Tinkere Posted February 19, 2023 Share Posted February 19, 2023 i’ve been comfortable with my label as aroace for almost a year , butch now i’m starting to question if i’m actually just demiromantic/+grayromantic or if i’m just a fraud… i know labels can be fluid and it’s alright to not stick with one, but it just sucks cause after so long because i thought i finally figured everything out and now i’m confused again (long rant/story to preface my situation) : i convinced myself that all the people i thought i had crushes on were just platonic or i was just lonely and wanted people to care about me (not romantically) but like looking back, i’m a little unsure? anyway, i wanted to preface my question with a bit of explaining my previous squishes with what i’m feeling now for contrast never once did i think i actually wanted to date any of the very few people that i “liked” from 7th to 9th grade , i just wanted their attention and wanted to feel special to them…? … my significant “crushes” are kind of hard to explain the first one in my life was when i was almost 12. i honestly can’t remember anything about him or why i liked him, im pretty sure i probably subconsciously forced myself to like someone to feel normal. it didn’t really last at all because i don’t think i liked him in the first place ???? (we were not really friends at all) second one was this one person i went to during a summer camp(they were my gay awakening 😭) and basically we got along super well and became friends for the week, and i thought they were super funny and whatnot. when i met them when i was 12, i don’t think it was very serious, as i had never really experienced any actual crushes before… i never thought about dating them or anything, i think i just really wanted to be friends, but i admired them… like a lot… i liked them on and off for about a two years , but we rarely saw each other and i went through those brief periods of liking them only when they actually came back into my life only for me to forget about them . i don’t think i ever wanted to date them, i just really admired them a lot for their humor, bravery, outgoingness , and i think i just deep down wanted to BE them…? next, there was this person that i had met in late 2019. (i’ll call her J in this story.) we were friends for a while, but like i think in early 2020 , i started “liking “ her?? (not really sure what that counts as but i guess since we were getting closer , so i just got attached). anyway, it wasn’t anything too serious until a few months later when she started dating someone , which put me into a deep depression for about half a year. this was my first SERIOUS attachment i’ve ever had, but i’m not sure if it was remotely romantic?? i really really liked J, but i never desired us actually DATING (then again, we were like 13 at the time, so how would that even work???) , but i really just WANTED her, like??? idk how to describe it… i think i was just insanely jealous? at that point, i hadn’t been able to keep any friends for longer than a year, and the thought of losing my closest friend was just unbearable to me. (she had started acting really distant ever since getting with their partner ) . so, i think that obsession was just me intensely fearing the loss of another friend and i just assumed it was a crush. eventually it just got so bad for me that i stopped talking to her for a few months for my mental health (which helped a lot) i cut her out from about feb 2021-august 2021 and we became friends again. (we’re still friends to this day, and i’d say she’s like… the closest person i have in my life , we’ve made up over that incident). i got over my “crush” for her by that time, and i don’t think i felt really anything significant for anyone else until like…maybe february the next year ? i ended up getting “infatuated” for this one guy in my geometry class for no apparent reason. i can’t even remember why i liked him, but i think i just wanted to get to know him better??? like… idk how to describe it. i was obsessed with him for no apparent reason, but as soon as i started to realize that since we’re in high school now, if he ever DID like me, we’d have to ACTUALLY date. like… in my head, my ideal “dating relationship” was just being best friends but with exclusive labels and being more special to each other than anyone else… the whole idea of having to actually DO the dating process freaked me out more than anything else and made me realize i did NOT want to participate in that whatsoever , so i immediately got over him completely. i never really made that much of an effort to talk to him, and i never really fantasized about us being in a relationship or anything other than those one times where i pondered it and immediately scared myself away. to this day, i’m not really sure if i actually liked him or if i was just bored, cause i think i hyped myself up about him just to feel something (i literally wrote a song and a sonnet about him, but all the words i wrote felt empty and didn’t align with anything i actually felt ) soon after that incident, i started to come to terms with the fact that i’m on the aromantic spectrum, which gave me a lot of clarity. i didn’t really feel anything for anyone until august last year when i had a squish for a month when i REALLY wanted to be friends with this one girl because i was so impressed by her smarts. (i was definitely not