pliocene

[pliocene]

"how about we use an identity that real life people have and find integral to their experiences and their sense of self as a discourse topic in a tumblr poll" ok 😊 anthrax envelope arriving to your home address in 3-5 business days btw.

[pliocene]

the problem is that being single is seen as the consolidation prize, and not the natural neutral state of being-a-person. at the end of the movie or the book or the poetry, there is a person waiting for you at the altar, and they love you. if the play is a comedy, everyone gets married. the metaphor is about how you are not-whole. the metaphor is about how everyone is going to be happily-ever-after. the metaphor is that romantic love is the most important resource on the planet, not just all-love. all-love is not a thing, that is a disappointment. the treasure is not the friends we made along the way. the treasure is the girl you landed.

the metaphor is that you cannot be alone, that means you are broken. are you getting over someone? that is acceptable, you can be getting over someone, but not for long. you must be single because you would rather not be single. you must be single and looking to not-be-single. you must want to date, eventually.

friendship and community are never seen as being equal-to or even-better than romantic connection. that person is your one! you need to find them. you need to hunt through the sand particles until you can shift out some kind of gem. this is regardless to your own experience of the beach and the sun. you need to be somewhere with someone.

if you are taking this time alone to heal, that is so sad. everyone gives you this little pitying look. the understanding is that you are not actually happier than you were before you were single. it is seen as a sort of pity - oh, you are choosing yourself, making yourself the priority? - that isn't quite right. you must mean that you are making yourself ready for the right person. you are just laying the bed better this time. open up your heart. you'll find them, we promise!

what do you mean you're really-truly genuinely-very happy? you are probably misremembering what it was like to be in a relationship. and besides, once you meet your person, that time will look grey and bland and wasted. your person is the only way for you to see in color. so what if you have taken this time - for the first time in your entire life - to actually-for-real do the fucking work. you can be proud of yourself, sure. but the way we need to know that you got better is that you get a partner. you're healed enough for the next bad part!

people don't choose to be single, they just say they're choosing to be single - they actually mean "nobody wants to date me." it doesn't matter how many people you have gently rejected or how many times you've talked it over carefully in therapy. what matters is that you are single, and by all accounts - that means you are something worth our pity. your successes and life all seem pale in the sunlight. sure, you have done amazing things and finally found your way in life. what matters is that there wasn't a person in the room with you while you did it.

you want to tell them - that's the whole thing. i didn't know how to be alone in the room. i didn't know how to handle the silence. every moment was so sharp, and i kept choosing the wrong way to close the door. i have spent my entire life in the empty well, living in the ricochet of someone else's cruelty. for once i have built myself a ladder. for once everything i taste is all mine, every bite of sunshine and laughter. i have learned how to sleep out in the open with my memories. recently, they have started to purr.

your father rolls his eyes. listen. this isn't about you. i just want a grandchild in my future.

[pliocene]

"your pet doesn't love you; it just has learned that it will get treats if it acts a certain way. it can't understand you."

in between humans, i don't always speak the language either. love has always been hard for me. i don't trust it. i can't read it easily on people's faces - i'm usually trying to read past it; to the "other parts", the ones that make sense to me.

but my mom always offers me food as soon as i get through the door. my brother calls me at weird hours, just to be talking. my sister has a nightmare; asks me to please drive safe in the morning. i throw my friends random parties, just to celebrate something. she drives 45 minutes to spend 3 hours with me. amelia holds my hand while we both cross the street.

no, my dog and i don't have the same language. so what? this is not the same thing as communication. my dog is a good study in how trauma can heal - a rescue from the racetrack; i've been watching his personality develop slowly. in the last year, he's gotten so comfortable with me that he'll ask me to sit down on the grass so he can use my body as a seat. (it's important to note: he is huge. he squishes me. i don't complain. i find it lovely.)

love for us is also just endorphins and behavioral response. i'm a poet, the number of sad men that have tried to "teach me" how stupid it is to be a hopeless romantic is ... not a low one. i cannot count how many times someone has argued - it's all chemical stimulus - as if the fact of it makes it less magical. we're just electrical signals reading the universe! that's fucked up. that's so beautiful.

i find it hard to believe that in the spectrum of evolution we are the only species to feel like this - we already know that dogs and cats also have endorphins. why wouldn't they experience joy? love? companionship? in what world is it a new thing that i had to earn it? in every relationship, both individuals have to work to learn the language. i had to teach my dog what trust is. it's okay that it took time for him to learn it.

in the human world, when i love someone, it's hard for me to speak it. i write them poems or make them food or give them a cool rock i found on the beach.

i don't know how to tell goblin i love him, so i tell him through treats. through a new collar, fancy mattresses, a little bow on his leash. i tell him with long walks and petting him and sitting down on the wet ground so my 70 pound sharp noodle of a dog can prance on my thigh bones and take an awkward - if loving - seat.

