Aplatonic Aros

[GoodbyeRepublicServices]

On 4/25/2023 at 10:32 AM, Picklethewickle said:

I'm aplatonic. I can find people interesting and likable, but I don't feel a need to bond with someone as a friend. Friendships can be nice in small doses, but overall maintaining a friendship is a lot of work and can be more burdensome than anything. I very much prefer casual acquaintances and communicating with people through the internet over pyhsically getting together and spending time with people. I've also noticed that I don't find the end of friendships painful. I've seen many other people grieve the end of a friendship, but to me these kind of life changes are healthy, normal, and easy to accept.

I'd say this is quite similar to my experience. I do have friends, yes, but only a couple and I don't need to spend that much time with them. Luckily, all the friends I have work at the same job as I do, so I can see them there. So, I'd describe myself as aplatonic (at least partly so). I'd agree that maintaining friendships is work, and because of that, overbearing personalities wouldn't make great friends for me.

[The Newest Fabled Creature]

Sometimes I wonder if I may be on the spectrum of aplatonicism, in the fact that I don't experience lot's of platonic attraction in making new friends (though I do experience it), more or less I may make a new friend only because calling them a friend or such is what's expected, or sometimes I don't mind them wanting to become friends with me.

I do experience wanting a closeness, platonically, with people, but more often than not I feel that lack of interest/desire or attraction in forming deeper and/or newer platonic relations.

[Guest]

I might be some kind of aplatonic? I don't know. How did you all find out? How were you able to be sure?

[nonmerci]

Well for me, it is something that didn't crossed my mind until I enter the aro community and heard about how aros talk about their friends and squishes. To be honest I think that sometimes, some people seem to merge platonic with queerplatonic and that added to my feeling of "I've never felt like that", but still, I realize that all the things that were put under "platonic attraction" and what some aros expect from friendship are things I don't relate to.

For instance I don't look at people and think "I want to befriend them", I don't need to see my friends often cause I don't miss them even if I enjoy their company, things like that.

[Guest]

I pretty much relate to all of this. I think that I’m probably grayplatonic at the very least. Thank you.

[Lovebird]

Now that this thread has risen from its ashes, I can safely and confidentially say that I have since realised I am actually greyplatonic!

I am greysexual, greyromantic & now greyplatonic. Triple G!

[Guest]

https://www.tumblr.com/foolishfynnesse/724254896352804864/omg-an-apl-ring-finally-this-must-be
Thought this might interest some of you.

[Guest]

More symbols: As aplatonics we automatically get all non-platonic solids (anything that isn't a tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron). So unfortunately most Dnd dice are out, but I get my d10 as a symbol! And like every other shape! Also, bismuth should be the official apl periodic table element because bismuth crystals are aplatonic flag colors. Bismuth is number 83 on the periodic table, so 83 is a symbol as well. We (the aplatonic discord) might be going a little overboard, but I personally think that since there's the thread Aromantic Everything dedicated to claiming every aro symbol they can, there needs to be more apl symbols.

[Guest]

Okay, it has come to my attention that bismuth is also a bi symbol because the chemical abbreviation for bismuth is Bi. But it is in apl colors. Are there any bisexuals on this chat that have an opinion? Do you want to keep bismuth for yourself? Should bis and apls share bismuth? Or should it be for bi (bisexual or biromantic) aplatonics?

[Guest]

Ugh. My day was just ruined. I kind of need to vent to other aplatonics. So here you go. Sorry for ruining someone’s day. I wish there was a forum for aplatonics so I could reach more people. I mean, a lot of aplatonics are alloromantic.

I have pretty much found out that I am a friendship-repulsed aplatonic, which is why many of my friendships in the past haven’t worked out. I feel I can be happy on my own, more so than with friends. So I was sitting on my own at lunch, which is what I want to do. But an autistic queer kid sitting alone makes a great target. Four kids came over to mess with me. They were basically there to mock me and laugh at me. I got them to leave by screaming at them. Then they went to go talk about how childish I was, with screaming at them and stuff. I wonder if I was sitting with friends they wouldn’t have done that. Should I get friends? But I’m friendship-repulsed. I don’t even know how to get friends. But if I don’t have friends will this keep happening? It’s only the second day of school. I hate feeling like a target.

[hemogoblin]

On 9/7/2023 at 10:28 AM, DragonWithAQuest said:

I have pretty much found out that I am a friendship-repulsed aplatonic, which is why many of my friendships in the past haven’t worked out. I feel I can be happy on my own, more so than with friends. So I was sitting on my own at lunch, which is what I want to do. But an autistic queer kid sitting alone makes a great target. Four kids came over to mess with me. They were basically there to mock me and laugh at me. I got them to leave by screaming at them. Then they went to go talk about how childish I was, with screaming at them and stuff. I wonder if I was sitting with friends they wouldn’t have done that. Should I get friends? But I’m friendship-repulsed. I don’t even know how to get friends. But if I don’t have friends will this keep happening? It’s only the second day of school. I hate feeling like a target.

