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What made you question(?) if you were aromantic?


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It wasn't one specific thing. I rarely dated in high school, or after. I assumed there was something wrong with me, due to traumatic upbringing, and spent a lot of my adult life trying to rebuild my confidence. Because it's always a confidence issue. I did it all, self-help, fitness, martial arts, all the things guys do when they need to build confidence. It worked, but I still wasn't dating. It must be social confidence. I got a job where I'm exposed to people all day. All that got me was a realization I'm asocial as well. Years passed and, after a few toxic girlfriends I took up with out of desperation and an affair I shouldn't have gotten into, I was just weary of trying and sort of gave up. Then over the last couple of years I began thinking this is just my nature. I didn't have vocabulary to describe it yet. I made comparisons to a man who's gay, but tries to be attracted to women because that's what he's conditioned to believe, but after years of failures suddenly understands who he truly is. Except in my case it's lack of attraction I was suppressing.  Then a few months ago the word "aromantic" was randomly brought up in a video I was watching (btw any fans of Megamind hear the theory that Metro Man is aro?) and down the rabbit hole I went. 

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i think i've always assumed crushes and love was for the movies and cheesy romcoms, and never really put much thought into it until somoene had a crush on me

i mean, to be fair, i'll admit i treated him quite unfairly (but then again he did some things that looking back were also not right) but i was mostly just holding up so much anger and paranoia about shit

and then i talked about it with an online counsolor and she told me about asexuality and eventually that led me to aromanticism

 

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One day I came across the label aromantic somewhere on the internet, probably youtube or something like that. I started watching videos  and reading about aromanticism and types of attraction, even a book on aromanticism, and the more I heard and read about it, the more I had the feeling that this fits me. So many things just make sense and feel right. Even things that I never even questioned about myself before or that never crossed my mind, simply because those things are so normal to me.

I guess there were some kind of signs all along, like my past relationships that never held long and were really draining to hold upright. And never understanding that type of love and being weirded out by some actions and problems others had that I simply couldn't get.

Also, I always felt like there was something wrong with me for not understanding romantic relationships and for not being able to relating to people telling me about their relationships and feelings and also their relationship problems. It felt like there was a whole other world that I simply had no access to. Now I know why.

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Books. (All the best things come from books.) Specifically Not Your Backup by CB Lee, part of a series about queer superheroes.

Which was kind of strange, because I came across the term aromantic less than two months earlier in a different book, but I guess that one just didn’t register.

This was followed by a week of feeling like my life was falling apart and staying up all night doing google research. And now I’m ~fine

 

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Just found out.  Have a bi friend who is also my platonic soulmate.  She was telling me about only feeling romantic with women and not men, even though we have had sex.  So I had 100 questions and I started to feel really stupid at 41 years old not understanding what the difference was.  So after some therapy and soul searching I did a lot of reflecting over past relationships.  My entire life I thought the platonic love was what romance was supposed to be.  Now I get why I failed at relationships as soon as it turned from platonic to romantic.  I just thought I was not a normal dude.  I never crushed, never did flings.  And the feeling in your stomach when romance arises. Feels like swallowing nails.  I sometimes feel guilty and want to call my exes to apologize for wasting their time. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/7/2022 at 5:58 PM, Samantha Kaut said:

 I think what made me question was a lot of things lol!

- The first guy I ever really had a "thing" with, I talked to him because I felt like I should? More than I wanted to. I felt like I was holding some big secret from him and I at the time didn't understand how I felt, but I knew I wasn't attracted to him and I had to break things off before things went further.

- All of my "crushes" have been mainly aesthetic and more of me fantasizing about a relationship, rather than actually being attracted to them

- I really don't care about not talking to anyone. I don't feel the need to be in a relationship with someone.

- I've had so many celebrity/tv/movie crushes because it's 1) aesthetic 2) just the idea

- Omg lmao. i remember in middle school I went to the movie theater, I think I was with someone? But for the moment I was alone. Someone came up to me and asked me if i believed in love at first sight and I was just in shock LMAO and was like yoooo buddy I have no clue

 

!!!

Literally me except I want a relationship and I've never had a celebrity crush

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The fact that I can't tell the difference between a romantic relationship and a close platonic one was a big part of why I started suspend I was aro. And apparently people have real crushes and not just made up ones cause that's how you do, discovered that this year... and I'm not very young. 

