#aro journey of thinking you're an aro who loves romance media and then being like nah actually fucka you

[starlit-mansion]

i've actually been trying to think very hard if i've had an actual ship outside of my ocs or incidentally liking a 100% canon relationship as part of the story for the past three years and i'm coming up with like... one??? but tbh that one is 99% fan content and i like it just as much nonromantically as well

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

Hey, not to be a downer during pride month but I am really struggling with accepting that I am probably aromantic. At this moment of my journey into accepting myself it just feels like I got robbed of something that the majority of people get to experience and I guess I am just grieving that.

Maybe someone has some experience or knows of ways to tackle this feeling. <3

Don't feel bad for struggling, Anon. Some people have a hard time accepting their identity, but it's very normal. It's also OK to mourn the identity or life you thought you would have. And it's OK to take time to grieve.

I think aromanticism can be especially hard to accept sometimes because as a culture we often get inundated with the messaging that romance/romantic love, etc are a very important if not the most important thing in our lives.

So my first bit of advice would be unlearning that messaging. It helps that it's not true, romance and romantic partners are a thing people have found meaning and fulfilment in but it's A. not something everyone finds these things in, including alloromantic people, B. it's not the only thing people find meaning and fulfilment in, and C. It's not the always the most important thing people find meaning and fulfilment in.

In real life people are diverse and where we find fulfilment, what has meaning in our lives, etc. varies from person to person. There's no one size fits all, or no one path we have to follow to find happiness and meaning. For some people that path is romance and kids, etc. For others the answers may be in following a passion, working for a cause, seeking out spiritual fulfilment, making different types of connections, or many other things.

It's also important not to put romance on a pedestal. This can cause problems even for alloromantic people because it creates unrealistic expectations and puts of a lot of pressure for people to be in a romantic relationship even if the relationship may not be great. It's important to know and understand that romance isn't necessary to be happy and fulfilled even if it may still be important to certain people.

Also while being aromantic may feel restricting, on another level it's also an opportunity to figure out what you do like or want. Some aros do still enjoy romance, or romance in some contexts. Some aros are more averse to romance, but still want some type of life partner like a QPR. Some aros would rather be single, but have another life path they want to follow or care about. It can take time to figure out what feels right for you, but it can be fun to explore and learn about yourself too.

My third bit of advice is seek out other aros. This can be as easy as following aro accounts and people who identify as aro on social media. It can be seeking out communities, either online or offline (some local lgbtqia+ chapters can also be useful for this), it can be seeking out media with aro characters (there's a decent amount of books and podcasts with aro characters too you can easily find through searching). People are social creatures, and finding people like us and people comfortable being like us can go a long way to helping us feel at home in our own skin too.

This is a lot, don't feel like you have to work through everything you're dealing with right away. Remember that there's also usually a gap between knowing something logically and feeling it emotionally. These things take time to process. So take your time, mourn if you need to, and go at your own pace.

Hopefully this is helpful. But if you have more questions or want anything clarified, don't be afraid to send in another ask.

All the best, Anon!

[ineffablefool]

(1/4) hey uh ur bio says that u r demiromantic and if it's not too much trouble could i get some help? so i'm starting high school next year and so far, i haven't gotten a crush or anything. romantic attraction? don't know her. but whenever i thought or pictured myself "grown up" i imagined myself with a boyfriend. (i'm a woman) all the evidence is pointing towards me being aromantic, but a little slice of my brain is still, "oh, you're just super demiromantic and violently straight, all of your

(2/4) super close friends have been girls, you just have to become really close friends with a guy and there! instant boyfriend" but i know that won't happen. i won't have some man come and suddenly i'm head over heels. but i've always figured i'd have a boyfriend. i know i'm ace, and i am calling myself ace, but whenever i go to call myself aro, my brain goes "but what if ur actually demi and then all the people you told u were aro will think you were a liar" which i kNOW is stupid but i cant

(3/4) stop thinking it. i dunno why i can't fully accept the fact that i'm aro. is it society claiming that you need a partner to be happy? is it the fact that being in love sounds amazing and like floating on clouds and i want to feel like that? i have no fucking clue. and it's not something against aros, like, i know that if someone told me they were aro i'd have no problem with it. which makes it worse because why is it so hard to let go of the fantasy that i'll have a romantic partner one

