Early signs that you were aro

[apprehensiveanne]

As a teenager i always find myself rolling my eyes everytime i see something romantic going on. When the topic of crushes come out i usually just stay quiet and nod everytime they ask me something. LOL

[Peggy]

For me, there was the obvious 'I made up a crush' which I feel like every aro person has done.

But also, when my friend came out to me as bi, my first reaction in my head was just 'how have you experienced enough attraction to know the gender/s you're attracted to?' Because I'd only ever had one crush (which may have been a platonic crush?) so I didn't understand how everyone else could already label their sexuality.

[The Aro Mando Echo]

5 minutes ago, Peggy said:

For me, there was the obvious 'I made up a crush' which I feel like every aro person has done.

But also, when my friend came out to me as bi, my first reaction in my head was just 'how have you experienced enough attraction to know the gender/s you're attracted to?' Because I'd only ever had one crush (which may have been a platonic crush?) so I didn't understand how everyone else could already label their sexuality.

I had this reaction too! I was confused at first, because I was noticing how everyone around me began to come out and develop crushes, and I didn't feel anything.

[LoganTheAxolotl]

When I was 6, I remember my mom started getting loads of boyfriends(she had before, I just thought they were normal friends). I was always repulsed by them kissing a lot. Maybe that was just cause they were adults though.

When I was 8, my mom got this boyfriend(who she later married). When he started living with us, on Friday nights we would have movie nights. My mom would sometimes pick romantic movies(typically rom-coms), and I hated them. And it isn't that she was bad at picking movies, she was great at it. But, it was the romantic movies that I hated. 

When I was 12, my mom started allowing me to watch horror movies. I was sooooooooo excited. When I was younger she would always pause the show or tell me to get out when watching horror films. But when I started watching them, I saw how forced the sex and romantic scenes were in horror movies. I thought it was disgusting.

From the ages 10-13 I made myself have crushes. First on this one friend who lots of girls liked, so I made myself like him(I creeped him out.....). When I was older, I thought that since I forced myself to like him I was a lesbian. So I made myself like my best friend. I didn't like her. I also told her that I liked her. I should have felt sad she rejected me, but I didn't, I was kind of relieved.

Edited March 29, 2023 by LoganTheAxolotl

[MoonTail]

Same for me I hated the romantics in disney movies as a kid I had no interest in kissing or hugging.I am with someone though but I never have romantically done stuff with him.I only really hug my family.

[Basilton]

I’ve seen alot of people on the internet talk about faking crushes but when I was a kid I never felt a need to?

I remember girls always asking me multiple times who my crush was and I always just said I didn’t have one. I still find it funny how they were in shock every single time. 

Something that’s happened to me very often is me saying I don’t have a crush and nobody believing me. Saying stuff like “no it’s fine just tell me” and “you can trust me” 

I don’t think I’ve ever tried to censor my aromantic side haha

[Fox]

There was a time when I said "I want a [romantic] relationship where we don't talk or touch." That was probably my way of trying to fit into amatonormativity while being romance-repulsed. Like, "Look! I have a romantic relationship but I don't actually want any romance in it!" (I like talking/words of affirmation and physical touch, but only if it's platonic. When it's in a romantic way I feel repulsed.) 

[Lunar Nova]

I never felt the "romantic feelings" that people always described having while dating people, when I was dating at one point

[BasicallyEmoPotato]

When I was 15, I dated a close friend of mine. He had confessed to me that he liked me, and I didn't want to ruin our friendship, so I decided to say I liked him back. As far as I knew then, I was "unlikable" because that was the first time someone had confessed their feelings to me. So, we dated for a little bit. We even kissed a few times. I didn't feel necessarily repulsed by the kisses, but they felt fake. While I was dating him, I had a feeling that I was just doing this to fit in, and I was. A few months later, he messaged me and told me he didn't like me anymore. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to find that out. I was so uncomfortable with him touching me in a romantic sense, and because I am not that strong in setting boundaries for myself, I felt so amazing when I got out. But I tried ignoring that feeling for a while, and even tried convincing myself I was "sad" when he broke up with me. I even tried making myself cry a few times. The real reason that I was "sad" was because I was worried about what had become of our friendship. I ended up treating him a little badly after the breakup. I avoided hanging out with him because I didn't like the awkwardness. (For the record, everything is okay now between him and I.) He's in a relationship with someone else right now, and I feel really happy for him, even though I don't understand relationships and how they work.

