Aroace Presentation

[atrocious_ar0mantic]

Are any other fellow aroaces particular about how they present their identity for fear of invalidation? I don’t like letting on to most people that I do occasionally find people attractive, or aesthetically pleasing- because they always assume and insist there’s “something more” behind it. Or that it’s proof that you’re not r e a l l y aroace.

[glypharia.exe]

 i can understand where you're coming from, i tend to present my identity differently than how i want it to be, but yes omg im so scared to say things like "theyre beautiful" in like an aesthetically pleasing way because im scared that i'll get judged or invalidated. or stuff like holding hands with a friend in a platonic way. even within my friend group, they'll overreact if i so much as remark that i found a character or an actor from a show or movie pretty. because of things like that im kinda scared to show any attraction, sometimes even if its platonic.

[Nix]

Hm, no I don’t. Maybe that is because I am in the ‘old’ demographic, but I don’t really care how other people perceive me. My friends know I can find people aesthetically attractive so they don’t find it weird.

With strangers it really depends on the headspace I am in wether or not I will take the time to explain different attractions to them or just frown and ignore them.

[CitrusTree]

I'm not sure if this is quite what you mean, but whenever I talk about being aroace to someone who might not understand, I usually say "I can't feel sexual/romantic attraction," instead of "I don't," because not being able to somehow gets a better response than "I just don't."