romantically or sexually attracted to her, i just desperately wanted to be friends and i was aware of that) she started making me feel like shit for unrelated reasons so i just decided to stop being interested in her completely and promptly got over her since then, i hadn’t really fixated on any people. i was pretty content with that until my best friend of nearly 4 years started to feel different to me recently (same close friend whom i mentioned earlier, we’ll still call her J in this explanation) we’ve known each other for a while and we’ve had our issues on and off, but we’ve always resolved them and come back better than ever, and i think we’re both in a pretty mentally stable state and have gotten over whatever petty issues happened in the past. i have quite a few friends at school, but most of them really just feel like shallow figures that i talk to for entertainment purposes. me and J’s friendship is completely different, though. we literally text for hours every single day, i felt like we’ve told each other literally every thing about ourselves, i feel like i could probably trust her with anything (both emotional-wise and in lending physical things or whatnot. we’ve literally lended each other our nintendo DS and 3DS to each other since we have so much mutual trust). we don’t go to the same school and she lives fairly far away, but we do hang out pretty often nowadays. we’re so close that she literally decided to invite me to her 5-day FAMILY vacation because she sees me as someone that special to her. anyway, we’ve even joked about getting married for tax benefits and stuff, but like idk i thought it was a joke, but she might be serious? we’ve also literally discussed living together in college which we were actually serious about if my parents don’t stop us. like…fuck. i always was kind of put off by the idea of living with someone, but i’ve seriously got my mind set on the college she wants to go to just so we can be in the same area. WE’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO COLLEGE FOR LIKE 2 YEARS BUT GOD IM STILL THINKING ABOUT IT… like??? i don’t know WHAT i’m feeling??????? all this time i’ve been thinking i’m romance averse but i feel like i wouldn’t mind being with her??? i don’t know if im actually attracted to her because it’s confusing and difficult to determine since we’ve known each other so long, and i’ve had a previous “crush” on her and gotten over it once. that being said, i’ve gotten over all the butterflies bullshit years ago and then gotten over her and now i feel like i ACTUALLY like her but i don’t deal with the “palms sweaty, heart racing, butterflies, always wanting to stare at them, finding every excuse to be with them, getting excited when they text” stuff at all… cause we’ve been friends for nearly 4 years. i wouldn’t feel that if i already KNOW her? but like… something just started feeling completely different but not THAT way, but different in like “i feel like i could actually spend my life with her because she’s the only person i could trust this much at this point”… LIKE??? I DONT KNOW IF I WANT A QPR I DONT KNOW IF I WANT TO DATE HER BECAUSE SHE ACTUALLY FEELS SPECIAL TO ME OUT OF THE BLUE AFTER 3 AND A HALF YEARS… ,i suddenly like the idea of having someone to call my partner , i don’t think i’d actively want to do romantic stuff like kissing or cuddling or holding hands because physical contact is a normally big nope for me especially if we aren’t close, but i feel like maybe id be ok with it with her? today we were in an amusement park riding scary rollercoasters and i subconsciously kind of wanted to jokingly ask her to hold hands with me and later SHE ACTUALLY ASKED ME so we did and that made me kind of happy… i feel like such a fraud and a creep…literally i know there’s a high chance she likes me back, but we’ve kind of established a few months ago that i got over her (WHICH I DID…) and i don’t want to confuse her by making anything of it… (not sure if it’s too late to mention this here, but she’s asexual and sapphic if that’s important to mention) like i know i shouldn’t be upset that my label might not be strictly aroace, but it just feels like i’ve wasted my label if that even makes sense? i know being demi or gray is very much a real thing , but coming to terms with it just makes me feel like i’ve been faking being aro this whole time, and i’m not even sure if i AM demi/(and/or) gray because what if i just am desiring a QPR and i DONT feel romantically towards her??? im so lost… if anyone needs to ask me questions to help me figure out if im demi, gray, or just aroace, please feel free to! i just want to figure this whole thing out… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hemogoblin Posted February 19, 2023 Share Posted February 19, 2023 (edited) Whoo, boy, okay. First off, let's just take some deep breaths. It's okay. You're okay. It's going to be okay. https://bongo.cat/ Okay. Now let's tackle some of that harmful thinking that's got you trapped. 