Finding fellow aros in the real world?

[AllTalk]

So now that I know we exist, how does one around go about finding another aro to befriend?! 

 

Are there actually groups for aros? Or would someone be better off finding a group of people defined by sexuality and hope for some aros in the crowd? 

 

If you are aro, have you found a support/social group, and if so, how? 

[Eklinaar]

I've never heard of specifically aro groups anywhere in the world, but there are several ace and aro groups in a few places, if you're lucky enough to live there.  I hear there's one in Germany that's very good.  You can certainly try finding aros IRL where you live, but just be prepared to come up empty-handed.  We seem to be very rare.

 

I've been involved in queer communities for several years, with mixed results, but even the best groups mainly just support my other queer identities, not my aro identity.  I've never met an aro person at the LGBT centers where I live.  People from the more marginalized queer identities tend to be supportive of aro people, but most more mainstream queer people I meet don't know what aromantic means.  The only aro communities I've ever been involved in are online communities.  There are a lot of aro bloggers on Tumblr, and several aro chat servers on Discord.  Participating in some of those has been very satisfying for me, and I've made some long-distance friends that way.  I did recently meet up for coffee with an aro person who lived in a nearby city, which was nice.  My long-term goal is to save money to travel and spend more time with aros I've met online.

 

I'm close to your age if you wanna try chatting with me?  There are a few of us in our mid-30s here.  Reading through people's old posts can give you a good idea of what they're like and if you might enjoy talking with them.  My inbox is always open.  I hope you find the kind of community and support you're looking for.

[DaviM703]

I believe that there are more of us than anyone knows due to our relative invisibility that makes many of us think romantic relationships are for everyone and keep trying to make them work. I almost ended up on that path myself, but difficulty in finding romantic relationships gave me a chance to reflect on why that was something I felt like I needed and realized it wasn't something I really felt and had just been pushed on me by society. My plan now is to try to spread aromantic visibility so people who may be aro but not know it can find out that that's an option.

[NullVector]

17 hours ago, AllTalk said:

So now that I know we exist, how does one around go about finding another aro to befriend?!

Morpheus will be in touch 

 

Seriously though, I would also find it interesting to meet other aros, out there in 'the desert of the real'.

 

15 hours ago, Eklinaar said:

I did recently meet up for coffee with an aro person who lived in a nearby city

That's cool, was it somebody you met online through groups like this and they just happened to live nearby?

 

15 hours ago, Eklinaar said:

My long-term goal is to save money to travel and spend more time with aros I've met online.

Also a cool idea. Maybe you could even write a book about it? Sort of like an 'Are you Dave Gorman?' for aros 

 

15 hours ago, Eklinaar said:

There are a few of us in our mid-30s here.

I'm 32, nearly 33 

 

14 hours ago, DavidMS703 said:

I believe that there are more of us than anyone knows due to our relative invisibility that makes many of us think romantic relationships are for everyone and keep trying to make them work

Yeah, this. Plus not necessarily having the words readily available to describe our inner experiences. On account of them being fenced off for use within the asexual community somewhat, which many aros may not belong to or identify with.

[Eklinaar]

1 hour ago, NullVector said:

That's cool, was it somebody you met online through groups like this and they just happened to live nearby?

 

Yes, we met in an online aro community, and learned we live near each other, and then met in person.  It was really great to chat with someone who has that shared experience of being aro.

 

1 hour ago, NullVector said:

Also a cool idea. Maybe you could even write a book about it? Sort of like an 'Are you Dave Gorman?' for aros 

 

I don't know if I'd write a book about it since it can be rather personal and some people might not be comfortable with those experiences being shared publicly.  I just want to form relationships that don't require hours of defining basic terminology, and the local queer communities aren't really cutting it in that regard.

[Apathetic Echidna]

I know of an Ace group that met in my city and several people there were aro (I did find out about the meeting from members here who went, and I was more than 9 months too late to attend) so a sort of mixed bag of experience for me, but I have found that some people gravitate to each other as friends for reasons they may not realise. When I started coming out some of my friend came out back  so far I am the only aromantic but I have friends who are demi and grey and one is now questioning because they never felt they fit in with most other people (hence their happy friendship with me) but they had never heard of orientation frameworks that would help them describe themselves. 

[Mark]

On 8/21/2018 at 2:46 AM, Eklinaar said:

I've never heard of specifically aro groups anywhere in the world, but there are several ace and aro groups in a few places, if you're lucky enough to live there.  I hear there's one in Germany that's very good.  You can certainly try finding aros IRL where you live, but just be prepared to come up empty-handed.  We seem to be very rare.

I managed to find exactly one aro group on meetup. With a handful on ace meetups, which mention aros.
The few surveys which have been done show that aros are not rare at all. Comprising at least 1% of the population.
 

 

On 8/21/2018 at 3:01 AM, DavidMS703 said:

I believe that there are more of us than anyone knows due to our relative invisibility that makes many of us think romantic relationships are for everyone and keep trying to make them work. 

This would be amantonormativity. 
Interestingly this idea dosn't even hold for alloromantics. Census data shows the proportion of married people declining throughout the industrialised world. If anything popular culture had got more matrimanical over those decades. This is even the case in the UK and Australia where married adults are in the minority. 

[Tagor]

There's one person who is in on my school of whom I think that he is aro.  Right now I'm thinking about slipping him a note with some online tests I found and the wikipedia article. Then I would mention that aros exist in some conversations with him (I'm sure I can find some new studies or some other way to steer the conversation in this direction) and hope that he'll notice it if he's aro and won't if he isn't.

 

(Sorry for my bad english, it isn't my first language and it's late at night for me)

[Ace of Amethysts]

On 8/23/2018 at 2:40 PM, Mark said:

This would be amatonormativity. 
Interestingly this idea dosn't even hold for alloromantics. Census data shows the proportion of married people declining throughout the industrialised world. If anything popular culture had got more matrimanical over those decades. This is even the case in the UK and Australia where married adults are in the minority. 

 

Huh, that's interesting.