Aromantic Moments

[Holmbo]

On 11/29/2019 at 5:12 PM, nonmerci said:

Once, I also solved a love triangle with my character realizing that none of his love relationships was healthy and rejecting both girls.

Sounds like the perfect end to a love triangle ?

[pigeonhead]

When you're trying to find a single Webtoon without some sort of romance as the main focus or the entire fanbase being based around characters being attractive because your allo friends want you to read Webtoons but you don't like the plot of any of the ones they like. 

[Blake]

37 minutes ago, pigeonhead said:

When you're trying to find a single Webtoon without some sort of romance as the main focus or the entire fanbase being based around characters being attractive because your allo friends want you to read Webtoons but you don't like the plot of any of the ones they like. 

I can recommend you Tower of God. My fave webtoon. It has some amount of romance between the main character and someone else but it not a romantic lovely doey, it is more platonic (for me it is platonic). Also action and fantasy are what drive the plot, not romance. Also, not spoiling a lot of the plot, but the main character isn't dumb and knows that his feelings aren't reciprocated so there is hope for the main character.

[ScarfOfSexualPreference]

We had this group circle in my high school and we were talking about LGBTQ+ and there was this sheet we had to fill out with bars of sexual and romantic attraction, like a slider, cuz it's a spectrum.

Anyway, I still wasn't sure about anything yet so I said 100% female and left everything else blank.

And that's probably the most aroace thing I've done

[John Rando]

I  once met a new woman in the anarchist squat scene and we had several nice conversations about politics, sociology and stuffs with some friends. Once she said that she liked those conversations and that we should talk like that again some times.

Then at a party she asked my number saying that she "would like to know me better" and that it would be nice if I called her to meet once.

At that time, obviously, I thought it was to discuss about politics and stuffs.

So, I called her two days latter, and I found her quite weird, as she seem strangelly overenthousiastic about my call. We set an appointment at an anarchist canteen I'm part of and that was near her workplace.

At that point I thought about the weird conversation again and concluded that there was 4 possible thing that could explain this situation (in order of probability and interest to me) :

1. She is likes me and would like to be friend with me
2. She trusts me and would like to discuss about an affinity secret project
3. She likes me and would like to date me
4. She is an undercover cop and want to extract informations from me

It turns out that she couldn't come finally but we met during a demonstration a few days latter. She was kinda weird and laughed a lot when we started to talk. Then after we exchanged a few words, seemingly out of the blue she said that she wanted to let me know that she was polyamorous, like if this was very important to tell me that at this moment.

    Hummm...

    Option 3 it is then

    Crap...

Then I said I was aromantic and she asked what that means because she was romantically interested in me. I explained and apologized to have misunderstood her. Then she said we should talk about this some other time and went to see a friend of her. We never actually talked about it later.

Fun fact, this is the only person I'm 100% sure that they were interested in me romantically and/or sexually even if I'm in the second half of my 20's. Why aren't people more explicit about that kind of stuffs with me, . It's so confusing.

_______________

On 4/9/2020 at 12:45 PM, Witch18 said:

My sister and I tried watching the Vampire Diaries and I just I couldn’t finish it. I came for the fantasy and I left for the romance.

Same for me. I loved the Originals though.

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by John Rando

[The Angel of Eternity]

On 5/15/2020 at 11:53 AM, ScarfOfSexualPreference said:

We had this group circle in my high school and we were talking about LGBTQ+ and there was this sheet we had to fill out with bars of sexual and romantic attraction, like a slider, cuz it's a spectrum.

Anyway, I still wasn't sure about anything yet so I said 100% female and left everything else blank.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. What do you mean by "100% female"? That part kind of eluded me.

[ScarfOfSexualPreference]

1 hour ago, The Angel of Eternity said:

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. What do you mean by "100% female"? That part kind of eluded me.

This was the thing we did. You'd make a mark on the slider. I think the idea was that it was a spectrum like romantic attraction and sexual attraction. 

I just put a mark all the way on feminine for the top row and left the bottom row blank, bc at the time I had no clue.

The group leader also said that she wasn't really sure what the difference was between romantic and sexual attraction, and I, still having no clue what I was talking about, said that I "liked the look of boys but I'd rather marry a girl because they're easier to be friends with." Our leader just gave me a weird look.

Looking back, this was probably the most aro thing I'd done.

