rob

this is what I say to everyone, if you think you might me aromantic then just identify with it. Use the term, see how it feels, how it fits, like trying a new pair of shoes. chill around with us for a while, see if you feel at home around other aros. if it turns out you are not then that's fine, you had a moment of exploration. it's always better to explore and realise something is not for you than not take the chance to try on something that actually fits as for the signs, I could give you a couple based on my experiences and the ones of others, but that is not gonna mean much. there are no signs, it's just us and a culture hyperfocused on romance, monogamy and heterosexuality, and now we have to find our place inside or outside it

honestly, at this point I can't even say I believe it exists. I'll just leave it to ppl who engage with it

it could be a good idea to not think so hard about the specifics. go with the flow, learn to work with each other in these new circumstances. the right words will come when you are both ready and if they never do that doesn't mean you have to break up, some relationships are a bit more vague and out of the norm and there's nothing wrong with that

When I first got together with my ex she knew I was aro, alongside all of my friends, and we agreed to be in a QPR, but then everyone started to treat us as if we were in a romantic relationship and imposing certain behaviours on me, like being jealous, celebrating valentine's day and other things like this even if I made it perfectly clear that I don't do any of them. Then got angry when I refused. Looking back I'm pretty sure they thought my aromanticism was just a phase and that my ex "fixed" me

This is coming from someone who is a shipper and active in shipping spaces, not only that, I am also active in romance focused and heavy alloro fandoms like romance manhwa and otome games (why I like things so disgustingly amatonormative? I don't... but I do, my brain works in mysterious ways). It's a complicated situation where we always get the short end of the stick I'm fine with headcanons, I'm fine with playing with characters for a fic or a fancomic, I really don't care. Generally I just avoid content made of certain characters or even certain fandoms, it's shitty but curating your fandom experience is necessary If they did just that I wouldn't give a shit, the problem is that when they do it, it obviously doesn't come from the desire to just have fun with your favorite characters but from some deep arophobia they won't address and will get aggressive if you point it out to them When they write canon or heavily coded aro characters it always comes in the form of a fix it fic, they think the character being uninterested in someone else romantically in canon is a flaw they are fixing. Which is disgusting, this goes beyond good faith fandom stuff and shows what they think of actual irl aros. It also comes packed with suddenly not understanding how interpersonal relationships work. Honestly seeing people claim that admiration, eye contact, affection and genuine care have to be signs of romantic attraction is both sad and hilarious, makes me wonder what kind of bland friendships they have Most people in fandom inherently devalue platonic relationships even when they claim to be celebrating them. If they use these relationships they are either explicitly portrayed as lesser or just outright romantic relationships they claim are "ambiguous". This appears a lot in hanahaki and soulmate AUs, two already wildly arophobic tropes Just to have a rant in a rant. Both of these can be made less arophobic, is just that alloros don't care to do so. For example, one of my favorite fics of all time is a hanahaki AU where Luffy from One Piece (heavily aroace coded to a point where not even most alloros can deny it) develops hanahaki after falling in love with the sea. Such a small but brilliant change to the core structure of the trope. It's beautiful. In normal every day interactions they are also aggressive towards platonic shippers, claiming that platonic relationships are boring, less valuable and homophobic for getting in the way of a queer ship. The last one comes from the fact that homophobic fans and moralists in fandom will sometimes champion platonic ships as "purer" than a romantic queer ship (another inherently arophobic idea but that's for another discussion). Because of that they can become overzealous in "defending" they ships, which, more often than not, ends with us at the other end of a metaphorical gun. And just because homophobes use platonic relationships to attack queer shippers, that doesn't give them the right to attack arospecs who are just minding their own business, trying to also play with our favorite characters in a way that makes us happy When they explicitly portray aromantic characters they range from offensive to offensively boring. It's either a "fixing" scenario or an aromantic side character that appears randomly to be used to explain aromanticism in a way that is literally the author pausing the story to make a PSA containing of a literal google definition, before being sidetracked for the rest of the story. And all of this can be avoided so easily if they just learned two things: 1. Good stories can be written about aros that don't revolve around letting the audience know what aromanticism is and nothing else 2. Just talk to aros If they want to write stories about aros getting into relationships and falling in love RESPECTFULLY they can, it's just that they don't have the necessary education to even comprehend how that would look, which would be solved very easily by just talking to aros but, for some reason (catch my sarcasm there), they never think to do that Conclusion: fandom would be a lot nicer if people would just listen to us. Boring but true

