Helion

Ouch now that actually hurts, having to explain it to someone again and again. Now that you mentioned it, I also have a friend who I explained what I'm feeling pretty thoroughly, but still had to correct him twice that I'm not asexual lmao. For some reason many people that actually have an understanding of the term aroace, aka that it means aromantic and asexual, tend to acknowledge the fact that you can be just asexual, but not the fact that you can also be just aromantic. Not only did I see that in other people, but I actually thought that myself for some reason as a kid. I have an aromantic friend who realised he was aro waaay earlier than me and when he was questioning and asked me if it was possible to be just aromantic I was like "Nah man that's weird, probably not" (How the tables have turned huh-). I guess it's just a little abstract for alloromantic and allosexual people, probably because they usually don't need to make the distinction between romantic and sexual attraction. I remember never really making that distinction back when I was alloromantic, which is why I don't blame them as I said, as long as they are willing to be understanding of my orientation ofc.

I am by now very convinced that I am aromantic (and allosexual) and have started calling myself that around random internet people/close friends for around half a year and it's kind of funny to see how everyone either mistakes it for asexual or for aroace. For me it's honestly pretty rare to meet someone who knows what it means- Like, actually knows, some people that "know" it say things like "Oh aromantic means you don't want to be in relationships, right?", which is inaccurate. I don't blame these people, aromanticity is more complicated than the average lgbtq+ label and no one's forced to study that shit, but it still got me a little curious. What are your experience? My sample size isn't particularly big because I don't have aromantic flags or anything in my bios/profile pictures and don't just mention it to everyone I meet lol, so I figured I'd ask around here what yalls' experiences are for curiosity's sake

I get you! I also kind of dread having a relationship, having to give one particular person special attention all the time and being "bound" to them in a way. It just sounds tiring and restricting tbh. Also the people who don't believe you about being aromantic are so full of shit. Even if you were aromantic due to trauma that would make you no less aromantic. Most people are aromantic or gay or whatever because they just happened to be, some because of trauma or completely different reasons. That's normal. If your aromanticism was related to your trauma doesn't mean it's something to overcome, it just became a part of you due to a highly emotional occurence in your life.

Honestly, there is absolutely nothing an online forum can help you with. We don't know neither her, you, or any specifics of your relationship. Just ask and communicate with your partner. I wish you two the best!

"Once" sounds like it has been in the past. This might not be the case, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility that you just changed and became aromantic. This sort of happened to me, I am pretty sure I was alloromantic as a young teenager, but sort of just became aro from around the age of 15-16 onwards, perhaps earlier, I can't be too sure. Romantic and sexual attraction can very much change, usually if you are a teenager because that is when your preferences are developping and your hormones are going bonkers.

I might have not made it clear enough, but the question was basically just "What did you mistake your identity for?", which yeah, if you actually are aspec and bi (Hey, that might be me, but still questioning the bi part-) wouldn't really be the case because no mistake happened there! Absolutely same. I thought I was completely okay with open relationships and thus questioned if I might be poly because of it, I wasn't opposed to the idea, but it confused me that I wasn't really invested in it. In retrospect it was just a lack of caring tbh. I'm mostly a romance-neutral (repulsed if pushed too much) aro, so I just don't care, plainly said.

As a very affectionate aromantic person: Perhaps it was just affection? I am tbh someone who really loves being affectionate towards everyone, I'm above average intimate with my friends, really like cuddling with people when we watch some movies for example and I am comfortable with a lot of things considered romantic simply because they have no meaning to me and I like being affectionate with people. Just the feeling of wanting to be close to someone like you described doesn't have to be related to romantic attraction at all, at least that's how it is for me. The fact that this guy was a single case certainly makes it more complicated, yes, but maybe I could help you think about this a little.

Due to being equally uninterested in both genders sometimes people on the aspectrum think they might be bi, I personally heard that one a lot. For me it was a little different, as I questioned what kind of romantic attraction I had I considered being poly because "Well, why do you specifically have one partner, anyways? I think I wouldn't care much, so I might be poly...?". Did anyone else have any similar experience related to this? Feel free to share, I'm feeling curious

I think this is really interesting. I'm aromantic, I'm not sure if I fit into any more specific terms like lithromantic, etc., still gotta figure things out and all, but I really relate to the "Losing interest if repricated" part. I don't think I have any romantic interests, but I am a really affectionate person. I like being affectionately with friends, but if they repricate it too much I become repulsed.

Honestly, I knew the term aro long before I realised I was aro, for me it was a very gradual process to come to terms with it. I remember having sporadic "Am I maybe aro or ace...?" thoughts, but shutting them down immediately thinking I was silly because I had like one crush at the age of 13. Over time when a friend came out as aromantic I got to think about it more, I started considering it, calling myself aro sort of "experimentally" if that makes sense and by now I fully came in terms that I'm aromantic or aroallo.

