HelloThere

On 5/15/2016 at 7:50 AM, Dodgypotato said:

When growing up, my dad felt the need to ask me quite frequently if I, 'like any boys at school?'. I would always reply, "No, they're all hideous." When I was about 15 and still saying that, my sister realised I was ace. She tried to tell me, but I ignored her.

Oh man I remember one time a few months ago where my grandpas friend asked what I thought of the girls in my school and I just said “they exist…” and then awkwardly tried to change the conversation.

On 5/26/2016 at 10:57 PM, Quinoa said:

I was into creative writing when I was around 16. I wrote a whole bunch of short stories. I recently looked back and realized that for the entire year or so that I was writing stories, I did not write a single story with a romantic relationship in it. I wrote all different kinds of stories, but none with relationships, even between minor characters!

Oh my gosh I remember back in elementary school I had 0 focus at all on romance, and I even wrote short stories with absolutely no romantic plot lines at all.

On 5/21/2016 at 1:12 AM, DannyFenton123 said:

I think I had a fair few early aro signs, but I remember when I was a young kid and my sisters were talking about how I'd be kissing people (no idea what context this , is in) and I said 'No, I'll only kiss my Mum!'

I had no idea why everyone was laughing so much

Oh yeah, I remember back in my earlier days where I’d kiss my parents on the cheek goodnight and I just found that uncomfortable to say the least. I’ve literally before wondered how that would feel and compared that with past experience kissing parents on the cheek.

On 6/3/2016 at 12:46 AM, Zema said:

Am I the only one who just really didn't like the word love when I was younger? The word just didn't sit right with me, and I don't think I actually ever said it until I was at least a teenager. Even then, I was hesitant about using it. Maybe it was due to  society associating the word to romance, or the fact that I don't feel like I have ever experienced it (except for maybe my pets). Am I alone in this thinking or are the others who felt the same way?

Yeah I only ever said that with my family and it just felt like a sort of awkward phrase. That wasn’t a very noticeable part of my childhood but that feels familiar.

On 7/1/2016 at 10:51 AM, Dodgypotato said:

Early sign: 'Fries before guys' was your motto, even though you use the term 'chips' in Australia, not 'fries'.

I do remember living all of the anti-romance songs I’d heard about sometimes. There was one song that had the lyric “run away from love” and that just lit me up with an intense “oh frick yeah” type of mental response.

On 7/3/2016 at 8:57 PM, Rebekah said:

I remember at some point thinking that every other girl my age had probably, at some point, fantasized about their wedding. I made a mental note to get around to that. It never happened. 

Also, I never really understood the idea of sharing a bed. Like, how am I supposed to sleep when I'm overheating because someone is next to me and every time I fidget I risk waking them up?!

I remember legitimately thinking that if I thought someone of my preferred gender was aesthetically pleasing and not a jerk, I had a crush on them. I thought that's what a crush was. Turns out that's not quite what it is. 

Combine that with being friends I was immediately just like “CRUSH?!”

I wanna live in a nice comfortable home that doesn’t move on two wheels, and I also want to stay there. My thought is a somewhat medium/larger house that just looks nice but is still actually useable rather than just some large museum. I basically wanna have something nice that could also easily withstand large parties or something. Not to mention that I just think that a mobile home would sorta mess up a lot of things that would need to stay still, so I just overall don’t think it’s the best. Not to mention that goods ones often cost more than a house and it’s a pain to get rid of them if you change your mind. Oh and also… prices on maintenance and gas are just insane.

32 minutes ago, Rackson said:

This is how I feel as well. This is the exact reason I go by aro-spec rather than 50 seperate micro-labels. I wish I could be fully aromantic as well, that would make my life so much easier.

 

Same here, I’m ace-spec and I’d love nothing more than to remove any libido at all. It’s so incredibly pointless for me to have at this point, and there’s no goal to it at all.

4 minutes ago, Synthetic Adrenaline said:

I do also plan on a fake wedding ring for if I'm traveling alone. Should help ward off nutcases.

That’s by far the best way I could think up. Just show them that and they fly away. 

45 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Hmm, I once tried to buy a ring designed to look like Dark Magician's staff, so I could pretend I was married when guys won't stop trying to get me to go out with them. But the ring never showed up...

Ooh, that sounds cool! :D

Just now, Synthetic Adrenaline said:

You can look forward to one later on!

