OkTomato

4 hours ago, Themathlover said:

I remember randomly watching a French video about it someday when I was 13. It was an interview of three aro persons. If you understand French, I'm putting the link to it down here : 

Before I came across this video, I was watching another one concerning people who had never fallen in love but didn't say to be aro, as it's a really marginalized concept. The title, Nous sommes aromantiques, means "We are aromantic" in French, and so, it intriguated me. I clicked on it and watched untill the end. It related to me in a way I couldn't explain, and I could feel like it made a bit of sense, but tried to forget it, probably confused... However, it was still at the back of my mind for maybe a few weeks, and I sometimes happened to think of it.

A few days ago, I was thinking of how different I was from other teenagers (I'm 15). I just have one friend, she settled down on July 2022 in a French overseas departement, The Reunion, which is located far from my location in metropolitan France. I'm still in touch with her but it's currently a long-distance relationship. Also, I've never had any "crush", any real romantic love towards anyone, and it neither appeals to me nor feels sensical to me nor do I feel a lack of it. I was lounging on my couch and suddenly remembered this video. So, I grabbed my phone and watched it back. It still made sense to me, still related to me, but it was too vague. I began doing in depth researches about aromanticism. Videos, articles and testimonials. I discovered it was a spectrum including many orientations, such as demiromanticism, cupioromanticism, lithromanticism, frayromanticism... and quoiromanticism. What I identify with now is this last one, quoiromanticism. I found out that, yes, romance was nonsensical to me. I'm not able to understand it as a concept or a feeling, nor to distinguish it from friendship/platonicism. To alloromantics, it is a unique thing, to me, an alloaro, it is just friendship if it's disconnected from sex. It's also the reason why I've always struggled with differentiating friends with benefits from romantic and sexual relationships, and also the reason why I've never been capable to understand why certain people felt so "heartbroken" if a person they used to have sex with didn't want to go any further (dating). My conception of sex has just never been linked with any other type of attraction. I'm not telling it's bad to feel heartbroken if someone you hook up with doesn't want to date you, it's just how you are, but, to me, it's a non-sense. Sex and romance are two separate things, and romance is something hard to catch for me, so much that I feel like it's not even applicable to me, it's nothing, like something from another universe XD. Everything began to be clearer in my mind. Everything I had struggled with for years began to make sense, or, at least, I could put words on this confusion I had. I'm quoiromantic and heterosexual. In addition to this, I had a phase back when I was 10-11 where I wanted everyone to know I didn't want to have a boyfriend. 4 years after, some aspects of this phase were for sure just a phase, but some others... They were clues I was aro-spec.

Wow it's impressive how well put together your thoughts on this are. You sound very mature. Good luck on your journey.

12 hours ago, hemogoblin said:

Different person than who you asked, but in my case, it wasn't. There's only so much compromising someone can do before they lose who they are - and that's not a healthy relationship. Is it POSSIBLE that there's an acceptable amount of compromise people can do to keep each other in their lives in a committed, intimate relationship? Of course. Billions of people are doing it everyday. And is it possible for aspec people to hold committed, intimate relationships with allo folk? Sure! Not all of these relationships (including not all alloXallo relationships) will work, but it's certainly within the realm of theoretical possibility that they can. But only you and your partner can decide if you can accept each other's differences and be happy with that in a relationship or if the differences are too big and are an incompatibility. At the end of the day, a relationship should make you feel happy, accepted, and supported. Conflict will happen but a relationship should not be full of strife. As much as you may care for another person, you both deserve to be happy at the end of the day. Good luck!

Thanks for this. I guess I know this, but needed to hear it from someone else if that makes sense. Time to talk to my partner and we'll have to see how compatible we are...

On 2/4/2023 at 8:34 AM, SpectralWizard said:

my romantic relationships were all pretty short-lived. Almost invariably my partners felt that I didn't feel the same way about them as they felt about me or that I "couldn't meet their needs". Around the time my last such relationship ended i became acquainted with aro/ace spaces and found that a lot of the pieces fit. Part of me questioned whether this was simply bitterness over the breakup but after 5 years i'm quite sure its not.

Hey can I ask you something? I'm currently in a serious relationship and only recently learned that I might be arospec. For a while we have been having issues which basically come down to having different needs, as you described. Is it possible in your opinion to continue a relationship like that? I'm worried that accepting that I'm aro immediately means the relationship is over. And because I've just been learning about all this recently it all feels sudden and confusing