Do you ever wish you had found out earlier?

[roboticanary]

I found out about the idea of aromanticism whenn I was heading into my mid twenties and looking back, there is a bit of me that wishes I had just known that this was a thing back through my teens. Even if I never told anyone just to have some understanding of what I was experiencing.

Anyone else here feeling the same? or wish you could go back and tell your younger self about aromanticism?

[Bas]

Oh yeah. I think about this all the time. If I knew I was aro to begin with it probably would've saved me a heck of a lot of trouble. My unawareness of my inherent aromanticism contributed to a lot of internalized biphobia as a matter of fact, as, since I didn't have a good way of differentiating my sexuality from romantic attraction, I was constantly sent into a questioning spiral of doom. Do I really like this person? Am I really attracted to them? Am I faking? etc etc etc. Very anxiety inducing to be sure. Knowing ahead of time that aromanticism was a thing, and that it was possible to be both aro & allosexual, might've mitigated this at least a little bit.

[IA_8HAchi]

Absolutely.

[Erederyn]

I came across aromanticism for the first time at around 18-19ish, which is relatively young, but there was so little information on it that I kind of just dismissed it for some time until my mid-20s when there was more information out there which helped me better realize I was aro and come to terms with it. So I suppose rather than finding out earlier, I wish I had more resources available to me earlier to better help me because then maybe I'd have established that with myself earlier.

[Sam Spade]

Yes... it wouldn't really have changed anything, I've always acted aro. It would've made me feel more "normal" though. 

[Scoop]

5 hours ago, Erederyn said:

I came across aromanticism for the first time at around 18-19ish, which is relatively young, but there was so little information on it that I kind of just dismissed it for some time until my mid-20s when there was more information out there

I did the same thing haha. I remember reading "aromantic means you lack romantic attraction" and not connecting that to "hey you've never liked anyone ever". When I first learnt about it - I think I was also around 19 - there was so little information beyond that. Then two years later I think?? I read some story with an aro character explaining what aromantic meant and was like as an experience and suddenly I could relate. 

For those two years I was IDing as panromantic. For the classic reason lots of aros do lol "I feel the same way about everyone therefore it's all and not nothing". There’s just no room in any narratives for no attraction or no romance. It would have been nice to know sooner bc panromantic is such an inaccurate description of me. I would have known myself and what I wanted out of life sooner.

[pinewillowbirch]

having grown up allo and only recently at the point of embracing and exploring aro feelings, i definitely wish i knew sooner. i think i kind of just expected myself to be allo and that it was almost a requirement, if that makes sense, to date. like a very conditioned thing. in a lot of ways, i think dating was a sense of safety for me from the rejection i faced from my own family - in the form of expectations i never met, appearances i felt i had to keep. if i had know about aro sooner, i think i would've been able to ease the gas and not feel the pressure to date like i now realize i did.

[Holmbo]

I'm not sure I would have accepted it when I was younger. It took me some experience with dating and romantic relationships to be sure it wasn't for me. However if aromanticism and asexuality would have been more commonly known I might have had an easier time accepting them.

[roboticanary]

On 1/20/2021 at 8:10 PM, Erederyn said:

I kind of just dismissed it for some time until my mid-20s when there was more information out there which helped me better realize I was aro

ah, that is something I completely hadn't thought of. I just found out about aromanticism after there was quite a lot of info around so never considered it would be something people would find but dismiss.

 

15 hours ago, Holmbo said:

I'm not sure I would have accepted it when I was younger. It took me some experience with dating and romantic relationships to be sure it wasn't for me.

fair enough. I guess that is something that can't really be solved by just finding out earlier, the experience is useful.

[cassssssss]

Kinda. Tho I’m still unsure, I would’ve been more chill around the opposite gender because then I’d know I won’t get teased and stuff haha

[nonmerci]

Not really. Probably because I never tried to be in couple or whatever.

But I admit that if I found out earlier, it would have prevent me to lose time watching pictures of people, or exciting scenes in movies, trying to feel attraction (though it was more an asexual thing here).

I also would have spent less time wondering what is my orientation... though I'm not sure I would have accept it so easily when I was younger.

 

Something strange : as other people here I remember that I have seen the word aromantic and even more asexual before, but it never come to my mind as something that applied to me. Maybe I confused asexual with "not having sex", but most of all the only times I see the word was in people jokes about friendship between boy and girl (responding too people who say it doesn't exist because attraction, that asexual can be friend with everyone). That was probably not serious enough for my mind to understand.

 

For aromantic this is worse : I saw it used in a way that made me think aromantic = psychopath... Not something I would identify with.

[eatingcroutons]

Nah, I don't think it would have changed much for me. In my case "discovering I was aro" mostly meant I found out there was a word for things I'd already known and accepted about myself, and came to the conclusion that those things were unlikely to ever change.

Before that I'd never had a problem with the fact that I'd never met anyone I wanted a romantic relationship with. As far as I was concerned if it happened one day then great, but in the meantime I had far more important things going on in my life. Whenever my parents started to make noises about marriage and children I'd be like, "What do you want me to do, pick some random person off the street and start procreating?"

And then right about the time I started to wonder if it was maybe a bit unusual that I was in my 30s and still wasn't interested in having a relationship with anyone, I discovered the term "aromantic" and started learning that plenty of other people feel the same way. So I guess I came across the concept at pretty much exactly the right time!

[Apathetic Echidna]

I am sort of conflicted, It would have been great to know all the aro stuff I know now back when I was 16-17 (which is when I first heard of asexual) rather than 26. However, it is a community much richer with connections, platforms, and vocabulary now than what it was. So even if I knew I would have still felt isolated and vaguely threatened, like ....the only duck on the shooting range.

.........actually knowing in highschool would probably have been much worse for me because knowing about aromanticism has made me more sensitive to microagressions and aphobia. And it just happens my ex-bestfriend is/was very aphobic among other things...

[GhostyPeppers]

As someone who had a pretty lonely childhood and had "romantic relationships are the best" shoved in my face constantly, I think knowing a lot sooner would have helped prevent me from getting into horrible situations. Trying to force yourself to feel things that you don't feel can be very confusing and pretty damaging, at least for me it was. I remember going into my new classroom everyday since Elementary and basically picking one person at random to decide to have a crush on (mainly boys) because I just assumed thats how everyone else did it?

And then there was sexual attraction which made things MUCH more confusing dating wise. I would feel sexual attraction in middle/highschool and just...assumed thats what love was? Wanting to bone? Thats how the media portrayed it at least (love at first sight or whatever).

 

Sorry for the ramble but, this thread just got me thinking a lot about how I tried to force myself to be romantic as a substitute for happiness and belonging.