dewy

I love writing romance, even though I may not understand it fully. I write fanfiction and love shipping so luckily the characters already have chemistry I can work with. But now that I think about it, I tend to focus on the non romantic aspects of their relationship, or write the story in a way that it could be either platonic or romantic. I remember writing for a ship exchange event and worrying I hadn't made it romantic enough, but luckily my recipient loved it. But I don't really write fluff a lot, usually angst, smut, or stories where the romantic relationship is there but not the main focus.

It's normal to have doubts. For me I had them even after a while of knowing I was aro because people I knew would say bad things about aromanticism. Having doubts doesn't make you any less aromantic. And even if your identity does end up changing later on, that's completely OK. I know my identity has changed a lot since realizing I'm aro, from sexuality, to different aro sublabels, even to thinking I wasn't aro at all for a short time.

The doubts will lessen over time. My advice is to try not to torture yourself thinking about it so much, and surround yourself with supportive people.

Acht from Splatoon canonically uses they/them pronouns. It's cool because they were a minor character before and haven't been referred to until the recent Splatoon DLC. I didn't expect it since they look a bit more fem and we haven't had a canonically nonbinary character in Splatoon before, so it's cool to see some representation.

My newest aro headcanon is Acht from Splatoon. The fandom currently has lots of jokes about Pearl and Marina being all lovey dovey and affectionate and Acht just being so done, and I love it, because same. Also they make a pretty good color picked aromantic flag.

Yes, I've always loved romance in fiction and shipping and that didn't change when I found out I was aro. It's not weird, there's a variety of aros and while some of us might not like romantic fiction, some of us really love it, just maybe not in real life.

7 hours ago, Guest Anonymous said:

maybe just say ‘no thanks, I’m not wanting a relationship right now’

Seconding this, came here to say this exact thing. Or maybe something like "sorry, but I'm not interested..." anything like that, keeping it polite but vague works without having to tell people you're aromantic. If this happens, most people won't press you for any more reason, but if they do, it would be quite rude and you don't have to share that you're aromantic or anything you don't want to.

I've always loved shipping and that didn't change when I figured out I was aromantic. There's lots of reasons I might like a ship, I might find them hot together, think their dynamic is interesting, or like Ekaterina said find other non romantic aspects of their relationship interesting. I've been really into this one ship that checks all those boxes for about a year and a half now.

Has anyone mentioned Luv Luv Luv by Pansy Division? It feels like such an aroallo anthem. Love love love love love, and it sounds like blah blah blah blah blah.

I've seen people saying we can't have healthy relationships, super hurtful.

Hehe yes, I've loved reading and writing fanfiction for years, all different kinds. I love writing one shots. My main fandom is FE3H but I also sometimes like fics for other stuff, like Chainsaw Man, Ace Attorney, and Splatoon. I've always been really into shipping, so a lot of the fanfiction I read and write is to explore relationships that may not have been canon. I also like reading and writing about trans characters, since we sadly don't have enough representation, and it's fun to make headcanons.

9 hours ago, Ekaterina said:

Definitely agree about Sherlock Holmes, him being aro is basically book's canon since it's said directly he isn't interested in romance. Yes the Irene thing in the book is mostly admiration of her as a person and opponent, and tends to get shifted more towards romantic in adaptations (but even if so, still somewhere aspec). Asexuality on the other hand isn't stated, I do headcanon him as asexual too through. 100% agree about QPR with Watson.

Yes, queer Sherlock Holmes! I see him as both aro and gay since I love both of those interpretations, so why not both? I remember in The Sign of Four when Watson got married he was resentful, classic aro experience of being frustrated seeing friends get partners and romance becoming more important than friendship for them. It's a good thing this didn't turn out to be the case for these two, nothing can separate them!

Yeah, I've always loved the sims ever since I was a kid. Always loved making families, having my sims have kids and see how the kids would turn out. It's a lot of fun and a good way to live out my "fantasy" of having kids even though it wouldn't be practical for me. Especially with the amount of kids my sims sometimes have, one time my sims had 6 because they had twins and triplets! Now I still play every now and then but it's been a while, I should start up a new game sometime.

For other life sim games, I grew up with Animal Crossing and loved making friends with the villagers as well as decorating my house, going fishing, and more. I think that's a good game for aros now that I think about it, completely romance free. I've also tried Stardew Valley before because a lot of people I know really like it. I never got too far but it's interesting seeing the characters my friends romance, they always seem really attached to one in particular. Meanwhile I just liked mining.

5 hours ago, DeltaAro said:

I love cats, too. I've rarely seen house cats used as aro pride animal, though. More felines in the broad sense because the tiger is well-established.

Source: Queerappear

PS: why does this tiger not need a space helmet? 😄

Oh, I didn't know about the tiger, how cute. I think tigers are an awesome aro animal. Thanks for sharing!

I'm gray aro, and personally it just takes time for me to figure it out. Sometimes I get crushes on people then it fades and I realize it was just something like admiration or infatuation. So whether the attraction actually lasts is how I determine if it's genuine, if that makes sense.

