Early signs that you were aro

[snapesonalane]

1 hour ago, Just like Jughead said:

 

No. It’s not just allos. Asexuals are MORE obsessed with this kind of stuff, being in relationships and doing things they feel is romantic, like cuddling and sharing beds. 

Lol as an aroace I can attest to this. On an ace discord server I'm in they were talking about cuddling and bed sharing for like 15 minutes straight. 

 

It's funny because I've never been into bed sharing much. Whenever I would imagine being married I wondered if they would be offended or take it as a bad sign if I insisted on separate bedrooms or at least separate beds. 

[Silyun]

20 hours ago, ladyasym said:

Whenever I pictured myself living as an adult, I always saw myself alone, in a cozy small house or an apartment. This never really occurred to me until one day while living with an ex-partner, he asked me what my ideal kitchen would look like, and I suddenly realized that I would never feel entirely content with someone else's stuff or aesthetic  tastes in 'my' space (outside of a roommate situation). He liked picturing us merging our stuff, and I was hugely uncomfortable with it. 

 

 

I get it. As a minimalist I can't see myself living with someone who has lots of stuff. In my ideal relationship, we'd be living close to each other but definitely not in the same appartment.

 

2 hours ago, snapesonalane said:

It's funny because I've never been into bed sharing much. Whenever I would imagine being married I wondered if they would be offended or take it as a bad sign if I insisted on separate bedrooms or at least separate beds. 

 

Same. I'd like to share it sometimes but not every single day.

 

[fish]

On the topic of bed-sharing:  I don't hate the idea, as long as I have enough space to myself. I legit thought sleeping in each others' arms was just a fake thing people did in movies, but my friend's horror-struck face when I said that made me realize it's a Thing.

 

Also, as a kid, I cried at the end of Disney's Aladdin because I was so sure Aladdin was going to ditch Genie for love T_T AND THEN I LOST IT AND CRIED AGAIN when he ended up not choosing Jasmine over Genie. 

[Cee Fox]

I don't mind sharing a bed but if I do I stay as far away from the person as possible, sometimes going so far as to use a different blanket. I couldn't begin to fathom the thought of cuddling.

[Mark]

3 hours ago, Cee Fox said:

I don't mind sharing a bed but if I do I stay as far away from the person as possible, sometimes going so far as to use a different blanket. I couldn't begin to fathom the thought of cuddling.

For me almost the exact opposite.
Like cuddling, find the whole co-sleeping idea a complete WTF.
 

[Crewe]

I'm not sure about bedsharing (I have enough siblings that I've shared beds in hotels and such before so the sheer concept doesnt really bother me as long as the bed is big enough lol), but one big "you were aro you idiot" moment I remember is in I think middle school I was pondering the question of "do you believe in love at first sight" (why? Who knows. I think I just wanted to be prepared with an answer if anybody asked me) and eventually decided that yes, I did believe in love at first sight... just not for me.

 

Romance as a whole was pretty much just a hypothetical so divorced from actual reality that the idea that it might happen to other people was fine but I couldnt conceive of myself falling in love with a stranger. (The idea that I wouldnt fall in love with a friend either came later after a longer period of confusion and questioning.)

[mikachu25]

My parents get paranoid whenever I seemingly become to close to one of my guy friends, as they were worried I would accidentally start a relationship at my young age of 15.

 

But the thing is, I feel that they are just friends. Friendship is certainly a different type of ship from relationship, but it’s not a lesser emotion. I kinda know I’m aromantic as even being so close to the opposite gender, I feel no need to start relationships. I mean, a trustworthy best friend is all you need to me. I definitely thought people were kinda hot before, and definitely loved people before, but is always in a friends/family way, nothing more nothing less.

 

I really hope this helped. Personally, I thought I was aromantic since I was 10, but it took me five long years to figure it out, so...

[arolectriclady]

When I was growing up and starting to learn about romantic relationships, I hated the thought of getting to know someone and then eventually having to break up with them. That just sounded so sad and like a complete waste of time. What was the point if it is likely you will break up anyway? I guess that was an early sign that I prefer long-term close friendships and that I do not experience the romantic attraction people feel that "make it all worth it." Because if you think about it, without the romantic attraction component, romo relationships sound pretty miserable and pointless. 

