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"becoming" romance repulsed?


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Hey !

 

So, i am very romance repulsed. But i feel like since i know i am aro, my romance repulsion flared up !

 

dont get me wrong, i never was at ease with romance. When i was a kid i used to go away when the characters kissed in a movie. But until i discovered my aromantism, i was able to read a romantic fanfiction (not that it was my favorite thing in the world).

 

But now i am just… uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.

 

Anyone in the same case? I Wonder if i was forcing myself to read them...

 

 

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I can totally relate to this. Before I knew I was aro I watched tons of romance anime and Korean dramas and I shipped characters romantically too. After figuring out I was aro and got involved with online communities I enjoyed those things a lot less than I did back then. I kinda feel like I didn’t force myself to like these things but maybe since I joined the aro community a lot of people were repulsed by this stuff so I kinda gave it up to fit in? At the same time maybe I did make myself watch it back then because other people liked it and I wanted to fit in. As I’m typing this I’m noticing a pattern for me and after thinking about it some more I don’t want either of those factors to keep me from enjoying certain things I’m going to enjoy stuff my own way. 

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9 minutes ago, HotRamen said:

At the same time maybe I did make myself watch it back then because other people liked it and I wanted to fit in.

To be honnest, i dont know if i did it to fit in or if i told myself "this is fine, this is normal to be in love". Ad now that I know what is amatonormativity, well… it's definitly not the same. ;) 

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I can relate to this somewhat. I think it's because a lot of the things I now know most people consider romantic, I don't personally consider romantic, so I just never thought of it that way until I started reading a lot of aro stuff. That made me realize just how differently most people perceive things, so now I have less tolerance for romantic stuff because of knowing that that's most likely how other people intend things, even if I personally wouldn't have thought of it that way before. Ignorance is kind of bliss in a way... :rofl:

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6 minutes ago, SoulWolf said:

so I just never thought of it that way until I started reading a lot of aro stuff.

I always thought of typical romantic stuff as romantic, but reading aro stuff make me more determined to hate romance i guess xD 

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Yes this is deffinatly a thing! I think when we realize that we're aro we also realize that it's okay to not like romance so we're more willing to acknowledge feelings of romance repulsion. I also think that the older you get the more pressure there is to participate in romance and this can make your romance repulsion seem like it's getting stronger

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13 minutes ago, bananaslug said:

Yes this is deffinatly a thing! I think when we realize that we're aro we also realize that it's okay to not like romance so we're more willing to acknowledge feelings of romance repulsion. I also think that the older you get the more pressure there is to participate in romance and this can make your romance repulsion seem like it's getting stronger

That's probably the reason, yeah. Personaly, i never really feel the pressure (Lucky me ) so it's likely me acknowledging my feelings ^^

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah, I agree part of it is simply being able to acknowledge it's okay not to like romance.  I think part of it is that growing up, romance seemed like a hypothetical future thing that would be desirable in the future? Therefore that kind of media seemed hypothetically appealing.  But once learning you're aro, it's like oh well this doesn't actually apply to me.  Another part of it, at least for me specifically and the way I experience romance repulsion, is that it kinda serves as an example of amatonormativity so I almost feel attacked by it?  Things which previously didn't stick out as an issue are now noticed, things like soulmates/"everyone falls in love" now feel like an attack rather than a possibly dubious society norm.  I think a lot of my romance repulsion is linked to how it makes me feel extremely alienated, so it makes sense that it would be worse now that I actually know I'm aro.

 

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7 hours ago, Magni said:

I think a lot of my romance repulsion is linked to how it makes me feel extremely alienated, so it makes sense that it would be worse now that I actually know I'm aro.

It make sense ! I think this is the case for me too. 

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for sure, i think for me it's that now that i've experienced romance for myself (in a relationship) i know i don't like it, so seeing it kind of gives me, like, secondhand discomfort, whereas before it was all hypothetical and i didn't really feel one way or another about it.  or even if you haven't been in a relationship or whatever, just identifying as aro means you're more aware of it.  when i read fanfic (or read/watch basically any fiction), i'm constantly (mostly subconsciously) analyzing characters' actions and words, deciding whether i consider them romantic, sexual, or platonic, what the author likely intended them to be, where it could be leading, etc.  and elements of romance usually do decrease my enjoyment if not put me off altogether, although i will say that my favourite fic ever had a fairly prominent romantic storyline; the whole thing was just excellent.  rare exception.  but yeah, i do consider myself romance-repulsed, which wouldn't necessarily have been the case 5 years ago, before i'd even heard the word 'aromantic'.

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