I just wanna know how common it is, so feel free to drop your experiences, no matter where on the spectrum you are as an aromantic person. I just... Don't have a fundamental understanding of romantic relationships most of the time. Back when I thought I was allo I questioned whether I could be poly because I didn't understand why you would specifically only be with one partner. I never ended up calling myself that because I simply didn't care enough, though, but it just feels so random to me. Another aspect of it is that I know that cheating is an awful thing to do and if I had a partner I would NOT do it simply because I wouldn't want to hurt a person this gravely, but on a very honest mental level I have honestly no idea why having sex with someone but your partner is bad. If no one told me that I'd literally never even have the idea that it's something bad and I wouldn't mind if my partner did it. I seriously don't get the issue with it, like darn, why is it such an awful immediately relationship-ending thing? I only know it by facts, but not by my emotions or feelings, I just don't get it. If you have any experiences/opinions to tell feel free to drop them! Little addition because it just came to my mind - I remember hearing about the term "open relationship" for the first time and being kind of confused. Why would a relationship in which both partners have sex with other people be considered 'open', as if you are inviting other people into the relationship? You can have a committed relationship and have sex with other people, that's pretty normal, right? - Cluelessly aromantic 14 or so years old me.

I love reading, so it would be kind of cool to read something about aromanticsm. Please feel free to shower me with suggestions regardless of what I will say now, but I particularly feel like a book in which aromanticsm isn't the sole focus, with plenty of worldbuilding and all the fun stuff existing around it, too. I'd be happy alr if the book just had a protagonist with some aromantic themes for example. I'm also a big fan of anything related to fantasy, so that'd be cool, too, but as I said, you can suggest anything, I'd really appreciate it!

That's something lotta aspec people experience for obvious reasons! I'm pretty convinced my crush was genuine, though. I wasn't feeling pushed to or even really faced with the topic of relationships and crushes, etc. much at all and thinking back I don't understand my behavior at all. Seriously, it feels like I was some kinda clown, desperately trying to appeal to that random dude because I was weirdly obsessed with him haha. It's just interesting to me because yeah, during your development your way of attraction can very much change, so it's okay to experiment with labels if that's your way of discovering yourself. And it's also incredibly hilarious that as an aro person I also heard the generic "It's just a phase, you will find your true love someday, yada yada" talk occasionally when in reality being alloromantic was just a phase for me lmaoo

When characters in fiction have a relationship (Especially if it's right at the end of the story when nothing matters anymore anyways) when the story would have worked and been totally fine if they stayed friends. Like c'mooon guys, not every male and female character that aren't strangers to each other need a romance plot! (Also goes for any other genders, but y'know, hetero relationships are most common in media) They feel so unnecessary sometimes. Give us more people being close friends, man-

Oh god my mom is a major offender of this "mom thing". I'm female and the vast majority of my friends are male. For every single darn one of my male friends she knows about she seperately asked "Do you have a crush on him?", "Does he have a crush on you?", "Did you kiss????" and it got on my nerves tbh, even if it's mostly funny in hindsight. To my mom it has always been very important that I do not have any boyfriends until I'm like, idk 7582 years old or something, which was why she was nagging me so much. Welp, would have loved to just tell her I'm aro and that she had nothing to worry about, but she wouldn't have reacted well to it at all sadly.

It sounds paradoxical, but hear me out. I am aromantic and don't feel any romantic attraction at all, but the main reason why it took me so long to realise what seems so obvious in hindsight is the fact that I did have a crush once in my life, actually. It was during early puberty, I crushed so hard on that one bad boy in school for like no reason. Thinking back it's so peculiar tbh. There was this guy I hardly knew, which looked kinda attractive to me and I was pretty obsessed with him, he took up looots of my brain space and I just became really silly around him, trying my darn hardest to look good, be funny and get closer to him, which was painfully obvious to my friends, who teased me about it, but for some reason even tho they were the closest ppl I had I just couldn't admit it to them because I was so embarrassed and flustered to hell and back for no reason. One day I just stopped having a crush on that guy and that was sorta the end of my romance career- I developped to be aromantic in the end and here I am. What are your guys experience's with crushes? It doesn't matter where you are on the aro spectrum, feel free to talk about it!

This was probably listed alr, but whenever I hear "You are just not mature enough yet, not aromantic :)" or "You just need to find the right person!" I wanna facepalm. I COULD understand it with, I dunno, a 10 year old or something, but even then, even if it's not permanent for the rest of your life what's the harm in using the label that currently fits you best, even if you MIGHT change it in the future? Imagine you think you are gay for 5 years until you discover that you are bisexual. How scandalous, how incredibly and utterly terrible, how world-ending! This "But you might change!" thing specifically seems to affect aspec people for some reason. It's weird.