8 hours ago, Milly said:

Bruh none of you guys ever have any fun Jesus Christ😭An alternative relationship is anything outside of the norm and I’m surprised none of you know what that is bc this is a very niche little online thingy and there’s like a million labels in here💀 So yeah I would say that anyone that doesn’t fit into the norm of a relationship aka experiences less than the adverage person or no romantic attraction shouldn’t even be considered as dating at all😭i don’t know why or even when you all decided to make all these rules up but anyone who’s not actively in the aromantic community wouldn’t call a romantic ish relationship just normal dating💀 There is no correct answer bc aromanticism has only been an actual term for a few years so don’t act all high and mighty as if this is such an obvious conclusion that everyone should come to, bc everything on planet earth is up for debate.

I mean, yes, there are a lot of aromantic sublabels and terms, but not everyone knows or understands them all. Personally I don't find most sublabels helpful and even have a hard time understanding them, as I'm not super active in the aromantic community online these days. And like I said, I don't understand what queerplatonic relationship is, and I don't think I want to count the relationship I have with my partner as an "alternative relationship" since we've been dating for a while now and I don't see why the label matters so much? Especially seeing as we're both queer in other ways than me being aromantic, so our relationship would not be considered "normal" dating even if I were alloromantic.

I'm not trying to make up rules, and I don't think anyone here is. Yes, aromantic people can date, but obviously not all of us want to, and that's ok. If I were making up rules, I would be saying something like all aromantic people should try out dating to see if they like it, which is...not something I believe in at all. I really think it's up to the individual.

I think we can have multiple aro animals, there are so many types of aros out there, and so many good ideas in this thread!

Personally I like cats as the aro animal, but I'm biased as a cat owner who's had cats my entire life. I admire how they will only socialize on their own terms, both with humans as well as other cats. Plus a lot of the cats I've owned really value their alone time in one way or another. As a bonus, currently both of my cats have beautiful green eyes!

On 1/12/2024 at 9:51 AM, Milly said:

It shouldn't be called dating bc it's an alternative relationship. An aro and allo person can't normally date.

Yeah no, I'm dating an alloromantic person currently and we're perfectly happy as we are. Feel like I should mentiom they've always known I'm aro, by the way. I really don't think it's unfair to them. Honestly, I've heard enough of this sort of thing from aspec exclusionists, that aros can't have healthy relationships, and it's pretty tiring.

Also "normally date"...what does that mean? And does it matter if me and my partner are "normally" dating if we're both happy? As Lovebird mentioned above, not all of us want a queerplatonic relationship. Personally I don't find the term helpful for any of my relationships.

Others also brought up some good points here that I'm not going to repeat. But thank you guys for that, from a romance favorable gray-aro.

5 hours ago, Helion said:

I did date and even was in a relationship with a guy at the age of 15. Honestly, in retrospective I don't think there was any romantic feelings involved (I completely lack those), we just had a glorified friends with benefits. I only got together with him because everyone around us were shipping us and because I was a horny teen.

I can relate to that experience, dating as a young teenager then realizing later you weren't really interested. For me, I dated 2 different people when I was 14, before I knew I was aro. Now looking back, I'm not sure I was really interested in them, more the idea of a romantic relationship. Probably why neither of those relationships lasted long, though most high school relationships don't.

I headcanon Claude from Fire Emblem Three Houses as aroallo and bi because me too. I also like to think of Hilda as aro, I imagine they enter a marriage of convenience/political marriage in their paired ending. Agent 3 and Marie from Splatoon is another aro headcanon I have just because their colors are like the aro flag. There's no canon romantic relationships in either of these games, so they lend themselves well to aro headcanons.

I don't think I've seen a thread to discuss dating before, so I thought I'd make it myself. Personally, I'm gray aromantic and still interested in dating, but it's a very different experience from someone who's alloromantic, so I wanted a place to talk about it with other aros.

Feel free to discuss anything related to dating here, I'll also ask some questions to start us off. Have you ever dated? If so, what have your experiences been like?

Currently I have dated 3 different people, but 2 were in high school where it's not serious at all, so I still feel inexperienced. Being aromantic certainly doesn't help with that, I never fully understood dating and probably never will but it's fun.

Shiver from Splatoon! She's not canonically nonbinary but a lot of fans interpret them that way ever since they were revealed in the Splatoon 3 trailer because of her androgynous appearance. Many see him as transmasculine from seeing the sarashi on their chest, but I've also seen transfeminine headcanons. Shiver canonically uses she/her pronouns, but my headcanon is that she's ok with any pronouns and unlabeled. I love the diversity of headcanons I've seen about them.

Also Arval from Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. I haven't gotten far in the game at all, but they use they/them pronouns and look awesome.

I've only had chaste kisses, just romantic or friendly pecks. They're nice, have always wanted something more though. Seems like it would be fun in a sexual context.

I'm aro and bi, so no, I'm very much interested in all genders. But I have heard of this being a thing for some aroace people.

I'm an aroallo ENTJ. I know I said INTP here before but I retook the test and have changed a lot since. I also know an aroace INTJ.

I thought I was asexual/aroace because I related to lack of attraction. Then I realized I do experience sexual attraction just hadn't figured out what that meant for me since I was young. I joined this forum when I was 16, learned more about aroallo and that I'm not the only one who feels like this.