Have you ever been in a relationship?

[Del]

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Edited May 31, 2021 by Del

[Shroomie]

I've been in two romantic relationships, both long distance. A couple of my friends asked me out, and since I couldn't figure out the difference between a close friendship and a romantic relationship, I said yes. While I was in the second one, I realized I was asexual, and through that, I learned about aromanticism. I didn't realize I was aromantic right away, but when the relationship ended, my other friends told me I was supposed to be feeling and supposed to have felt certain things, and I started realizing I might be aro, and certain things that happened made a lot more sense.

[Iamwilliame]

I have been in several relationships over the years. My last was 4 years ago before I realized I was aro. I liked them all as friends but as soon as things got lovey dovey I shut that shit down. I usually made excuses as to why I wasn't interested and have yet to tell anyone I'm aromantic. I'm only a few months into accepting that this is me and I am happy this way. 

[Queen of Spades]

Well, there was this boy I met on Yahoo! Messenger 10 years ago. I was 11, he was 12. We were on the summer break. I found out he studied at the same school as I did. We befriended each other quite easily and we talked a lot, and one day he asked me if I would like to be his girlfriend. We knew each other well, we were good friends, so I thought that involved just our keep talking like we'd been doing until then, and maybe (because I simply thought that was the natural course) we'll have sex when we're old enough (like when we turn 19-20), so I said yes. We just kept talking, nothing more. He once sent me some romantic text message saying something like "my soul is crying at the thought I could avoid you, and my hope lies within you" - I didn't feel swept away or moved/touched, I simply said thank you and we kept talking normally. A few months later we lost contact (he changed his messenger id, my phone got damaged). I was reluctant to look for him at school during breaktime because the thought of people pointing at us and making the classical "X and Y sitting in a tree" assumptions pissed me off to a high degree. Something about that didn't feel right, if you know what I mean ;).  

 

 

 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Queen of Spades

[Ace of Amethysts]

Sadly, no.

[sarcastic kitten]

2 times...

 

The first time the guy was a douche, an asshole about others people's feelings sooooo I decided to play with his brains just a little...I don't care that you don't care about me because it's obvious that I don't care about it either. But don't play with the other's feelings... or else...well that don't end well for you

 

The second time, I was with a guy more sweet and caring but he fells in love pretty quickly and although I warned him that I couldn' fell in love, he became pushier about the subject, soooo I decided to stop any relationships with him.

 

There was a time that I almost go out with a girl. But she attracted problems like a effin' magnet and was a little too emotionnal (heck, she said that she fells in love with me,less than 1 week later ... I BEG YOUR PARDON ??), so I decided to not meddle with her.

[Ettina]

No, I've shut down all pursuers because I'm pretty sure that they were allosexual. (And all were guys, and I prefer women.) I've thought that if I got an offer from an ace, even an allo ace, I might go for it. They'd need to know that I'm aro and be OK with that, though.

[IceHurricane]

I've been in relationships before, but they were more out of pity than anything. The first one was when I didn't know about aromanticism. But the last two I knew, and I still did it. It's stupid. They liked me and I felt bad so I dated them so they would be happy. One of my 'relationships' was just a friends-with-benefits gone wrong. He got feelings and wanted more, but I didn't, yet I still let him do romantic things with me.

 

Honestly, I know this is horrible, but I'm in a pity relationship right now. Actually, it's really just experimenting, though. Still out of pity, but I'm actually gaining something from it. Trying new things. Sexual and not. She knows I don't feel anything for her, and she's okay with that. She still wants to be with me. I know I probably should break up with her, though. Since we're in it for all the wrong reasons and I'm not happy. I just feel bad. I'm a people-pleaser. I can't help it. 

[ValDragon]

I've been in a platonic relationship with a few people, I experienced aesthetic attraction, we were friends and hold hands and everything was fine until the moment our relationship had to involve more like kissing. I didn't like that, I didn't want it, I forced myself once, but I put a stop very soon. I didn't know what was happening to me until I found out about asexuality.