Her merch however doesn’t have any rings. Wristbands at best, though either way if I had enough money I’d buy loads of merch. :D

14 minutes ago, Synthetic Adrenaline said:

Go for it. Why not? My snake ring was based on a novel I was writing...I never published it for certain reasons but that's beside the point. She was a shapeshifter character who became a venomous snake during battle scenes.

There might be something, that’s just not a purchase my parents would let through. Or at least there’s not too much of a need yet. Though given the opportunity I’d do so.

24 minutes ago, Synthetic Adrenaline said:

Why not? Maybe pick something associated with a favorite Youtube animation? A color that appears a lot in one? Perhaps something you associate with a particular character?

Jaiden fricking animations my friend. Jaiden is hands down the first pick. Perhaps she has something on her bird ari. 

5 minutes ago, Synthetic Adrenaline said:

I usually just wear rings of things I do want in my life rather than love themed ones. I wear a little serpent with ruby eyes on my left hand usually.

Ooh, how does one wear a YouTube storytime animation ring? Maybe just “art” ring? I’m not sure but those are the things I want to learn to do so that’ll be fun to figure out on a ring.

3 hours ago, Keith said:

Digging 

Minecraft

26 minutes ago, DragonWithAQuest said:

“Non-binary Poland”

“You can share your thoughts, I won’t attack you.”

6 hours ago, AroAcedragon13 said:

amazing!

next person gets a bag of dirt

I’ve got a jar of dirt, I’ve got a jar of dirt.

next person gets two boxes of rocks.

Just now, AstrophelDragon said:

Oh shapeshifting. I haven't seen Nimona, but I love Alex Fierro.

I haven’t either but YouTube is very beneficial. 

1 minute ago, AstrophelDragon said:

Oh shapeshifting. I haven't seen Nimona, but I love Alex Fierro.

I just found her to be the perfect chaotic neutral, and overall a fun character. Not to mention that I sense a sort of aroace vibe from her. After all there’s no obsession with anyone particularly, and plenty of chasing friendship and just acceptance. She just seems like a walking queer allegory, but is incredibly well written.

6 minutes ago, AstrophelDragon said:

Ironically, I saw the title of this thread and immediately thought of TOH lol. The complete acceptance in the Boiling Isles of same-gender relationships, nonbinary identities, and whatever other queer stuff is a dream

Also, WATCH OWL HOUSE IF YOU HAVEN'T

I finally watched the show a few weeks ago and am rewatching it rn and I absolutely love this show and I hate Disney for canceling it bc I want to know what would have happened if they hadn't had to fit the ending into 3 episodes.

Even though despite that, they still managed to have a good ending, it just felt slightly rushed, and there's a couple of things I would have liked to see more of

Or if I could just become certain fantasy characters, I envy Nimona with a burning passion. She gets to shapeshift while maintaining brain capacity, that’s just so fricking op.

Just now, AstrophelDragon said:

EXACTLY

Also I wish we had more of Raine. Bc I absolutely love them. If they ever made some sort of spin-off series I'd want it to be about Raine

(also I think it's time to change my pfp to Raine)

My favorite character was definitely Luz. She’s got such an admirable personality and overall (even if she’s literally the main character) I find her to be the best character there.

4 minutes ago, AstrophelDragon said:

Ironically, I saw the title of this thread and immediately thought of TOH lol. The complete acceptance in the Boiling Isles of same-gender relationships, nonbinary identities, and whatever other queer stuff is a dream

Also, WATCH OWL HOUSE IF YOU HAVEN'T

I finally watched the show a few weeks ago and am rewatching it rn and I absolutely love this show and I hate Disney for canceling it bc I want to know what would have happened if they hadn't had to fit the ending into 3 episodes

Oh yeah, for over a mont that show was MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE thing on earth. I mean imagine getting to live there, everyone’s accepting of queer identities, most social issues aren’t a problem, there’s magic, and so many strange and wonderful things. Give me magical abilities and I’ve just described paradise. 

28 minutes ago, Rackson said:

This entire post can be condensed at the bottom in case you don't want to read this entire thing.

Hey, I understand the situation you are in pretty well because I am in a very similar situation. I am a junior in high school as well and I keep being told that "I will change once I meet the right person", and that makes constantly worry that all I don't know who I am. So first of all, you are not alone in thinking/worrying about this. 