 

Hearing about QPR was also a helping part, that you can have a special relationship with someone without it being either romantic or sexual. 

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So I had figured out that I was ace. And one of the biggest signs was just giving up on stories with romance in them because I thought that they were boring. I also didn't realize that people actually had the desire to date someone (or multiple people). When I was in middle school I hadn't liked a goddamn soul. I thought that if I moved somewhere else that maybe I could just fall in love somehow, which was also wrong. I realized that I'd probably get comfortable with myself and friends, and then I kinda just ignored that feeling. I had no idea what attraction was and I still don't get it, though I can guess what others feel. I thought that I was pansexual/panromantic because I just loved everyone. I thought that everyone had a story to tell, and that was beautiful, so I thought "mmm yes...that must mean romance, totally...wouldn't date anyone....but I feel some attraction, right?!". And then I read loveless and my brain just went "this is more relatable then usual....wait...NONONONononno...no...not another crisis...AHHHHH!!". I looked up aroaceflux and was like "maybe that could be me?". The problem was I always felt aro and ace, everyday, but I was kinda desperate and wished to have some amount of attraction. Then I watched Jaiden animations "Being not straight" video and I started to accept that I was aroace and that there was nothing wrong with that. I delve into some research and now I've arrived where I am today (also I had a gender crisis going on at the same time and have concluded I'm transmasc and nonbinary). So yeah, there were so many signs and I ignored them simply because I wanted to fit in. Once I stopped trying to fit in, I started to question and you know the rest.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I didn't really have a questioning period (that I can remember. However, my mind is a black hole where memories go to die, so take that with a grain of salt), but as far as I remember, I was watching some youtube video on different LGBTQ identities (why? No clue), and they mentioned aromanticism... and it just clicked

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I started questioning during my first and only romantic relationship. I was already questioning what genders I was romantically attracted to but hadn't considered being aro until dating. 

I started thinking I might be aro about 6 months into the relationship, (we dated for 8 months.) I remember being super confused why I was uncomfortable with doing romantic-coded things, especially in public. Now I know that was because I am romance repulsed most of the time. Even hugging made me uncomfortable which was especially confusing because I love hugging people, just not in romantic contexts. 

I realized that I am definitely aro after we broke up and analyzing my feelings during the relationship more. 

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i never develop any romantic attraction toward people that looks pretty to me. normally the people around me would say they want that person as their romantic partner but i dont feel the same way. i simply think those people looks pretty and move on. though that might not be enough condition for me to be aro because the pretty people are mostly celebrities so being in a romantic relationship with them would be impossible anyways

but during middle school when everyone started caring about crushes and shit i stayed indifferent. never had a crush my entire life i started to notice somethings up with me

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i would see everyone getting into romantic relationships and just think "you can't be serious, right? isn't this a bit young for that...?"

later after my questioning my asexuality was over i got the aro part pretty quick, since there was no fetish or anything in the way of me figuring it out

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I started questioning after I read the book loveless and new what it was first I thought that I was Demi romantic but later aromantic felt better I was questioning myself for a very long time because I thought I had a crush on someone and never told anyone about him so it wasn’t to fit in but my reasons for having a crush on him where that he was the only boy in the class who was nice to me I guess I felt kinda forced to have a crush on him. When we where going to different schools it was very easy to just say goodbye and never think about him again. Always when I meet someone and they are nice I really want to be friends with then and sometimes I thought that it was romantic attraction but it never was.

I have ones told my brother (2 years younger than me) that my ideale life when I life alone was living with a good friend or with a cat like I don’t want a partner he told it to my mom and know we have sometimes at dinner that she brings it up and is like you say this now but later when you have find a great man… or women (the women part would be great if I was a lesbian or bi or pan) and you will think different. No mom I want to live alone when I’m older

 

with my friend I’m always like eww romantic relationships for me and like I want to live alone or with a friend when I’m older and I have one friend who was like it would be funny if I film this and then show it to your future boyfriend (sometimes that made me question myself and if I was really aromantic) I have talked with one of my best friend about wanting to live with a friend later or a cat and I asked her what she wants later and she said with my partner but with a friend would also be a lot of fun. She is a good friend 

I once tried to it to another friend when I thought I was demiromantic about it and she showed me the video from jaidenanimations about being aro ace (I’m a big animation videos fan so I had already seen it( I found out that she was also a big fan of animation videos)). I think that if I would tell her she would be very supportive 