[Derpyanimekid2400]

I started having signs as a 10 year old. (I'm 12.) My "relationships" ended fast  because I didn't have feelings for them. I thought  it  was romance, but I realized I only felt friendship. Most of my friends are dating and I don't even have a crush.

[jakelane00]

I was a serial dater when I was in school. I'd start dating someone, realize I didn't actually like them, then break-up with them. Some exes still refer to me as a more colorful version of the word "player". I'm hardly out to anyone as aromantic yet-- like, maybe two people. So I don't expect those people to really understand.

[arolectriclady]

I would feel thrown off and disoriented whenever a close friend of mine expressed an interest and/or desire to date either in the present or distant future. I assumed because I feel so connected to these friends on a variety of other levels that they would share my attitude to relationships. But instead, there seemed to be this break in our commonality. 

[Sharkchomp]

I remember wondering why all movies had to end with a kiss when I was little, but I never realized until recently that I’ve never actually been romantically attracted to anyone 

[Cee Fox]

I kept putting off my 'start' date for dating/having crushes. At first I thought it would be when I started high school, then when I was 16, then when I started university, and now I realize I was just putting it off for as long as possible. I once described my feelings to my friends like this 'I feel like it's just a door that I can't open, and when I tried to open it it wouldn't budge, so I'll just wait a little longer to open it'.

[ahsoka723]

I've never really liked or appreciated romance in media, and especially in real life. From young, I remember feeling alienated from my peers because all they wanted to talk about were boys, and crushes or who liked who/who each other liked. I also couldn't understand why kids like myself, at the time, would be in any way attracted to each other. I kind of understood that romance and relationships were something that older people, i.e. teenagers and adults, did, but since I was a kid that didn't relate to me. Soon my teenage years rolled around, I went through puberty, I realised I was sexually attracted to men (but not the awkward pubescent boys in my peer group)... but that interest in romance or relationships never followed. For years I thought it was just because I hadn't met the right guy yet, or when myself and my peers were older/more mature I would find someone I liked. I also believed for the longest time that romantic attraction was just sexual + platonic attraction, but I've been told many times that that is not the case. Well I've now gone through my teenage years and am now entering young adulthood, and little has changed in terms of my views on romance; I still don't get it, and am still just as (if not more) averse to it.

[Joslyn]

I was 13 and I had a huge problem with romance songs. My friends and everyone else around was falling out on the floor over Justin Bieber and one direction and I’d just sit there like... whatever. I still cringe at romance in movies. It just seems so cheesy and fake. Seems...cliché. I have a problem with romance in general. Like, PDA, pick up lines, and stuff like that. I noticed that around 13 people start to change and their hormones are just going up and down. While my hormones were going up and down too, that was mainly my moods and body consciousness. In fact I still cover up now. But my friends were just crying over boys, talking about how they were gonna loose there virginity, talking about how they wanted there boobs to be bigger when I was just like... “uhhhh okay” I hated feeling different but when I learned the word asexual and aromantic it was like chains had fallen off of my body. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still some dudes who are EXTREMELY good looking?

[nonmerci]

19 hours ago, Joslyn said:

My friends and everyone else around was falling out on the floor over Justin Bieber and one direction and I’d just sit there like...

It remind me of a scene in Kick-Ass 2 when some girls explain to another girl why they listen to groups like One Direction : I don't remember their words but they were describing attraction. And I was thinking that it made no sense that you don't sweat or whatever just by looking at "hot" guys singing, that they were not literally "hot"... But I suppose they are for a lot of teenagers (and that explain to me why they are so popular, because Justin Bieber is a mystery to me; I listen a bit when I was a teen, I liked it (don't judge me) but I didn't understand all the craziness about him).

[arolectriclady]

I watched the movie "Little Manhattan" on the plane when I was younger and I was uncomfortable throughout the whole thing but ESPECIALLY when they held hands. The girl took her hand away IN ORDER TO WIPE HER SWEAT and then held the boy's hand again. Ugh I thought it was so gross and honestly I have never been into hand holding because I do not see the point like your hands get warm and sweaty as if they are telling you to let go and set them free lmao

[Cygnid]

I think my most obvious sign was the fact that in primary school. When I was asked who I had a crush on during recess one day, I just looked at the nearest boy my age and said it was him. I maintained this "pho-crush" for years, because no one else caught my eye. It was more of a why not just stick with him kind of continuance. Looking back, we were pretty similar people with common interests and friends. Because I was shy though, I never really spoke to him. I think if I had, we could've been good friends.