"you taught your dog to love you" is kind of a cruel way to reframe what actually happened: i loved him so loudly, it skipped over language and species. the two of us just saying - oh! i have figured out a way to tell you that you make me happy.

[pliocene]

the aroace disconnect from gender stems from the fact that society at large views being attracted to women as a 'masculine trait' and being attracted to men as a 'feminine trait' and so being attracted to neither immediately puts you on the outside of the dichotomy.

[pliocene]

ace and aro people I love you and the world loves you and everything will be ok I promise. /hands you a fruit

[pliocene]

He asked me when I fell in love with him and I knew it sounded dramatic to say the moment I saw him, so I told him this story of my grandma who had Alzheimer's- she forgot her name and the words for fruit and food, she forgot her address and how to use the washroom, all her life lost to the disease. The only thing she remembered was her son's name and when that began to fade, the one thing she always remembered was that she loved him, even in illness, even in insanity. She saw this 6 foot 2 man with a scrubby beard and she didn't know him but she said she trusted him, she asked him to hold her hand when she died. When does memory end and love begin? All I know is- she loved him before she remembered him.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

[pliocene]

A star cluster glowing softly in the void with faint, reddish background galaxies in the spaces between.

by Judy Schmidt

[pliocene]

[pliocene]

There should be room in our community for people who aren't happy that they're aspec. There should be space for their grief, anger, and sadness to be felt and processed without it being seen as aphobic. Support from other aspecs will allow for this processing to be done so those feelings don't stick with them anymore. They are not the opponent, the people who made them feel that way are.

If you're aspec and haven't accepted it yet, I see you. I'm here to support you. It can be a hard thing to realize about yourself. I hope that soon, your aspec identity will make you happy.

[pliocene]

Transparent Flower Illustrations by Susann Mielke

[pliocene]

Picture by Yoram Spihrer

African wolf and Griffon vultures

[pliocene]

honestly the boundaries between friendship and romance don’t really matter that much like at all if everyone involved is ok with it

[pliocene]

I feel. Like a lot of aces could use more education on what exclusionist talking points are. It doesn’t always have to be wrapped in blatant acephobia. LOTS of exclusionists don’t consider themselves aphobes. A fair amount are asexual themselves (and just are trying to exclude the *other* aces who ~don’t belong)

It’s just weird to see the rhetoric I’ve spent years wading through and fighting against resurfacing and circulated by asexual people who consider themselves inclusionists. Exclusionism is rarely “no ace person is welcome under any circumstance,” but rather “if you don’t ALSO have this other identity to make you valid, you don’t belong” along with “it’s fine if you’re ace as a side thing to this More Valid Identity, just keep quiet about it and don’t act like ace issues matter” for those they do allow in.

This isn’t really for reblogging bc I’m too exhausted to type out all the common red flags. but. Absolutely urge aces and ace-supportive people to really examine what they boost and what it actually means to be an inclusionist.

[pliocene]

What is romance? Why is it so hard to define? What’s the difference between romantic and nonromantic affection? Well. What’s the difference between a house and a home?

Romance requires intention. This is not to say that nobody can accidentally fall in love, but for an activity to be romantic, the only real requirement is that the people involved generally agree that the activity is romantic in nature or intend for the activity to have some kind of romantic significance.

Alloros will call something “romance” if it feels like romance to them, in the same way you only call a house your home if it feels to you like home. There is no one ingredient, nor universally agreed upon set of conditions, that makes a house a home or a relationship romantic. It’s all just vibes.

This is why none of my intimate relationships have been romantic, despite in some cases outwardly matching what many alloros would consider romance. It’s never felt romantic to me or to my (consistently arospec) partners, even in the cases where we ended up with what we figured was about the same love and connection that alloros seek out through romance.

[pliocene]

We will be continuing our Aspec Voices series on our website during ASAW - if you are aro and would like to share your experience, anonymous or not, DM us here or email us at advocacy@taaap.org. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

[ID: “Call for Aro Voices! What: Contribute to an article. Why: To showcase diverse aro experiences for Aromantic-Spectrum Awareness Week. How: DM or email us at advocacy@taaap.org. When: Reach out to us by January 23 - article will be posted during ASAW (February 20-26).

We are looking for aromantic people who fall into these categories: Men, People of Color, People over age 35, Allosexual people, People who are sex favorable, People with disabilities (mental and physical). Demi, gray,and other aro-spec identities, People who are single/non-partnering, People who want/are in romantic relationships, People who have/want kids.” End ID.]

[pliocene]

Winged Nightmare by TeoLehog

This artist on Instagram

[pliocene]

maybe I'm just aroace but I truly cannot understand how for some people love is like the holy grail of life goals or a necessary constant in one's life and not just something that might happen along the way. like idk I just want a nice apartment with some cats, way too many monsteras, and paintings of naked women on the walls. but good luck to the rest of you