Raininspring

Another thought came to mind for how I realized I was aroace - being asked multiple times throughout my life what type of person I look for in a partner and/or what type of person I'm into and me having no real answer. One time I made a crappy attempt and the only answer I gave was, "um, maybe not someone too tall."

I wonder if I am being suspicious of a particular person for no reason, but the story is months ago when I was delving into a lot of books about being aroace, my manager happened to see one of those books. He obviously read the book title because I left it on the table one day while I was packing up from work and he was there, but he didn't ask me anything about my interest in the book topic. Now months later, in my job organization, I found out I was given an award in an employee recognition program and whoever nominated me had written a little profile blurb about me. What was shocking to me was the nominator used the pronouns "They/them" to refer to me. I had spoken to another manager (not the one who saw my book) about discovering I am aroace, but I have never in any capacity showed any interest in changing my pronouns from "She/her" to "They them". I doubt very much that the person who nominated me was this same manager, but I do suspect it was probably the manager who saw my book. I believe this very strongly because this manager, in the past, has on several occasions called some people by the wrong pronouns and it seems right up his turf to also mistakenly believe being aroace is connected to my gender identity labels. I'm sure for some aroace people gender identity labels is interconnected but for me it is not, unless that changes sometime in the future and I decide differently.

This was an aromantic moment mentioned by one of the co-hosts of Sounds Fake But Okay that I can relate to so much... She described how, when she was younger, she used to envision getting married but it was always about what dress she would wear during it and never about who exactly she was marrying. I too had a similar train of thought when I was a child daydreaming about getting married.

Personally I don't understand the assumption that if I styled my hair differently or look more dressed up that usual that I must be doing it for a "special occasion" (a date?). I make myself look particular ways because I wanted to, not to look good for someone else. I also don't really get the point of actually dressing up for the benefit of impressing someone I might be interested in. Why would I go to that effort when the chances are they won't even notice? I can't see myself behaving differently on a date from just a regular hangout with someone. I'd rather the person see me as I usually behave instead of a false version of myself I present to be pleasing to others.

I am afamilial in the sense the older I get, the more disconnected I feel towards them. I am still housed under the same roof as them because I didn't have a concrete plan for moving out. I am in talks with two coworkers who are also looking for a place. I can honestly say my resentment towards my parents is centered on feeling like the space I'm living in has never truly been mine and many spaces in the home are regulated to my mother acting like it all belongs to her, so I have limited agency of my own to be control of how I want my space to be. The second thing is I'm a grown woman in her 30s and still they treat me like I need their help and/or it's their duty as parents to do stuff for me. I strongly feel the only way they can learn to stop is I make my own life away from them where they have more limited access to me. If I have to hurt them by asserting my independence, I'll do it. I'm sorry, but their generational values have to die out. They cannot live out their whole lives by the principle that the main meaning of life is to obsess over their children, and I cannot continue to perpetuate that problem by staying under the same roof as them. No, I haven't been clear with them about moving out but the last conversation I had with my father about moving out (before I knew my 2 co-workers were also looking), he said a lot of negative things talking down to me about how much I'd suffer and not be able to take care of myself if I lived elsewhere. So I'm pretty much expecting the same patronizing language, except I might feel more protected because while I will be burdened with my share of rent and a learning curve with living with other adults closer to my age, at least I can be around people who will treat me like an actual adult.

You guys are going to hate me (I say this jokingly, of course lol) but I went on a date for Valentine's Day! It was a date in the loose sense, as I was meeting two coworkers over Zoom and we were trying to get acquainted to see if the three of us are compatible as potential roommates. This will be further explored with an upcoming in-person "date".

Since self identifying as aroace, I have always thought Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero was about an aromantic person rising above their peers by becoming successful and happy through their ambition (my headcanon for the mention of the "daughter in law" in the song is that this is an aromantic who wishes to become a parent one day) and having their ambition being mistaken for coldheartedness. Even the "sexy baby" versus "monster on the hill" comparison made me think of the stereotypes some allo people who believe in amatonormativity must have of something being inherently wrong with aro people.

