awkwardchickenpotatodragon

Here are the aro pride dragons I did! Gonna post this now before I lose the nerve!! The small black one with the flag background I did like a day or two ago and I made it really quickly because I felt like it, while the others are from a while back and took way longer to make.. Anyways, looking at it now, two of them have the same expression and I don't know what to think about that..

@NotHeartless Thanks! If I do end up posting something I'll do that!

It's less that I'm concerned about what other people think, it's just that I have a weird paranoia that someone will track the picture back to me in real life, despite the fact that the pictures I want to show I have not posted anywhere else.

I made a couple of aro dragons a while back but I'm too scared and paranoid of the internet to post them right now. other than that I have some other dragons that I'm also too paranoid to post.

I also can't figure out how to put images on here so there's that.

I'm going to be 17 in a month.

To me, that's super old because that's older than I've ever been and it's a year away from legal adulthood.

In comparison to the average human lifespan, I am but a tiny little young child still learning about the world.

In comparison to how long the universe has been around, I am just a fraction of a tiny little spec of dust in the timeline.

It's really interesting to see the ages. 15-20 seems to be the most common age range so far. So many of us are so young. I mean, our community is so young, it makes sense that a lot of the younger generations, especially the younglings who live on the internet, would be the ones most likely to discover this place and who we are. But it feels really weird to have most of us be so young.

On 1/22/2019 at 4:30 PM, Apathetic Echidna said:

Luckily I do know other people who have aversions, and they are very allo/allo people. One is touch averse, especially in public, she seems slightly more accepting in private, but only slightly. Another has a thing about her hands, she won't even high-5.

Good to know. With the hand thing, I think my touch aversion is mostly with hands and faces and everything else is almost an afterthought really.

On 1/22/2019 at 4:30 PM, Apathetic Echidna said:

For some there might be some buried childhood trauma. Simply being forced to hug and kiss a decrepit elderly relative never met before can be horrifying to a small child - I know my disdain of washcloths is linked to a particularly bad visit to a nursing home when I was about 6. Really, one bad experience in formative years can leave the weirdest scars and influence attitudes in the future.

Huh. That's an interesting thought. I can't think of any circumstances that would lead to my touch aversion, but what do I know.

On 1/22/2019 at 4:30 PM, Apathetic Echidna said:

It would be interesting to know how prevalent touch aversion is in the population and how it might correlate to different orientations

Yeah, that's what I want to know too.

Thank you!

On 1/19/2019 at 6:14 PM, Anything_but_allo said:

I actually do know a couple allos in real life that feel uncomfortable towards certain gestures, whether it be romantic or platonic (my friend doesn’t really like hugs at all.)

Good to know!

Touch aversion is just a thing that sometimes shows up in the aro and ace communities, and I haven't really seen any discussion (that I remember or know of) about why it exists.

I guess touch aversion has connections with romantic stuff/sexual stuff, but I'm touch averse to a lot of things that are entirely platonic, that I do not at all associate with romance or anything.

Is touch aversion just a thing that shows up in the aspec communities? (not counting touch aversion or whatever as a result of trauma. that's a whole different thing, as there is a logical explanation and all) Why are some of us (such as me) touch averse, and especially why are some of us (me) touch averse to entirely platonic gestures?

I feel like these questions have a super obvious answer that I haven't understood yet, but if there is an obvious answer I would like to hear it anyways.

I was like 13 or 14 when I first heard the term aroace, and I sort of was like, "okay sure, sounds like me" and mostly forgot about it until later, when I was uncertain about it again and questioned it, leading me to do some research, and eventually to deciding I'm definitely aro (and ace, but I didn't really debate that). I kind of knew that I didn't get crushes when I was a young child and all my friends (well, one in particular) were ranting about all of their million different crushes that I could never keep track of.

I'm 16 now, so it hasn't really been that long, but I am fully convinced I'm aro (and ace too I guess) now and I will personally fight the world if anyone says I'm too young to be that.

My advice? Try it out. Try thinking of yourself as that, see if you like it after a while, and see if it fits you. This is all I can really say, as you know your thoughts and feelings the best, and only you can decide who you are. There's no harm in changing it if you realize new things and decide it doesn't fit anymore.

For me it was mostly just not ever thinking about romantic relationships or getting married or whatever. All my friends had this plan of getting married, having x amount of kids, the usual, while I just never thought about that. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had decided that was something I would think about in the future, and that was that.

I somehow understood almost exactly what a crush would be, and so I knew enough to know I didn't have any crushes, and I boasted that whenever the topic came up. Thankfully the other kids were just deeply surprised, and never questioned me further (and they never said that I have to have a crush).

Yo

Hugs- it depends. I guess I'll hug my mom, because I'm expected to hug her, and it doesn't make me that uncomfortable. I love hugging my little brother, and hugs with young children is perfectly fine, because they're adorable and innocent and such. But everyone else, even friends? No. I'm uncomfortable with that.

The idea of kisses mildly grosses me out. I'm the one looking away and occasionally loudly saying, "Ew!" when kissing scenes come up on tv or movies.

What is cuddling anyways?? I mean, if a little kid wants to sit on my lap, sure, go ahead. I'll rest my feet on my dad occasionally when we're both sitting on the couch, but that's it. Anything beyond that scares me.

I'm just scared of/uncomfortable with touch, I suppose. I have a big personal space bubble. Even at school, if I can sit anywhere, I'll always make sure to have at least one desk between me and anyone else. (I'm sorry, other people; it's not that I don't like you, I'm just uncomfortable sitting so close to you) With friends it's different, and I can sit beside them, as long as there's enough space between us to keep me comfortable. High fives scare me, but I can do them alright, although it's a better idea to never initiate them with me. I dread handshakes. I can shake hands with people if I'm socially expected to do that, but I'd rather not.

I once had a friend who I told about me not liking touch, but being okay with handshakes and highfives, and so when she gave my other friend a hug, she offered a handshake to me. It was in that moment I knew that I should have specified that I'd rather not do any touch if I can help it. Suffice it to say that it felt way more awkward in that scenario to shake hands than it is normally. (I mean, handshakes are so formal!)