(4/4) day? i know, in my heart, that there is a like a 1% chance i wont be aro. but i still cant call myself aro my brain won't let me >:( when did you get your first crush? when is it normal for a demi to first feel romantic attraction? did you think you were aro at first? also i sometimes feel like i shouldn't call myself ace bc im too young to know if i like sex yet? when did u start calling yourself ace? ugh sorry for the super long ask,,, also fun fact it's "how do u write kisses" anon hiii

Hi anon.  I cannot promise you excellent help, but I am still glad you wrote to me again, and I really hope you are about to have a straight 72-hour period of Good Days.  (It might take you that long to read this.  Oops.)

So, first of all: there is nothing wrong with calling yourself aro now and then later deciding you aren’t.  Or realizing you aren’t.  (Two different framings for the same thing -- both are good.)  Or deciding or realizing that you’re somewhere on the aromantic spectrum which you feel is better described with a more specific term.  Demiromantics are still part of the aro umbrella!  It’s not an exclusive club where You Must Be Pure Aro To Enter!  (Anyone who tells you otherwise is setting themselves up as Decider Of What It Really Means To Be Aro, and where are their credentials for that?  Hmm, hypothetical gatekeeping person?  Can I please see your certification from the Institute Of Defining Other People’s Identities For Them?  Oh.  Oh you don’t have one.  Because it doesn’t exist.)

Me saying that doesn’t magically make your brain accept the label, of course.  I am just trying to gently show your brain the door, and it’s the one that has to walk through it.

Assuming you want it to walk through it.  Maybe you decide you don’t.  That’s fine!  But “yes, I am indeed aro -- I am on the aro spectrum somewhere so I am using the label” is a perfectly fine thing to tell people, and if they are not carrying forged credentials from the Institute Of Defining Other People’s Identities For Them, then they will probably be okay with this.

I am not any kind of expert on being aro, or ace, or anything.  I am only an expert in being me.  But to somewhat exhaustively answer the questions from your last part...

I had my first crush when I was thirteen or fourteen.  When I was about ten, I was friends with two girls who both had a very public crush on the same boy, and I claimed to also have one on him in order to fit in, but I was completely lying.  Sorry, Drew.  I’m sure you were quite the catch, but I was not feelin’ it.

I don’t know if there’s a specific time when it’s “normal” for a demiromantic person to start feeling any particular way.  It just sort of happens if it’s gonna.  Maybe it never does.  People are complicated and different and that’s wonderful.

I didn’t know what being aro (or being ace!) was when I was your age, because they weren’t really identities yet.  “Asexual” was for amoebas, or maybe robots.  “Aromantic” was, like, dude, did you misspell “aromatic”?  (Keep in mind, there was technically an Internet in approx. 1995, but there was no Google, no Wikipedia, no YouTube, no social media, the concept of what is now called a “blog” didn’t even really exist yet, and often your parents would not let you on the Internet connection if they could even afford it themselves, not least because it was frequently billed by the amount of time you spent using it. It was incredibly hard to know what things existed in the world back then to even begin to learn about them! Now is so much better. I have all the treasures of the world in my pocket via my telephonic device.)  When I started to learn about asexuality, specifically that you could be ace but not be “an emotionless robot” (gosh has unlearning that kind of judgement been a journey), I jumped straight on that label and never looked back (this was roughly when I joined Tumblr, so I would have been about 32).  I thought I was alloromantic for a while after that, but I’ve come to realize that my feelings on romance probably put me somewhere on the aro spectrum.  And that’s where I am now.

I started calling myself ace, again, when I was about 32, but I didn’t have that label available to me when I was younger.  Ya boi was 13-14 years old, sitting in his bedroom writing letters-to-never-be-sent to his crush, which included long sections about how I had already decided I would never have sex so long as I lived, so once we obviously got married because how could we not when I had such Emotions, he would have to find some other way to get that if he wanted it.  I had no interest in it then.  I never developed an interest in it since.  If I had had the knowledge I have now, back when I was in junior high, I am absolutely convinced that I would have taken the ace label then.  Was I too young to know for sure?  I dunno, we don’t say that people are too young at that age to know they’re heterosexual, so why do other sexualities have to pass a higher bar?  (Because compulsory heterosexuality.  That is why.)