i don't remember when exactly, but after the time I had my first boyfriend, I started identifying as demiromantic. Which I guess makes sense. I forced myself to crush on my friends, so I thought that because he was a close friend, I had become close enough where I could develop a crush on him. Now I know that's not true. I was doing everything in my power to think I experienced romantic attraction because I didn't want to face the reality of not experiencing romantic attraction. I don't exactly know why I didn't want to face the reality of my being aromantic. It still confuses me to this day. It took a while. I was able to face the fact that I have never experienced romantic attraction and never will. And now I'm aro fully :)

Edited April 13, 2023 by BasicallyEmoPotato

[DreamXD]

no

no i did not

[Guest Nova]

On 1/15/2023 at 5:17 AM, ContentAro said:

That was the age it finally started to sink in for me too 🙂

 

On 1/11/2023 at 11:24 PM, Guest BlackCatLove said:

This made me laugh because I am currently 37 and just now questioning whether or not I’m aromantic 😝 Maybe it’s a lucky number lol

 

Wow, lucky number indeed! I’m 37 too and same situation lol 

Thanks to everyone sharing by the way, it’s bringing back a lot of memories that make sense now.

[Guest Rat-bbit]

On 6/3/2016 at 4:45 AM, lindi said:

I had a couple of crushes in my childhood, but way less than my peers, so I just made up stuff about supposedly liking some boy to not be an outsider, when others talked about their crushes.

I had some kind of collection of crushes as a child. I remember counting 20 in total, and some of them I really almost did not talked to and definitely none of them was someone that I would date. It looks like they were just boys that were simultaneously beutiful and people that I wanted to know more and be friends. There was a guy in the third grade, I was eight years old, and I remember screaming that I loved him in the front of the class and I was literally giving no damn about it because I was like "it doesn't mean anything, I would never date him, and I like it the way i feel happy about him, soon i will replace this with something/someone cooler"  But something important I've noticed years after is that is not common to not feel excited for the idea or sad for not having a relationship with your crush, what sounded very unrelatable to me. Idk if it was squishes, normal crushes, alterous or just a uncommon experience. All I know is that the last one was in my 13y, aka the end of my child era. I'm turning 18 this year.

[Guest Rat-bbit]

On 6/11/2016 at 8:24 PM, DannyFenton123 said:

I found AVEN at 14-ish and the whole 'The One' idea came crashing down

I literally never had a "waiting for the right one" phase. It was always more of a fear (or something I didn't want to happen) to me then any other thing. I felt like it was like if someone was going to turn me into another person with hypnosis and I was going to let other things and people I liked behind.

[HelloThere]

16 hours ago, Guest Rat-bbit said:

I literally never had a "waiting for the right one" phase. It was always more of a fear (or something I didn't want to happen) to me then any other thing. I felt like it was like if someone was going to turn me into another person with hypnosis and I was going to let other things and people I liked behind.

I'm more towards the "Oh man, I mean that sounds great but I don't really want to sacrifice for that, nor will I go looking." I mean seriously how cliched is it to "wait for the one"? It's just something that I don't have much interest in.

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

To be honest I don't exactly know if I had many signs as a kid? And that's okay! Sometimes we don't have "signs." Sometimes our experiences were just so normal to us that we can't discern what is a sign or not.

But, I think I can try to formulate some of my experiences onto here. 

The first thing that I know is that (despite just now recently realizing that no my "crushes" actually were not that) whenever I would have a "crush" when I was younger, I wouldn't want to date them at all.

Hitting the time of being in ✨middle school✨ I only had two total "crushes" during that time. One was a guy I knew and still know and am close friends with, and another was the blatant text book of "hey who's yoooour crush? ;)" and randomly choosing some random person; I chose some dude on our basketball team. The guy who I'm still friends with, I'll call him C, is probably the biggest red flag of "this was not romantic attraction at all but I was too blind to see that" in my life. Because when I got to know him through my brother, I would get this heavy feeling (that I labeled "forming a crush") in my chest, like I would physically feel it, but I would think about wanting to get to know him more, hang out and be close friends with him. I literally labeled this strong feeling of wanting to become best friends with someone, having a crush.  😐

He's handsome, sweet and very funny, but when I had this "crush" I was so scared of him liking me back and wanting to date, and despite actually sometimes fantasizing about what it would be like to be in a romantic relationship with him, I knew deep down that it would stress me out and I wouldn't be happy. I somehow escaped the specific cesspool of traumatic dating that occurs throughout middle school, because I would stay shut up about my "crushes" on people.

