July Carnival of Aros: Loneliness

[hemogoblin]

Hey, all! I'm hosting this month's Carnival of Aros again. This month's topic is Loneliness. Please consider submitting!

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The Carnival of Aros is a monthly blogging event where any and every aro (including questioning aros) is welcome to respond to the month’s prompt. Last month’s prompt was “being aromantic in an allonormative world” if you want to check out some other topics/responses.

This month’s prompt is Loneliness. Here’s some ideas of how you might talk about loneliness as an aro:

• Are you in a relationship but feel lonely/isolated due to your unique experience of dating as an aromantic? What triggers this? How do you cope?
• Are you an aro who does atypical relationship type/s (queerplatonic, relationship anarchy, solo polyam, polyam) who finds yourself feeling lonely due to a lack of people who understand or respect these relationship types? How did you find community? How do you cope?
• Does being nonpartnering trigger any loneliness for you? What brings up these feelings? How do you cope?
• Is loneliness a feeling that’s brought up by not wanting or not pursuing typical “adult milestones” like marriage? How do you manage this? Have you found other milestones to celebrate?
• Does being a closeted aro bring up specific feelings of loneliness? How do you cope?
• Does any loneliness related to your aromanticism feel different from other situations you experience loneliness in?
• What are your tips for dealing with loneliness?
• Have you managed to overcome feelings of loneliness? How?
• What’s your understanding or definition of loneliness? Does this seem to differ from an alloromantic’s description of loneliness?
• Anything else you’re inspired to write about regarding loneliness.

To enter, write about your response on any platform (tumblr, reddit, medium, mastodon, wordpress, etc.) and submit it to me here on tumblr. You do not need a tumblr account to submit your post to me.

Submit your posts by August 1st, 2023. No strict timezone rules. At that time, I’ll post a roundup with all the submissions to make them easy to read and find.

We desperately need hosts, so please reach out and volunteer if you have a topic you’d be interested in hearing other aro thoughts on. It’s super easy and a great way to connect to the community.

You can also post/share your response here on this thread or by DM'ing me, and I will collect your response for the round-up post if you don't want to submit via tumblr.

[hemogoblin]

Round up can be found here!

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I Am Charles Baker Harris shared her piece “On Singleness and Christian Culture”, weaving together personal anecdotes on being single and never having a serious relationship at age 29, the influence of Christian purity culture on dating and romance, and how being single has historically been empowering and even a rebellion against patriarchy.

Phoebefrog submitted “Loneliness”, detailing what loneliness feels like to them and how they plan on trying to combat this feeling.

Sildarmillion wrote both “Maybe someday I will meet somebody like me” and “Relationship advice be all about dating”. “Maybe someday” is a personal observation on kindred spirits and connection. “Relationship advice” is the observation that society only seems to recognize romantic(+sexual) relationships on multiple levels.

Tabby-shieldmaiden produced her piece “Connect” on how finding the right label for you can help you feel less alone, as it did her, including a plea to take intracommunity issues seriously so that EVERYONE can feel welcome and connected.

Finally, on this askanaroace blog, I admitted “I Don’t Think I Experience It” after polling four alloplatonic alloromantic allosexuals who had very strong, heartbreaking descriptions of what loneliness felt like to them.