Feeling kind of lost and lonely

[Cloud]

Kind of a sad post, sorry. I'm just lost.

 

I love my best friends. I have two of them and I have thought of them as my soul mates since a very long time. Of course, I have never felt romantic or sexual attraction towards them. But when I discovered I was aroace I also realized I am in love with them platonically. But it hurts. 

You see, they both have partners and although they have told me our friendship is first I can't get over the idea of being abandoned. It's just that everyone around me has always said that having a romantic partner is like the biggest achievement of our life.

So when I think of the future I wish for my best friends to live with me, even raise a family together. But that won't be it, right? They will form a family with their partners and I will live alone and I need to come to terms with that but I don't know how. 

I have just came from a movie night with them and their partners and I feel miserable. I enjoyed being with them and I love that they have invited me because they have thought of me to watch this movie. But it hurts to know I won't be anyone's priority ever. 

Sorry, I know this is long, it's just that I don't know any aro people irl so I don't have anyone to talk about this stuff.

[The Gray Warlock]

I've been there. It sucks. But what can you do? People are going to live their lives, and their plans don't always include you. On the other hand, your life will go on as well. If it helps, ancient philosophers regarded platonic love to be the highest form of relationship. And I agree. Even long before I discovered what aromanticism is, I have always disputed the claim that a romantic partner is the greatest achievement. Any flake, fake, loser or dipshit can fall in love. Not many can earn a true friend. 

[Arden]

 

On 12/21/2022 at 11:53 PM, Cloud said:

Kind of a sad post, sorry. I'm just lost.

 

I love my best friends. I have two of them and I have thought of them as my soul mates since a very long time. Of course, I have never felt romantic or sexual attraction towards them. But when I discovered I was aroace I also realized I am in love with them platonically. But it hurts. 

You see, they both have partners and although they have told me our friendship is first I can't get over the idea of being abandoned. It's just that everyone around me has always said that having a romantic partner is like the biggest achievement of our life.

So when I think of the future I wish for my best friends to live with me, even raise a family together. But that won't be it, right? They will form a family with their partners and I will live alone and I need to come to terms with that but I don't know how. 

I have just came from a movie night with them and their partners and I feel miserable. I enjoyed being with them and I love that they have invited me because they have thought of me to watch this movie. But it hurts to know I won't be anyone's priority ever. 

Sorry, I know this is long, it's just that I don't know any aro people irl so I don't have anyone to talk about this stuff.

Ok, so I have some advice for this because I was in the exact same situation. I've always been kind of lucky, because my friends are the biggest straight allies to exist on the planet, but I still felt like they would eventually end up with their own families, husbands, and I would be left alone. And I constantly had this impending sense of doom, and just buried any true feelings and slapped on a mask of romantic and sexual desire. However, it didn't really work, and I had to come clean to them both.

My first piece of advice is to talk to your friends about it. Tell them what you are scared about. Like for me, talking to my friends made me realised that they are the biggest allies ever. Some dumb little straight people tried to put themselves into my painful position and work out solutions. It may be that they can't do much, and you can't ever ask them to sacrifice their romantic love: but at least they're aware what position you are in. Make it clear to them that you'd never ask them to pick between people, but merely just letting them know what your position and feelings are. 

My second and best piece of advice: QUEER PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS 🥳. There is something as a queer platonic relationship. Maybe you've heard about it, or maybe you haven't but honestly, if you communicate with your partner it is honestly the best thing ever. I had a decently close friend who was aroace like me and I asked her a BUNCH of questions about being aromantic since she was the only other person I knew and then we bonded over smaller things, and now she is literally my closest friend, and we're considering getting into a queer platonic relationship. I experience the best label for it is 'alterous' and it's basically in between platonic and romantic feelings for her, and she feels strong platonic attraction. We've been discussing how scared we both are to end up alone in the world, and from there we just sort of stemmed this bond and now we're in the process of working out through stuff but honestly, even if it doesn't work out with her, I'll still try to get into a queer platonic relationship. You could always try to get involved in social media groups, or find local aroace (or just aro) people through meeting sites etc. It's always a good shout. 

 

[Cloud]

6 hours ago, Arden said:

 

My first piece of advice is to talk to your friends about it. Tell them what you are scared about. Like for me, talking to my friends made me realised that they are the biggest allies ever. Some dumb little straight people tried to put themselves into my painful position and work out solutions. It may be that they can't do much, and you can't ever ask them to sacrifice their romantic love: but at least they're aware what position you are in. Make it clear to them that you'd never ask them to pick between people, but merely just letting them know what your position and feelings are. 

 

They already know I'm aroace because I told them just as soon as I knew. They kind of had a feeling before I even realised it myself, because I always told them how I had this "crush" with a girl I met but I didn't want to get involved in a romantic relationship with her (turns out it was a squish) or how I am not attracted to anyone in the movies... well they know me well enough

I know I need to speak to them, but I'm thinking how to do it because they are the best people I know and I don't want to pressure them or make them think they need to sacrifice something because of me. But I will figure it out with time I hope

6 hours ago, Arden said:

 

My second and best piece of advice: QUEER PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS 🥳. There is something as a queer platonic relationship. Maybe you've heard about it, or maybe you haven't but honestly, if you communicate with your partner it is honestly the best thing ever. I had a decently close friend who was aroace like me and I asked her a BUNCH of questions about being aromantic since she was the only other person I knew and then we bonded over smaller things, and now she is literally my closest friend, and we're considering getting into a queer platonic relationship. I experience the best label for it is 'alterous' and it's basically in between platonic and romantic feelings for her, and she feels strong platonic attraction. We've been discussing how scared we both are to end up alone in the world, and from there we just sort of stemmed this bond and now we're in the process of working out through stuff but honestly, even if it doesn't work out with her, I'll still try to get into a queer platonic relationship. You could always try to get involved in social media groups, or find local aroace (or just aro) people through meeting sites etc. It's always a good shout. 