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: i’ve been comfortable with my label as aroace for almost a year , butch now i’m starting to question if i’m actually just demiromantic/+grayromantic or if i’m just a fraud… Aspec people are not frauds. Aspec people are aro/ace. Aspec people do not need to microlabel. The aro/ace labels are for ALL aro/ace people, no matter where they lie on the spectrum. All labels are for anyone. Questioning people can explore labels. You can use a label and outgrow it. You can use a label and find one you like better label. You can use a label and learn more about yourself/have things change and decide to update to a different label. Nobody is a fraud for doing any of this. If a friend came to you in a huff and cried that they were an awful disgrace and a fraud because they came out to you as [whatever] and now they think they're [new thing], would you shun them? Agree with them that they're awful? Call them names? I highly suspect you wouldn't. So why are you treating yourself this way? You are not an exception to the rule that it's okay to grow, change, explore, experiment, etc. and use different labels. There's not some magical clause that makes this okay for other people but not for you. Treat yourself like you would a friend. You do deserve that. 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: i know labels can be fluid and it’s alright to not stick with one, but it just sucks cause after so long because i thought i finally figured everything out and now i’m confused again I hate to break it to you, but this will not be the last time either. It probably won't be the only identity crisis. It absolutely won't be the only time you question what you know or want out of life in general. Career goals, financial goals, friendship goals, hobby goals, the things you enjoy, the people you enjoy being with, where you want to live - all of this is very incredibly likely to change throughout life. You'll go through 6 years of school for a career and realize you hate it. You'll visit a friend in another city and realize you've fallen in love with it. You'll get obsessed with blacksmithery, do it for a couple of years, and then never step foot in a forge again. Especially since you're so young - you're still developing and growing and this time of your life in particular is full of a lot of rapid change and passing whims. Life is full of phases. Life is ever evolving. Nothing is ever set in stone. Everything can change. Remember, life is not about the destination (death!), it's about the journey. Everything you're going to see and do and experience. That's the stuff that matters. You can rush the process but you'll only miss all the best parts. Also, as above, aspec people are aro/ace. Keep identifying as aroace if that's what you want. That's perfectly fine. 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: never once did i think i actually wanted to date any of the very few people that i “liked” from 7th to 9th grade , i just wanted their attention and wanted to feel special to them…? Just because you're experiencing new feelings now doesn't mean that your past feelings are somehow invalid or wrong. It's really hard to remember feelings the more time passes. If trying to compare what you feel now to what you felt then is confounding things, let it go. Focus on the now, for the now is what actually matters. 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: LIKE??? I DONT KNOW IF I WANT A QPR I DONT KNOW IF I WANT TO DATE HER BECAUSE SHE ACTUALLY FEELS SPECIAL TO ME OUT OF THE BLUE AFTER 3 AND A HALF YEARS… That's okay! You don't have to know. In fact, I would caution any teenager thinking they've got their whole life planned out because they've got some intense feelings: your feelings are real and valid - but take a deep breath and chill. You've still got so much time and growing and experiencing to do. Don't commit to anything now for the rest of your life if you don't have to. Commit to it for now. You've barely lived. Let yourself go and experience independence and autonomy and just have fun to whatever extent you can. What you want may become more clear if you accept the uncertainty of the future and stay open-minded to opportunities you might otherwise overlook if you get tunnel vision on fulfilling one specific future. You don't have to understand these feelings anytime soon. Give yourself time to sit in them, feel them, and let them settle. There are so many factors that may impact how you move forward here. Give yourself time to see the whole picture, then go back to thinking about a decision about what you want. 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: i feel like such a fraud and a creep… Yet you're neither. These are the mean little brain weasels you've got running around in your brain being mean to you for no reason. We've covered why you're not a fraud. You've described no creepy actions. All you've done is have private feelings, which everyone has, and didn't ask her to hold her hand, and did hold her hand when she asked you. It'd be hard for even the strictest of thought police to deem you a creep for...having feelings and holding hands when asked. 