I feel more strongly connected to my aro side than my ace side. Now juggling multiple aroace books I am reading through, i learned the difference between sexual attraction and libido which aren't the same thing. I remember being a very confused preteen who all of a sudden started experiencing an almost uncontrollable urge at times with a desire for sex due to raging hormones but not actually being sexually attracted to anyone in particular. I definitely do recall being mildly curious and often looking at both guys and girls. For boys, I would look at them for aesthetic purposes but being that I grew up with exposure to only heteronormative norms, I would fantasize about being with a guy to live out in my mind what I thought I was supposed to obsess and pine after. For girls, I would ponder what it was both to be them and be with them, as friends or rivals or an exploration of something more or inbetween. It is different now that I am an adult. The most allo I feel is during my ovulation cycle when i can tell from the changes in my body that my hormones are preparing me to be more interested in sex in the hopes of getting pregnant (bleck!). Nowadays the urge is easier to ignore knowing it is only a bodily response that will stop after a few days and quite honestly, I feel tired from just thinking about going through the motions of actual sex in order to scratch the itch. Circling back to the topic of sexual orientation, the lack of sexual attraction versus abundance of libido I experience makes me question if it is actually possible for me to feel "true" sexual attraction without libido usurping its place first. This is further complicated by my alterous romantic attraction to some people, where i feel what seems like a combination of some platonic but also some romantic attraction and/or experiencing feelings of somewhere inbetween the two attractions towards a person. And the weird thing is I feel attracted to the person, not the gender. For example, I recently noticed I have alterous attraction towards a trans female coworker. This attraction seemed to be happening for a while in small increments without me fully consciously aware of it. While I know the person is trans, I don't get the sense within myself that the person's gender influenced my attraction, in the sense I feel like I like the person and not their gender. Now the question is if I feel actual sexual attraction to this person, or do I THINK I am meant to because the culture I grew up with keeps insisting sexual and romantic attraction are inevitably supposed to be paired together...?

Thank you for the articles. This is my first aro Valentine's Day!

The fact there are people who look down on aroaces is what scares me so much as a newer member of this (online) community. I've told two transgendered coworkers about my labels and both were happy for me and really supportive of me possibly finding other aroaces in real life to further my connection with my identity but I nervously admitted I wasn't sure if I could. My hesitancy is because I'm afraid of retaliation and I feel like I don't seem like the typical person on the spectrum who "deserves" visibility.

I'd say this is true for me the more I read different books about aromanticism and the different types of attractions besides romantic attraction. I've come to the realization the attractions I experience most are asethestic and alterous attractions, but it's still very hard to differentiate as sometimes I'll feel platonic attraction that almost feels like it could be romantic. I've never felt the full on 100% romantic attraction that alloromantics have so easily.

I'm glad to not be in a relationship. I don't know if I'll ever change my mind somewhere down the road in life. I actually have no prior romantic or sexual relationships so in a way I feel like a blank slate in not knowing if a committed relationship with someone is something I would want to try. In the hypothetical sense if I entertained the idea as a what-if, my ideal situation would be for the other person to be respectful of my boundaries and we could have good, mutual ongoing communication about the realistic things we could offer to each other without putting dumb expectations on one another.

I am Chinese and only recently came to terms with being greyromantic but I still am pretty confused about where I fall on the asexuality spectrum because while sexual attraction is not completely absent in my life, I don't feel it very often and when I do, I feel exhausted with the perception it is a primal urge and I don't feel like bothering to do anything about it. My parents had and still have some very traditional heteronormative ways of saying or looking at things that were extremely emotionally and mentally damaging to me from an early age. I remember being 11 years old and being scolded for misbehaving and was given a lecture about needing to grow up so I could take care of my own children one day. I got a lot of these kind of bullshit lectures where they spoke to me as if it was a universal predestined concept that I was exclusively interested in marrying a man one day and having his children. How many times I got an earful of, "When you become a parent one day, you will understand." Even their attempt at "helping me" understand why I was beginning puberty through menstruating was for them to say it was a necessary pain all women had to go through. Wtf? I still find myself repulsed at times with the gendered helplessness my mother allows herself to live by as someone who seems to unable to separate her individual identity from her marriage and dependency on my father. She is a victim of the trappings of amatonormativity. They have never pressured me to find a partner and seem to understand I am a solitary person who doesn't mind being alone and spending time alone. We never talk about me having children and I don't bring up the topic either. But a few years back when I was in my early 20's, I was disgusted upon learning my mother tried to set me up with one of her colleagues' sons, without even asking for my consent beforehand. I doubt I will ever "come out" to them. Their English is not very good, and that is a serious barrier in communicating these concepts to them. They barely understand people who don't identify as non-heterosexual and in several past instances they've made some unkind and ignorant comments about people's sexual and gender orientations, so I can't imagine they would understand romantic orientation either. Personally I don't need them to know the specifics. I'm fine with them believing I'm just not interested in anyone because I enjoy my freedom without a partner and/or children.

