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what are the advantages or disadvantages to living in your country as an aromantic?


Holmbo

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Though it isn’t expected to get married and have kids where i live, people talk about relationships a lot and whom celebrities or anyone else they have a crush on.

 

Meehh

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Two disadvantages that immediately come to mind. Many apartments don't allow for sharing, so finding a place with friends is hard. In the country I lived before, there weren't such restrictions (at least not in the state I was in). Also, there aren't any local aro groups and very little knowledge about aromanticism in the country I live in now.

The good thing is that being not getting married is pretty normal for the most part here, so people don't get on my case for that. It's still pretty (amato)normative here, though. 

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For the advantages, fairly good attitude towards remaining single for longer is good. On the sex side, sex outside of marriage isn't really a problem for all but a few nutters and sex outside of romance is more tolerated than other parts of the world (although I wouldn't say accepted, especially as you get older).

Also the UK generally has quite good general access to medical products and advice if you are looking to have sex, so if you are for instance worried you may have an std you aren't likely to be paying a small fortune just to get a test.

As for the disadvantages, house sharing is a pain in the arse outside of a romantic relationship. I've linked to this blog before which gives one view on it https://barefoot-backpacker.com/observations-on-the-uk-housing-market/

Buying a place is also a pain. Where I am looking a combination of leasehold vs freehold, service charges that take the piss and a general lack of flats and apartments in cheaper areas leads to an incredibly dumb situation. It could end up being cheaper long term  to buy an entire 2 up 2 down terrace house for 1 person than to buy all but the cheapest of apartments.

Other than that, for a sizeable part of our population there is a general dislike of both any higher education or experts combined with any obscure identities seen as queer being seen as student nonsense. If I were to talk about anything even approaching aromanticism I would likely be thought of as a communist. I have no fucking clue how to explain this so I guess I should just yell POLITICS and leave it at that.

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3 hours ago, roboticanary said:

For the advantages, fairly good attitude towards remaining single for longer is good. On the sex side, sex outside of marriage isn't really a problem for all but a few nutters and sex outside of romance is more tolerated than other parts of the world (although I wouldn't say accepted, especially as you get older).

Also the UK generally has quite good general access to medical products and advice if you are looking to have sex, so if you are for instance worried you may have an std you aren't likely to be paying a small fortune just to get a test.

As for the disadvantages, house sharing is a pain in the arse outside of a romantic relationship. I've linked to this blog before which gives one view on it https://barefoot-backpacker.com/observations-on-the-uk-housing-market/

Buying a place is also a pain. Where I am looking a combination of leasehold vs freehold, service charges that take the piss and a general lack of flats and apartments in cheaper areas leads to an incredibly dumb situation. It could end up being cheaper long term  to buy an entire 2 up 2 down terrace house for 1 person than to buy all but the cheapest of apartments.

Other than that, for a sizeable part of our population there is a general dislike of both any higher education or experts combined with any obscure identities seen as queer being seen as student nonsense. If I were to talk about anything even approaching aromanticism I would likely be thought of as a communist. I have no fucking clue how to explain this so I guess I should just yell POLITICS and leave it at that.

Well, the last part of your paragraph really sounds funny to me. It reminds me of the time I studied abroad in the USA and I heard some people talking about university like it was some type of communist indoctrination camp where people learn about the 1 million different types of genders. And I learnt about Fox News, the propaganda channel that disseminates such information. Though such notions about aromanticism and queer idenities being a communist thing aren't unexactly uncommon amongst the only major left wing party (if you can call it that), the Democratic party.

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3 hours ago, MulticulturalFarmer said:

Though such notions about aromanticism and queer idenities being a communist thing aren't unexactly uncommon amongst the only major left wing party

From my experience in the UK it is not that they are communist but rather the belief that you can pin someones entire economic and political affiliations just from that one view on a small issue. i.e. if someone talks about obscure sexualities they must believe these things about economics or other areas of politics. Not completely mad I guess in that there will likely be some broad correlations between views on a range of issues but that sometimes goes a bit off the rails.

Also just that the idea of a student/young academic activist type is a really convenient political punching bag means I know damn well to keep my mouth shut.

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11 hours ago, roboticanary said:

From my experience in the UK it is not that they are communist but rather the belief that you can pin someones entire economic and political affiliations just from that one view on a small issue. i.e. if someone talks about obscure sexualities they must believe these things about economics or other areas of politics. Not completely mad I guess in that there will likely be some broad correlations between views on a range of issues but that sometimes goes a bit off the rails.

Also just that the idea of a student/young academic activist type is a really convenient political punching bag means I know damn well to keep my mouth shut.

It was quite similar there, in the USA as well. There was the idea that people who believe in obscure sexuality and/or gender identities are far left types. I wonder if it's an anglosphere thing with those types of ideas. But who knows, since stuff that happens in the English speaking countries literally influences the entire world, hahahaha.

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In Sweden it's also common idea that leftist politics is tied together with labeling of identities. I think it's because left leaning ideologies are more concerned with inclusion than right leaning ones and so will bring these concepts out more. There's also a connection where people who work with words and discourse are more often left leaning. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

A few I'd missed earlier.

On the good side, free at service healthcare, great in general but also means not having a need for health insurance which as per usual can be made cheaper for a couple.

As I'm going a lot of places alone the general level of street safety is another big plus. Not the best in the world but I can get through my daily life without much fear.

On the downsides, still a lot of benefits to marriage including a fairly important tax one regarding inheritance. Would be nice to see that become less so.

Also auto passing of assets without a will is really useful. Not the worst but annoying that a spouse can get that but siblings can't. 

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It is easier for me to live as a single person (and in particular as a single woman). Sure there can have romantic pressure, but none or my parents is paying a woman to find me a husband (I don't know what the word for this job in English, but I know someone who has to face this, and this is not funny).

A problem however is that aromanticism is even known here than it is in the USA. So I become a dictionary anytime I come out.

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  • 7 months later...

One other thing I think is an advantage for me is that since so much about aromanticism is online and so much of it is in english. Being a native english speaker becomes incredibly useful, and the education I was able to get where it came to knowing my way around a computer was certainly a help. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/6/2022 at 12:54 AM, roboticanary said:

One other thing I think is an advantage for me is that since so much about aromanticism is online and so much of it is in english. Being a native english speaker becomes incredibly useful, and the education I was able to get where it came to knowing my way around a computer was certainly a help. 

Well I'm going to say this is a disadvantage for me. In particular as we don't use words like "romantic remationship" so the word "aromantic" always feel unpractical for me. People think we mean that we dob't like candle light dinner and things like that...

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On 8/14/2022 at 2:22 PM, nonmerci said:

Well I'm going to say this is a disadvantage for me. In particular as we don't use words like "romantic remationship" so the word "aromantic" always feel unpractical for me. People think we mean that we dob't like candle light dinner and things like that...

oh thats really interesting, definitely not keen on people thinking I dont want dinners

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