Poppy

I'll look into it definitely

Kissing feels inherently sexual to me and I feel like I'd be very uncomfortable with the idea of non-sexual kissing That being said I haven't tried it so maybe that's wrong, I wouldn't know!

Im remembering an experience I had at around the start of the year where I started feeling like I wanted to try being more close with one of my best friends, who I have known for a good few years at this point. They're alloromantic and I was only just starting to understand my feelings on aromanticism more concretely. we'd tried this before and it didn't even last a week, but we figured now that I have a better understanding of what I actually want maybe it would work a bit better. About a month in I ended up losing basically all sparks of any feelings I originally had for them, and looking back on the situation I've concluded that it felt "too romantic" for me I felt horrible that I couldn't have the same feelings for them that they supposedly had for me, and they felt horrible because they felt bad about anything that might be thought of as not loyal such as finding a different person at their work somewhat attractive, and about constantly worrying if they were pushing boundaries with being too romantic. I've since learned that I really don't care about anything like loyalty or commitment, but those are for a different topic for another day. We cut off our "qpp" relationship and decided to just stay friends with benefits, but from my perspective nothing really ended, it just became more of what I wanted out of a relationship rather than something I was uncomfortable with. The only difference now is that we don't use labels to define said relationship, even though it very much still exists to me. I'm not sure how I'd go about telling my friend any of this, or how they would take it, so i have decided for now i dont need to, itl just be a me thing. To them there was a very definite end to our relationship, but to me that didnt happen, to try and explain it better, were still qpps in my head, we just dont say it out loud, and we dont try to pretend like its something its not. We don't set romantic standards for a platonic relationship, we dont commit our lives to each other like were going to get married someday, we dont fantasize and have chats about "wish we could" or "love you more" games. it feels surreal and somewhat existential thinking about it, because seemingly the only way for a platonic partnership to "end" is to cut off all contact with a person and thus end your friendship together entirely. I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on this.

How I define when I feel romantic attraction is a significant change in behavior when it comes to general daily interactions with another person. Now "significant" is a very open to interpretation word so it might not be a definition that works for everyone, but for me that means things like taking pictures of food and stuff I see out and about and talking about where I'm going and just being generally very annoying because I feel like i HAVE to share my entire life down to the second with this person, not because I want to mind you, but because "that's just what you do in a relationship". I don't know where I got this idea, maybe tv shows or books I read as a kid, point is its stuck with me my entire life, love is a forced, intentional, and drastic change in behavior that is rewarded with a miniscule amount of pleasure for me at least. truly exhausting. I think it's very important to have these definitions, because it gives you a very good early warning sign that this isn't going to work, and you should probably at least slow down if not stop, talk with your partner a bit, that's sort of thing. It's easy to get caught up in emotions and try to copy the energy of someone who is being romantic towards you (at least it is for me, thanks being neurodivergent) and not realize that what you're doing is actually just killing your mental health.

Oh yeah definitely, I generally just say "I'm grey aro, but i enjoy physical contact" if someone I know asks for more specifics and that definition works well enough for anyone who's not a super close friend that i can vent to about this stuff Thinking about it grey aro really is good as just a catch all definition, because it mainly just boils down to "its complicated" and that about sums up my life tbh

I feel like there are several labels that fit me in one way or another, probably a good dozen or so. I'd like to attempt to list them all and what parts of them I feel to make some sense of it because it really is very confusing. I've left off any that I'm unsure of the definition of or don't know fully if I feel at all. Affecturomantic: my aromanticism is almost certainly heavily influenced by being autistic af Aegoromantic: I've always enjoyed romance in media but I get uncomfortable with it in a real life situation Bellusromantic: I love cuddling and hugging and kissing, it feels good to me, I enjoy it, however I can't stand the thought of committing to a romantic relationship, and the idea of it, when it gets brought up, ends up stripping away any feelings I might have had for the person Caedoromantic: thinking back on it I really feel like there might have been a time when I was alloromantic, and my past trauma from romantic experiences may have had an impact on my current aromanticism. Cupioromantic: as much as I'd like to feel something that I see other people enjoying, I do not feel romantic attraction, I have tried several times with people of all different genders and it has always felt wrong and uncomfortable. (It was at this point when I realized there were far too many to make complex well thought out descriptions for so we'll just make a list from here on out...) Dreadromantic Greyromantic Idemromantic Limnoromantic Loveless aro Nebularomantic Platoniromantic Post rubor Quasiromantic Quoiromantic *confused aro noises* This isn't even a truly comprehensive list I should add There were several I left off because I just don't feel like I have enough experience to say one way or the other but still feel somewhat strongly towards. I am a confusing mess.

I enjoy stuff with a lot of noise really, I've been getting more into breakcore recently (mainly femtanyl). jack stauber and bill wurtz are also favorites of mine, genre is such a fickle thing to me it's impossible to pin down anything very specific other than types of songs from specific artists lol.

I suppose a more concrete answer on "who am i" is also good to have but maybe I want to be mysterious and silly. I enjoy creative writing and video editing a lot and I apparently have decent music taste according to friends (though I will NEVER accept this as fact.), I enjoy art and video games and all that too but I will probably always be very bad at creating either ;p I main healers in overwatch, very typical gamer girl here. You get the idea.. Oh yes and 3 edits later I'm also autistic... and adhd... and anxiety disorder... thank GOD the edit button is an unlimited resource.

I don't think you can ever be "too young" to think about this sort of thing, being introspective is just human nature. If you feel like your aro that's valid regardless of age, and even if you do go back on it later (not that I'm assuming you will or anything like that) that's entirely valid as well.

Hi I go by poppy online so that's probably what I'll use here, not very used to forums yet since I mainly use discord but hopefully I'm doing this right! I'm 19, transfem (she/her) and from looking at all the different aromantic orientations that were on the big list it's probably easier to just describe it more long form -w- I am deeply uncomfortable with the idea of commitment due to past bad experiences, I do generally enjoy fantasizing about romantic interactions in stories and media but I've found that I can't enjoy it myself. Flirting makes me horribly anxious and I can never tell what the other person actually wants because if I was in that situation I'd just want sex and it feels weird obscuring that through a strange lingusitic dance. I prefer platonic friends-with-benefits relationships rather than a deep emotional bond, I'd be way more comfortable with having sex with someone and sleeping with them and cuddling and then going back to being platonic friends the next day. It's all so complicated and I get tired of it so easily... Hopefully I get to meet some people on here, I've been really desperately looking for some connection with other aros because I feel so distant talking with friends about this stuff who just do not get it as much as they really try. It's just not the same as having people who've actually lived through similar experiences and understand id imagine.