Straw Poll: When did folks find out about aromanticism? And how old are most general users on here anyway?

[sennkestra]

I was talking to some friends offline about feeling comparatively a little older in some aro communities (both in terms of time spent in and around aro spaces, and in general age - I'm not that old, but i'm also clearly not in touch with all the hip young people memes anymore), and I was curious what the actual breakdown of people on the site is in terms of age and if it matches my impressions at all or if I'm just wildly off.

[Apex]

I first learned about it in 2011 (freshman year of high school) and I'm 23 now.

 

I remember stumbling upon it because I had learned about asexuality recently and thought, "I wonder if there's a romantic version of that? Because that would explain a lot," and then googling it.

[Scoop]

I learnt of aromanticism in 2014, the year after highschool. My friend had gotten me onto Tumblr and through fandom I was introduced to all the identities beyond the LGB.

 

When did I realise it was for me though? Not until 2016. And I didn’t get involved in the community until 2018.

 

This is a cool question, I'd never thought about all the little details of my discovery. I'm interested to hear about others' paths.

[nonmerci]

I discovered aromanticism in 2017. Now I am 25.

I also feel older than son other aro too (in particular everytime someone mentions High school, it remember me that some people here are still pretty young).

[metelyk]

I am in the 20-25 age. I discovered aromanticism on an online forum around 2015, but I did not think it would apply to me, because the aromantic person was romance-repulsed and did not want any kind of close relationship, and that did not sound like me. (I also thought then, that romance was "I really like this person and I want to be friends", and I experience that a lot, so I believed I could not be aro.) My friends asked me several times if I was aromantic from 2015-2018, but I still did not understand what it was and I wanted to be "normal", so I refused to consider it. In 2018 a friend came out to me as aromantic and that is when I started researching it better. I only started identifying as aro this year.

[Philotes]

I first came across the term 'aromantic' in 2016, but I did not think that it applied to me. I sort of rediscovered the term in 2018 and I started to see how well the term fit me.

[honey]

I made the term "a-romantic" for fun after finding out about asexuality on Tumblr back in 2009 (I thought it was funny being an alliterative agender aromantic asexual asian ?). Then I thought, hey maybe that's actually a real thing and it turns out there was a small community of aros online. Back then, I was in denial about everything so I pushed it off until recently where I finally accepted that yes, maybe I am aro and I should deal with it.

[Emerald Cheetah]

First I learned about asexuality from a friend in high school when he came out to me as asexual. I had no idea what it was until he explained it but I was like "oh cool", and then that was it for a year or two. Then last year (2018) I saw a post on Instagram about Aromanticism. Someone was telling a story of girl who identified as aromantic being discriminated against. Even though I was learning what aromanticism was for the first time, I could still understand it, and I sympathized with the girl. However, it took a few months for me to finally apply the label of aromanticism to myself! And then even more months (on top of the few years) for me to finally accept asexuality. It really doesn't help when society is so good at convincing you that you're straight. 

[Kallie]

I found out about asexuality in 2015, and then about aromanticism in 2016 when I was doing my research about various LGBT+ identities, but I started questioning myself only in 2019.

 

I’m in High School now, most of my classmates either have a crush on someone or are already dating, and when my best friend told me she got a boyfriend I thought she was joking because I couldn’t imagine how it must feel or why she would want it. So I realized I don’t understand what half of the people I know are talking and asked myself if I can even feel any romantic attraction. Based on my research, I probably don’t. I feel like I still may be too young to come to any conclusions, but I’m happy with identifying as aro for now ✌️.

[BlueKumul]

2014 on Personality Cafe. I am 34 now.

[Mr. Aromantic]

I just discovered the term this past year (2019), but I've really known all my life.

 

I'm now 54 years-old and just recently "came out" as a hetero aromantic to some good friends.  I've received nothing but positive support.  Many of them knew it, even if they didn't know the term for it.

[crasheds22]

Id started to think i was asexual maybe 18 months ago, but never truly believed it

Id heard of aromanticism, but didnt look further at the time. It took me till very recently to actually look into it though and finding it has made a lot of things make more sense

Im turning 24 and thinking life might get easier to understand now

[Skittles87]

On ‎1‎/‎2‎/‎2020 at 10:18 PM, honeypandan said:

I made the term "a-romantic" for fun after finding out about asexuality

OMG I did this too! I was so excited when I found out it was a real thing.

 

[aro-fae]

Like a few others here, learned about aromanticism and asexuality in freshman yr of high school. And I do feel older than a fair amount of the community? Even though I am relatively a child (early 20s). I feel way past the phase of "figuring it out" and needing "validation" for it, which seems to be a sign of age in this community lol.

[Ch0c0]

I'm a 30+ who had a late realisation last year after I got into interested into youtube again. There is still limited visibility in the mainstream media targetting middle aged folks.

It's nice to see that the new generations are catching up on this faster.

[BuffOreo]

I learned about aromanticism while working  on a persuasive research paper on gender neutral pronouns in 2016. I had to educate myself a lot about the lgbt+ community for this paper, so I ran across many, many identities. I think that is why I didn't immediately consider identifying as aro (I had known I was queer for a long time by now, but no specifics) until 2017 since I was overwhelmed with learning so many new terms. It was only recently that I have completely come to terms and fully accepted my aro identity. I'm currently in my 20s but I still feel much more of an outsider since there are not many people that know/understand/can talk of aromanticism. 

[roboticanary]

Well that's interesting. I knew Arocalypse had a lot of younger people on it but I didn't expect to feel that old.

What's really cool though is that i seem to be far later in terms of learning about the term. i know its a small sample but it seems like younger people are noticing their aro identity longer ago than some of us older folks given the comments. I feel like a recent discoverer learning about aromanticism in 2018.

[Atlamillia Pixie]

I can't remember when I heard first heard the term aromantic (probably in high school or college, idk), but I remember first questioning my romantic orientation back in September 2018 and I have been identifying as aromantic since March 2020. So this has been a process that happened in my early 20s/ college years. Definitely too young to relate to the 30 somethings and older who are functional adults and a little too old to relate to the high schoolers.

[Rolo]

I heard about aromanticism in ~2014 I think, after spending a bit of time on AVEN. I'm 31. This poll has made me feel old ?

[FaerySilverwings]

I'm 29... learned about aromanticism around the same time I finally figured out "for real" that I was asexual. Which... was last month. ?

(Granted, I'd first been introduced to asexuality as a concept about five years ago, but for some reason it didn't click that it was a thing and that this was genuinely who and what I was until I had to spend five months alone with my thoughts because of lockdown/quarantine.)