I'm sorry you're being bullied. Having friends when that doesn't make you happy would bring up a totally different set of problems and is not guaranteed to stop the bullying. Bullies bully because it makes them feel powerful and in control. They aren't bullying because you sit alone but because they've deduced sitting alone makes you an easier target. If you had friends, you might be a less easy target, but they could always bully you for whatever else made up reason they wanted. Having friends isn't a guarantee to stop bullying. Sometimes friends are bullied together. Sometimes friends run away and leave you to be bullied out of fear of being bullied themselves. And you just can't be with your friends 24/7, so there are always times a bully can catch you alone.

Is there a teacher that lets students sit in their room during breaks? This may be a better and more accessible option to you.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, hemogoblin said:

I'm sorry you're being bullied. Having friends when that doesn't make you happy would bring up a totally different set of problems and is not guaranteed to stop the bullying. Bullies bully because it makes them feel powerful and in control. They aren't bullying because you sit alone but because they've deduced sitting alone makes you an easier target. If you had friends, you might be a less easy target, but they could always bully you for whatever else made up reason they wanted. Having friends isn't a guarantee to stop bullying. Sometimes friends are bullied together. Sometimes friends run away and leave you to be bullied out of fear of being bullied themselves. And you just can't be with your friends 24/7, so there are always times a bully can catch you alone.

Is there a teacher that lets students sit in their room during breaks? This may be a better and more accessible option to you.

I got permission from the counseling office to eat in the library. It hasn't stopped it completely, but it removes one of their biggest opportunities.

[kira-]

I would just say that I’m Aroace aplatonic , I don’t rly feel the need to find a more specific label than that right now, it’s mostly been the past few months where I’ve rly started to to figure out that I’m aplatonic. An early sign that I should have seen was how much differently ppl viewed friendships than me. I guess I just thought it was just an Aroace thing until I really started looking into it. I feel like a lot of my life makes more sense now that I’ve more or less come to terms with this.

[retrobeetism]

I kinda hate how quick alloplatonics are to claim "aplatonic can still have friends", because yeah, while that may be true for some of us, it's not an universal experience. But not all of us do. I'm plato-repulsed, and I don't have people I call friends nor I want to. I don't like the idea of friendship at all and I don't want to be associated with it.

It feels like allpls put the focus on cupiopl people (not cupioplatonic people's fault btw) because it kinda allow them to ignore aplatonism exists. But the ones that do not desire friendships? We are pathologised and villainised

 

[kira-]

3 minutes ago, retrobeetism said:

I kinda hate how quick alloplatonics are to claim "aplatonic can still have friends", because yeah, while that may be true for some of us, it's not an universal experience. But not all of us do. I'm plato-repulsed, and I don't have people I call friends nor I want to. I don't like the idea of friendship at all and I don't want to be associated with it.

It feels like allpls put the focus on cupiopl people (not cupioplatonic people's fault btw) because it kinda allow them to ignore aplatonism exists. But the ones that do not desire friendships? We are pathologised and villainised

 

I hvnt gotten as much of that from ppl, mostly bc I hvnt rly told ppl abt being aplatonic except on here but I can see how that could come abt. Also bc I’ve only rly identified as aplatonic for a few months by now, so I’ve only rly intersected with the community on here.

[DeltaAro]

4 minutes ago, retrobeetism said:

It feels like allpls put the focus on cupiopl people (not cupioplatonic people's fault btw) because it kinda allow them to ignore aplatonism exists. But the ones that do not desire friendships? We are pathologised and villainised

Yes, nobody should be pathologized / villainised for not wanting friends. I'm sorry to hear that. These are attempts to make the orientation more palatable to outsiders, which doesn't work anyway and always throws your fellow aplatonic aros / non-cupio aplatonics / <insert other sub-minority> under the bus.

If we define cupioplatonic as "people who do not experience platonic attraction, but desire friendships [platonic relationships]", then the definition of cupioplatonic is - with slightly different wording - often seriously given even as a definition for aplatonic.

This fits the general pattern that "platonic" is regarded as fundamentally different, special, compared to romo/sexual.

E.g. also homoplatonic or heteroplatonic are usually rejected, since platonic attraction is assumed to be universal. Like I hear people say, "Yeah, you aren't a heteroplatonic [woman]... you just suffer from internalized misogyny."

