Terra Branford

What really confuses me is how people plan for things like marriage or to have a significant other. I have only been "interested" in ONE person my entire life. So the biggest different for me is people having a general desire and craving for romance. I have only craved when I met someone that I clicked with by chance. What also confuses me is when people are surprised that I don't date or seem to care about being in a relationship. They also project things on me like: Me eventually meeting someone/falling in love, me being in a relationship, getting married and having children. I honestly just don't get it because I don't see that happening for me AT ALL. I know how I feel when I like someone and I don't think I'll ever feel that way again. While everyone else plans to have families, I plan to be single with a pet or too. I also cannot relate to the fear of dying alone or not having anything to leave behind. Being grayro allows me to see the flaws and falsities in romance as well, so I don't get all sentimental when I see people get engaged or married like everyone else.

It took almost a year and half after finding the aromantic label and reading about the spectrum for me to finally settle with identifying as grayro. Functionally I am aromantic in a sense that I don't crave companionship or romance. But I am grayro because I will crave those things if there is someone I like. I know what romantic attraction feels like, but I have only felt it once. My feelings are very infrequent, unpredictable, and nonexistent most of the time. But I think I am capable of it under the right circumstances (someone and I are friends for a long time and something just clicks). Most people would say that's demiromantic, but I disagree. I have never had any real feelings for any of my friends, except that one guy. I also go back and forth on whether or not I undersand romance. I get annoyed by it sometimes. I also really don't like dating as it feels forced, phony, and unnecessary. So I'd say I'm definitely in the gray area.

This confuses me as well. I would be so perplexed that people seemed to "like" each other so much. I know how I feel when I like someone, but it has only happened once in my life. I'm grayro, but functionally I'm aromantic. But honestly, I think a lot of people get into relationships impulsively due to expectation. I always had a vision or image of how I believe romantic relationships to be, and the real relationships I see do not look like that, and are therefore unappealing to me. I haven't been interested in anyone in over a decade and people around me are shocked. But I think romantic attraction is defined differently for everyone.

It started to express itself around late elementary/early middle school. As a kid I watched all the fairy tail movies and grew up expecting romance and marriage. But something shifted when I got around real people. When it came to getting close and being with someone I was never really comfortable. I would admire people from afar but I never told them how I felt. And when it seemed they would reciprocate, I would lose interest. As I got older and encountered more people who talked about dating/relationships, I was always left with a feeling of why don't like anyone? After really learning about romantic attraction is, I realized that a lot of what I believed to be crushes were based on fantasies. The more I forced myself to see things more logically, I lost interest in romance. I have only been emotionally attached/attracted to one person in my entire life. But nobody else really does it for me.

Grayro ace INTJ.

My experience is very similar to yours. I taught that I would end up in relationship, married, and feel all these things once I got to a certain age. I kept waiting for that to happen but it never did. And the one time it did, the circumstances surrounding it killed it before it started. So I have just kind of been drifting for the last decade or so. It does suck but I just try to live in reality. I'm not really interested in having relationships just to have them so I doubt being in QPP would work for me. I know how I felt when I liked someone and wanted to be in a relationship with them and I won't settle for anything shorter than that. I also try to uncondition all the things I learned about love and romance and decenter it from my life because it's not natural for me. I try to focus on friendships with people and search for those who think similar to me. I embrace my own company and am hard core into self care. I just live my life as if I won't find it and relinquish all expectations so I can give myself some kind of peace.

To me romantic attraction is having a strong affectionate attachment to an individual that makes you want to commit to them in relationship. People who feel it may express it by doing things like kissing, embracing, cuddling, dating, being affectionate, and doing things to make the each other happy. Knowing that person is simply okay and safe is enough to brighten your day. Sexual attraction can overlap into romantic love but does not overshadow any of the former.

I identify as gray because I've had feelings for someone before and they have lasted for years. But a real relationship with them is not possible. I haven't liked anyone else in 10 years. Sometimes the concept of a romantic relationship makes me uncomfortable and other times I really want a romantic "friendship." However, the sheer infrequency and unpredictability of my feelings is mainly why I identify this way.

I identify as grayromantic asexual for the following reasons: I have only truly liked ONE person, as in grew to like them due to their personality and getting to know them over time. Plus I was really attracted to their look. They weren't super conventionally attractive, but their look was perfect for what I wanted at the time. But even then I was still not sexually interested. I just wanted to be around him and talk to him all the time. Like really STRONG friendship. All my other crushes were mainly aesthetic attraction, I wasn't interested or too scared to pursue an actual relationship with them. I fluctuate between not understanding romance/not wanting it and wanting a relationship with the illusive "right person" with emotional/physical intimacy. But when I try to imagine that happening, I feel it's impossible because I don't feel any romantic curiosity about people in general. I don't care about/don't like dating. It's stressful and feels unnatural to me. I feel if I'm going to fall in love, it has to happen by chance and with a person I click with on my own time. The person cannot make any romantic gestures at all until I feel comfortable with it, which could be eventually or never. I don't feel the need to look for love, as I feel there are too many factors that go into that I cannot control. It's impossible for me to pinpoint what makes me like someone as I have only had romantic feelings once. Since my feelings are so rare. It's difficult for me to move on. I still have feelings for the person I mentioned earlier. However, I just kind of deal with the fact that they likely will never go away and just live with it. It's hard sometimes, but most times I am okay. I can't imagine falling in love and getting married at all in my life. So because of this I plan to be single forever.