And having just now graduated high school, I can safely say that I never once had a crush in that building. I had a qpr, but had to break up with my qpp because I realized I'm non-partnering; which I had a very great suspicion of being beforehand, but I didn't really want to believe that I could be non-amorous, so I made myself get with them.

Another quick example of my being so unaware of not actually experiencing romantic attraction, is that when I felt this pull toward a girl in elementary school, I labeled that as "not the same thing at all in any given way." To be honest, I think most of what I experienced as a kid was alterous attraction, at least definitely toward that girl and toward my friend C, but I could never have known at that age that that was what I was experiencing.

Edited April 4 by The Newest Fabled Creature

[HelloThere]

29 minutes ago, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

To be honest I don't exactly know if I had many signs as a kid? And that's okay! Sometimes we don't have "signs." Sometimes our experiences were just so normal to us that we can't discern what is a sign or not.

But, I think I can try to formulate some of my experiences onto here. 

The first thing that I know is that (despite just now recently realizing that no my "crushes" actually were not that) whenever I would have a "crush" when I was younger, I wouldn't want to date them at all. When I was around 8 and would get a "crush" on some boy I liked platonically, usually our "dating" consisted of the boy saying we were dating but would not tell me that? and I wouldn't ever learn about us "being in a relationship" till he would "break up with me." One time I did break up with some kid I knew, but that's only because since he had a crush on me definitely, and I thought I had a crush on him, I said, "I'm breaking up with you" because I knew that he thought we were dating but no we were not.

Hitting the time of being in ✨middle school✨ I only had two total "crushes" during that time. One was a guy I know and still know and am close friends with, and another was the blatant text book of "hey who's yoooour crush? ;)" and randomly choosing some random person; I chose some dude on our basketball team. The guy who I'm still friends with, I'll call him C, is probably the biggest red flag of "this was not romantic attraction at all but I was too blind to see that" in my life. Because when I got to know him through my brother, I would get this heavy feeling (that I labeled "forming a crush") in my chest, like I would physically feel it, but I would think about wanting to get to know him more, hang out and be close friends with him. I literally labeled this strong feeling of wanting to become best friends with someone, having a crush.  😐

He's handsome, sweet and very funny, but when I had this "crush" I was so scared of him liking me back and wanting to date, and despite actually sometimes fantasizing about what it would be like to be in a romantic relationship with him, I knew deep down that it would stress me out and I wouldn't be happy. I somehow escaped the specific cesspool of traumatic dating that only occurs throughout middle school, because I would stay shut up about my "crush" on people.

And having just now graduated high school, I can safely say that I never once had a crush throughout that hellish landscape. I had a qpr, but had to break up with my qpp because I realized I'm non-partnering; which I had a very great suspicion of being beforehand, but didn't really want to believe that I could be, which is the same thing I thought about with being aromantic.

Another quick example of my being so unaware of not actually experiencing romantic attraction, is that when I felt this pull toward a girl in elementary school, I labeled that as "not the same thing at all in any given way." To be honest, I think most of what I experienced as a kid was alterous attraction, at least definitely toward that girl and toward my friend C, but I could never have known at that age that that was what I was experiencing.

Yeah, I thought I had a crush on someone of the same gender like 2 months ago because I had some “heavy feeling” near this person, and I just enjoyed talking and being near this person. Turns out when I realized it might be, it just became a factor (this was when I was earlier questioning as an aromantic) in the massive equation in my head, and that was the “obsession”. I didn’t like this person that way pretty much at all, so I just decided it was platonic, though now it was probably more alterous. I’d say the biggest sign of being aromantic as a kid was that I had a friend of mine who’s a girl and I just personally DESPISED whenever my parents thought that I liked her romantically, even though in the 5 years I knew her there was just platonic attraction and minor aesthetic but nothing else. XD

Also another one was that I had no idea what a crush even was until late in elementary school, I thought it meant that you wanted to crush that person so I just named some random girl in my class who happened to have seriously annoyed me and left it at that. I also had literally no desire for any relationship throughout elementary or middle school, it just felt like something stupid that was something that everyone there was too young for.

