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can aromantic people fall in love?


mika-mok

Can aromantic people fall in love?  

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I’m a bit confused becuase of mixed messages on the interwebz about wether or not aromantic people can fall in love.

 

My personal thoughts on this are that attraction is different than love so they can? not in a platonic way but like a way of bonding caring about and knowing the person without nessisarily having that initial attraction. (or is that only possible for demiromantics?)

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I'd say that if you were going strictly by the definition of aromantic, then no, aromantic people can't fall in love, because that phrase means romantic love.  However, that's a prescriptive answer to your question, not a descriptive answer, and I'm making it just so I can follow up with what I'm saying next.  So even with a prescriptive answer, it doesn't mean that an aromantic person's love is incompatible with someone who does feel romantic love, or less valid.  I have deeply loved some of my romantic partners, but my love was not romantic.

 

But I don't care for prescriptive labels.  Labels are just tools, and are often imprecise or inaccurate, both in terms of not always being perfect labels for an individual, and that actual lived experience is often far messier than our labels on their own would indicate.  So I would answer, yes, an aromantic can fall in love, because people aren't labels and labels are imprecise.  But the label is intended largely to represent people who do not fall in love, and by being so do not follow the normative models of our society, so focusing on "yes aromantic people can fall in love" is undermining the label.

 

But, both of those points considered, your individual experience matters, so go with what works for you.  If you are an aromantic who can fall in love, fine, you do you.  If you are an aromantic who can't fall in love, same.

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The difference you make between romantic attraction and romantic love is interesting. I never thought about that. I guess I see romantic attraction as prior to romantic love, and I imagine romantic love to be as romantic attraction, but stronger. Does it mean that you can't feel romantic love if you didn't feel romantic attraction in the first place? For me, this is the definition of demiromanticism : not feeling romantic attraction in the first place, but then falling after having created a link with the person (at least the way I understood the definition, if they are demi here, please be happy to correct me).

 

So, for me, a "100% aromantic" can't fall in love, and that's how I explain aromanticism to people : I say we are people who don't fall in love, and if they ask me I explain romantic attraction. But other arospec people might fall in love.

 

And how say Eklinaar, it doesn't mean we can love in our own way, and that it can't be as strong and valid as romantic love.

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I'd say a truly 100% aromantic person can't fall in love romantically, but platonically and it can be as deep as romantic love is. That said I can honestly say I wouldn't know since I've never felt romantic attraction in any way and it's hard to say it's possible to experience something when I don't know what it is. There are, of course, aro-spec identities and they allow for the leeway of identifying as aromantic even if you have experienced romantic love before.

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"Falling in love" is a phrase describing romantic attraction at its deepest, while a crush is on the mild side of the romantic spectrum. There are countless articles which hightlight the difference between being "in love" with someone (a.k.a. romantically attracted - the butterflies, the head-over-heels sensation, the exaggerated longing, the racing heart) and loving them truly (which is about FEELINGS, borne in the SOUL, and thus, no attraction or chemicals). Therefore, I would say aromantics can't fall in love, but demiromantics can, after knowing someone to some degree, while grey-romantics might fall in love under certain circumstances. 

In a healthy long-term relationship, the one and only difference between a romantic person and an aromantic one, is that while both of them now love their partner deeply, the former used to be IN LOVE with their partner sometime in the past, while the latter did not. 

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I mean, I like to use the term "in love" in completely non-romantic situations such as "I'm in love with this cat" or "I'm in love with this new book", and I guess I do that to express a sudden infatuation for an object or an entity. So I suppose if you use "falling in love" in a metaphorical, non-romantic sense, then yes? However I would think of falling in love romantically as what divides romantics from aromantics. "Falling" implies a loss of control, whereas bonding and building a strong relationship is a conscious choice. People who fall in love may also choose to build a relationship over time, but I would consider them separate things. 

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No, the entire point of being aromantic is the lack of romantic attraction and thus the lack of romantic love.

 

However, that doesn't exclude love in general. So while aros can love, they can't fall in love. Otherwise they wouldn't be aros.

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I picked depends because I like to think that I have fallen in love with a series of books. My heart skips a beat when I see them. I want to take them everywhere with me (and for the past 2 weeks that has happened up to a point). I want them to be real and live in them and it would be amazing and why can't that happen? I know the plot of the series better than I remember my own primary school education. And it makes me happy just thinking about them, and thinking about the next time I have time to read the next few chapters. That makes me think, it is only 7 months until the next book comes out so I should do the trek to the book store and put my pre-order in. 

 

but if you mean romantic love based on romantic attraction, the kind of 2 year time limit chemical maelstrom that happens to most people when they date someone that some lizard-brain somewhere in their skulls approves of to share genetics with for the continuance of the species and so kicks off the afore mentioned chemical maelstrom, then no. I don't think we can love that way. 

?

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thank you for all the replies! as someone who doesn't experience attraction of this type, it saddens me that romantic love isn't something ill likely experience. Then again, idk the difference between platonic and romantic love so maybe i'll be fine!

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