 

I think this is an instance where I mistook wanting to become someone's friend and getting to know them better for the idea of a crush. The "crush" spanned from 3rd grade well into high school, before I realized that I was only attracted to his appearance (I guess my "type" kind of grew with him). After I became friends with a girl he had broken up with, I realized that he wasn't actually a person I'd want to date. (The realization that I didn't actually want to be in a romantic relationship with anyone came much later.)

[Katto]

I never got why there was so much kissing and love in books. When I was little, I loved books. Loved loved loved loved books. As I got older, I still had my love for books but was noticing they were saying things like “our lips touched” and “I pressed my mouth against his/hers.” I didn’t get it; what was the big deal with kissing and romance?

[awkwardchickenpotatodragon]

For me it was mostly just not ever thinking about romantic relationships or getting married or whatever. All my friends had this plan of getting married, having x amount of kids, the usual, while I just never thought about that. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had decided that was something I would think about in the future, and that was that.

 

I somehow understood almost exactly what a crush would be, and so I knew enough to know I didn't have any crushes, and I boasted that whenever the topic came up. Thankfully the other kids were just deeply surprised, and never questioned me further (and they never said that I have to have a crush).

[Berry]

My friends talked about their celebrity and normal crushes, it made me really uncomfortable to hear them talk about how people look and when they asked me I had no answer. Later that day I picked “crushes” (aka, boys who I wanted to be friend with)  just so I could say something if they ever talk about that again. This has happened to me in elementary school too. I also have always been really uncomfortable seeing people kiss and cuddle.

[Berry]

Another thing is in middle school I really loved my best friend in a completely platonic way, we would do pretty much everything tighter at school. Some point in the year someone asked me if we were dating and I was so appalled at the idea and shocked at the question, I said no of course, but after that day rumors started circling around and my best friend started to separate herself from me a bit, she didn’t want to be seen as gay, (I didn’t even know what “gay” was at the time) I was really sad, I loss a really amazing friend because of a rumor. (Sorry for posting twice!)

[Artemis's Aro]

when I was 12, someone asked me who I had a crush on and I, thinking that it was some pick-and-choose thing, chose a guy I was friends with and who I thought was cool.

I kept up the lie for a couple months and eventually "confessed" to him and he said he liked me back and then things were really awkward between us until he moved away 3 weeks later and I felt super relieved. I found the label aromantic but I just assumed that i'd feel something eventually. I planned out a story in which the main character was aroace

 

when I was 13, I realized I felt the same romantically about girls as boys (as in, don't really care) and developed a really strong squish on one of my best friends, so I identified as bisexual for a little while but every time I said so it felt incredibly wrong for me, like stomach-turning wrong. I found the label for a queerplatonic relationship and realized that's exactly what I wanted out of my "crushes" (squishes). i got sick of love songs because "didn't they have anything more interesting to sing about?"  I assumed a crush was just really admiring someone, and I didn't understand why people had butterflies or made such a big deal out of it. whenever I imagined myself in a romantic situation it'd always feel platonic somehow, unless it was a candle-lit dinner, in which i'd just feel tense

 

when I was 14, the only situation I imagined for my future was me living with my best friend and taking care of succulents and cats. people said i was lying for not having a crush on anyone. I found the aromantic side of Instagram and read about someone talking about not knowing what crushes were the aro experience and I cried when I realized that's what I was

 

now i'm 15, i've come out to my friends, and there's no stomach-turning wrong-ness, just a sense of relief

(sorry for posting twice but also)

ok so kids my age are dating and it's really weird to me like why would you subject yourself to hand-holding and why do you feel the need to do pda in the first place

[CheeseOverlord]

When I was younger, I used to play would you rather online, and whenever a "love/romance vs ___" question came up, I would always choose the thing that wasn't romance, and was shocked when the majority of people chose romance
It definitely didn't help my self-esteem that all the comments said that everyone who didn't choose romantic love was heartless and should just leave the planet

[Grace Arrow]

When I was fourteen, I learned about homosexuality and panicked because there was no difference in how I felt about my "crushes" and my best friends.