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

14 minutes ago, HelloThere said:

Yeah, I thought I had a crush on someone of the same gender like 2 months ago because I had some “heavy feeling” near this person, and I just enjoyed talking and being near this person. Turns out when I realized it might be, it just became a factor (this was when I was earlier questioning as an aromantic) in the massive equation in my head, and that was the “obsession”. I didn’t like this person that way pretty much at all, so I just decided it was platonic, though now it was probably more alterous. I’d say the biggest sign of being aromantic as a kid was that I had a friend of mine who’s a girl and I just personally DESPISED whenever my parents thought that I liked her romantically, even though in the 5 years I knew her there was just platonic attraction and minor aesthetic but nothing else. XD

Also another one was that I had no idea what a crush even was until late in elementary school, I thought it meant that you wanted to crush that person so I just named some random girl in my class who happened to have seriously annoyed me and left it at that. I also had literally no desire for any relationship throughout elementary or middle school, it just felt like something stupid that was something that everyone there was too young for.

I can't even tell if I was ever confused about crushes, because I never once gave it any thought actually. Wow, that's technically another sign lol

But, I would totally get the confusion about crushes = wanting to crush someone. Tbh, I think I would blame me being neurodivergent on my end, if I were to link those two together lol

[HelloThere]

Just now, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

I can't even tell if I was ever confused about crushes, because I never once gave it any thought actually. Wow, that's technically another sign lol

But, I would totally get the confusion about crushes = wanting to crush someone. Tbh, I think I would blame me being neurodivergent on my end, if I were to link those two together lol

Yeah, the last thing on my mind for SO long was romance, I was the kid that wanted to talk INCESSANTLY and fantasized about superpowers and ruling the world, (not irl, I’d burn it down by accident in minutes. XD) creating a far better society free of corruption and greed. I thought about my future, my friends, my interests, YouTube, gaming, school, Minecraft, animated shows, and all sorts of stuff but romance was always at the bottom of the list. When I found out that was actually abnormal I didn’t think much of it. Whenever I decided to educate myself though I came to the revelation that I was very likely a part of this community. But it came at a cost. I realized that I hadn’t thought about this at all, and my self doubt started go cave in on me, making me wonder if I simply adopted opinions on romance or if I faked this somehow. I never thought about romance long enough to have a real opinion, so I spent weeks (and still do) obsessing over if I’m aro or if my opinions were just adopted, even though I have very obviously started to be taking a side at romance neutral/averse (sorta in between). I guess now I sorta have the burden of wondering if this is actually real or not, or if it’ll change. Ever since I’ve been trying to assess every positive feeling I have towards girls and wonder if it’s somehow romantic attraction. I mean there’s no anxiety near these people, I stare occasionally but that’s more in my attempt to be sure if I’m attracted or not, I enjoy this persons company but that very obviously shouldn’t mean anything. Though last that there literally nothing attraction related in it. I mean I do also experience aesthetic and I’ve been confusing it for weeks now but I still don’t think I’ve been attracted. 

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

2 minutes ago, HelloThere said:

Yeah, the last thing on my mind for SO long was romance, I was the kid that wanted to talk INCESSANTLY and fantasized about superpowers and ruling the world, (not irl, I’d burn it down by accident in minutes. XD) creating a far better society free of corruption and greed. I thought about my future, my friends, my interests, YouTube, gaming, school, Minecraft, animated shows, and all sorts of stuff but romance was always at the bottom of the list. When I found out that was actually abnormal I didn’t think much of it. Whenever I decided to educate myself though I came to the revelation that I was very likely a part of this community. But it came at a cost. I realized that I hadn’t thought about this at all, and my self doubt started go cave in on me, making me wonder if I simply adopted opinions on romance or if I faked this somehow. I never thought about romance long enough to have a real opinion, so I spent weeks (and still do) obsessing over if I’m aro or if my opinions were just adopted, even though I have very obviously started to be taking a side at romance neutral/averse (sorta in between). I guess now I sorta have the burden of wondering if this is actually real or not, or if it’ll change. Ever since I’ve been trying to assess every positive feeling I have towards girls and wonder if it’s somehow romantic attraction. I mean there’s no anxiety near these people, I stare occasionally but that’s more in my attempt to be sure if I’m attracted or not, I enjoy this persons company but that very obviously shouldn’t mean anything. Though last that there literally nothing attraction related in it. I mean I do also experience aesthetic and I’ve been confusing it for weeks now but I still don’t think I’ve been attracted. 

I relate to the romance-being-at-the-bottom-of-the-list thing, because that was me too!

Most of my dreams or "goals" in life, never once consisted of my finding a partner and/or having a family.

I also relate to the doubting and wondering-if-this-could-be-attraction type thing. I'm allosexual, specifically mspec, and experience immediate attraction towards guys (cis and trans) and masculine peoples (attraction towards girls and femme peoples happens only occasionally), and I would stare long and hard and wonder and try to "form a romantic attraction" toward an individual I know (most of the time this would be towards a guy) but my brain would shut it down right away and I would give up. It takes actual energy from me to try to see if I could somehow have a crush on someone.