I genuinely don't understand why couples need to hold hands. In the context of a parent holding a child's hand, I can see it being necessary if the parent is the caretaker and holding the child's hand helps ensure the child doesn't get lost or wander off. But for people who are in a committed relationship, I just don't get it. I've always associated hand holding as something for children. I remember getting to the preteen age phase and my mother still, for whatever reason, wanted to hold my hand whenever we crossed the street and I found it uncomfortable as I didn't see myself as a little child anymore. In another context, once I went hiking with my brother and his girlfriend at the time. He wanted to hold her hand as they both walked. She refused, mostly because both of them were sweaty and she felt gross. I, however, felt repulsed that it wasn't already enough that he was walking side by side with her and was physically close to her but also needed to be even more clingy by wanting to hold her hand. Ugh.

Going by the split attraction model, how you choose to define your romantic attraction could be defined differently from where you are on the sexual attraction spectrum. Your attraction to her could be an aesthetic crush (swish) or a squish (which is a crush but without the desire to form a romantic or sexual relationship with the person). These are terms you can find on this page:

My personal opinion is my allo coworker's infatuation was never a normal attraction. He is significantly younger than me by 12 years (I am 34, he is 22) so in the beginning I thought it was his age that made him a bit immature, despite that he has had serious girlfriends before. But now I think it is also a matter of life perspective. I have zero romantic relationship experience compared to him,but being who I am, I cannot imagine allowing myself to become so lost all due to an obsession with another person. He put her on a pedestal and even at times when her behavior gave him red flags, he was still blinded by the high of being around her. This is the dark side of amatonormativity that gives me the creeps. People allow themselves to be sucked into something that is clearly destructive. I can see how uncomfortable it is to listen to coworkers talk about their love lives. I do not necessarily disagree with that lifestyle, but I do think it is problematic when romantic relationships become the person's focus all the time and they neglect to make time for their friends and room to enjoy life without constantly needing involvement from the person they are romantically attracted to.

My results were - 58% asexual + aromantic 25% demisexual 8% aromantic (Greyromantic) 8% not aromantic 0% not asexual Greyromantic was point on for me, but I was surprised at the demisexual result. I believe it does fit me, although I have no preexisting sexual experiences to speak of. However, if it ever came down to it I cannot imagine there even being a chance of being sexual with anyone unless I have already formed a very deep bond with the person I don't really understand the last two percentages. How should I be interpreting it, does it mean I have 8% change of only being aromantic and 0% chance of being only asexual?

I'm still confused about whether I've ever truly experienced romantic attraction. I know I've felt genuine like for specific people before, but sometimes that is tinged with nervousness because I get anxious in some social situations. When I was younger in my teens I believe I had infatuations but they were often very shallow and based on how the person looked aesthetically. To add to this confusion, I'm not sure I can clearly give myself a label to describe who I'm attracted to, whether platonically or not. When I meet someone for the first time, of course I might notice physically pleasing aspects in how they look but I never consider getting to know the person better for the purpose of getting close to them romantically. The nervousness I feel in social situations is embarrassing and can vary depending on different factors. If I find the person sexually attractive, I also feel intimidated by my own perception of the person and insecure about whether the person finds me interesting to talk to. If I get to know a person well enough and the sexual attraction stays, sometimes I'll imagine what it might be like to kiss or cuddle with the person, however, I can't tell if this is really romantic attraction because it's just a fantasy in my mind and not actually a lived experience in real life. so I wonder if I actually only like the IDEA of what it might feel like to be with the person as such but if it really happened, I am not sure I could reciprocate. At the same time, I can't see myself kissing or cuddling with anyone, unless maybe if I already had a deep emotional bond with them. And this in itself is not guaranteed as I only imagine this is how I would behave if I had such a person, and I'm unclear if it happened in real life, would I still react this way or would I be repulsed?

