Rook on the Hook

Not intensely, but it's definitely something I've faced a lot of subtle, implicit pressure about from my family (especially grandparents), interspersed with the occasional explicit insinuation that I'll be missing out or that I'll change my mind. Thankfully, it has eased up a bit since coming out as trans (which is doubly good, because the fact that my body could hypothetically get pregnant is by far one of the things that causes me the most discomfort and is the source of the worst of my body related dysphoria), but it still crops up from time to time.

It's made doubly frustrating by the fact that it's not just that I don't want kids, but that, having done a lot of thinking on the topic, I am the sort of person who absolutely should not have kids. It is just not something I am physically, mentally, or situationally equipped to handle well. Like... mother... I disappear into undisclosed parts of the desert for days, weeks and even months at a time and struggle to take care of my own most basic bodily needs, why on earth do you think children are a good idea for me? Do you want feral little desert creatures for grandchildren? XD

Probably a nonamorous aromantic who still cares very very deeply about the people closest to them. I feel like, with the very limited representation we get, there's a lot of emphasis on queerplatonic relationships (which is great, honestly! I'm glad it's been talked about and explored because QPRs are a cool thing that needs more publicity, I just wish there was a little more variety and acknowledgement of the fact that wanting a QPR is not a default characteristic of all aros), and the few aros we get who don't want QPRs tend to fall into the aloof, robotic aro stereotype. I want an aro who cares for people as deeply and passionately as I do while still being just as disinterested in having a partner of any sort. An aro happily living life alone without living it in isolation. I would also love if their story explored a bit of how amatonormativity makes life harder for people who don't have partners of any sort, without being all doom and gloom about it.

I don't think it's coincidence that, out of the many arospec characters I've written, two of my favorites (and definitely the top two in regards to writing about aromanticism, rather than about people who happen to be arospec) are both non-partnered people with really important and complex platonic and familial relationships, one of whom has a pretty non-standard found family living situation.

Ditto on what Jot-Aro Kujo and roboticanary said. I've never seen allosexuality being treated as a redeeming factor for aroallos. I think people definitely see it as the defining characteristic of aroallos' orientations, as aromanticism and asexuality are so often seen as neutral non-entities that are superseded by whatever attraction we can or do feel, but "Aroallos still have sexual orientations!" is in no way equivalent to "Aceallos are okay because they can still feel romantic love!" especially given how much more often I see aroallos being demonized for merely being aroallo (even within the aromantic community!) than being seen as their sexual orientation superseding their romantic orientation. Not to mention that so often aceallos are put on this pedestal of having this pure, soft form of romantic love that comes with no ulterior motives.

All that said, that's exactly why I agree with you on aroallos saying they experience sexual attraction isn't equivalent to aceallos saying they can experience romantic attraction. Not only do I think you're right in there being more aceallos than aroallos, but the way talking about the attraction one does feel gets such INCREDIBLY different reactions. One is often (if not always) idolized while the other is seen as being immoral or being a player who doesn't give a single damn about other people.

How much me being aro affects the way I play TTRPGs honestly really just depends on the group and, to a lesser extent, the system. For example, with one of my groups, we played Mallgoths vs. Visigoths, which as a system is somewhat geared towards romance, and my solution was "Hey y'all I'm aroace as heck and my brain short circuits if I have to roleplay flirting, so my character is going to be a hopelessly dense aroace icon who cannot pick up on romantic cues to save her life" and that worked great and resulted in a great running gag with that character, but that's probably not something I would do in a group that wasn't ragingly queer. Hell, even with my main group, who also happen to be my main friend group, I'm not explicitly out to anyone but one person (though I'm also not keeping it under lock and key and I'd be surprised if they haven't guessed, given they already know I'm queer and I've corrected them for using ace when they mean aro and referred to Artemis as an aroace arrow ace icon XD). It just hasn't really been necessary. Our campaigns are long enough form and everyone's respectful and communicative enough that if one of them wanted to do a romantic subplot with one of my characters, I'd be okay with it. A lot of my characters are still pretty aro-coded, even if I haven't explictly defined them as aro, but that's not always the case, and overall my tendency with making aro-coded characters there just falls into the general pattern of "Many of my characters (regardless of medium) are aspec because that's what I can portray most authentically and with the most nuance."

That said, I do always find it a little weird when my friends get excited about their characters having romance arcs. Like... glad you're excited dude and I'm sure if it's executed well I'll enjoy watching it unfold, but at the same time... what.

I feel all of this deeply in my bones. Even when people are very gracious and understanding when I explain that I'm aro, there's this lingering discomfort that always nags at me, to the point where I only feel truly comfortable getting as close as I'd actually like to be with my friends with people who I know are either aro or explicitly not attracted to my gender. My romance repulsion is thankfully not super intense, and like yours, only really pertains to romance as it applies to me--romance in fiction and other people's lives is fine and can be very cute and wholesome, though amatonormativity and the sheer inescapability of romantic content suck--but it's consistent enough that it can make certain relationships with people rather stressful. Hell, even romance adjacent intentions can make me very uncomfortable (it might be a different story if the person in question was also aro? I suspect I won't know unless it happens). Like, recently, a very close friend of mine who I know was and is still romantically attracted to me, but has handled it very maturely and communicatively (not that that erases the discomfort--it just makes it manageable) said something along the lines of "I mean, there's not really much of a real concrete difference between romance and close friendship anyways" and while yeah, that is something I basically fully agree with and wish more people understood, but it felt a little too much like him insinuating that maybe a romantic relationship is a possibility, so long as we don't define it as such, and that made me more uncomfortable than I knew how to articulate.

I wish I could offer advice on how to cope with it beyond "Communicating about it in depth sometimes helps" (no duh Rook), but the best I can offer is sympathy for a shared plight.

Hello everyone, I'm new here! I'd heard about arocalypse in various other aro spaces here and there but I never actually got around to making an account until now.

The name's Rook, I'm aromantic and asexual, though it's really more like AROᵃᶜᵉ, with my asexuality being a footnote to me being very very aro. I'm a student and a part time archaeologist, and my hobbies include writing, drawing, Kung Fu, tabletop RPGs and painting miniatures, as well as whatever random thing my ADHD hellbrain has most recently latched onto.