My experience with aromance and aromantic relationships.

[Rackson]

I have been meaning write this all down for a long time. Mostly for my own sake.

*I might add on to this post on a later date with things that I maybe missed or forgot to say*

My relationship with aromance is a tricky one, It's like when someone tells you to remember to breath, you used to not even notice when you do it, but now every breath is a conscious thought. It all started for me around second grade when I lived in a neighborhood with several other kids my age. And in that neighborhood, I had a friend who was a blond girl (my age), we will call her Jessica for the sake of her privacy (if you are wondering if Jessica was you, she's not). Anyway, I had a crush on Jessica, every time she would ask to hang out I be filled with joy and a warm feeling. Many kids in our grade knew that I had a crush on Jessica because I was very vocal about my feelings. I am still not sure if these were romantic feelings or close friendship feelings.

And after about a year of living close to Jessica, she moved across the state. I was so disappointing as a child, and talked about Jessica for many years following. But right after Jessica left, I told myself that "I have to have a crush on a girl to be normal and happy". So one snow-day in our neighborhood I picked a random girl and told myself that I WOULD like this girl, and I WOULD have a crush on her, I promptly forgot about the girl the next day. But this started a long line of times in my life where I tell myself that I need to love someone, unless I won't "fit in" or "be happy"

The next example of this happened in middle school, I understood that one of my closest friends (we will call him James) that I looked up to and admired had feelings for a girl at school. So me being me, decided that I had to have a crush to be "cool" like my friend James was. So I scanned the small school body for a girl that I was going to have a crush on. I quickly (after not much thought) decided that I was going to tell everyone that I had a crush on the most popular and pretty girl in school. I mean, in the movies the nerd always loved the popular girl, so it would surely work for me right?

The answer to that question is no, telling all my friends that I had a crush on the popular girl did not work. In fact, it just made my life harder because having to act like that was just one more thing I had to keep track of. Middle school ended with me never asking her out, never talking to her directly, and never feeling anything more than awkward around her. 

I then left middle school, and started on the scary path of high school. Freshman year passed with me not ever thinking about the girl that I supposedly had a crush on in middle school. I had made a new friend freshman year who we will call Larry. Larry and I spent most of our free time together that year, playing video games and talking about dnd. 

Sophomore year rolled around and Larry and I had both grown as people during the summer. The first half of the year sucked and went by as normal (as normal highschool can be). But around halfway through the year I didn't see Larry for the majority of a month, Larry was known for not coming to school for short periods of time (for boy scout events, family events, etc) but this was a strange amount of time for him to be gone. I couldn't call him because he didn't have a phone. And shortly after I saw him at school again. He told me that he had been visiting his grandparents, and that he had gotten a girlfriend. 

Larry and I were both nerds, and both not super jacked or good at sports (larry was like 6'4" tho). So learning that Larry had gotten a girl friend surprised me. Larry told me that things were back to normal and he was not leaving for a while. The following week Larry stopped hanging out with me at school. I quickly went from a kid who has friends and has fun at lunch, to that one weird kid who doesn't have friends to hang out with. Larry was spending so much time with his girlfriend that he stopped being friends with me.

In response to this, I decided that I needed to have a crush again. I mean, if Larry had a girlfriend, I should have one too. So I scanned the large student body of my high school and picked the one girl that actually talks to me, we will call her Evie for privacy purposes. I had known Evie my entire life, I went to church and youth group with her every week, and we had several classes together. So I told myself that I should like her. I then started to talk to her more and be better friends. I didn't know if the friendship I was experiencing was me having a crush so I spent several weeks looking up articles like "How to tell if you have a crush on someone" and "How to tell if you are just telling yourself that you love someone but you really don't" And yes those are both very real things I looked up. *writers note: this is one of the biggest "how tf are you this obviously clearly aromantic" moments I can think of*  I learned what you should do if you have a crush on someone, and started to act this way around Evie. That got real exhausting real quick, so I just made crazy jokes to get her to laugh. When I wasn't around Evie, I didn't think about her at all. And I didn't even have any physical attraction to her as well, which is saying something when you are in the middle of high school and young. 

One day near the end of the school year, my sister had mentioned something about Evie's girlfriend and how they make out. And suddenly some switch flipped in my brain. Evie had a girlfriend and I had missed every single clearly obvious sign. People who were lgbtq had even told me that she had a "girlfriend" and I had just assumed that girlfriend meant like "close friend who is a girl". During the car ride with my sister to school that day I was silent, I was thinking "why am I not dissapointed or sad about this?" I felt nothing, maybe some slight embarrassment that I had missed every single sign, but I felt no disappointment at all. 