 

[UnicornQueen]

I've never been in a relationship, although once I almost ended up in one. Before I realised I'm asexual and aromantic I thought can't find anybody because I set my standars to high. When I discovered queerplatonic relationships I realised I've always wanted something like that and not sexual-romantic relationship.

[KitKat]

I'm in a relationship currently, it's how I figured out I'm aromantic. I'm only still in a relationship with him because I can't figure out how to tell him that and because he was a good friend of mine and I don't want to hurt him. Now that I know I'm aro I don't think I want a romantic relationship - ever. I'm pretty interested in QPR's though.

[SamwiseLovesLife]

Tried them during highschool. They were boring and I never got the point

[Momo]

Much to my dismay now, I was in several romantic relationships. Most I can now trace to a squish and misguided feelings. I've always wanted a relationship of some form though, it's just taken a while to work out what it would look like.

 

Lets see, first lets discount all the long-distance shenanigans. They were mostly pointless.

Then, my first attempt at asking someone out in high school was an embarrassing mess. This was year 12, so I would have been 18 - long after most of my friends had paired up at least once.

Next up, the girl with a kid. She was nice, and my first sexual partner. I'm embarrassed i didn't see the signs in this one earlier. I didn't mind the sex but I was more interested in cuddling afterwards, which she always misinterpreted.

Anyway, next one wasn't for a few years. Miserable thing that devolved to an unfulfilling sexual relationship within a week and dissolved completely soon after.

 

My longest relationship was with my now-roommate which was around 5 years long. We broke up soon after we'd had some troubles and I worked out I was aro and I wasn't ever going to actually be able to give her what she wanted. We still live together as friends - one day we'll go our separate ways. She's allo so no doubt she'll find someone else and want to move on then if not sooner.

[Blackscarlet666]

ive been in relationships, I don't think romance was ever an option now I think about it. all of my relationships got really sexual really quickly and it was never in anyway romantic, and I didn't want it to be.

[James White]

To this day, I've never been in a relationship, or even kissed anyone. I held hands twice, hated both times, and never went back. 

[NullVector]

On 14/07/2017 at 7:07 AM, James said:

To this day, I've never been in a relationship, or even kissed anyone.

Same actually.

Took me forever to figure out why, as I experience sexual attraction all the time

Eventually I figured out that my lack of motivation to act on sexual desires was probably due to all the romantic 'hoops' one typically has to jump through to realise them. I find it pretty easy to ignore things that seem like way too much hassle

[DeltaAro]

On 7/4/2017 at 3:45 PM, Momo said:

Next up, the girl with a kid. She was nice, and my first sexual partner. I'm embarrassed i didn't see the signs in this one earlier. I didn't mind the sex but I was more interested in cuddling afterwards, which she always misinterpreted.

Wait... how did she misinterpret it? As sign of your romantic love?

I actually liked cuddling in my short-lived “romantic relationships”, which was misinterpreted in this direction; my brain doesn't register cuddling as romantic. I probably would also be physically much closer with friends, if this wasn't misinterpreted as either awkward romantic approach (female) or gay hit on (male), despite genuinely not having such intentions.

On 7/14/2017 at 8:07 AM, James said:

To this day, I've never been in a relationship, or even kissed anyone. I held hands twice, hated both times, and never went back. 

I thought I had achieved the status that I'm fine with anyone throwing romantic stuff at me as long as they do not ever expect me to genuinely reciprocate it.

 

But then, I forgot about... hand-holding... *cringe*

I think that I make an exception about THIS. Because it's just impolite:

“Hey, we're in love ♥ so it's fine for us to occupy the whole side walk! ♥”

11 hours ago, NullVector said:

Eventually I figured out that my lack of motivation to act on sexual desires was probably due to all the romantic 'hoops' one typically has to jump through to realise them.

Probably connected with a belief that it's very difficult to get sex outside of a romantic relationship and and that it is very not nice to aim for it anyway.

[Momo]

56 minutes ago, DeltaV said:

Wait... how did she misinterpret it? As sign of your romantic love?

