Picklethewickle

When writing fanfiction, I'm not really interested in shipping. I will tolerate canon relationships, even if I don't like them, and will include them in my stories if they are contextually relevant. I don't understand how shipping works, really. I don't grasp why people want these characters to be together. I did once read shipping described as "The character you project onto X your comfort character", and I guess that could be plausible. I still don't understand how people enter a space where they project onto a character or take comfort in a character, though. For reading fanfiction, I will still read a work that includes shipping, but over time I've become less and less able to engage in that kind of content. I find all ships the same. I want to read a story for the plotline or the meaning, and recently I've found I've grown avoidant toward stories that include a relationship tag. I would love to see more friendship stories. For canon relationships in books and shows, in the main I find they suck.

Do you find that it's the aros who experience absolutely no forms of romantic attraction ever are the only ones to get acknowledged? What is it called, a green stripe aro? Not here, but in general I find that aromantics who admit to having had even a single crush, or having an obsession with a fictional character, or who are simply questioning their feelings and orientation are told they aren't really aromantic. They get told they are shy, or aren't giving themselves a chance to be romantic, or they are scared of relationships. Maybe I've just been talking to the wrong people.

Some people will deliberately pretend to have similar interests in order to spend more time with you. Usually this isn't meant to be hurtful, it's intended as a way to get to know you better and to engage with you. That said, the fact that you feel put off by his behaviour and scared of him because of the age difference is reason enough to stop having contact with him.

I agree with you on this. It's interesting and helpful for many people to use the split attraction model to clearly define what they are feeling, but attraction and repulsion is not the full of human experience. You don't need to feel any form of attraction for an individual in order to respect them, or treat them with decency. As for the conversation, that's internet discourse for you. Many such discussions turn into nonsense before they are over.

If your main goal in this is to let other queer people know they are safe around you, and to tell anyone who isn't accepting to stay away, you could write something along the lines of "Queerphobes need not apply."

I'm anattractional, I don't have any of these different forms of attraction for people. I do have empathy to the point other people's emotions become a burden and drown out my own feelings. Sometimes I get tired of having to carry other people's feelings. As for emotions about the world, there's actually few things that don't have some feeling tied into them.

Robotic dragon?

Let yourself work out what love and romance mean to you, rather than trying to interpret yourself in terms of what other people tell you it is supposed to mean. Work on separating yourself from other people's projections. The fact that trolls are calling objectum a weird sex fetish doesn't mean they are right about you. They don't have the right to define you or your feelings. It sounds like you've started to internalize their attacks. Basically, you've saying it's not a fetish because it doesn't involve sex, but that has made you afraid to consider sex because then it turns your feelings into a fetish and that would make them right about you. Let yourself acknowledge that they are the ones being creepy and perverted here, what with them sexualizing you and demanding details on your sex life.

Welcome! I honestly would like to hear more about objectum and what it means to you.

I'm number three, sitting quietly with my own thoughts. Sometimes I would like to be number six, delighting in the world.

@Moth Lady it wasn't really intended as a response, it was intended as my own understanding on attraction. I'm sorry it made you feel called out.

People aren't making a calculated choice on who they feel attraction toward. Being aro and ace, no one triggers a sense of attraction for me. Someone straight isn't making a list of reasons why the opposite sex is attractive and the same is not, it's simply that people of the opposite sex triggers the feeling of attraction and the romantic urges. People of the same sex do not. That extends to whatever gender the person prefers.

I already had my feelings about sex and romance figured out before I knew the words asexual or aromantic. It's hard to look back now and find a point where I worked it out and made a decision, I simply was always uninterested and averse to such things, and I knew my feelings were right. When it comes to being non-binary, on the other hand, I'm still insecure. I've always felt this way, so I could say I've known since I was six. At the same time, I didn't figure out that everyone doesn't feel this way until I was thirty. It took me a bit to process that some people only have one gender, and it's the one they were named at birth, and it doesn't ever change even a little tiny bit. Part of my insecurity is that while I do have gender vibes, I don't have strong feelings. I judge myself that I should have more intense experiences to be legitimate. Also, sometimes my gender changes frequently, and sometimes it stays the same for a long period. The times when my sense of gender stays the same as my AGAB for a long period, I start to wonder if I was wrong about being non-binary. Then one day my gender shifts again, and I start the figuring-out process all over.

I'm sex-repulsed. People can't come near me with that stuff. It creeps me out when sex is on a show or movie. I've heard people on AVEN saying they can't even stand to be aware of the fact that other people have sex. My repulsion isn't so strong that the very existance of sex upsets me, but I sure don't want to know about other people's sex lives.

I really like being aromantic. I don't feel it as a lack of something, I feel it like my love takes a different shape. I care about people for themselves, not for the emotions and attachments they give me.

I relate to this so much. I've tried writing romance, not because I wanted a romance story but because it was contextually obligated for the character. I couldn't figure out how to do it, and I got stuck on it for ages. Eventually I went with some advice I once heard: "Skate fast over thin ice". With time and effort I learned that I can write characters in their canon relationships so long as I keep to their typical day-to-day interactions, but creating a romantic scene is too hard.

Maybe instead of trying to categorize the people you have dated in order to find a label, just let yourself date whoever you like.

Yes, I get what you mean. Even though you're physically home, you aren't in a place of rest, comfort, or safety. You want to go to those feelings, you want to be in a place where those feelings are true.

It looks incredible. Thank you for sharing.

I don't want one either. I don't want any kind of relationship. Some people do want another person in their life, someone to be special to them and to see them as special in return. QPR's also create a means to build a relationship on other forms of attraction and desire, like aesthetic or sensual, without having to also incorporate sexual or romantic. There are also people who feel like they are required to have some kind of relationship. There is a strong emphasis on pairing up, and western society at large values intimate relationships over casual or platonic relationships. Some people only look for a QPR because they're afraid of being left behind when their friends get partners, or feel like they exist somewhere outside of normal human behaviour when they see so many other people building their lives within the framework of partnered relationships. I find the some of the emphasis around QPR's is a method to fit in or to camouflage.

This is horrifying. Please write a novel about just that, where humans are trained serve machines, and are conditioned to breed to produce the next generation of servants. The machines oversee the reproduction and birth for maximum productivity, and cull the babies that don't meet standard. Then make the protagonist who saves humanity from the servitude and mindless breeding program be somewhere on the aromantic or asexual spectrum.

Exactly! I agree with you so much on this. Yet, it seems many people do feel like their missing something, or that they're defective, or that they've been doing something wrong. Unfortunately people and media can give a lot of messages that hold sex as the norm. Some people internalize these messages to the point they consider their own thoughts and feelings abnormal.

I enjoy the time I spend on AVEN. There is a lot of diversity on that site, not just asexual microlabels but discussions on different forms of attraction, as well as gender, neurodiversity, and faith. There are aroaces on that site as well, but not much of the conversation is around aromanticism. The most frequent topics are people questioning if they are asexual, and asking for guidance on navigating relationships. Almost all the of the sections can be viewed by guests, so you can look around and see what you think of the place. If you decide you do want an account and then change your mind later you always can ask to have your account deleted. Sometimes I get sad over the number of people who are disappointed in themselves for being asexual, but that isn't the fault of AVEN. The members there actually do a lot to encourage people to come to accept themselves.

I'm really sorry about what happened to you. I wish I could make that better. All I can say on the matter is that I've never been assaulted at any point in my life, and I'm still aroace.

I've added three new options to the poll. Feel free to let me know if you want anything else added.