 

About this, I reaaally would like to have one but I don't know any aro people irl :( I know I could have one with someone who's not aro but I don't want to engage in a platonic relationship with someone that later on will not be down for it. I have a really strong platonic attraction towards people I'm interested in so I don't want this happening again

But one of the main reasons of starting on this forum is to know more aro people. I also want to meet aro people irl but since I'm more of an introvert I'm doing this slowly lol. However, do you know meeting sites for aro people? I am really interested in those👀

I'm really really thankful for your advice, it has gave me some kind of hope that I am not going to feel forever like this so thank you c:

[Storm_leopardcat]

12 hours ago, Cloud said:

About this, I reaaally would like to have one but I don't know any aro people irl :( I know I could have one with someone who's not aro but I don't want to engage in a platonic relationship with someone that later on will not be down for it. I have a really strong platonic attraction towards people I'm interested in so I don't want this happening again

But one of the main reasons of starting on this forum is to know more aro people. I also want to meet aro people irl but since I'm more of an introvert I'm doing this slowly lol. However, do you know meeting sites for aro people? I am really interested in those👀

 

Try checking out the Personal Ads section, and make a post there?
Also, you may want to check out the Visibility, Articles, and Meetups section. Or check out acesandaros.org, for those people who may be nearby.
For QPRs, try making a post in r/qprapplications as well.

[Arden]

Basically, this forum is the only thing I know in regards to meeting sites. I know that there are a lot of aroace safe spaces on TikTok that I've used, and that I got into a discord groupchat that was aroace inclusive and it did kind of help but the lucky thing for me is that out of the immense population that there is in our school, there is literally only 2 aroace people (me and my best friend), so we literally only had each other. I'm more than happy to ask around for any discord servers that are aroace inclusive and share them with you, but the only reason I've found someone who was aroace is because I literally had no one out of a population of about 1200 that was aroace. 

Sorry that seems a bit counter intuitive giving you advice but not actually the resources to implement it, but I would reccomend your average social media like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and Discord. 

[Cloud]

ooh thanks to both of you!! I will try what you have told me c:

[Ghostflower]

I'm a bit late to this topic, so I hope it's alright that I'm chiming in several months later.  But I relate very strongly to what you're describing here: Even when my alloromantic friends reassure me that our friendship matters to them, regardless of the people they're dating, I can't help but think that won't always be true, because romantic partners tend to get priority for things like moving in together and being considered their "plus one" for trips and activities.

I would love to know how your situation has developed over the past year and if it's gotten better at all.  I am by no means an expert (especially since I am currently in the thick of fighting back my fears of loneliness and amatonormativity with a tennis racquet), but here are a couple of things that I'm trying to tell myself to quell the worst of my anxieties:

1) The things I'm afraid of haven't happened yet.  While they may be founded upon situations that I've experienced in the past or tropes I've seen play out hundreds of time in books and movies, right now, my friendships are stable.  No one is leaving me to be with a romantic partner, and if I'm sad that I'll "never" get to move in with one of my friends, well... It's not like we were about to move in together anywhere.  I'm mostly afraid of the collapsing of possible futures, but when I shift my focus back to the present, my anxiety feels very extreme and defeatist, like I'm imagining the worst possible scenario that might happen years down the line.  Things will likely play out more slowly, and I will have the time to communicate with my friends and make my fears known when (or if) they become relevant.

2) I should trust my friends and consider their feelings.  I feel terrible telling an alloromantic friend something like, "I'm afraid that, no matter what you say right now, you will eventually devalue our friendship because of the person you're dating."  Even though that's just me expressing my fears (which I genuinely cannot label as either rational or irrational), what my friend probably hears is, "I don't trust you to value our friendship like you have for the past several years."  I've been reading up on relationship anarchy lately, and some of the values include acknowledging that love is abundant and does not diminish no matter how freely you spread it, and that you might want to "fake it until you make it," to stop your fears from getting in the way.  Combining these two tenets, I feel like the best thing that I can do right now is to keep reminding myself that someone can hold both a romantic relationship and a committed friendship, and while it's fine to voice my fears every now and again, I should focus on what's happening in the present, not stress over what might happen in the future, and try going about business as usual until something happens to seriously upend that.

Something that especially struck me about your initial post, Cloud, is that you felt lonely after being invited to a movie night with your friends and their romantic partners.  I would probably feel the exact same way in that situation.  Paradoxically, I fear being abandoned when my friends start dating, but when I'm invited to tag along on their romantic excursions, I am confronted by my aromanticism and easily spiral into thoughts of, "I will never have someone to prioritize me like that," which makes me feel lonely rather than included. 

I'm not sure if this is the case for you, but for me, I'm starting to think that this jealousy (this fear of losing what I have in the form of specific friends and relationships) stems from the fact that I genuinely want the level of commitment that is typically associated with romantic relationships.  Then it gets difficult, because I'm not sure if that means that I should aspire to a QPR instead?  Because what if I could get the right level of fulfillment from friendship alone?  Perhaps I just want a label that reassures me that my friend isn't going anywhere, and the amatonormativity is ingrained so deeply within me that I always feel anxious when the only thing holding me up is the often-devalued and dismissed term "friend"?

I hope that things have improved with you and your friends since you made this post in December, and I hope that you're feeling more confident in your own self-worth and aromanticism.  I really appreciated hearing your story and feeling a sense of, "Ah, so other people have experienced this specific anxiety, too."