My understanding of a queerplatonic relationship is it's a platonic relationship between two people, regardless of gender, that can have a mutual deep emotional bond that goes beyond the basic, casual friendship. I've never been in a QPR but from reading up about it, it sounds like it could be a "true love" version of non-romantic soulmates who vibe with each other so well. And I use "true love" with the understanding romantic love is not the only kind of love that can exist between people, and people can love each other with as much importance even if it's not romantic. A queerplatonic relationship has love existing between two people but it doesn't have to be romantic. That's not to say romantic attraction couldn't happen, maybe, if we think about the aromantic spectrum and all the ways people could (under the spectrum, depending on which microlabel they identify as) still feel some or a little romantic attraction depending on the circumstances or situations. QPRs could stay exclusively platonic if that's what the two people involved want, however, QPRs could become sexual if there's sexual attraction, but that's up both parties to determine how they want the relationship to be.

Thank you so much. 💚 Coming to the recent realization that the label aromantic has profound meaning to me has given me a greater perspective on myself and other people. It's not that I think I'm better than amatonormative people or that I have it easier than some of them who focus so much on romance and a life long partner as one of their life goals. For anything, I can see how both sides have flaws and challenges. It is somewhat of a death. I'm grieving the loss of the heteronormative conditioning I got as a child that stayed with me as I developed into an adult because it was conditioning that made me believe I had to want a husband and two children and be a wife and mother to have emotional and mental stability in my life. Or that if I am not able to have those things, I'd at least have to have a romantic partner or I'd "die alone". I'm grieving the fact I can't ever be the things my own family keeps hoping I'll have one day, and the frustration that I probably will never be able to explain in any way to my own parents what aromanticism is because they don't speak English very well and they still live in the old world of heteronormativity and people pairing off and having a bunch of kids. It's not particularly important to me that they know the whole truth. They don't pressure me to find a partner or have children although I certainly feel that pressure whenever they talk about their friends' children and comment on why so and so isn't married yet or when so and so is going to have children. Even before I knew what aromanticism was, I was already asserting to them that I liked my independence and going as I pleased, so they have some semblance of understanding that I am not lonely and I enjoy my solitude.

Quite honestly, this is going to sound very sad, but my first impression was that there might be something "wrong" with me, in the sense I was wired differently or maybe I got fucked up from my early childhood experiences. But actually there is nothing wrong with me! I think my brain automatically jumped to this notion because I didn't have any other exposure to understanding I wasn't totally alone in how I perceive other people and not having romantic attraction as a constant focal point of my every day life.

I have an alloro coworker (hetero cisgendered male) who literally become infatuated with a female coworker from the moment he saw her. After that it was like an uncontrollable obsession I saw him descend into with trying at every turn to spend time with her, even after he asked her out and she declined and just wanted to be friends. I was, at times, amused at his "puppy love" but later on also perplexed and a little concerned at his fixation on her. He started seeing aspects of her personality he disliked and for a period even swore off hanging out with her, only to go back on his word. Almost all our colleagues ended up disliking her for her poor work performance and advised him to set more boundaries with her outside of work, but he would not listen. I was appalled at how he was letting himself self destruct all because of some girl who didn't even reciprocate his feelings, and he wasn't dealing with that conflict in a healthy way. In his case, it was truly frightening for me to see how once his crush began he didn't know how to reign it in, even bemoaning once that he shouldn't have ever met her at that party (as if it was not his choice to develop intense uncontrollable feelings for her).

I would highly value any and all input from fellow aromantics and other members of the community about this topic. For background context (as some of you might have read in my intro post thread), I'm a new greyromantic, in the sense up until doing my own research I didn't know there was specific terminology to describe what I was feeling and that there was a whole community of people similar to me. However, I'm confused and unsure if I'm on the ace spectrum. The best way I can describe how I feel about both romance and sex is "exhaustion". I think about what it might be like to actually engage in the physical act of sex and while I can imagine it can be good if it's between two consenting adults and both people know how to please the other person, I am also a bit repulsed thinking about how physically messy it might be. I also wonder just how true to life most sex scenes depicted in media actually are because very often I'm unable to unsee that it's just actors acting out a "realistic" sex scene and trying to mimic real life, even if they supposedly make the scene so believable other people watching the same scene start believing actual sex took place. I feel tired thinking about what it means to have to be that physically present for the other person during sex and uncomfortable with the idea of sharing my body with someone so intimately. The other part is despite my slight repulsion, I imagine a what-if scenario if it ever got to a point in time I developed a very deep emotional connection with someone and started feeling sexual attraction to the person. In my everyday life now since identifying as greyromantic, I've acknowledged that I do feel sexual attraction on some levels but just because I DO also conflicts with my lack of interest in pursuing sex with the person I feel sexual attraction to, e.g. in the sense I don't try to find out if the person is also sexually attracted to me and/or I don't feel the need for the attraction to be reciprocated or acknowledged by the person. What are your opinions on this?

