practicing better self-love

[treepod]

It's been a good few months since I've really been active here, but I guess that's because I've had a lot to work out on my own. I'm almost afraid to say so, since I tend to think of myself as pretty clearheaded and self-aware. I don't care to admit that I might still be struggling a bit with my identity. The fact is, though, I'm way too good at compartmentalizing my emotions and hiding things even from myself. It turns out I was harboring a lot more denial/self-hate about being aro than I realized, and it took more than a few external forces to really bring that to my attention. Long story short, I think I may have been clinging to the idea that I might, maybe, be able to feel romantic attraction once in a blue moon, so now I feel extra angry and sad that this is not actually really the case and/or isn't worth paying attention to. And here I was thinking I had already made peace with everything some time ago...

 

I think I'm starting to get better now, but I thought it would be worth it to reach out and ask if anyone has some experience to share about accepting things the way they are and learning to love it. Thanks y'all, I'm forever glad to have this place to come back to where there are people who understand.

[honey]

Back in high school, I was constantly trying to look for ways to label myself because I believed it would help me be part of the LGBTQ community. I was all over the place, very frustrated at times, and just plain felt misunderstood all the time. A few years after uni, for some reason I just stopped caring and just did whatever. I don't know if that's because of maturity or apathy, but this affected my past relationships a lot because I would ultimately not feel the same way as my partners. I've always been pretty chill, so that could also be the reason why I've stopped trying too hard to get my identity right.

 

I'm not sure if I love where I'm at with my identity, but I sure am letting it be and let time sort it out. 

[nonmerci]

I don't know if I can help because I compartimentalize my emotions a lot too.

When I discovered aromanticism, I tried to convince myself I was not part of it. Which is a bit weird because on the other side, I had zero problem accepting my asexuality (the harder here was to accept there was a special word and asexuality wasn't the norm lol). But I thought I had crushes because I intellectually chose boys that was nice and cute as potential husband (because getting married sounds like something you have to do in your life, accordons to society). And most of all, I wanted and still want to have children : being aro meaning give it up on having a traditional family,  and it was hard for me, the very reason why I deny my aromanticism at first.

This causes me to emphasize the one real crush I had : I couldn't be aro because I had butterflies for this guy as soon as he walks in, back in 2014. But it was 5 years ago, lasted only two or three weeks, and I wasn't obsessed about this guy, didn't daydream about kissing him or imagine a date or things like that. Could I really say I was allo based on one experience five years ago, that is even not as extreme as it seems to be for other people? I don't think so.

 

Because of it and some intellectual interest (meaning I consciously decided I can have a crush on someone, which wasn't a crush in fact), I decided to go for greyro. But then I realized that I mistaken crushes for what I call now intellectual attraction or interest, and that I never had another crush like that in my whole life. So I use only aro now. But I had to go though denial phases before.

 

So I don't know if this was because of society, my own desire, or whatever, but I get that you can be in denial and then emphasize all the things that would make you not aro, because it makes you feel safer.

[treepod]

 

7 hours ago, nonmerci said:

I don't know if I can help because I compartimentalize my emotions a lot too.

When I discovered aromanticism, I tried to convince myself I was not part of it. Which is a bit weird because on the other side, I had zero problem accepting my asexuality (the harder here was to accept there was a special word and asexuality wasn't the norm lol). But I thought I had crushes because I intellectually chose boys that was nice and cute as potential husband (because getting married sounds like something you have to do in your life, accordons to society). And most of all, I wanted and still want to have children : being aro meaning give it up on having a traditional family,  and it was hard for me, the very reason why I deny my aromanticism at first.

This causes me to emphasize the one real crush I had : I couldn't be aro because I had butterflies for this guy as soon as he walks in, back in 2014. But it was 5 years ago, lasted only two or three weeks, and I wasn't obsessed about this guy, didn't daydream about kissing him or imagine a date or things like that. Could I really say I was allo based on one experience five years ago, that is even not as extreme as it seems to be for other people? I don't think so.

 

Because of it and some intellectual interest (meaning I consciously decided I can have a crush on someone, which wasn't a crush in fact), I decided to go for greyro. But then I realized that I mistaken crushes for what I call now intellectual attraction or interest, and that I never had another crush like that in my whole life. So I use only aro now. But I had to go though denial phases before.

 

So I don't know if this was because of society, my own desire, or whatever, but I get that you can be in denial and then emphasize all the things that would make you not aro, because it makes you feel safer.

 

Oh gosh yes! I've had a pretty similar journey, accepting my asexuality relatively easily. For a while I was even lumping in aro stuff under my ace-ness to avoid confronting the label of aromantic as something that might apply to me. And then when I finally started calling myself aro, I felt the need to say greyaro because of a """crush""" or two. I've also always wanted children, but being a single parent sounds extremely difficult so that has also probably contributed to my reluctance to, as you said, give up on having a "traditional family." 

 

19 hours ago, honeypandan said:

Back in high school, I was constantly trying to look for ways to label myself because I believed it would help me be part of the LGBTQ community. I was all over the place, very frustrated at times, and just plain felt misunderstood all the time. A few years after uni, for some reason I just stopped caring and just did whatever. I don't know if that's because of maturity or apathy, but this affected my past relationships a lot because I would ultimately not feel the same way as my partners. I've always been pretty chill, so that could also be the reason why I've stopped trying too hard to get my identity right.

 

I'm not sure if I love where I'm at with my identity, but I sure am letting it be and let time sort it out. 

 

Yeah I get that. I can definitely feel right now that simply being "apathetic," or not caring, is the easiest alternative. Sometimes that can be avoidance in disguise, though, at least in my experience. Like I thought I was in that sort of mindset, but then some things happened and suddenly I was getting that frustrated, stuck, "I'm broken" feeling again. Now I think I need to find some sort of confidence, and a truer break from amatonormativity that actually makes me happy with where I'm headed in life.