I am constantly asked if I have any feelings. Like... at all

Maybe. I would look into arospec microlabels, you could find something that fits you. Demiromantic or grayromantic could be great fits, or maybe you could find a more specific label, there are tons out there Or you could just be a lesbian oriented aroace My advice is always that if you think you might be aromantic just call yourself aromantic or arospec or an arospec label, whatever you like most. See how it feels, look around the community, talk to other aros, hang around for a while. If it fits, then great. If it turns out it wasn't what you were looking for there's no loss, you explored that part of yourself and learned more about a community

Not weird at all, you can be touch starved and touch averse

The need to be constantly joined at the hip. Talking every day. Always knowing where the other person is, with who and what they are doing. Spending every waking hour together, it just seems so exhausting

If you feel like the term aromantic might suit you take it, try it out for a while, look into the community and different experiences, and see if it's really what you're looking for As for what you've described, think seriously if you would be willing to approach a relationship with these people. There are a lot of aros who like romance in theory but not in practice. Think on whether you would be willing to ask them out or how you would react of they asked you out and analyse how that makes you feel

If you're poly and want to try a thing with both of them, you could talk with them about it. But I'm not sure it would work in your case If you feel like you don't have feelings for Lex anymore you should break it off, no point in dragging a hopeless situation. I believe that if you are on the fence on whether to break up with him or not you should ask yourself if staying in that relationship is more trouble than it's worth at this point. And don't stay in the relationship just because you're afraid of hurting his feelings if you break up, the situation will hurt both of you much more if you drag it out As for how to do it, you can always just go with the truth, that you lost feelings. It will hurt him, sure, but it will be easier for him to heal from it than if he believes that you've been cheating on him with the other guy

I like to define queerplatonic relationships as atypical committed relationships often (but not always) rooted in platonic feelings rather than romantic ones. I find this definition to be the best because it's very broad, and it acknowledges the original definitions of queerplatonic relationships as being rooted in platonic feelings while also being aware of the diversity of people actually using the term. In this context I see queer as not referring to the necessity of queer people themselves in the relationship, but to the nature of the relationship itself as being queer

welcome to the community I learned I was aro officially around 9th grade but in actuality much earlier. I first heard about asexuality and from that about aromanticism so when I saw the term I was like "yeah, that sounds about right"

Honestly more confused than anything else

I go by Robin. I'm a 20 y/o literature student in Bucharest. I love English literature, horror stories and games, comic books, and I've been a fervent enjoyer of anime and manga for years I'm aromantic, romance repulsed, as well as gray-asexual and achillean. I identify as genderqueer, but I enjoy masculine terms, I also go by any pronouns, but he/they are preferable While I know a few other aces, I only know one other aro, with whom I am not in contact a whole lot. I've just ended a relationship of two years partially because of our fundamental differences as an aro (me) and alloro (her), and I have no one to talk to about this that would truly understand. This made me realise how starved I've been to meet fellow aros, so I came here