 

Edited by Ella
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  • 4 weeks later...

well first i came to terms with realizing i'm asexual after a year of contemplating, and then i started to think about my romantic orientation. my whole life i knew i experience attraction not the same way as others, i just never knew how to explain it. my friends would be obsessed with their crushes, and i would just never have any and pretend i'd have one by picking one of their friends to have a fake crush on to fit in. the idea of being in a romantic relationship never appealed to me, as it always felt like something i had to be in to feel accepted. i would tell myself that maybe i would eventually fall in love when i got older but, as i did get older i realized i still had zero interest in romance. for a while i thought i was asexual & panromantic because i thought i experienced romantic attraction regardless on gender. even now i'm still unsure of where i fall on the aro spectrum, so i just label myself as aroace and i feel that fits me best :)

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  • 4 weeks later...

I decided to write a romantic letter for my (now ex) girlfriend, but after I finished it, something just didn't feel right. And I had no idea why. After all, I wrote that I wanted to be by her side & I made sure to involve the word "love" a few times, but it still wasn't romantic enough. It was more like a letter you'd rather write for you friend than a significant other.

After that event, I started researching about aromanticism (because I already knew about this term back then, I just never bothered to even find a proper explanation of what it means to be aromantic), and I've realized that I must be somewhere on this spectrum. I started identifying as aroflux, then demiromantic and greyromantic, but nowadays I'm able to tell that I was just afraid of admitting that I'm be fully aromantic.

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  • 4 weeks later...

i actually assumed i was pan for ages cause yknow i felt the same about everyone but uh yh. turns out that i just felt nothing all around, whoops.

one day a couple years back, i made this one friend at school and i managed to convince myself that i had a crush on her (i actually had to put on romantic music and had to think about loving her really hard, such an aro moment), i asked her out and we dated for a solid 3 days before i realised that everytime that i thought of her since we had started dating, i felt sick to my stomach. like i would think about going to school and seeing her and i would feel like throwing up. didnt help that a bunch of her classmates shipped us, which was what actually pressured me into thinking i liked her. i broke up with her over text (yikes) and looked into the arospec community. i thought i was lithro for a while, and asked her to be my qpp, though we eventually broke it off for unrelated reasons.

i tried out tons of different labels for a while, i lost count of how many but i figured myslef out eventually. i was and still am really lucky that nearly everyone i care about does not give a single shit if im aro or not, and im even luckier that my best friends didnt get sick of my perpetual identity crisis. though the two of them do still like to tease me occasionally about my 3 day long one and only relationship lmao

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For me, it was the fact that I still love someone right now, and I'm still in a relationship. I had a pretty abusive relationship for a year, and I thought that because of that I couldn't feel romantic attraction anymore, so I always felt like it was a 'you're traumatized' situation, not a 'you never felt romantic attraction in the first place'. 

I also had a crush for a year and a half, but it wasn't ever romantic I figured out. I'm working around with my partner and we're considering the label of being 'in a queer platonic relationship' since we're both aroace but to be honest we're not really just 'best friends' and she agreed that as well. 

The thing is, I don't want to live alone. I don't want to be alone, and I'm actually quite fond of people, but I've sort of always imposed romance onto myself because of the fear that everyone will eventually choose romance over their friends. All the 'found family' and 'living with friends' tropes were always my favourite in literature, and I always wanted that sort of relationship with my friends and I figured: it's ok for a while, but then after a certain age they will both end up having romantic feelings and I don't want to have romantic feelings and I can't. So that's probably when I decided to consult with a friend, who was aromantic (who is now my partner). 

Edited by Arden
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the jaiden animations video! i had been considering the idea of being aro months before but that was during a time when i realised i was alexithymic and the idea of being aro and being incapable of feeling another thing that other people have upset me, so i labelled myself as grayromantic and stopped thinking about it. but after some time had passed and a longtime favourite creator of mine discussed her experiences (and i saw how closely they related to mine) it was suddenly a label i was a lot more comfortable with!

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  • 2 weeks later...

- Fictional stories. I had dropped tens of novels for romance being the main plot. Whenever there was fluff, I used to feel so bored, cringy and confused...like it's one of the weirdest things I've ever known, I couldn't find the point of it's setting, just my mind repeating things like, "what is this? And what are they kissing for?". Then there were reviews, praising how good the main couple were, how good the author was at writing fluff and so on. After experiencing this type of alienation for multiple times, I thought probably I'm somehow different.

