Neir

(Lol no worries! XD I generally assume people on here are being respectful, nice prose or not.)

I see! I understand better; I misinterpreted and thought you were still unsure about parenting. Honestly, the pain and confusion surrounding 'the line' is something really relatable and valid. Bloodlines are by no means the most important historical relationships, although they are definitely glorified. I'd like to think that my ancestors were too preoccupied by their own lives and needs and desires to really be concerned about whether their family would still have ownership over something beyond the time they could benefit from it. Not sure what I'm saying is remotely helpful, but I'll just reiterate that what you've felt is valid.

It's not particularly popular at the moment (where I'm living at least), but there is the possibility of co-parenting. The work of raising a child is a lot more distributed between many people, and there is also the benefit of having a child you can call your own. A little like adoption but with a greater number of parents/role models that can each contribute to a child's development in different ways (including passing down a title if you so choose).

I don't know much about legal stuff surrounding this issue, but I would look closely at the terms. It could be possible to give the title to someone you greatly mentor later in life, a good friend that will stick around, etc.

All that said, guilt is one of the worst motivators to have when it comes to having children. Even if you don't pass that title down and continue the tradition, you can pass it to someone who you know will benefit from it. When historians look way way back at the lineage, it's not really as broken as you think it seems right now. There have been plenty of royalty that have had way more complicated passing-down tradition-changers and the titles/possessions they hold are still attributed to their family.

It's OK to ask this question.  Forums like these are the perfect place to ask potentially uncomfortable things.

This has actually been talked about before, somewhere... I'm not sure it's been talked about on these forums but I've definitely seen conversations about it on Tumblr and other social media. There are many aro folks here (myself included) who have a mental illness and/or are neurodivergent, disabled, etc. Not everyone has a mental illness - just like you said, being aro isn't a mental illness and just because you're aro or queer doesn't mean you're depressed. However, of the people who do, a small fraction (I want to say about 25%?) find that them being mentally ill interacts with their aromanticism. So you're definitely not alone in that!

I also think it's valid if the two are intertwined for you. Often, our mental health is dependent on our social lives and social health. And social health means something different to each society, each individual. In my Western context, for example, social health is equated with experiencing romance. So it's no wonder that, for some people, not having romance as a part of their lives can make them miserable. It's also possible to be mentally ill, and have that affect your social health. Often, mentally ill people shut down and shy away from people, isolating themselves. Emotions can also get either unmanageable or disappear entirely, so if you felt romantic attraction before and suddenly don't because you're mentally ill, then it could be true that being mentally ill has made it harder or impossible for your body to engage in the feelings that romance requires. Social life and emotional life are intertwined, and those things can be factors in both mental health and orientation.

As you said, identity is valid no matter what! It would be weird to say that your life experiences do not in any way influence your preferences to have certain relationships with people. Emotions are life experiences. That's my take, anyway, and that kind of fluidity of orientation is something the LGBTQ+ community has been talking about more and more lately. Orientation is probably one of those things that isn't entirely biological (being "x orientation from birth"). It's probably one of those nature + nurture things, like most human traits seem to be.

I can't make the decision about this for you, but I can tell you that it's valid to think about, and feel free to process your feelings with us.

First I would look into whether you very suddenly "became aromantic" (if I can use that phrase) and if that distressed you. Doctors use very sudden distressing changes as symptoms of disorders. Like, sudden loss of interest in things you once enjoyed, for example. 
That's not necessarily a be-all end-all method, especially because flux identities exist, but it's a start.
Next, I'd try to imagine where the mental illness(es) and orientation overlap. Are they completely overlapping and seem more like the same thing? Or do they have parts that are independent from each other? What about being aro makes sense to you, and do only the parts that fit with your mental illness(es) make sense?

Hope that helps a bit. Being aro is separate from being mentally ill, but unfortunately, with stigmatization against both existing, the experiences and 'symptoms' can overlap sometimes.

My fellow non-binary peeps, genderqueer folks, and others who don't feel they fit the conventional "man/woman" or "girl/boy" dichotomy, I have a question.

The other day I was with a friend of mine who I have recently come out to as non-binary/genderqueer. We were gossiping about something, and she wanted to use a very exaggerated "GIRLLLL" to refer to me. She self-corrected to "BOYYYY" and then had a funny little confused expression before she blurted out "Fabulous human?! Extraterrestrial???" At the time it was hilarious, but it got the both of us thinking. 

Is there a short form equivalent to "boy" or "girl" for non-binary people?

I know that "enby" has been suggested in the past, but some people dislike its cutesy undertones. Furthermore, it's two syllables, while "boy" and "girl" are very easy to draw out in an overly dramatic way because they are single-syllable words (like in "Oh my God, GIRLLL" or "Boyyyy, that was amazing!"). "Dude" is something some people use as gender-neutral (myself included), but it carries a slightly different connotation. Also, it is not universally viewed as gender-neutral. Is there anyone working on this someone here could point me to, or even some ideas from the crowd? Sometimes I want to be dramatic, and both I and my friends stumble over simple gendered words. (The same happens with words like "QUEEN" and "Princess," but those are perhaps separate, albeit related, issues.)