[HelloThere]

5 minutes ago, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

I relate to the romance-being-at-the-bottom-of-the-list thing, because that was me too!

Most of my dreams or "goals" in life, never once consisted of my finding a partner and/or having a family.

I also relate to the doubting and wondering-if-this-could-be-attraction type thing. I'm allosexual, specifically mspec, and experience immediate attraction towards guys (cis and trans) and masculine peoples (attraction towards girls and femme peoples happens only occasionally), and I would stare long and hard and wonder and try to "form a romantic attraction" toward an individual I know (most of the time this would be towards a guy) but my brain would shut it down right away and I would give up. It takes actual energy from me to try to see if I could somehow have a crush on someone.

I’m more ageosexual, I can be turned on I just don’t want to act on it. Everything else is normal, I’m only identifying as that at 15 because that’s EXACTLY how I felt. XD

8 minutes ago, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

I relate to the romance-being-at-the-bottom-of-the-list thing, because that was me too!

Most of my dreams or "goals" in life, never once consisted of my finding a partner and/or having a family.

I also relate to the doubting and wondering-if-this-could-be-attraction type thing. I'm allosexual, specifically mspec, and experience immediate attraction towards guys (cis and trans) and masculine peoples (attraction towards girls and femme peoples happens only occasionally), and I would stare long and hard and wonder and try to "form a romantic attraction" toward an individual I know (most of the time this would be towards a guy) but my brain would shut it down right away and I would give up. It takes actual energy from me to try to see if I could somehow have a crush on someone.

I haven’t really tried that much too like people for two reasons: that kinda feels pointless to me, and I really just don’t want to that much. 🤷‍♂️

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

1 minute ago, HelloThere said:

I’m more ageosexual, I can be turned on I just don’t want to act on it. Everything else is normal, I’m only identifying as that at 15 because that’s EXACTLY how I felt. XD

That's a very cool identity! I've heard about it before and it explains bits of how I act when I experience attraction, but I never really identified as such; but sounds very fascinating!

[HelloThere]

Just now, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

That's a very cool identity! I've heard about it before and it explains bits of how I act when I experience attraction, but I never really identified as such; but sounds very fascinating!

It’s literally everything on the list but the actual desire to act on it. That’s literally me. XD

Though I’d say that the identity that either interests me or I don’t understand is probably gender-fluid, and so far what I understand is that how one feels about their gender just constantly shifts? I just don’t really understand how that happens much but still I respect. Plus the gender-fluid flag looks sick. XD

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

14 minutes ago, HelloThere said:

It’s literally everything on the list but the actual desire to act on it. That’s literally me. XD

Though I’d say that the identity that either interests me or I don’t understand is probably gender-fluid, and so far what I understand is that how one feels about their gender just constantly shifts? I just don’t really understand how that happens much but still I respect. Plus the gender-fluid flag looks sick. XD

It's completely okay to not understand a certain identity! I suggest looking more into it!

I truly don't know how I am this way, but I usually completely understand what a specific identity is? Of course, only in the way I can understand said identity while not being that identity, but I can - most of the time - just, get it. I don't know how, and most commonly this is with identities that confuse the most out of people, like i.e. genderfluid.

[HelloThere]

4 minutes ago, The Newest Fabled Creature said:

It's completely okay to not understand a certain identity! I suggest looking more into it!

I truly don't know how I am this way, but I usually completely understand what a specific identity is? Of course, only in the way I can understand said identity while not being that identity, but I can - most of the time - just, get it. I don't know how, and most commonly this is with identities that confuse the most out of people, like i.e. genderfluid.

Yeah, the main concern with being aroace for me is “oh crap I’m gonna have to explain this every time I’m asked if I’m in a relationship.” Even though I know I could come up with something more like “nah, I don’t really want a relationship”, it still just sounds like something that’d be easier to just explain and then be done. 

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

10 minutes ago, HelloThere said:

Yeah, the main concern with being aroace for me is “oh crap I’m gonna have to explain this every time I’m asked if I’m in a relationship.” Even though I know I could come up with something more like “nah, I don’t really want a relationship”, it still just sounds like something that’d be easier to just explain and then be done. 

That's definitely how I'm gonna be with explaining my aromanticism when I do start going to college, because my mom will be asking me if I'm seeing anyone smh, and that would be my coming out basically. Because the "I'm focused on my studies" can only be my excuse for so long lmao