[RANT] I've been with my ex-gf for 2 years and 2 months. I'm asexual and aromantic while she is an asexual lesbian. She broke up with me because I wasn't giving her enough attention. Ironically, this is why everyone before me broke up with her Before I got together with her I believed that alloros and aros can't be together. This relationship only proved that assumption to me. I don't say it's impossible, nothing of the sort, I'm just saying that it's impossible for me. But I wanted to give it a chance, so I asked her. She said yes, and although she asked me for boundaries immediately (knowing that I am aromantic and trans) I think we started off from the wrong foot, because none of us truly understood what the other wanted. She immediately started treating it as a romantic relationship by another name, while I wanted something strictly rooted in friendship, and as everyone took her lead and emboldened this interpretation, that was the one that stuck. I did not say anything, because I didn't want to make her sad. She is a sensitive soul, cries easily, so I was always afraid of saying some things because I knew it would hurt her There were other problems, like how she seems to have no respect for me (some of the longest time someone took to get my pronouns right), what I do (she's in STEM and I study humanities, she and her best friend have a massive superiority complex over it) or my time (she is eternally late. I live an 1 h and a half away from our usual meeting place, she lives 15 min away, usually I arrive at least 30 min before her, even after I call her repeatedly to tell her where I am so she can know to leave home, she claims that she can actually arrive on time, she just doesn't do it with me). People read us as a lesbian couple, which is definitely not something I want, as I am transmasculine, but she doesn't have much of a problem with it for obvious reasons. Excluding me from plans and discussions, often making me feel inferior to her best friend. I am full of platonic love, they've known each other for over a decade, I understand this, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't bother me to be treated like the 3rd wheel Now, it's not just her fault, it would be hypocritical to say so. I am cold and distant by nature, I recognise this. I'm very cheery and affectionate with acquaintances, because I know that my natural personality is unpleasant, but with close friends (her included) I let loose because I thought I could be myself, I thought they understood it wasn't personal. Apparently they didn't. And honestly, the way our relationship was perceived also stopped me from being affectionate, because it was something that was expected of me, and this creeped me out enough to make me even colder. I also don't text a lot, I don't like texting, I only do it when I have something to discuss. But she does that too. She also doesn't text, she didn't text me for my birthday two years in a row and I didn't get mad. She still talks to her best friend almost every day and they stay in discord. See what I meant? But I tried talking to her about this, multiple times. I asked her if my cold nature bothers her and I told her I knew she would prefer someone more affectionate and cuddly, someone alloromantic, a woman. I tried to open the conversation. She said that it's fine, that she is comfortable and happy with our arrangement. I believed her. Foolishly I thought we could have it all, a relationship comfortable for both of us I've felt guilty for most of our relationship. Because in some ways I knew it was coming, maybe in some ways I hoped it was coming. I've always known that I am not what she wanted, that I was too cold for her bubbly and cuddly self. But she was also not what I wanted, I've known that I am polyamorous for years and I want to try a queerplatonic polycule, she is monogamous so I gave up on it, because I knew she would interpret it as me saying she in not enough, and I didn't want her to think this. She expected me to treat her specially (I follow relationship anarchy btw, so that was probs not gonna happen either way) while she didn't and actively prioritized me less than her best friend About a year ago I realised I'm gay, accepted it a few months ago. I'm attracted to men and masc non-binary people in a way I can only describe as somehow, partially sexually (now I id as gray-asexual). I've never told her, never told any of our common friends even if they are my closest ones. I've lived in guilty ever since, because I was lying to her. I thought of telling her a few times but I knew it would broke her, she knew I wasn't interested in her sexually but for some reason I know that this would crush her, knowing that there is no way I would ever be attracted to her in that way. I've wanted to try a QPR with another transmasc for a while, with an aro transmasc, but I knew I would have had to break up with her for this, and I didn't want to hurt her like that. So, in a way, I guess I was waiting for this. Does that make me a bad person? A bad partner? So this is it, I guess. Sorry for the long post, but I really needed to rant. I can't go to my best friend because she is my ex's best friend, and all of my friends are alloromantic, so would not be able to understand this. I really wanted to talk to some fellow aros I still want a partner, a platonic partner, who no one would assume is romantic or who would at least laugh with me at the notion. A guy or a non-binary person, someone who can understand me from those angles. Who would not ask me to kiss them in public or ask me why I haven't sent a message on a holyday they know I don't celebrate even if they also didn't send anything. Who would not gift me roses knowing that I don't like flowers. Who would not let people assume the nature of our relationship. Honestly, at this point it feels hopeless, the only other aro I know irl is a trans femme studying in England. And somehow I am still guilty, of how she would feel if I get with someone before she does, if I have sex with a new partner even if I refused to do it with her. And I am afraid, afraid that this will ruin or friendship, our group, because I really love her as a friend and she did say that I am an amazing friend (and shitty boyfriend) and that she wants us to stay friends, but I am afraid of the awkwardness, and sad that my love wasn't enough or the right kind This is hopeless, I feel like shit. I don't even know why or what I feel. Heartbreak? Sadness? Relief? Guilt? Numbness? I just don't know