This was my first sexual relationship. I was typically on top, I'd try to curl up with my head on her belly but before I got anywhere near that far she'd stop me, thinking I was trying to go down on her. I was too awkward and generally confused to correct her and tell her what I actually wanted.

[Skittles87]

I tried having a boyfriend when I was 20. I didn't have any romantic feelings or even strong platonic feelings for the guy, so it was purely experimental. I didn't understand asexuality and had never heard of aromanticism so I figured I ought to try a relationship, and maybe the feelings I was supposed to have would develop (spoiler alert - they didn't). I had to call the whole thing off pretty quickly because he got too invested and I felt guilty. Also, I didn't like all the kissing and the feeling that my body wasn't entirely my own anymore.

 

He was a nice guy and I regret hurting him, but I feel like I learnt a lot from the experience. The thing that surprised me most was how easy it all was. I'm only average-looking but it was so easy to get a date, easy to get kissed, easy to get someone to invest time and energy in me when I was letting him kiss me and touch my bum. Getting someone to care about you without dangling the possibility of sex and/or romance in front of them is so much more difficult - I've no idea how QPRs get started!

[Momo]

1 hour ago, Skittles87 said:

I've no idea how QPRs get started!

It depends! They can evolve out of existing friendships if you're both interested in that. Or some people seek them out explicitly, though this is probably harder due to a lack of channels devoted to this sort of thing.

 

For me, I've been generally looking for more new friends and one of them is not exactly a QPR yet, though I believe we're both interested in the prospect. Neither of us was explicitly looking for one but it's just how things evolved. We have a lot of shared interests, are both aroace and both want a QPR with someone in similar ways.

[Skittles87]

7 hours ago, Momo said:

It depends! They can evolve out of existing friendships if you're both interested in that. Or some people seek them out explicitly, though this is probably harder due to a lack of channels devoted to this sort of thing.

 

For me, I've been generally looking for more new friends and one of them is not exactly a QPR yet, though I believe we're both interested in the prospect. Neither of us was explicitly looking for one but it's just how things evolved. We have a lot of shared interests, are both aroace and both want a QPR with someone in similar ways.

That sounds lovely, good luck to you both.

[DeltaAro]

19 hours ago, Momo said:

This was my first sexual relationship. I was typically on top, I'd try to curl up with my head on her belly but before I got anywhere near that far she'd stop me, thinking I was trying to go down on her. I was too awkward and generally confused to correct her and tell her what I actually wanted.

Okay, .... she seems prejudiced against guys.  Seriously, who would normally expect this? That seems to be a very uncomfortable position give oral sex.

[NullVector]

On 7/16/2017 at 0:23 AM, DeltaV said:

Probably connected with a belief that it's very difficult to get sex outside of a romantic relationship and and that it is very not nice to aim for it anyway.

Yep. I think that second one can be especially insidious for aros, as its connected with a lot of cultural messaging we tend to get whilst growing up about how to treat partners "right".

 

21 hours ago, DeltaV said:

she'd stop me, thinking I was trying to go down on her

This was the part that didn't make sense to me  

 

 

[hippiecat]

I'm 19 and nope, never been in a relationship  and probably never will, although I'm always open for it if by some magical reason my orientation changes (not likely) and I meet the perfect person.

[SamwiseLovesLife]

On 16/07/2017 at 0:23 AM, DeltaV said:

But then, I forgot about... hand-holding... *cringe*

I think that I make an exception about THIS. Because it's just impolite:

“Hey, we're in love ♥ so it's fine for us to occupy the whole side walk! ♥”

Little Aro child Sam (me) always said exactly the same thing.. Everyone would laugh and say I'd understand when I was older (oh so patronising). 21 now, still don't understand it

 

On 16/07/2017 at 10:43 AM, Skittles87 said:

I didn't have any romantic feelings or even strong platonic feelings for the guy, so it was purely experimental. I didn't understand asexuality and had never heard of aromanticism so I figured I ought to try a relationship, and maybe the feelings I was supposed to have would develop (spoiler alert - they didn't). I had to call the whole thing off pretty quickly because he got too invested and I felt guilty.

^ Every relationship I've ever been in