We are different in one regard, that being that I have only ever had one romantic interest in my entire life, and it was over 10 years ago. All other people that I had a crush on have been psuedo-romantic crushes, where I put up an act to fit in with society. But in reality I don't want to date those people one bit. I used to go by psuedo-romantic but realized that I fit into several more micro-labels for aromanticism. Though our experience of aromanticism may be different, we are still both experiencing it. And no-one should be able to tell you what you are feeling, because they are not you. You are you, and you know you better than anyone else.

A wise teacher of mine told our class one day about the circle of control. The circle of control is used to help people realize what they can and can't control, and I think that it applies to this post. 

Circle of influence: 

As you can see here on the image there are two circles, the outer one being things you CANNOT control, the inner circle is things you CAN control. In your case, your emotions, thoughts, identities, and actions are the only thing that you can control. And the outer circle is literally everything else, this includes: other peoples opinions (your parent's), other peoples actions towards you or others, and other people's personal beliefs. 

And when I am in a situation like yours, I try and remind myself about this circle. I try and tell myself that "Your feelings and thoughts are your own, you can't control what others think and believe, and they cannot control your thoughts". But this doesn't always work, there will always be times where someone will say something like "Oh you will just love someone when you are older" or "You are just lying to yourself" and those thoughts sneak their way into my brain and make me question the many months of thought and self reflection I have put into this.

I am also scared that other people's input will change the countless hours of self reflection that I have done. 

This happens with me as well, going back to what I said before, all the times that I have supposedly had "romantic feelings" for a person, it comes from the idea and pressure that says "Well, all my other guy friends have girl crushes. So I better get one." and that is not a healthy thing to think. This is a classic case of overthinking things, overthinking is a habit that everyone does, and almost always results in you mentally beating yourself up more than helping you solve a problem or question. It's not a flaw in your personality, but makes people think or do flawed things. 

Sorry for making this post so long and essay sounding, I still have school brain lol. 

But this entire post can be condensed to two sentences: It's scary trying to figure out who you are, and other people's opinions make it worse. And you know you best, if you know something about your personality, you are most likely right.🤎

 

Yeah, you’re right it’s just that I may not be in their sphere of influence, but I’m definitely in their sphere of control. I get that they can’t control how things go, but all they’re doing is just make me doubt myself and fuel some part of me that wants to prove them wrong. It sucks, and even though there’s mountains of proof I still end up doubting stuff. The thing is that before this, I never questioned anything, I thought I had crushes before, and crushes more recently. All of them weren’t, yet I still doubt myself all the time. 

54 minutes ago, SwiftySpeedy said:

Tell them and try to explain to your parents that they are in Denial and try to support them through it. 

Also maybe if you want your parents to know how you really feel, just show them this whole giagantic thread and maybe it would finally help them understand that them acting like that "yOu FeEl RoMaNcE" in small snippets overtime can really hurt you.

Hopefully this helps.

Edit: also try to show them this thread in the form of something you wrote on like Notepad or something so your parents don't find this site if they wind up blaming everything you learned about yourself as "SoMe InternEt NonSeNSe"

If I outright said “I think you’re in denial” with my parents, they’d most definitely wonder where that comes from. How would I sum up this thread though? I did already record my past thoughts in a notebook, and I think it should kinda be useable, but it also includes a confession about the whole thing, dating back to before I realized I was ace as well. Either way I see very little way where doing that would go well for me down the road. They’re good parents, but on this type of thing they can be dismissive as heck. 

55 minutes ago, Sad aro said:

As a partnering aro myself I'm wondering the same thing so I follow the thread. I don't think I would be comfortable with having a relationship that could be coded from the surroundings as romantic though.

I wish that Arocalypse could start a dating section.

I do too, sorta just the qpr or platonic relationship type.

Oh man. I’m probably not supposed to keep making topics for this but… I’m just in a tough spot right now. My parents could see my history of being on here anytime. It’s impossible to delete all the history on my phone here so I’m just trying to absorb information. I swear no matter what I say, they always say that I was just “obsessed” with two friends of mine that happened to be girls. (I don’t remember any emotional feeling with either, I just enjoyed their presence, and I don’t really have an explanation for some of my past behavior). They always say that I once said “I want to marry that girl and have several kids” despite the fact that I had no actual emotional connection with them besides just being friends.