[~Aurora~]

My sleep deprived mind has just thought of something hilarious

this was pre knowing ace and aro existed

I was 21 at the time, had gone away on a holiday with small group from a university society and they were predrinking and i was just hanging out with them till they went out and I went to my room.

playing have you ever with fingers counting down - needless to say a bunch of uni students against and aroace I really won that with the topics they were saying.

I said never had I kissed anyone, at the time I was very proud of myself for not giving into peer pressure and doing the norm like everyone else, not realising of course that most people are actually attracted to people.

looking back I feel like they probably thought I was insanely weird, although they never said anything about it which was quite nice of them as at the time it would have been really confusing to me

[Oatpunk]

I'm currently playing a bard in my dnd campaign and he's busy with, you know, trying to save the world, so there's not a single thought in my mind to ever flirt with anyone. But then I was told that it's common knowledge the bard is "supposed to" seduce everyone and I was like "ooohhh.....yeah, I don't want to do that". We ended up having a heated discussion about it where I said that I've never flirted with anyone in my whole life and I'm not about to start now, and these people retorted that dnd is my "chance to do that"! As if everyone obviously has some deeply rooted want for romance even when they have explicitly told you about their aromanticism. 

Another Aromantic Moment(tm) was when my character ended up under a spell so that everyone was super attracted to him and I was so uncomfortable. I knew that they were just roleplaying attraction to a character that's not even me but god did I want it to end. I have no idea how to deal with that and it just sort of made me realise how different I am. Like, what would I have done if someone else had gotten the spell put on them? I wouldn't be able to continue acting like normal without feeling really put on the spot and having to start a conversation about how my character is aroace even though I never told the DM about that because it never struck me as something relevant! 

[Queasy_Attention]

My first boyfriend was a guy from my work that I thought was both cool and hot (I later learned he was only one of those things.) We kept our relationship mostly under wraps, but a few other coworkers knew and we'd gossip about it all the time. One time, one of them asked me "so do you see yourself marrying him?" and I went "Oh GOD no, no, never" without thinking. It took her completely by surprise, lol

[starstuff]

On 7/11/2020 at 7:39 AM, Oatpunk said:

I'm currently playing a bard in my dnd campaign and he's busy with, you know, trying to save the world, so there's not a single thought in my mind to ever flirt with anyone. But then I was told that it's common knowledge the bard is "supposed to" seduce everyone and I was like "ooohhh.....yeah, I don't want to do that". We ended up having a heated discussion about it where I said that I've never flirted with anyone in my whole life and I'm not about to start now, and these people retorted that dnd is my "chance to do that"! As if everyone obviously has some deeply rooted want for romance even when they have explicitly told you about their aromanticism. 

Another Aromantic Moment(tm) was when my character ended up under a spell so that everyone was super attracted to him and I was so uncomfortable. I knew that they were just roleplaying attraction to a character that's not even me but god did I want it to end. I have no idea how to deal with that and it just sort of made me realise how different I am. Like, what would I have done if someone else had gotten the spell put on them? I wouldn't be able to continue acting like normal without feeling really put on the spot and having to start a conversation about how my character is aroace even though I never told the DM about that because it never struck me as something relevant! 

Yesssss.   I guess I just assume that everyone in my RPG group knows that all my DnD characters are aroace because I am and my friends know that.  But then my best friend who has just started DMing a new game was like "Oh your character WILL be flirted with at some point, FYI" and I kind of tried to hint that I didn't want that, but she was like "Ok, but that's just how the world is."   And my other friend is playing a bard and he IS going for the stereotypical flirty-bard angle and while I shut his character down immediately, it was still somewhat uncomfortable. 

I am still working on getting up the courage to point out that DnD is supposed to be an escape from reality and that it's supposed to be a space where I feel safe from have to deal with that sort of thing...  ? I feel your pain @Oatpunk.

[Oatpunk]

1 hour ago, starstuff said:

Yesssss.   I guess I just assume that everyone in my RPG group knows that all my DnD characters are aroace because I am and my friends know that.  But then my best friend who has just started DMing a new game was like "Oh your character WILL be flirted with at some point, FYI" and I kind of tried to hint that I didn't want that, but she was like "Ok, but that's just how the world is."   And my other friend is playing a bard and he IS going for the stereotypical flirty-bard angle and while I shut his character down immediately, it was still somewhat uncomfortable. 

I am still working on getting up the courage to point out that DnD is supposed to be an escape from reality and that it's supposed to be a space where I feel safe from have to deal with that sort of thing...  ? I feel your pain @Oatpunk.