One thousand eight hundred and thirty-two!

This was a great way for me to review how to write out large numbers lol

Amatonormativity~~~~

I grew up with a lot of that kind of narrative. Marriage as an established norm, and basically a "normal" stage in adult development, akin to learning to talk and walk as a baby. I never questioned it until my parents started asking me, "Sooo have you got a boyfriend yet??" It definitely is frustrating because people who aren't married are often viewed as selfish or aloof.

However, I have noticed recently that more and more people have been treating marriage as just a ritual. There are people who don't want to have a grand marriage ceremony (a coworker of mine said she and her husband just eloped - signed papers and stuff). I also know that there are more people I have heard of recently than I had when I was younger who are getting married for the benefits, not for the 'love' or whatever it was supposed to be for. That definitely isn't the norm yet, but I feel like some of the Millennial generation and younger is popularizing more flexible unions and slowly stretching societal norms. So there's hope!

@Tired-Sparo I absolutely love how you simultaneously called out Man imposing his definitions and structures onto nature, but also used a manmade idea, i.e., the ballroom, to characterize and describe nature. It very clearly shows that although the narrator is wary of staying past their welcome and claiming nature, they are still beholden to Man's ideals and assumptions and ingrained notions that one must always see through human eyes. It's like an acknowledgement of bias that was taught to the narrator and can't ever fully be erased.

Just a lovely poem, thank you for sharing

I was replaying DmC: Devil May Cry recently and I had some Ideas.

Dante as an aro allo would make so much sense. I often see people shipping him and Kat, which I find annoying at romantic and sexual levels, but I also see them as potentially a QPR? In fact, a lot of their interactions are how I picture a QPR to unfold. It's now canon in my head. Furthermore, I headcanon Dante in pretty much all the other DMC games (that I've played) as aro.

Vergil as aro ace (or demi). I just get the Aro Vibe from him. He doesn't seem interested in pursuing any relationships beyond familial and platonic (and alliances). I reckon he'd want a lot more commitment and development with a person, getting to know them, before pursuing a relationship. I'm not sure if that would also mean attraction - I'm kind of ambivalent between completely aro and demi on this one, regardless of what I think his actions and behaviours might be.

This is a very interesting and often controversial topic. I think it's very difficult to answer but as long as we are not using our answers to justify hatred and hurting others (many anti-LGBT people claim that "becoming LGBT" would mean those people could "un-become LGBT" and they purport things like conversion therapy), it can be an interesting intra-community topic to ponder.

I have my own thoughts on this but I'm not entirely committed to them simply because they're not based on concrete evidence. Just a heads up!

I think that defining ourselves as particular sexualities/identities /is/ something we made up socially, as a way to group people and segment them by their differences and labels.

I often see this idea that "you are born X Sexuality and don't change" being thrown around and I do not think that that is the case. Orientation and identity are fluid because we live in a social and ever-changing world, ever changing ourselves via growth and learning. I think that labels are useful descriptively but not prescriptively, meaning that I use "aro" to label my general pattern of experiences. I can still label myself "aro" if there have been exceptions to the pattern, but I find it a useful label for getting across what I observe my natural tendencies to be. These natural tendencies are influenced by my state of life and being moment to moment. I may grow into a new person, personality-wise and physically, in the future so it is entirely possible that my orientation or identity may change. They also might not. But my point is that by nature these things are fluid and CAN change, whether or not they actually do. My issue with using labels prescriptively is that a lot of misunderstandings and self-hatred arise this way. If i call myself "aro" but this ONE TIME i experience something different, am i suddenly no longer aro? Even if i never experience that difference again? Am i supposed to act like a non-aro now? What does that even mean? Saying someone is born a certain way makes it seem like that person has to fit a box with rules and if they don't, they have to find another box. This isn't very inclusive to me.

So to answer the original question, I don't think we are "born aro" or the like, but i also don't think that breaking orientation down into "nature or nurture" is in any way a productive conversation. It's like asking whether we're born with or acquire certain personalities. I don't think that orientation is simple enough a concept to be broken down in this simple way. Orientation, to me, is something that can change (naturally, not necessarily by influence, as conversion therapy failures show us time and again), but can also stay the same. Orientation isn't completely immune to change, but it isn't something that can be externally changed, just like personality. We grow and change, so parts of our identities also have the potential to. Hope that makes sense.

This is a good topic, thanks for starting it.

I would rather go to a wedding for free food than spend the money to get married myself

@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!

On 7/15/2018 at 6:59 PM, AroAce_Fangirl said:

My discord says the invite has expired. Can someone post a new one? Please?

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.

78!

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).