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Article - What Romantic Relationships Are Like for Me as an Aromantic Person


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This article is one of the ones that hit home pretty hard when I was questioning my aromanticism. Didn't experience everything that's talked about but the first point is a perfect summary of what I was feeling in my last two relationships.

There's a lot of other good stuff on the everydayfeminism site, so it's really good if you've got a whole day to kill browsing articles.

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Thanks for the post. This whole article really resonated with my own experiences. I only ever got in one serious relationship. But this really explains it:

 

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I don’t understand why my partners get upset with me for doing my own thing. I don’t understand why we have to be together all the time, and I begin to wish they would leave me alone.

 

In other words, suffocating. Yes, I cared about her deeply. I don't think I would call it love, but I felt this internal struggle between guilt for not spending more time with her, and wanting to get away when I was with her.
 

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Either my friends would comment on my single status and try to convince me that I’d be happier as a couple, or I would wish for the intimacy and companionship that only seemed available in romantic relationships because I was lonely. 

 

 

And this was a big part of what took me so long to realize I was aromantic. Everybody else is doing it, so it must make people happier right?

 

NOTE: For some reason while copying some text, the page started downloading a FlashPlayer.exe. I didn't run it and my computer caught it as a virus. So, be forewarned.If you'd rather visit the same article from the original page, you can go here: https://flyingwhilefallingdown.wordpress.com/2015/06/02/an-aromantic-perspective-what-its-like-to-be-in-a-romantic-relationship/ 

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3 hours ago, Blue Phoenix Ace said:

In other words, suffocating. Yes, I cared about her deeply. I don't think I would call it love, but I felt this internal struggle between guilt for not spending more time with her, and wanting to get away when I was with her.

Yeah, this is the part that resonated with me the most. I explained it to my partner as my "comfort zone" not being a distance but an amount of time, and that sometimes I just needed time to get my zone back. But I never got the same feeling with friends even when spending days in the same place as them with no alone time. In hindsight it's pretty clear that that's because of the lack of romantic expectation.

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Interesting article. There's a number of things I personally cannot relate to, probably because I'm romantic, but I can understand the stress and potential pain that comes from romantic relationships.

 

There was only one relationship I've ever been in thus far where I didn't actually love the person I was dating. Honestly, I dated her out of pity (which, I know, was a very shitty decision on my part, but I was 15 and it was my first opportunity to date someone). I didn't love her. So in this situation, since I didn't experience romantic attraction, I experienced some of the things that were listed here. The stress, how I found it bothersome after awhile to have to talk to her on a daily basis and treat her specific ways. We broke up, got back together, broke up again. Her friends harassed me and antagonized me constantly, I had to block them from all social media. I can relate this experience to the author's experience with the mutual friend's calling her names. It was an awful first-taste of relationship for me. So, while I may not ever fully relate since I'm not aro, there are some aspects that I can understand from being in a relationship where I was with a person I did not like romantically.

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All of this.

She was so in love with me, it felt unfair. I wanted to develop feelings for her so much. She was clever, beautiful, funny, intelligent, geeky the same way I was, so I thought it was "meant to be".

But I did not have the same feelings, so I tried to make her feel loved some other way. I wanted to make up for it with gestures like a bubble bath, pancakes from scratch, compliments, giving her flowers, cuddles and having sex with her. After a while, I was running out of ideas. What else can I do?  I felt like a magpie (one for sorrow, lol) that would keep bringing all of that nice shiny treasure to please her, but it all turned out to be shiny trash. The sex became worse and worse, because I was stressed. I even tried to get her to meet my friends because I was so tired of just constantly being the two of us. I haven't had time for anything. I wanted to get out of it. I was so depressed for months even after I broke up with her.

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"They even used the same reasons each time. I was 'not committed,' I was 'not in love with them,' I only 'treated them like a friend.'"

 

I honestly should have stopped dating after my second relationship. When I told my ex I wanted to break up, she was like, "So...nothing changes." We had been pretty good friends before dating.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 4/28/2016 at 1:17 AM, Blue Phoenix Ace said:

 

Either my friends would comment on my single status and try to convince me that I’d be happier as a couple, or I would wish for the intimacy and companionship that only seemed available in romantic relationships because I was lonely. 

 

And this was a big part of what took me so long to realize I was aromantic. Everybody else is doing it, so it must make people happier right?

 

This was basically why I always doubted my aromanticism and why I hated it so much.

We're always taught that the only way to get close relationships or a family is with romance because it's The Most Important Thing Ever and it's still hard for me to realize I don't need to give up hope of a life partner even though I don't want a traditional relationship.

 

 

Also holy crap quoting something within a quote is a massive pain.

 

Much as I like Everyday Feminism, I really hate their website because something about the format makes my computer lag. Maybe it's just the large number of ads.

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