HopelessAromantic

@DeltaVYeah, I care less about the label than actually understanding myself. But I think I've been trying to match up my experience with what other people seem to experience and it just hasn't made sense. Trying to force it to make sense has just caused a lot of anxiety. It feels pretty good to read through this forum and be able to relate to a lot of it. I should mention I'm a bit neurodivergent and figuring that out as an adult was its own adventure lol. I'm starting to think my brain just isn't wired for romance, but that realization also involves redefining a lot of things that I thought I knew about myself and that's kind of where I'm struggling. I guess I want intimacy, but I don't want romance and its hard to separate those two for me when, culturally, they're so closely connected, especially for men. I guess that explains why I tend to prefer female friends. This is a lot of figure out lol.

New here. Just started to figure all of this out over the last week or so and I'm having a bit of an identity crisis. I've been reading through a lot of posts here and so much of it is relatable. I think I'm either aromantic or demiromantic. I'm 27 and I've never been in a relationship. I've always liked the idea of a relationship in theory, but I've never really met anyone who made me want one in reality. I've always heard that I'm supposed to "just know." I've spent a long time thinking maybe I just haven't met the right person, but now I'm questioning that. Realizing this now, it makes so much more sense how other people seem to just fall into relationships. It also explains why things like kissing or pet names are kind of off-putting to me. Also why I've always felt like other people must be exaggerating their romantic feelings or like movies and TV are dramatizing it, but apparently people actually feel that way? I guess all I've ever felt is platonic attraction + sexual attraction and I've been confusing that for romantic attraction, but other people are just feeling something entirely different? I could use some help getting my head around this lol. I do think there's a possibility that I'm demiromantic. I may have felt romantic attraction once a few months back and everything that's always confused me about relationships started to make sense. But I was also going through a whole different crisis at the time, so it's hard to use that as a reference point and I have nothing else to compare it to. It pushed me to start dating to find out, though, even though I have no idea what I'm doing. Send help. ?