"That's just how the world is".... god, people just don't have any respect for us, huh? What's the point of playing a game if we're just forced into the same shitty reality we're already living? I'm sending strength for you to talk to them about it! 

[starstuff]

3 hours ago, Oatpunk said:

"That's just how the world is".... god, people just don't have any respect for us, huh? What's the point of playing a game if we're just forced into the same shitty reality we're already living? I'm sending strength for you to talk to them about it! 

Thank you for your sending over some support!!!!   I think I'm always so wishy-washy about talking to people about his stuff because I've never met another aro person in real life and have never had that understanding and validation.  I know my friends do try, but they just don't GET it.

[Mark]

On 7/11/2020 at 12:39 PM, Oatpunk said:

I'm currently playing a bard in my dnd campaign and he's busy with, you know, trying to save the world, so there's not a single thought in my mind to ever flirt with anyone. But then I was told that it's common knowledge the bard is "supposed to" seduce everyone and I was like "ooohhh.....yeah, I don't want to do that".

Whilst this is something of a Bard stereotype it's not, at least IME, that common. In settings such as Barovia it's unliklely to be of much use at all.
D&D does not have a specific seduction mechanic. Most common would be to use Persuasion, sometimes Performance. Other Charisma based characters such as Paladin, Sorcerer or Warlock can also easily have a high Persuasion modifier. Persuasion can also be used to rebuff another character's interest. Similarly for Intimidation, which is also Charisma based.
Something I find more obviously indirectly arophobic in D&D is the Marriage option.
 

On 7/11/2020 at 12:39 PM, Oatpunk said:

Another Aromantic Moment(tm) was when my character ended up under a spell so that everyone was super attracted to him and I was so uncomfortable. I knew that they were just roleplaying attraction to a character that's not even me but god did I want it to end.

Spells which, directly, change the behaviour of other player characters can easily result in Player Vs Player (PVP) situations. A possible counter to this would the Calm Emotions spell.

On 7/14/2020 at 7:25 PM, starstuff said:

Yesssss.   I guess I just assume that everyone in my RPG group knows that all my DnD characters are aroace because I am and my friends know that.  But then my best friend who has just started DMing a new game was like "Oh your character WILL be flirted with at some point, FYI" and I kind of tried to hint that I didn't want that, but she was like "Ok, but that's just how the world is."

One option is for your character to treat that as an attack.
Though DMs should respect players' limits.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Mark

[Planet]

When you watch movies with ambiguous relationships and always assume the characters are best friends instead of lovers. 

When you accidentally offend an entire forum by posting a thread titled "Romantic Love Doesn't Exist" and are shocked by how personally attacked people feel by this thread. [I just meant that limerence is limerence...it's not love.]

When someone posts a picture on facebook of an old couple holding hands with the caption, "Aw how cute" and you're really surprised and confused by this. 

When love stories usually have no appeal unless there's a really good non-romantic plot also happening and cool characters. 

[If anything, I'm greyromantic, but still v platonically-oriented and these are some of my experiences.]

Edited August 5, 2020 by Planet

[roboticanary]

Recenty I told my younger cousin a joke a friend of mine told me, when my cousin retold it at dinner it had apparently became my girlfriend who told that story.

like no, how did that happen? I was genuinely confused how my description had given the impression of romance to him.

[Bad Things]

On 8/5/2020 at 11:26 PM, Planet said:

When you watch movies with ambiguous relationships and always assume the characters are best friends instead of lovers. 

lol this is relevant. I do love romantic movies (well, if only it is also a comedy). But whenever I watch them, I see every romantic plot as starting of great friendship. 

Still warms my heart though, despite I do not wanna be on their place, just nice to watch people bonding.
 

[MyChemicalQPR]

On 7/11/2020 at 7:39 AM, Oatpunk said:

I'm currently playing a bard in my dnd campaign and he's busy with, you know, trying to save the world, so there's not a single thought in my mind to ever flirt with anyone. But then I was told that it's common knowledge the bard is "supposed to" seduce everyone and I was like "ooohhh.....yeah, I don't want to do that". We ended up having a heated discussion about it where I said that I've never flirted with anyone in my whole life and I'm not about to start now, and these people retorted that dnd is my "chance to do that"! As if everyone obviously has some deeply rooted want for romance even when they have explicitly told you about their aromanticism. 