I hate how I have to tell them that I’m not interested at all and they still keep pulling the “it’ll change” card. I’ve told them that it’s pretty abnormal for a teenager not to have feelings for girls at all, especially when I’m nearly 16. I highly doubt that it’ll change, and so much evidence is in my favor. But, if I presented that I’d essentially be coming out, they’d wonder where that came from and it’d all go downhill. I’ve said this before, but everytime they act like I’ll inevitably change, I go into panic mode, because I don’t want to date, I don’t think it’ll change, and I have little reason to believe so.
 

If I’m nearly 16, and my peers have been in love since 1st grade, I can be in 9th and say with a straight face that I don’t like people that way. I remember looking back upon my last “crush” and having no romantic interest whatsoever. I remember viewing them as a good person, and a nice friend, but not someone I want to be in a relationship with. The thought of having a crush on that person didn’t even show up until my parents and family started to jokingly accuse me of having a crush. I spent a while worrying if I did, but most everything I talked about with them was just nerdy stuff and random fun things that we both liked, not a relationship.
 

I may not have any explanation for the other “crush” but I remember no feelings, and just some of the stuff that “couples” do. They say I wanted to marry them, but before I was ignorant of everything, much more, relationships or romantic feelings. I want to tell them everything so bad, but I don’t have the confidence yet, because I’d have to explain where this all came from, and I can’t risk this. I can’t risk losing this place. I can’t risk them destroying all of the mental progress I’ve built simply because they think that it’s inevitable, that a teenager who’s already grown up a lot, simply MUST experience attraction to people. 
 

I’m not even sure what I’m looking for in this post, but seeing all of these people back a few years ago, questioning, I wonder how many of them were right. I wonder how many got to be sure and confirm their suspicions later on. I hope I’m one of them, because life sounds better when I don’t settle down in some nuclear family lifestyle, or better yet, at all. I guess what I’m asking for is: do y’all relate in some way? Do you just wonder if it’ll all change and then I’ll just magically want to stay with someone forever. That doesn’t sound all that fun. I don’t want that, but who here worries as well like this?

You guys, I recently saw moments from the movie Nimona online, and Nimona just seems like a fricking aroace gender-fluid character. There’s no romantic interest in her entire character and she seems more interested in murder and random anarchistic behavior than anything out there. Not to mention a strong obsession with friends over relationships. I sense an aroace, and no one can tell me otherwise. I looked it up, there’s no recorded romantic interest of hers (that I know of). 

34 minutes ago, Kira- said:

Agreed, but I’d still want to be a dragon, I just can’t pass that up.

I’d hate to sacrifice human dexterity. Doesn’t sound worth it tbh. I’d prefer to just have superpowers and shapeshift and crap. That just sounds way too fun to mess around with, and do cool stuff.

6 minutes ago, Kira- said:

I just make me a nightwing or a sandwing, or actually a dragon and I’m living me dream of being a dragon. 😇

A cool second choice would be the boiling isles.

Between the two, the boiling isles sounds better, but I’d love both. The boiling isles has accessible magic, the inhabitants don’t all want to kill you, and generally the people are surprisingly nice for a name like “the demon realm”.

5 minutes ago, Kira- said:

Make me wings of fire! Second choice it would be cool to live in an anime world.

Oh my gosh yes. Give me animus magic and let me live there. I actually know the route to not commit genocide, that place would be a breeze to live in, and it just sounds incredible.

16 minutes ago, DragonWithAQuest said:

I mean, if we wanted to talk about nice flags, I could go on all day. Flags are one of my special interests, and I watch way too many vexillology videos. 

I just like the cool looks, and overall the aroace flag is pretty well done for a pride flag. Still excessive use of colors but it’s very well made overall. (Here I am ogling over a flag more than people).

27 minutes ago, DragonWithAQuest said:

Yeah, the flags are awesome. I like the Heartless Aro flag because it’s pink (pink is a great color, but it’s somehow unfortunately associated with romance, which is why this flag is cool because it’s literally a pink flag for those who don’t connect to romance) Also, not one of mine, but the Paradox Aro flag. For people who are in some way both loveless and not loveless.

You know the flag I REALLY like though? The aroace flag. Not the green and purple, but that beautiful orange, yellow, white, and blue one.