[retrobeetism]

8 minutes ago, DeltaAro said:

Yes, nobody should be pathologized / villainised for not wanting friends. I'm sorry to hear that. These are attempts to make the orientation more palatable to outsiders, which doesn't work anyway and always throws your fellow aplatonic aros / non-cupio aplatonics / <insert other sub-minority> under the bus.

If we define cupioplatonic as "people who do not experience platonic attraction, but desire friendships [platonic relationships]", then the definition of cupioplatonic is - with slightly different wording - often seriously given even as a definition for aplatonic.

Exactly. the idea of friendship as a universal phenomenon is so strong that the first thing people mention when talking about aplatonism is the possibility of having friends without attraction.

Because there's no way someone could ever dislike and/or reject friendship. Friendship is always good and healthy (let's ignore the abuse and manipulation that can and do exist in platonic relationships), not like all those other (inferior) type of relationships. [heavy sarcasm here]

8 minutes ago, DeltaAro said:

This fits the general pattern that "platonic" is regarded as fundamentally different, special, compared to romo/sexual.

E.g. also homoplatonic or heteroplatonic are usually rejected, since platonic attraction is assumed to be universal. Like I hear people say, "Yeah, you aren't a heteroplatonic [woman]... you just suffer from internalized misogyny."

Yes, exactly. It all comes down to platonormativity. They see platonic attraction and relationships as a universal human experience and, also, as "better" or "healthier" than other forms of attraction/relationships. So they can't grasp how someone could not want friendships or have a gender-specific platonic attraction.

Because at the same time they claim platonic relationships are "just as important as sexual and romantic ones", they actually see friendships existing in a different plane.

[Mark]

On 7/9/2023 at 9:18 PM, nonmerci said:

Well for me, it is something that didn't crossed my mind until I enter the aro community and heard about how aros talk about their friends and squishes. To be honest I think that sometimes, some people seem to merge platonic with queerplatonic and that added to my feeling of "I've never felt like that", but still, I realize that all the things that were put under "platonic attraction" and what some aros expect from friendship are things I don't relate to.

For instance I don't look at people and think "I want to befriend them", I don't need to see my friends often cause I don't miss them even if I enjoy their company, things like that.

within the aro community the concept of platonic attraction can be rather lionised and romanticised.To the point that people end having to ask "Can I be aromantic if I don't experience squishes, want a QPR, relate to the concept, etc?" Thus it needs to be stated that "aromantic ≠ alloplatonic".

Outside of aro spaces virtually nobody talks about "platonic attraction" at all. It's also notable that non-romantic forms of attraction such as sexual, physical/sensual, emotional and aesthetic which are well understood by mainstream psychology are often overlooked in aro forums.

[retrobeetism]

In part, allonormative society doen't talk about friendship because it's seen as a universal experience in a way that not even sexual and/or romantic relationships are.

4 hours ago, Mark said:

Outside of aro spaces virtually nobody talks about "platonic attraction" at all. It's also notable that non-romantic forms of attraction such as sexual, physical/sensual, emotional and aesthetic which are well understood by mainstream psychology are often overlooked in aro forums.

This is true. There's also a long history of both different disciplines and the queer community having created different names for different type of attraction and relationships all through history.

Recently I was reading a book on Beethoven. There there's a quote of one of LVB's closest friends mentioning they had a "Romantic Friendship". And when I look up "Romantic Friendship" it basically describes what the aro and general aspec community now calls "queerplatonic relationships" (at least in some of its meanings). The author of the book also marks that a distinction between sexual relationships/love, sensual relationships/love and erotic relationships/love existed during those times.

Unrelated to that book, we also have disjunctive vs conjunctive, which is basically the split attraction model and varioriented vs perioriented.

Sometimes, I think that the aro community, especially alloplatonic aros, are so focused on these idea that they (and other aros) are enlighten individuals who know about types of attractions that "the allos" aren't aware of, when in reality they are just ignoring the existence of a lot of older terminology and the fact that humanity has being classifying love, relationships and attraction into different types since antiquity.

[DeltaAro]

On 12/23/2023 at 7:13 PM, retrobeetism said:

On 12/23/2023 at 6:51 PM, DeltaAro said:

 

Exactly. the idea of friendship as a universal phenomenon is so strong that the first thing people mention when talking about aplatonism is the possibility of having friends without attraction.

Because there's no way someone could ever dislike and/or reject friendship. Friendship is always good and healthy (let's ignore the abuse and manipulation that can and do exist in platonic relationships), not like all those other (inferior) type of relationships. [heavy sarcasm here]

I think a crude version of "Natural Law" or the naturalistic fallacy is behind that, which is still an important intellectual undercurrent of Western societies.