A couple weeks later I watched Jaiden animation's video about aromanticsm and It freaked me the f#@% out. Jaiden was describing almost exactly what I had felt for a long long time. But I come from a very heavy traditional christian household, where lgbtq was shamed in our family and discouraged. Needless to say, I was scared. How could I be lgbtq? I don't even like guys or stuff like that? *writers note: this is does not reflect my current idea and knowledge of lgbtq, I was just scared*  What if someone finds out?? 

I spent a lot of time searching about micro-labels for aromanticism, and settled on Pseudo-romance. It seemed to somewhat fit what I felt and provided me a break from having to search through my own brain and a sea of microlabels and meanings. But very recently I realized that I fit under several parts of other micro labels as well, which was confusing. I asked someone on the lgbtqia+ fandom forum and was advised to just go by aro-spec. So I do now, to make it easier for me. 

Thanks for reading this, it feels good to have it in writing. Or I guess, words. :)

-Confused as ever, Racksonjoss101

[Rackson]

If anyone has had a similar experience or has any thoughts or comments. Or even if you can think of a micro-label that would fit me. I would love to hear them!

Edited July 24, 2023 by Rackson

[HelloThere]

I can’t say that I had the exact same experiences, it was more of not thinking about romance, but when I did I drastically misunderstood it. Like I thought that because I was staring at someone a bit (aesthetic attraction) that it was automatically a crush, and I remember no emotion behind it or obsession. I never thought about it, I never cared, and at most I had one legitimate crush, and it was a LONG time ago, not to mention all of those feelings just disappeared after a while. That possibility of one legitimate crush took me until July to remember. I learned I was aroace in April. 

Strangely enough I don’t remember anyone in my childhood having any relationships, I was probably just ignorant but dang did seeing how much allos care about romance open my eyes. 😅

[Rackson]

8 minutes ago, HelloThere said:

Like I thought that because I was staring at someone a bit (aesthetic attraction) that it was automatically a crush, and I remember no emotion behind it or obsession.

Yeah I kinda thought the same way. My experience was less obsession and more "we are really good friends and we never want to leave each other"

@HelloThere Thanks for reading my thing tho! :)

[HelloThere]

12 minutes ago, Rackson said:

Yeah I kinda thought the same way. My experience was less obsession and more "we are really good friends and we never want to leave each other"

@HelloThere Thanks for reading my thing tho! :)

Or sometimes more “how this persons pretty, I hope I get to just look at them, and I don’t want to do anything”.

[Rackson]

On 7/23/2023 at 5:26 PM, HelloThere said:

Or sometimes more “how this persons pretty, I hope I get to just look at them, and I don’t want to do anything”.

Totally. It sounds creepy when you say it out loud, but its not romantic or sxual. Just "wow, this person looks really attractive"

[HelloThere]

48 minutes ago, Rackson said:

Totally. It sounds creepy when you say it out loud, but its not romantic or sxual. Just "wow, this person looks really attractive"

Yeah pretty much, it really does sound creepy, though I’m not sure why doing nothing would be creepy. 

[Holmbo]

Thanks for sharing. About the micro label, any specific reason you want one and not just aromantic?

[Confused Opossum]

On 7/23/2023 at 3:45 PM, Rackson said:

Middle school ended with me never asking her out, never talking to her directly, and never feeling anything more than awkward around her. 

never talking to your supposed “crush” and only feeling awkward around them is so relatable😭 that was most of my “crushes” in middle school too lmao

i remember the first time i was asked who my crush was, it was during a sleepover with my best friends at the time. i had never thought about it before, so i just thought of the first guy from school i could think of and went with him. he was someone i had never spoken to, and never did except maybe once in passing, and only felt awkward around him for the rest of the school year. by the next school year i pretty much forgot about him lmao

i do have a vague memory from elementary school also, when our class was in the school bus coming back from a school trip, and the boy sitting next to me fell asleep on my shoulder. i guess that sparked me to think i could have a crush on him, and i thought about the possibility of dating him in the future. i don’t think i thought about him again after that lol

[CoolK]

On 7/23/2023 at 7:58 PM, Rackson said:

If anyone has had a similar experience or has any thoughts or comments. Or even if you can think of a micro-label that would fit me. I would love to hear them!

I go by the microlable Idemromantic and do want a romantic relationship or QPR in my case the lines between platonic, alterous, and romantic feelings are very blurry.