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@not_my_standard_username It was up for a bit, but invites were closed recently due to influx of unwanted accounts i think. I'm not a mod but I think @Zemaddog will have more info. Stay tuned!

Same issue here; I'd love to join and see what shenanigans people are up to if there's room

I use both my computer and pen/paper for writing, which might not be typical! Though the pen/paper stuff is much more often for poetry, I'll admit. I would hate to lose one piece of paper out of 50 for a longer work. I like this thread! What kinds of genres do people write? For poetry, what styles and muses inspire them? I'm a big fiction writer myself, and write a lot of poems on nature and people. I'm curious what you guys do.

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HOW have I missed this thread?! I love all of these (especially the Star Wars and Star Trek ones - ARO LUKE!!). I won't add anything already said, but I'll throw in an anime/manga character I've been thinking was aro or demi-ro (likely sexual though - hetero?): Natsu, from the series Fairy Tail. I feel like he and Lucy have a really strong bond, and I 'ship' them in the sense that I love their partnership, but Natsu hasn't ever seemed interested in pursuing romance with Lucy even when she implied that she had romantic feelings for him. He's seemed completely oblivious. However, I wouldn't mind seeing them in a romantic relationship, initiated perhaps by Lucy (hey, some aros do enter into romantic relationships with non-aros), although the dynamic would be different from traditional romantic relationships of non-aro-specs. Also, not sure if anyone knows Saiyuki anymore (my favourite manga series), but I headcanon Sanzo (Genjyo/Kouryuu) as aroace. I'm pretty confident this one's canon, honestly, just not spelled out explicitly as "aroace" itself.

Just aro things: spending the afternoon researching when and why monogamy became the norm. Here's a neat article I found (note that the main picture at the top is a kissing scene, for those who don't like that sort of thing): https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/05/17/health/sti-infanticide-human-monogamy/index.html It's essentially agreeing with what @Mark said - it's more about marriage and keeping wealth than childrearing effectively for the survival of a species. I also think that those people in power (those who were the wealthy) imposed the monogamous structure on society (like Queen Victoria or through media productions like novels or visual media like films), like @Costati mentioned. Fascinating stuff, anyway. A move to individualistic culture and the importance of the self over others seemed to play a role in all this.

You're allowed to do things just for yourself, even if no one else likes them or will ever see you do them. Not everything is about other people. Don't bend over backwards just to meet small demands of other people. Conversely, not everything is about you. Even if you have trouble with empathy sometimes, you can learn the rules of sympathy and employ that instead. On that note, note that all social interactions can be navigated with scripts! Go out there and listen, and practice until the anxiety goes away. You are allowed to be yourself, and to express your feelings to others. Also, you are allowed to be flawed. Just make sure you are receptive to change when it does come around.

My go-to feel good song is usually My Favorite Things, from the The Sound of Music soundtrack. (I occasionally sing it at the top of my lungs when I'm home alone, to fight off anxiety )

I like what a lot of people above said about strong romantic feelings eventually fading to something more subtle and comfortable as time passes in a relationship. If you don't get to feeling that "in love" intense emotional stuff when in a relationship, I think that that can still completely work for your partner. Oftentimes, as a relationship matures, these kinds of intense feelings die down a bit as the excitement and novelty fade. So you might seem to your partner to just get to that level early (even if you are actually skipping the whole intense stuff in the middle). Subtlety can be just as heartwarming and is often seen as mature, so it may not really be that bad a thing (in fact, it might even be a great thing) to the right person. All that to say that even without the intense romance feels, you can still call your relationships romantic if you want! Less intensity doesn't necessarily mean half-assed, like how pastel pink is less intense a colour as compared to fuschia, but they're both pink, right? And for labels, whatever suits you best moment to moment is also something I agree is a great idea to hold on to.

It might seem weird, but I usually drop hints into conversations with new people (I find that I get asked out by strangers waaaay more than I get asked out by friends, if not exclusively). I'll say something that indicates I'm very busy and barely even get to consistently go out with friends to hang out (often an unfortunate truth for me). I do this kind of thing if I'm getting a too-interested-in-me-to-just-be-friendly vibe from the person, before they get a chance to ask me out. I am occasionally surprised though, and then I just tell them no: the truth that I am not interested. Honesty has always worked for me, especially when delivered friendlily and assertively.

I don't have much to add to the already great replies except my own experience with figuring out my label, so here goes! For me, I have different levels of certainty regarding different parts of my identity. I can tell you that I know I'm asexual, for example, and haven't really wavered with that description much. I've always felt repulsed by sex, and especially when thinking about it involving myself. My aromanticism took a while, because I have a loving personality and sometimes feel extremely strong feelings for others, and other times have so little empathy I wonder if I'm sociopathic. I chose the "aroflux" label to accommodate these changing feelings, because one day I really do feel like a romance-repulsed aromantic and other days I find myself feeling those weird "not quite platonic but not romantic" feels. I think that an orientation can change if a person drastically changes. Like our bodies renew their cells and our brains rewire their nerve connections. But not /often/. If you find yourself oscillating frequently then terms like greyromantic (like you've identified) or -flux and -spike affixes come into play. Sometimes we use orientations to describe our /tendencies/ rather than as a catch-all no-exception behavioural rule. For me, I decided on "aroflux" because at the end of most days I feel aromantic, but on some occasions and with no explanation, I unlock those quasi-platonic and alterous feelings. I strongly tend towards aro. I hope that helps a bit! Being interested in romance and feeling romantic attraction doesn't necessarily invalidate your label. Just like I've had a gay guy friend like and date a girl before (because she was the exception), you're quite allowed to use labels to describe your tendency, but bend in real life. Humans are far from certain and predictable, while definitions, by nature, really have to be. On the other hand, if you're still feeling at odds with the label you've chosen, maybe it is time to look at other definitions that are more specific that you feel more comfortable with.