Vegans (yes, I know ... plz stick with me) are often advised to take B12 supplements that in the past were either synthetic or produced by GMOs (not true anymore, we now have 100 % natural B12). Of course, animal feed always contained synthetic B12, which was conveniently ignored. But for some reason, this supposed unnaturalness was regarded as the killer argument against veganism: "Hey, veganism is bad and unnatural because you need unnatural B12 supplements!" 🤦‍♀️

Back during the fight for marriage-equality, this Natural Law stuff also reared its head again. There was a group of "Natural Law" academics, who wrote lots of amicus briefs to the Supreme Court, how horrible same-gender marriage would be because ... "It's unnatural". (I reread some of that history because of the recent Vatican decision to bless same-gender couples, against which many of the same people protested, too, of course)

One of them, John Finnis, had constructed a complex theory around it, which postulated "seven basic goods" of which one seriously was ... friendship. So it is that deeply ingrained. Friendship, the basic good - like self-preservation! I mean, nobody cares about that, they care about his homophobia (understandably). But for us, it's interesting because it shows how those bad ideas have the same root.

I also must admit that I assumed that friendship came just 100 % "natural" for humans. So yes, for the majority, it's unironically inconceivable that one could reject friendship. If you say that, they hear: "Hey, I don't need to eat, I do photosynthesis".

After a break-up, alloromantics feel sometimes jaded for some time and perhaps experience a glimmer of insight into the (romance-negative) aro mindset. But for friendships there is no such experience, there are break-ups of course, but those will be squarely blamed on the specific friend.

That was quite meandering and long, thanks for reading it.

[Holmbo]

On 12/28/2023 at 8:08 PM, Mark said:

within the aro community the concept of platonic attraction can be rather lionised and romanticised.

I agree. I get the impression sometimes of just swallowing all alloromantic norms but instead replacing the romantic partner with a qpr. But that's because I'm so content unpartnered and dislike this amatonormativity in society.

[kira-]

On 2/24/2023 at 4:04 PM, hemogoblin said:

Mini-poll: what are my fellow aplatonic folks views on pets?

I'm personally not a pet person. It's a combo of not being able to devote that much love, time, or attention to any being and knowing a domesticated animal needs to be loved and taken care of and a bit of a germ thing where I can't just casually touch and hang out with animals like other people can. Petting/cuddling them has to be a specific action with a specific time limit, and then I need to go get cleaned. Plus allergies+asthma just make it soooooooo much nicer to live without any pet dander.

Writing this made me curious if there's any aplatonic folk here interested in being a parent? (Again, I'm personally not. Kids are awesome, but I like going home at the end of the day and not being responsible for teaching them how to be good people and how to navigate the world.)

pets are great. i used to hv 2 cats (one when I was rly young, one recently, both gone now) and 2 turtles (for a few months, both gone now). i currently hv 2 guinea pigs which my family has had for several yrs. we also occasionally take care of this dog (we hv pm my whole life). she’s prty old now but i love when she comes over.

personally I’m more of a cat person, but I like a lot of diff animals.

[P4R4D0X]

On 2/1/2023 at 7:29 AM, nonmerci said:

Hi ! I call myself anattractional cause I don't feel attraction.

I guess I am an aplatonic plato-favorable as I enjoy having friends but I don't feel attracted to them.

I sometimes feel like that I am a fake or that my feelings are not real, but I know this is not true. It may also be linked to the fact that I recently started to ID as a loveless aro as well, but also to my contacts with the aro community as well : because platonic attraction is a big concept in the aro community, but not in the alloallo world, it never occurs to me that something was different about my friendship before. It is not a criticism but just a notice that it contributed to make my feelings sounds less real cause there is no attraction involved.

 

But at the end we are no liars, we just have our own way to live our relationships.

@nonmerci, you are the only other anattractional I have met

I value my friends, however, i only want to be friends, don't want to go deeper, nothing else, just pure friendship. 

[kira-]

mood

[MondoBilby]

I have one best friend that I love to hang out with (in short bursts, not all the time), and that’s all I really want to be honest. I do talk to other people sometimes (like my college peers) but other than joking around a bit, I don’t really have any desire to talk more with them and form a friendship. 

I fluctuate a lot though (I have a very contradictory personality lol). Sometimes I get a strong desire to hang out with a group of people and play games or something, and other times I just want to be left alone to do my own thing. However, with both of those feelings I never get a desire to make more friends. Just being around other people, even if I’m not interacting with them, is enough for me.

I dunno, I think I might just be an introvert, not aplatonic. But who knows lol.