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: and i don’t want to confuse her by making anything of it… You know what they say about assuming: it makes an ass out of (her) and (you). When you feel a little better about it, why not talk to her about your feelings? It's okay if the conversation is "these are things I'm feeling, and I don't really know what to make of them, but I wanted to tell you because I think I would want to try some different things in our relationship if you also wanted to, like [holding hands/cuddling/calling each other partner]". There's no point in going into the conversation with only one acceptable outcome because she's her own person with her own wishes, anyway. All you can do is share your own feelings, listen to hers, and talk about each other's boundaries. Is she only interested in a romantic relationship or might she want to try a queerplatonic relationship? Would you want to at least start out calling it queerplatonic and maybe re-evaluate later if romantic would be more comfy? Talk together! Be confused together! I don't generally suggest confessing feelings for someone multiple times, but these are new feelings for you and you say there's a chance she might have some sort of return feelings for you and considering the timeline, it sounds like it was probably a while ago that you talked about having whatever feelings for her originally and as young as you are, a lot could have changed since then. I do suggest waiting to talk until you're feeling a little better about this, though, because the conversation should be about sharing and discussing - not dumping a negative spiral on her about your self-doubts. Wait to talk until it can be a potentially positive or at least neutral thing. 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: but it just feels like i’ve wasted my label if that even makes sense? Labels are not a finite resources. This is not you leaving all the lights on and refusing to close the fridge and spilling gasoline everywhere. You can go through 98 trillionty labels, and it would never be a waste. Why would it be a waste to do something that brought you comfort? Why would it be a waste to learn more about yourself? 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: but coming to terms with it just makes me feel like i’ve been faking being aro this whole time Even if you were alloromantic, you wouldn't have been faking or a fraud or wrong or incorrect or doing anything wrong. This is literally the process of questioning!!! It's a good thing actually to explore and experiment!!! You don't have to try something to know you do or don't want to do it, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with trying something and deciding it's not for you for whatever reason. But again, if you're demi or gray...you're still aroace. (You might also consider this experience an exception, which most people have because people are more complex than that, to your overall feelings/identity.) 16 hours ago, Tinkere said: and i’m not even sure if i AM demi/(and/or) gray And now we get to the part where you're really going to hate me because I'm here to tell you that no one can determine this for you. You are the only one who can answer this question. Remember, identity is not the answer to a math problem. It's not a diagnosis to your feelings. It is not one specific thing that can be boiled down to something so overly simplified as a mere handful of letters. The label(s) you choose are based off of feelings and needs. Which labels feel right to you? Which do you want to use? Which help you connect to a community of people with similar experiences? Which help you communicate whatever it is you want to communicate to others? Which labels do you like the most? There's not some, like, pre-ordained, objectively correct answer to your identity. There's just what you current want and what you currently don't. No matter the label you choose, regardless of how specific it is, you are always going to end up communicating the depths of your feelings and wants and needs to the people who it matters to you to know because no one word can ever truly encompass you so well that it alone is a good enough explanation to someone who you want to really know the real you. Pick the label(s) that feels best to you. But know that it is never going to be the end of you feeling your feelings or trying to understand them. Because you are so much more than your label. At the end of the day, your label is a just a tool you use to more easily communicate to others. It's never going to make your feelings simple or easy. My best advice is to ditch this fixation with labels for a while. Spend some time instead considering what you want with J. And I don't mean a romantic or queerplatonic relationship. I mean this stuff: "i suddenly like the idea of having someone to call my partner , i don’t think i’d actively want to do romantic stuff like kissing or cuddling or holding hands because physical contact is a normally big nope for me especially if we aren’t close, but i feel like maybe id be ok with it with her?" These are the kinds of questions that are going to help you far more. What sort of physical things do you want to do with her? Do you want some sort of commitment with her? If so, what might that look like? Does it involve a title for each other? Does it involve being some flavor of monogamous? Does it involve making sure to make time for each other every week or more? Picking a label isn't going to decide any of this stuff for you, anyway. Good luck. <3 Edited February 19, 2023 by hemogoblin 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collie Posted February 19, 2023 Share Posted February 19, 2023 It's ok if you decide you're not aromantic or that you're somewhere else on the aromantic spectrum. Completely ok! It takes time to sort these things out and that's ok! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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