This is a long story! It was a lot of things that made me consider I might be on a spectrum. As early as high school, I had a hard time relating to my peers who were hypersexualized and very much into personal dramas motivated by romance and sex. People didn't seem to differentiate between sexual and romantic attraction and the exposure I had to media and popular culture only served to reinforce the false narrative that the two are meant to go hand in hand as a pair. I was quite confused in the fog of hormones during puberty and all the changes my body was going through. The biggest hurdle in the college years after high school was trying to make sense about whether I actually wanted romance and be romantic with another person or was I conditioned through my environment to believe that's what I was meant to pursue in life. I never dated or tried to date, and never experimented with sex-exclusive relationships mostly because I could never see myself sharing my body with someone I had no emotional attachment to. So I thought, OK, maybe I would like romance but only with a person I like. However, I ran into another conflict years down the line because I felt almost a complete lack of interest in meeting potential partners and/or talking to people who could be a potential partner. After that I went through back and forth of misery wondering if there was something innately wrong with me for not desiring marriage and children like most people do, or at least wanting to be with someone exclusively and build a future with them. About 2 years ago I started a new job that allowed me greater mobility in being around coworkers, some of whom who identify as queer, non-binary, and/or trans. I was pretty much a recluse and had gone through years of untreated clinical depression prior to getting this job, so to make the leap into the workforce and becoming more social was a huge step for me. I never consciously thought of the LGBTQIA+ community whenever I interacted with them and I saw it as more of a gift that, for the first time in my life, it felt like I was building friendships and getting to know people. Up until last year, I was still in the firm self assured boat of thinking I never pursued a romantic relationship anywhere with anyone because I simply did not want to and hated the fuss of romantic activities and behaviors between couples. Many times I experienced attraction towards several coworkers, but very often it left me confused as half the time I couldn't tell if what I was feeling was platonic, sexual or romantic attraction. Only when I started reading All About Love by Bell Hooks, I began a semblance of understanding there are different types of love in the world and romantic love is only one of them. I had a vague remembrance that asexuality is on the spectrum but it was from googling the term I found aromanticism. After that I found the book Ace and Aro Journeys and reading it was like pieces coming into place. To me this isn't a "coming out". I've always been the same person, except before all this I didn't have the vocabulary to properly articulate in specifical terms what the hell I was feeling.

For me, and this is just me talking specifically about my perspective on my aromanticism (as everyone's experiences are different on the spectrum), is I feel relief at being able to see beyond amatonormativity as the main aspiration in life. I'm sure there are people who partake in amatonormativity in a healthy, balanced way where both people may be in a committed relationship to one another but they have mutual respect and they are able to live as individuals who have their own interests and life pursuits without the whole relationship eating up their individualism and independence. However, I feel this is very hard to do as amatonormativity and the expectations and pressures of it, even if the involved individuals do not want to actively be part of the more problematic behaviors and normalization in amatonormativity, are difficult to break from in this society that keeps normalizing romantically-coded behaviors. One thing I highly dislike which is associated with amatonormativity is that the other person becomes your whole world or your "other half", as if an actual human being could ever fulfill all your wants and desires. This is a false and dangerous human-made narrative. People often search their whole lives for a unicorn that doesn't exist. Romantic love is not the only kind of love people can have and it should not be the priority people become so fixated with having from a young age. People also take it too far with the extremes and skewedness of what they assume romantic love is meant to be (e.g. becoming obsessed with the person and wanting to spend 24/7 with them) to just how mentally unstable someone can become from the loss of that (e.g. becoming depressed or suicidal). I never want to be that!! Loss of individualism is the loss of self worth and I feel sorry for many alloromantics who are a victim of love conditioning and believe the pursuit of romantic love in the most greedy and selfish way is the end goal of life.