PerformativeSurprise

Orange, black, and color (although both look right to me since I've been living in the UK, I still always spell it "color").

YMBAI you get upset when a book, movie, or tv show ruins a perfectly good friendship by turning it romantic unnecessarily.

YMBAI you can't flirt to save your life.

Great idea with the list.  I think it's definitely a good starting point.  And as @PhysicsOwl said, it could be particularly helpful for those who are questioning.  

I wouldn't consider myself romance repulsed in general.  Romance in media doesn't bother me, and depending on the context I can even enjoy it.  But real life is a different story. Even though I'm not repulsed, I don't like it at all.  I get a sort of keep-your-romance-to-yourself-please attitude if I have to bear witness to anyone being couple-y or talking a lot about their dating lives.  

I'm in the 20-25 category (on the higher end) 

I agree that getting aros to define romantic attraction is inherently problematic.  When I'm explaining my aromanticism to people, it's usually a bit of a long conversation, not a succinct definition.  I usually say something along the lines of, "I have never 'liked' someone in a romantic way (such as a crush), and I'm not even entirely sure what it means to 'like' someone.  I just don't experience feelings toward anyone that could in any way be classified as "romantic." I've never desired any sort of romantic relationship with anyone, because it's impossible for me to see someone as anything other than a friend."  I have no idea how to condense this into a definition that would make sense to everyone.

I feel like to get at a decent definition of aromantic, we need to have both aros and romantics involved.  Romantics often have a difficult time putting romantic attraction/feelings into words, but at least they know what it is.  We would just be guessing.

When I was a kid, I had a dream that my friend (who was sleeping over at my house that night) and I were kidnapped by JK Rowling.  She had this whole international operation going on where she was kidnapping kids and sending out ransom notes to their families.  You know, the old-school kind made from letters clipped from magazines.  The whole set-up was like an old caper movie from the 1950s--money exchanged in brown paper bags by people in trenchcoats sitting on park benches and whatnot.  

That's probably the most entertaining dream I've ever had. 

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan (was a teensy bit obsessed when I was younger...), and pretty much every sorting quiz, including Pottermore's, puts me in Ravenclaw, which I'd agree with

12 hours ago, Blue Phoenix Ace said:

You aren't anybody's NUMBER ONE, but then again deep down, would you really want to be? I find that kind of obsessive attention a bit icky.

I'm my mom's number one...does that count? 

9 hours ago, Starry Sky said:

I fear that I won't be able to survive as an independent person. There are many things I don't know how to do and/or am not capable of handling myself. Social anxiety gets in the way of a lot of things for me and I often need someone with me to help me out in public/social settings. I just recently have gotten myself to be able to send emails. Not having someone to with me to help with such things that social anxiety and other "issues" refuse to allow me to do will make living very difficult for me as an adult in the future.

As someone who has always struggled with social anxiety, I get this.  It's really tough sometimes.  I worried about this a lot when I was in my teens, but I've made huge strides in this in the past ten years or so.  And now I've lived on my own in three different countries! I never would have imagined that to be possible when I was younger, but through a lot of hard work I got to a place where I can handle it.  The anxiety doesn't necessarily ever go away, but I have learned how to function with it, and it has lessened a good deal.  I hope the same can happen for you too

(And for me, emails aren't too much of a problem, but answering machines scare the crap out of me.)

7 hours ago, Simowl said:

I remember at a friend's party they went around saying their crush and I just made one up (the kid that everyone wanted to be friends with because he was cool) and then they asked for "second" crushes. Seriously?

Now that's just madness.  I would feel so cheated. Like, "I worked so hard to come up with this, and now you want more?" It's hard enough for me to wrap my head around having a crush at all--how in the world can you have multiple??

24 minutes ago, hippiesthop said:

Foreign Language classes. There's always a unit every class that's about romance and relationships and your ideal date or whatever, and you have to just make up everything because you need to show you know the vocab.

So true.  I always dread those chapters.  And I'm not good at making things up on the spot due to social anxiety, so I usually just sit there awkwardly and try to contribute as little as possible, hoping no one notices.  

Nope, I've never been in either a romantic relationship or QPR.  I never even considered dating, to be honest.  I would have no freaking clue what to do in a relationship. The idea of me dating seems ludicrous.  At times, it has certainly felt isolating.  Now that I'm in my 20s, people find it particularly odd that I have never been in a relationship nor do I desire to be in one.  Oh well.

20 hours ago, Blue Phoenix Ace said:

Similar to the other responders here too. I feel that I am razor thin close to being aro. I have had one crush in my life, but no real desire to turn it into a full relationship.

 

So, technically this would mean I am not aro, but so close that I feel comfortable using the label anyway. I hope claiming that doesn't offend any aros out there.

2 hours ago, deltaX said:

As a not-grey aromantic person, I don't find this offensive at all

I second this, Blue Phoenix Ace.  Definitely not offensive.  Use the label to your heart's content 

Like many others have said, I defaulted to straight at first.  I just assumed one day this mysterious "romantic attraction" would hit me....then it didn't.