While I'm comfortable with playing characters who aren't aspec, my two bards are both aro specifically for the fun of messing with the trope. 

One of them is very extroverted, confident, and friendly, and in doing my darndest to portray that when I am not so much those things, it apparently it comes off as accidental flirting sometimes. It's nicely in character, really, as they're totally romance oblivious unless it's spelled out for them. 

Fortunately my ttrpg friends are all queer, some of them also aspec, so there aren't any issues over my or others' aspec characters. 

[FaerySilverwings]

6 hours ago, MyChemicalQPR said:

While I'm comfortable with playing characters who aren't aspec, my two bards are both aro specifically for the fun of messing with the trope. 

One of them is very extroverted, confident, and friendly, and in doing my darndest to portray that when I am not so much those things, it apparently it comes off as accidental flirting sometimes. It's nicely in character, really, as they're totally romance oblivious unless it's spelled out for them. 

Fortunately my ttrpg friends are all queer, some of them also aspec, so there aren't any issues over my or others' aspec characters. 

Continuing on from what you and @Oatpunk said: Both of you sound like the kind of bards I would be thrilled to have as players.

Being the DM and being aromantic is a weird combination sometimes. As a player, you only have the one character that may or may not be flirted with... as the DM, any time one of my players tries to flirt with an NPC it's me that's on the other side of that interaction. And I am terrible at trying to role-play flirting. And since I don't think of it by default, unless one of my players instigates it or I'm planning to use the flirty NPC to kill/betray them later for plot reasons I just forget to include it in the game.

 Luckily I have a group that doesn't push me too far most of the time, but there is so much potential for awkwardness... and for the most part I tend to just steer my game away from romance/seduction type interactions. Come to think of it, in my current campaign for the most part the only time my players bring up either thing is to laugh at the tropes or because of some running joke or other we've acquired over the three years I've been running it. [Sidenote: As far as I know, all of my players are allo of some kind, and I'm not sure how aware any of them are about my aroace-ness (since I didn't have the words until recently but they've known me for 3+years now...).]

Funnily enough, though, the only bard I've ever had in my game is more of the "mischief maker" than the "seducer". Our swashbuckler, on the other hand... well, "bisexual tomcat" is an accurate description. He literally tried to seduce Tiamat once. At 2nd level. It didn't work out. (His dice were on my side, he ended up cursed... Long story.) The running joke with my party is that he's going to try again at the final confrontation they're bound to have with her, but seriously... Tiamat does not find you attractive, swashbuckler! There are not enough dice in the multiverse to roll high enough to change that.

I think my most highly aromantic DM moment was the time I turned a pair of monsters into recurring characters to deal with the problem of having to awkwardly role-play flirting with two of my players:

1. Swashbuckler keeps trying to romance all of my NPCs on this never-ending caravan escort module. (And Sorcerer-I-later-kicked-out-of-game has openly said that one of his character's goals is to acquire a girlfriend even though his IRL girlfriend plays with us too and it's so weird because he wasn't interested in relationship-ing her character.)
2. Swashbuckler also has a thing for elves but knows better than to flirt with the elf paladin in the party.
3. Okay, module says two "buxom" elf-form doppelgängers are going to show up and try to seduce/kill members of the party. I can work with this.
4. Let doppelgängers infiltrate according to text, and specifically let them awkwardly reciprocate interest from Swashbuckler and Sorcerer. (Initially plan for them to turn on the party according to text, and then have different, brilliant idea to make them part of the actual plot)
5. Have one doppelgänger declare herself Swashbuckler's girlfriend. Swashbuckler takes the bait. Excellent. Now I can just hand wave that he's off with her in the evenings instead of sleeping near the rest of the party and just occasionally reference that she's affectionate towards him.
6. Other stuff happens in caravan and someone tries to murder Swashbuckler in his sleep (and technically succeeds, but then he's possessed and then he gets better later... long story.)
   1. Dice cooperate with me when his girlfriend deals with the assassin. Nat 20. She kills them in one round, unarmed, and unclothed, by slamming them into the ground in one hit.
7. Swashbuckler no longer tries to flirt with my NPCs, he's pretty sure his girlfriend wouldn't like that.

 

[roboticanary]

I love the rpg all the related  stories here, it seems they are on the one hand wierd and uncomfortable but on the other can be an amazing way to explore your aro identity without being confronted in real life.

Anyway here's a little story I had from a while back.

