Am I Aromantic?

[HopelessAromantic]

New here. Just started to figure all of this out over the last week or so and I'm having a bit of an identity crisis. I've been reading through a lot of posts here and so much of it is relatable. I think I'm either aromantic or demiromantic. I'm 27 and I've never been in a relationship. I've always liked the idea of a relationship in theory, but I've never really met anyone who made me want one in reality. I've always heard that I'm supposed to "just know." I've spent a long time thinking maybe I just haven't met the right person, but now I'm questioning that. Realizing this now, it makes so much more sense how other people seem to just fall into relationships. It also explains why things like kissing or pet names are kind of off-putting to me. Also why I've always felt like other people must be exaggerating their romantic feelings or like movies and TV are dramatizing it, but apparently people actually feel that way? I guess all I've ever felt is platonic attraction + sexual attraction and I've been confusing that for romantic attraction, but other people are just feeling something entirely different? I could use some help getting my head around this lol.

I do think there's a possibility that I'm demiromantic. I may have felt romantic attraction once a few months back and everything that's always confused me about relationships started to make sense. But I was also going through a whole different crisis at the time, so it's hard to use that as a reference point and I have nothing else to compare it to. It pushed me to start dating to find out, though, even though I have no idea what I'm doing. Send help. ?

[alto]

Just live your life and everything will be revealed in time?

[DeltaAro]

Aromantic, demiromantic, etc. are really just label that are supposed to help you in communicating how you feel and to create a sense of community, or a relief to know that there are other people who feel like you.

But if you identify with a label, you still wake up the next morning as the same person.

The decisions you make OTOH make a concrete difference. Like: Do I want to make further attempts at a romantic relationship? Theoretically, theoretically if you do not, you may miss the love of your life!

IDK in your case. Personally after a long period of doubt I don’t regret that I just 100% removed the romo-part from my life. Contrary to all the cultural programming, I simply do not miss it at all. I like to get “friend-zoned”. But I also 100% know that I would regret never having sex.

[HopelessAromantic]

@DeltaVYeah, I care less about the label than actually understanding myself. But I think I've been trying to match up my experience with what other people seem to experience and it just hasn't made sense. Trying to force it to make sense has just caused a lot of anxiety. It feels pretty good to read through this forum and be able to relate to a lot of it. I should mention I'm a bit neurodivergent and figuring that out as an adult was its own adventure lol. I'm starting to think my brain just isn't wired for romance, but that realization also involves redefining a lot of things that I thought I knew about myself and that's kind of where I'm struggling. I guess I want intimacy, but I don't want romance and its hard to separate those two for me when, culturally, they're so closely connected, especially for men. I guess that explains why I tend to prefer female friends. This is a lot of figure out lol.

[Nessa]

Sometimes it just takes time to figure out who we really are and we are all so different from each other even people in the arospectrum.

Maybe just takes time to figure out how you feel in different romantic situations, if you feel comfortable with men, with the idea of dating, how do you feel during a date? When you know that you have a date? Analyze how you feel before going to the date?

Or you can simply live your life, do whatever you love doing, enjoying yourself, making your life what you wanna it to be in the other part of it and everyting will just come clear on its own someday. 

You are the only one who can know who you really are but don't stop enjoying your life because you are still trying to understand it.

 

 

[DeltaAro]

On 11/21/2021 at 8:36 PM, HopelessAromantic said:

I guess I want intimacy, but I don't want romance and its hard to separate those two for me when, culturally, they're so closely connected, especially for men.

I’m too aro to understand the concept of “intimacy”. For me there’s (a) simply … sex, (b) physical affection (like cuddling) and (c) emotional trust. I like them all, but care the most about (c) and the least about (b). It’s (c) that I really, really, really want. (a) is the spice of my life. And (b) is nice to have but I could do without.