Regardless of your age, if the label of ace resonates with you, you can apply it to yourself.  If the label of aro resonates, you can apply it to yourself.  Or a more specific variant of either, or something else entirely.  And the day you realize “oh gosh, this is not, in this moment, actually me”, you can let the label go, because its only purpose for existing is to be useful to you.

Finally -- this is not something I can personally speak to, but I have seen people who identify as completely aro also state that they enjoy things that our (my? I do not know where you are from) culture frequently sees as romantic.  Like, if you want to have a person who you can snuggle up with, hold hands with, say “I love you” to and have them say it back and both of you mean it -- there are aro people who do all that with their partners, and enjoy it, and don’t see it as interfering with their aromantic identity at all.  I believe them, because they are the expert on being themselves, and I have nowhere near the ego required to decide that I know better.  So that’s something to keep in mind -- cloud-floating and an aromantic identity do not have to be completely separate, because there are lots of kinds of love and of affection, and people are complicated, and that is wonderful.

I hope you enjoy this novel, anon.  It is for you.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

i think im aroace. i fit some of the criteria and generally i just have a very complicated and lengthy relationship with romance. im usually romance favorable except when im not. sometimes i feel like i cant be arospec because im not the same as my friends who are also aro. its somewhat disheartening because ive spent so much of my life wanting romance and wanting relationships and wanting to experience dating culture and i thought id get to have it one day because im capable of liking people sometimes but i cant handle it when someone likes me back and i know it cant be commitment issues because i have absolutely no qualms committing to platonic friendships and moderately sized life decisions but theres just something in the way of me having a normal allo love experience and i know this identity is something i should be proud of and sometimes it is! i absolutely love looking through the tags on tumblr and i love that i have a unique way of experiencing feelings and this label really does make me so happy! but i cant help but yearn for a simpler existence. why cant it just be a case of liking a guy called daniel and then him liking me back and then we date and break up and then i go for a one-night stand with a girl called melissa and then we date and break up and date again and i meet her parents and i tell her i love her and then we grow old together. ive just always wanted something straight out of a tv show or book or whatever but the world just looks so much narrower now and it feels so much harder to find someone that it can work out with. i dont know. i hate amatonormativity. and sorry for the negative energy. i just kinda needed to get this off my chest. thank you for the safe space.

For being different than your aro friends, it's important to remember the aro spectrum is really diverse. There's a lot of different ways to be aro. So when trying to figure out if the label is right for you or not, I wouldn't factor that in too much, instead I'd focus more on things like is the label useful for you? Do you feel a connection to it? Does alloromantic feel wrong to you? Because being alloromantic encompasses so many things, there's so many ways to fall outside that mold. So remember this is your journey, keep asking yourself what makes sense for you.

It's OK to have negative feelings about possibly being aro, or about not being able to have that allo-normative romance you thought you would. This can be a big adjustment for some people, not everyone can just say 'oh I'm aromantic and I'm going to live a different life than I thought I did/not have a lot of experiences I thought I would' and not be affected by that (some people do have different experiences, but it's really not unreasonable to have to work at dealing with that.)

Sometimes you need to mourn the life and experiences you thought you'd have. Sometimes it takes a little while to reframe your goals and expectations in life. Sometimes I like to say being aro often means forging your own path rather than following the one laid out for you, that can be really exciting learning about yourself and figuring out what you do excited by and want to do, but it's scary too. And it's OK to have all these feelings.

I think what you're doing right now though going through tumblr tags and finding a side of aro that you enjoy is really great and really good first step. Finding some blogs you like or some aro-centric media may help too (look into books and podcast lists, because that seems to be where the most aro characters are these days). This is always helpful, no matter where you land, because it just normalizes being aro, and makes it feel a lot less scary.

The other thing is just take your time. You're figuring out a lot of things right now, you don't have to rush anything. Things will get easier as you figure more out and you start to understand yourself better.

Feel free to send in another ask if you have more questions or want to talk more.

All the best!