That's a very good question. I believe my most favoured option for my future would be to live with a close friend, platonically. Marriage COULD still be an option, I mean, you don't have to throw a big, expensive party with a fat cake, guests, priests and whatnot, you can just sign legal papers and boom, married, officially at least. Here in germany marriage has plenty of legal advantages (Mostly financial), though I'd have to fully trust my partner of choice because divorce is actually really hard here and if my partner would not play along make it an excrutiating financial expense.

Welcome! By the sound of it you are in a very similar position to me, haha. I hope you will enjoy this little place, I'm new, but I sure did ^^

Thank you! Actually, as an aro who is annoyed by romance in media rather quickly Persona 5 Royal (Yeah, I played royal, I forgot to mention it heh) is pretty alright. You can date a majority of all female characters in the game, but you can literally just not do that. Romance appears as a topic occasionally in the "casual" parts of the game, but it's not a part of the message or a core part of the game at all. Hell, because it was often in a joking context I actually enjoyed the mention of it sometimes. It's not a romance-centric game even if it is a re-occuring topic, kinda. I totally recommend it! ^^

Little arophobia vent abt my private life because it will make me feel a little better. Be warned, I don't wanna ruin anyone's mood, only read when you can stomache it. Sooo, basically, I have a bigoted mom. She hates homosexual people, she hates trans people, she is racist, she hates everything that isn't 100% the norm, you got my point. With her narrow as hell worldview it's no wonder that she assumes every (except for the mentally instable ones of course...) woman wants to have a boyfriend, marry him and have children. I am aromantic and I am not interested in any of that. We don't talk that much, but it feels like every third or so time we talk she either asks me if I have a boyfriend or talks about how excited she is to take care of my future children, etc. This kind of talk really annoys me and makes our already rocky relationship hard to improve when we have this constant disconnect from each other. And hell, I'd love to sincerely talk with her about my feelings, open up and start feeling more comfortable around her. It would just remove a weight off my chest. Coming out to her would be a horrible idea, though. Either she would not take me serious, pass it off as a "phase", think I need to grow up (I'm literally a young adult) or assume the "evil lgbtq+" virus got to me OR perhaps even worse, she would take it serious and see me as a mentally ill or sad person. I'm serious, I'm absolutely puzzled about how to handle this woman. Little example on how any attempt at trying to make her respect my feelings goes: I was uncomfortable with her constantly pushing me to dress fancy and all feminine. I told her to stop, but she never respected it, so one time I spoke about it with a really serious tone. I didn't snap at her, didn't yell, I was literally at the verge of tears (It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm just emotional like that) hoping she would start to respect my boundaries, but then she just snaps at me, starts crying a lot and pretends like she is the victim because I made her feel sad with what I said, completely denying what I said, saying manipulative things like "I am sad that your perception sees things this way" (Of course something is wrong with my perception, not with you shitting on my boundaries) aaand continues the way she did. She cares a LOT about becoming a grandma (I'm her only child), so her reaction to me coming out probably wouldn't just be dismissive, but she would probably feel straight-up personally attacked by it. I also fear she would tell my father, who is somehow even more bigoted than my mom and completely screw me over. Being aromantic is something I share with people I'm close with, but keeping it from my mom who I live with just feels so wrong, especially because I'm trying to mend our relationship and all. It feels like I'm keeping a secret, not telling her who I really am and it just causes so so so much unnecessary tension and discord between us. I wish I could just explain it to her, somehow make her accept and understand it. I mean, if I have any interest in being in touch with her after moving out I will have to explain it eventually when I just never end up marrying or even being in a relationship with anyone, but how can I ever do it when she is like that? It's honestly sad.

Some time ago I finally finished Persona 5, an absolutely amazing game. Romance kinda plays a big role in it, but you can literally skip all of it, which I did (I tend to joke about how I chose the "aromantic route" of the game). Anyways, one of my favourite characters is Sae Nijima, a badass prosecutor, who I started headcanon-ing as aromantic. Originally it was more lighthearted because I simply noticed that she is the only female confident (Basically all of your close friends in-game) that you can't date, but eventually I started REALLY digging that aro vibe she has. Sooo I couldn't help but to draw her with the aro colors because yes. It's not a great piece imo, it was rather rushed, but I still wanna put it out there! ^^

I just found out there is an aro forum on the internet, so, uh, hi! I'm gonna explore this place a little and see what it offers to a little aro fella like me. As for the proper introduction: my name's Helion, I'm 18 years old and I'm here mostly out of curiosity. I've started identifying as aromantic a few months ago, which honestly explained a LOT to me. I'm feeling much better since I started understanding my own feelings and what I want more accurately (Though I still have some room to grow there), yet I also have some insecurities because my whole family is bigoted as hell, which is why I only came out about my feelings in real life to just 3 very close friends. I'd love to interact with some more aromantic content because it makes me happy, so I hope I'll enjoy this place! ^^