likes, but it is fun). Maybe reach out to a single friend who finds themself in the same situation and build something stronger from this.

? I had to google that now I feel old (I'm only 28!) Welcome! I hope you like the community here, we try to stay nice and respectful though as with anything there are some issues here and there. There is plenty of interesting stuff from simple to complex to read and contribute to. Welcome!

@Momo @kernsing @nonmerci @time-is-ticking @Coyote So I just tagged everyone here who mentioned being interested in this. If you are talking about my comment in the other threat where I mention aro, ace and agender being a-spectrum that was a flow on thought from a vicious private conversation on the meaning of the A in LGBTQIAP+. I brought the idea of triple A people (aro/ace/agender) and the A-spectrum to that conversation and that is what was riding my thoughts when I wrote that. Then I never came back and explained anything because there were 2 death in my family and the Australian bushfires and I couldn't deal with heavy conversations then I forgot I ever wrote it. But no, I don't think agender is assumed to be a-spectrum. It may be linked for some people in how they experience things, and now arogender is bringing gender into the previously sexual/romantic a-spectrum anyway. I'm going to edit in this explanation to my original comment to clear that up too. Sorry for any problems I caused.