I can definitely see how it can be tough to find like-minded people where you live, @Blue Kafka. It's a sad reality sometimes, and I hope it can change in the future. I think that being more open with people in your local community, like you said, is a great place to start though! So I wish you lots of luck. Especially since you mention that your friend is similar to you and has managed to successfully find a companion in a relationship that works for her, I think that it is definitely possible for you. Be patient (easier said than done, though, I totally get it). Even just being a roommate with a friend can help you feel like you have a companion but without the commitment right away. That would also get your parents off your back at least temporarily, maybe!

Very difficult question! (The companionship one, at least. I think many of us can empathize with feeling jealousy toward someone. When I feel ignored by a friend I can definitely get jealous and upset, in a way not unlike how couples get jealous.) I'm not sure if it would work, as I haven't tried it myself, but I know that there are some internet-based forums that set up meetings between people who are alike. Where I live, we have something called meetup.com and on that site you can find groups in your area who share your interests and want to make friends and things like that. You might even find specific groups for people like yourself - who would love to find a companion but not in the traditional romance way. Other ways you might be able to find someone like this is by making friends with a local LGBTQA+ community that is welcoming. You might be surprised to find people who are looking for the exact same thing as you! In sum, I think that meeting more people, making friends, and opening up (when possible, as I know that outing yourself to people is not always what you want to be doing) are some ways you can find people like you, who want the kind of relationship you do. Hope that helps even somewhat.

These are all extremely helpful responses, and I'm comforted by the fact that everyone has defined their gender identity and what it means (if it even means anything) to them so differently. I'm also quite happy that many of you identify so strongly with my confusion and my experiences (I'm not alone! Whoo!!). It's such a difficult concept to pin down, and while some of us are comfortable identifying with such a nebulous concept, some of us are equally as confused by it and prefer to try to rationalize it or understand it before ascribing to it. It's cool that some of you define gender through your relationships or orientation, some through gendered behaviours, some through the presence/absence of intrinsic feelings of belongingness, some with biological and neurological factors, and other things! It's been helpful to understand others' experiences (whether you do feel gender or not). I've tried writing all of these factors down and ended up creating a complicated chart (not unlike those ability polygons you see for character stats in video games), and I attempted to place myself in each of those areas... but I think that my doing that really revealed to me how little I personally identify with gender, haha. Now I just have a journal page with complex polygons drawn all over it and question marks littering many of their vertices! But I guess that my point is that the diversity I'm seeing in everybody's answers so far is really neat, and I've loved reading people's honest responses. I still have no answer to what the heck gender is, but I suppose I didn't really expect to from the beginning anyway, and that's ok. Thanks, guys!

Hi all, I've been having some gender identity trouble lately because of some misunderstanding and confusion over some of the concepts associated with gender. In sum (TL;DR), I can't think of examples of how gender identity can be expressed outside of presentation and would love input. I identify with many experiences of females because I have presented as a female from birth. However, I do not feel intrinsically connected to the female identity or to females in general. I connect to personalities. I won't feel connected to a woman just because she is a woman (supposedly "like me"). I will feel connected to her if she shares some of my interests, though, or experiences and history. So, great, I don't identify with womanhood. But, I really enjoy a lot of traditionally feminine things, including many so-called 'girly' fashions. To me, they're just cool or pretty, and I don't have an interest in them because I want to express a female gender identity. But I'm not sure if women in general think about explicitly expressing their womanhood when doing these things either. Furthermore, many people who identify as female don't even engage in these things and can be more butch. I look like a traditional cis female and have their privilege, especially because I am impartial to pronoun use for me (if people assume I'm female and use "she" to refer to me in conversation, I likely won't mind). But if someone were to come up to me and explicitly say, "You identify with women and the female gender, and you feel a part of the female gender coalition" or something to that effect, I feel like that description would be inaccurate for me. Pronouns and presentation can be very important for some people. I think that knowing this makes it difficult for me to reconcile my ??? gender identity and highly feminine presentation, even though I /know/ they are completely separate. I guess I'm looking for a bit about everyone's experiences with gender identity and how they express it (through presentation but, perhaps more relevant to my dilemma, through other ways).

This is such a cute thread. I'm going to add that I took my senior dog for a walk today and she was so happy to be out with me she started trotting along and trying to get me to chase her like she used to do when she was a puppy. It was so cute and it made me happy. Dogs are so pure.

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I'm not exactly sure what a deathstream is supposed to be...? So I'll just answer livestream and continue with another question: Would you rather dive into the deep ocean in a submarine or go skydiving?

Love reading everyone's experiences in this thread; I identify with so many of you! Of course, I always defaulted to straight but not explicitly since I was always focused on other things. But then once I had some intense feelings for a girl (I thought that it had to be a crush because I didn't know what else it could be, but now I can say that in hindsight that the attraction was alterous), so I edited to bi. My attraction suddenly faded and I found myself disgusted by romance and sex a lot. I got to ace before I got to aro, but figuring those labels out went hand in hand as I learned about the aspec family online. The aroflux is something I have started using recently, to incorporate the two or so times I have experienced alterous attraction. Labels are confusing but aroflux ace is a place where I comfortably sit.