My Analysis on Aromanticism (Spectrum, Gray, etc.)

[letusdeleteouraccounts]

Hey, Star Lion here. I’m mostly on AVEN since that was where I started and where most of the people are but I figured that I should share what I’ve learned from my time on there with everyone on Arocalypse who isn’t on AVEN, so here’s my perspective.

 

An aromantic is traditionally defined as a person who doesn’t experience romantic attraction while I sum up romantic attraction as a desire towards someone for romantic partnership. This separates us from romantics by defining them as people who do experience romantic attraction. This is a binary. This binary still leaves room for another group of people, though, called greyromantics. A greyromantic is traditionally defined as a person who experiences romantic attraction rarely and/or only under specific circumstances. I sum this up as a person of abnormal romantic attraction patterns. So where does that fit on the binary of people who don’t experience romantic attraction and people who do? Well the obvious conclusion to me is the romantic side because greyromantics still experience romantic attraction. Where it can get a little weird is where people are trying to figure out who exactly fits into the grey area of romanticism. That depends on if you are of a strict or loose interpretation of the aromanticism definition. Does, for example, one experience of romantic attraction two decades ago make you romantic? My post so far might push you towards the strict definition and to say yes but my advocation is actually towards the loose interpretation. The biggest thing I’ve learned over the past year is that you can’t look at labels from a 100% objective standpoint. The labels are used by living humans who are diverse, ever-changing, and of social lives meaning that you have to also look at these labels with a sense of practicality. The way I see it whether you’ve never experienced romantic attraction, you’ve only experienced romantic attraction like twice in your life, or you were a regular non-grey romantic who suddenly somehow lost the ability to fall in love, right now in the current time period you don’t experience romantic attraction so that would qualify you as aromantic. It wouldn’t make sense to identify otherwise because you’re (more than likely) not going to desire a romantic partnership with anyone. It’s like a woman telling a man she’s bisexual even though she likely will never be sexually attracted to men. With greyromantics, the label should be practical for you too. If you tell someone you’re grey-biromantic, the assumption is going to be that you can romantically love both men and women but it’s rare. That’s the way I see all of this and I’m open to any questions or criticisms

[Neir]

Aha here it is!

For others, this conversation is continuing here: