How do i know if i'm aro?

[bookgeek]

Hello everyone, that's my first time being here. I'm a female, my name's Eva and i'm asexual. Lately i started wondering if i might be aromantic too. This started months ago when i thought i was experencing a crush. After 3 months i realised that i didn't really want to get involved with the guy romantically and that i was platonically attracted to him not romantically or sexually. The thing is, i always feel uncomfortable when it comes to romance, i mean at first it's okay, i wanna be close to someone, i wanna make a strong bond between myself and the other person which will be more than a regular friendship but less than a romantic relationship. That is something i'm always confused about.. cause i'm sweet with the person and then they start liking me and they get hurt by me and i really don't want that.. I don't mean to make them think i'm romantically attracted to them. Whevever someone told me that they like me, i tried to like them back but it doesn't fit.. i just can't.. relationships are not something i wanna have in my life, although i'm confusing romantic attraction with pratonic and aethetic attraction, i've been confused about this one SO many times. But i think what i've experienced is a squish not a crush.. Any help? I don't know what to do or think, i'm so confused... Thank you!

[Autumn]

Hey there! You definitely sound aromantic to me, though ultimately only you can decide if the label fits. I'm aromantic and asexual and I don't want anything like a romantic relationship in my life either, so you aren't alone there. What you describe as 'more than regular friendship but less than romance' is a somewhat common way of trying to describe a queerplatonic relationship: a relationship that is a committed friendship, and can have romance-coded elements if the people involved want it to. Finding people in the mainstream communities who would be interested in one of those is challenging, but in the lgbt and especially aro/ace communities it's more likely (unfortunately I don't have enough in person social experience to say what the best course of action with people there is, other than always being upfront as early on in a closening relationship what you're looking for to try and avoid leading anyone on, though at a certain point if you really just did normal friend things and they still get upset then I think that's on them). Maneuvering such a romantic-centric society as an aromantic is difficult, but don't lose hope!  It isn't weird and we're all here to help support each other when things seem down.