Apathetic Echidna Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 It's February, and time for a new instalment of Carnival of Aros! It's a monthly blogging event that highlights aromantic and arospec experiences. Visit the main site here. The theme of this month’s Carnival of Aros is “Community” February is when many people celebrate Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (21st - 27th) and I was hoping we could share our thoughts on communities. I’ve made some prompts but feel free to take this topic anywhere you want to go with it! Is your community interaction only online or is it also in real life? Are you planning to find/join a real life community this month? Are you part of a small community you want more people to know about? Is your community supportive or is it letting your down? Does your community celebrate or have an event you want more people to participate in? Perfect time to advertise! Do you think communities are important? What is the best part(s) of the communities you are in? Entries for this Carnival of Aros topic are due by end of day on February 28th. To submit your entry, you can either leave a comment with a link here or on Dreamwidth . If you don’t have a blog of your own or want an anonymous entry, you can just email me a copy at mesotablar@gmail.com and I am happy to host it here with credit or anonymously (Just tell me in the email). 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dabney Stephens Posted February 10, 2022 Share Posted February 10, 2022 (edited) Dabney / Dabbie (They/Them) I'm participating in the Carnival of Aros, community questions :) • Is your community interaction only online or is it also in real life? - Online, but I plan for it to also be IRL someday! • Are you planning to find/join a real life community this month? - No, not this month, unfortunately. • Are you part of a small community you want more people to know about? - No. • Is your community supportive or is it letting your down? - Indifferent. I'd say it's supportive, but I just haven't seen many aro/ace experiences that I can really bond with. Most or the aro experiences I see in the community is the stereotypical, "I've never been in a relationship because I never cared for it", while I've dated many different people in my life- and it took me a long time to realize I was Aro-spec. Or an aromantic person who used to experience romantic attraction, but it went away overtime. I never see fluid experiences. • Does your community celebrate or have an event you want more people to participate in? Perfect time to advertise! - No. Though, I'd be interested in seeing other people doing this Aro Carnival Community question stuff. :D • Do you think communities are important? - Yes! Communities are so important- people need community. Without the LGBTQ+ community, I wouldn't know where's I'd be today. Community is important for every human being because it brings those closer together. We can all relate to similar somewhat experiences as aros/aces. • What is the best part(s) of the communities you are in? - Reading and hearing other peoples' experiences as aromantics/asexuals, seeing media like them going out to pride or getting their first aro flag. It's really beautiful to see. Add-Ons: • Do you identify yourself within the Aromantic Spectrum? If so, what? - Yes! I identify as aromantic / aro-spec. • Do you identify yourself within the Asexual Spectrum? If so, what? - Yes! I identify as greysexual / ace-spec. :) Edited February 10, 2022 by Dabney Stephens I wanted to fix a few grammatical mistakes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrocious_ar0mantic Posted February 13, 2022 Share Posted February 13, 2022 On 1/27/2022 at 5:35 PM, Apathetic Echidna said: It's February, and time for a new instalment of Carnival of Aros! It's a monthly blogging event that highlights aromantic and arospec experiences. Visit the main site here. The theme of this month’s Carnival of Aros is “Community” February is when many people celebrate Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (21st - 27th) and I was hoping we could share our thoughts on communities. I’ve made some prompts but feel free to take this topic anywhere you want to go with it! Is your community interaction only online or is it also in real life? Are you planning to find/join a real life community this month? Are you part of a small community you want more people to know about? Is your community supportive or is it letting your down? Does your community celebrate or have an event you want more people to participate in? Perfect time to advertise! Do you think communities are important? What is the best part(s) of the communities you are in? Entries for this Carnival of Aros topic are due by end of day on February 28th. To submit your entry, you can either leave a comment with a link here or on Dreamwidth . If you don’t have a blog of your own or want an anonymous entry, you can just email me a copy at mesotablar@gmail.com and I am happy to host it here with credit or anonymously (Just tell me in the email). 1.) My community interactions are strictly online. Which is a bit unfortunate in itself, because I truly would like to meet more aro-spec folks in real life and on a more intimate level. I appreciate having this though, because all progress is good progress. 2.) Unfortunately I wouldn’t say I’m in any position to, and the environment I’m in doesn’t allow opportunities for that. 3.) My community interactions primarily take place on here- I can’t say it wouldn’t be nice to have more members active on Arocalypse 4.) I’d say it’s fairly supportive. I appreciate the time people invest into sharing their own personal experiences, and how open and receptive people generally are. I agree with Dabney that we should encourage other people to share narratives that aren’t the “stereotypical aro” experience either, and allow those people space and validation. Personally, I was also an aro individual who desired a romantic relationship for quite a long time. I thought because I didn’t experience stereotypical repulsion to the idea of it, and even could get behind the idea, I couldn’t be aro. 5.) Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (ASAW) is the only thing that comes to mind. 6.) I think communities are important, without a doubt, because it gives people a sense of belonging. This is especially important to marginalized groups, because it’s alienating to exist in a society that doesn’t value our experiences and the way we exist. It’s comforting to know that we’re not alone, that we’re here, and that we all have something(s) to say about it. 7.) I think the best part of the community I’m in is the ability to start discussions using community terms, without having to give all these expositions and background definitions beforehand. In other words, the mutual understanding. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apathetic Echidna Posted February 13, 2022 Author Share Posted February 13, 2022 @Dabney Stephens and @aroace_auncle Did either of you want to write more, like an article or blog post, to expand on your thoughts about community? (you aren't restricted to the question prompts I proposed) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atrocious_ar0mantic Posted February 16, 2022 Share Posted February 16, 2022 On 2/13/2022 at 1:45 PM, Apathetic Echidna said: @Dabney Stephens and @aroace_auncle Did either of you want to write more, like an article or blog post, to expand on your thoughts about community? (you aren't restricted to the question prompts I proposed) I don’t mind expanding, though I don’t have any sort of blog. I began interacting with the aro community just last year. I honestly joined out of necessity. I was returning to in-person schooling, and more notably being thrust into a “traditional” and non-inclusive environment. I don’t make friends easily, and there wasn’t exactly anyone out of the bigoted bunch of students I was jumping to be acquainted with. I felt terribly lonely. The few queer people I did meet were cis white folks who leaned heavily into their privilege, and weren’t familiar with many terms outside of lesbian and gay. Regardless, as a fem-presenting genderqueer individual, the default assumption was that I was romantically interested in guys. The isolation that came with people automatically assuming I was romantically interested in guys, let alone anyone, hit hard. Because if I was truly honest with most of these people about my specific labels and experiences, it wouldn’t satisfy them. They would consider me immature, innocent, a whole list of infantilizing things. I know I didn’t, and still don’t, owe anyone an explanation about my labels or experiences. But I wished I had the opportunity to just exist as myself, to be as I am, without giving a whole lecture and defending myself at every other turn. A few times, I tentatively attempted to bring up my queerplatonic partner in response to someone asking me if I had a boyfriend. Their reactions always made me feel a little nauseous. Because it always dissolved into ‘ooooohs’, nudging, and eyebrow raises. I knew where the conversation was headed before I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth. It repulsed me when alloromantics purposely misinterpreted my relationships despite me attempting to try and take the time to explain. To this day, I still don’t tell many people about my queerplatonic partner for those same reasons. But further interacting with the aro community gave me a space to discuss. It gave me a space to re-assess different types of relationships and dynamics. It validated and reaffirmed my identity, knowing that I wasn’t any less aromantic for the things I wanted with other people. It broadened my perspective, and allowed me to really reshape my relationships and priorities, rather than allow amatonormativity to continue controlling that. I tried to love quietly, cautiously, with a certain restraint. I was afraid of being perceived as pursuing someone romantically, or being immature for being “overly-invested” with someone I’m “just friends” with. But it’s not silly to highly value platonic relationships. And there’s not just one type of partnership. Being in this community let me see all the different types of aro-spec folks, and how there’s a whole rainbow of flavors of aromanticism. It let me see the kind of aro I am, and not the kind of aro people expected me to be. I used to feel trapped by the label, even a bit scared. Because I knew alloromantics had a very rigid idea, if at all, of how I “should '' or “would '' be if I was “really that”. This community made me feel whole. I felt satisfied with myself. I felt safe being around so many other people who understood. Even just seeing the same language I used for myself being tossed around in casual conversation made me inexplicably happy. Seeing that there were resources, that there really was something there- that I wasn’t alone, made me happy. It’s not a perfect solution. I’ve yet to meet aro folks in person. But it’s a start, and I’ll always be grateful to have that. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roboticanary Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 cheers @Apathetic Echidna. I loved this months prompts. Here's my entry https://roboticanary.wordpress.com/2022/02/21/carnival-of-aros-community/ 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apathetic Echidna Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 (edited) Still a few hours left for any late comers! Edit: I think it is officially not Feb anywhere in the world (I suck at timezones!) so entries are closed and I'm writing the round up Edited March 1, 2022 by Apathetic Echidna 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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