Me and a few friends were playing a game called 'everyone is John'. basically everyone takes control of part of John's brain and tries to get him to complete tasks ranging from simple to impossible without John becoming bored or being knocked out. (although in our version John is a robot and we are parts of his faulty programming). 

One of the features is that each player chooses a skill for John which activates when they are in control. So your aspect of John could have x-ray vision, say or have some form of mind control. Or in my case, have incredible sex appeal and try to solve every problem by dropping his trousers infront of crowds of people. (then they would turn a blind eye to me stealing a parachute, or throwing a cat at the pope*).

This went fine until the GM made one of the NPCs react by asking to take things slower and go for a meal. I instantly thought this would cause failure by boredom and ran naked out of a petshop. Looking back before the game we had spent a while talking about a cat cafe that had opened recently and I suspect this was the GM being clever and helping me find a convenient kitty without making the game too easy. But my aro-brain had, despite not knowing the word aro yet, decided that a romantic meal was a plot to make me pass out from boredom.

 

*for context, not that you want any. My impossible goal was to appoint a cat as pope. So my plan was to fling a cat at the pope, then convince the college of cardinals that there was an ancient rule that the title of pope could be claimed using trial by combat, and that the cat won fair and square, hence pope kitty the 1st. Yes this is a very stupid game.

[Neon]

Today I realized that people have had crushes on me.

I was told by these people as well as by third parties of this fact.

I technically knew, but my brain just comprehended the fact and went, "Hey! People liking you means they had a crush on you which means they had the crush stuff towards you."

[Holmbo]

I think it would be fun to have a very flirty game. In my Expanse game we're all pretty much just business partners atm. I wouldn't mind playing a very seductive character who keep trying to manipulate everyone though sex. I don't think I'd be that interested in roleplaying something romantic though. 

[shotinthehand]

On 9/26/2020 at 1:53 PM, roboticanary said:

I love the rpg all the related  stories here, it seems they are on the one hand wierd and uncomfortable but on the other can be an amazing way to explore your aro identity without being confronted in real life.

Anyway here's a little story I had from a while back.

Me and a few friends were playing a game called 'everyone is John'. basically everyone takes control of part of John's brain and tries to get him to complete tasks ranging from simple to impossible without John becoming bored or being knocked out. (although in our version John is a robot and we are parts of his faulty programming). 

One of the features is that each player chooses a skill for John which activates when they are in control. So your aspect of John could have x-ray vision, say or have some form of mind control. Or in my case, have incredible sex appeal and try to solve every problem by dropping his trousers infront of crowds of people. (then they would turn a blind eye to me stealing a parachute, or throwing a cat at the pope*).

This went fine until the GM made one of the NPCs react by asking to take things slower and go for a meal. I instantly thought this would cause failure by boredom and ran naked out of a petshop. Looking back before the game we had spent a while talking about a cat cafe that had opened recently and I suspect this was the GM being clever and helping me find a convenient kitty without making the game too easy. But my aro-brain had, despite not knowing the word aro yet, decided that a romantic meal was a plot to make me pass out from boredom.

 

*for context, not that you want any. My impossible goal was to appoint a cat as pope. So my plan was to fling a cat at the pope, then convince the college of cardinals that there was an ancient rule that the title of pope could be claimed using trial by combat, and that the cat won fair and square, hence pope kitty the 1st. Yes this is a very stupid game.

Ah, Everyone is John is fun!

My friend group is unhappy with how the original misrepresents DID, so we decided we're going to run it as demons vying for possession of John. Your version is cool too!

We also played a game where someone's goal was to get John to become pope.

[PeepsInTheChiliPot]

A couple years ago I made a list of things I wanted to do with my life and I remember putting getting married on there because that’s a thing I’m supposed to want to do. But it never felt right or like an actual want and now I know why. 

[Guest Bluebird]

After I figured out that I was aro, we had the sex ed unit in health class. That class is the worst thing for everyone, but it was even worse for me. The lack of mention of lgbt made it soo much worse, and all the videos and textbooks are all like , "everyone wants romantic relationships". But the moment I remember the most is when our teacher asked the class what we liked in a romantic partner and we had to go around the room and answer. When she got to me I just shrugged. She then insisted "you must have something." Once again, I just shrugged. Then we had to write it up on the whiteboard and of course didn't know what to write, a whole mess f il called with anxiety. I wanted to honestly run out of the classroom in that moment. It's moments like that one where you really hate being aro and wish that you could just be like everyone else.