- Reading about crushes and mistakening it for my swishes and squishes. Later I realized not only did I not experience any crush, I couldn't even understand what is it exactly. I still don't get romance.

- My attitude towards relationship was always: I don't want it. I don't feel like I'm secretly desiring for it. I don't feel like I need it. As long as I have my besties, it's enough. I have fantasized about marrying my besties and living with them. I even want to have a male bestie....but not at all as a romantic partner. Then I realized just how many of my peers fantasize about an ideal romantic partner and get excited about it like it's their dream...this made me re-question my orientation.

- Looking back at my childhood and early teens, I feel like something is off. I always ignored things about romance, typical marriage and love. 1. I didn't realize it's existence is real till I read about it in novels. 2. I didn't know it cuz I never felt it. 3. I naturally didn't understand the hype about it. 4. I am still in the process to fully digest the fact that romance is a real thing.

- Knowing about aromanticism. The more I read about it, the more I felt connected. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

my romantic relationships were all pretty short-lived. Almost invariably my partners felt that I didn't feel the same way about them as they felt about me or that I "couldn't meet their needs". Around the time my last such relationship ended i became acquainted with aro/ace spaces and found that a lot of the pieces fit. Part of me questioned whether this was simply bitterness over the breakup but after 5 years i'm quite sure its not.

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On 2/4/2023 at 8:34 AM, SpectralWizard said:

my romantic relationships were all pretty short-lived. Almost invariably my partners felt that I didn't feel the same way about them as they felt about me or that I "couldn't meet their needs". Around the time my last such relationship ended i became acquainted with aro/ace spaces and found that a lot of the pieces fit. Part of me questioned whether this was simply bitterness over the breakup but after 5 years i'm quite sure its not.

Hey can I ask you something? I'm currently in a serious relationship and only recently learned that I might be arospec. For a while we have been having issues which basically come down to having different needs, as you described. Is it possible in your opinion to continue a relationship like that? I'm worried that accepting that I'm aro immediately means the relationship is over. And because I've just been learning about all this recently it all feels sudden and confusing

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52 minutes ago, OkTomato said:

Hey can I ask you something? I'm currently in a serious relationship and only recently learned that I might be arospec. For a while we have been having issues which basically come down to having different needs, as you described. Is it possible in your opinion to continue a relationship like that? I'm worried that accepting that I'm aro immediately means the relationship is over. And because I've just been learning about all this recently it all feels sudden and confusing

Different person than who you asked, but in my case, it wasn't. There's only so much compromising someone can do before they lose who they are - and that's not a healthy relationship. Is it POSSIBLE that there's an acceptable amount of compromise people can do to keep each other in their lives in a committed, intimate relationship? Of course. Billions of people are doing it everyday. And is it possible for aspec people to hold committed, intimate relationships with allo folk? Sure! Not all of these relationships (including not all alloXallo relationships) will work, but it's certainly within the realm of theoretical possibility that they can. But only you and your partner can decide if you can accept each other's differences and be happy with that in a relationship or if the differences are too big and are an incompatibility. At the end of the day, a relationship should make you feel happy, accepted, and supported. Conflict will happen but a relationship should not be full of strife. As much as you may care for another person, you both deserve to be happy at the end of the day. Good luck!

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12 hours ago, hemogoblin said:

Different person than who you asked, but in my case, it wasn't. There's only so much compromising someone can do before they lose who they are - and that's not a healthy relationship. Is it POSSIBLE that there's an acceptable amount of compromise people can do to keep each other in their lives in a committed, intimate relationship? Of course. Billions of people are doing it everyday. And is it possible for aspec people to hold committed, intimate relationships with allo folk? Sure! Not all of these relationships (including not all alloXallo relationships) will work, but it's certainly within the realm of theoretical possibility that they can. But only you and your partner can decide if you can accept each other's differences and be happy with that in a relationship or if the differences are too big and are an incompatibility. At the end of the day, a relationship should make you feel happy, accepted, and supported. Conflict will happen but a relationship should not be full of strife. As much as you may care for another person, you both deserve to be happy at the end of the day. Good luck!

Thanks for this. I guess I know this, but needed to hear it from someone else if that makes sense. Time to talk to my partner and we'll have to see how compatible we are...

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