#aro joy

[neverquiteeden]

My Aro Friend-Grief post is doing the rounds again, so I want to change the tone a bit. This is a Positivity Post(TM).

Reblog with at least one experience you've had with your friends or being aro/aro-spec that has brought you genuine joy! Let's get some hope passed around here!

[raavenb2619]

An ace friend of mine has been questioning if they're aro for a bit, and they recently sent me this:

I think I’m aro. But not because I’ve stared at myself and decided that that’s a perfect label that fits and describes me. I think I’m aro because even if I haven’t learned anything about myself, I’m slowly starting to realize that the label can mean a lot of things in a lot of ways, and it’s less a matter of fitting under an umbrella than it is enjoying the lack of rain. And I think I like using the term aromantic to describe myself. So, that’s it. I am aroace. Because I want to be. Not because I understand myself—because that’s an infinity away—but because whatever mess I am, it’s a mess that’s a little bit better with the term applied.

[heartless-aro]

I am aromantic and life is beautiful.

I’m told that I should long for a lover’s embrace so that I may be made whole, but when I feel sunlight dancing on my skin or laughter vibrating in my chest or air filling my lungs with life, I know that I am already whole. I’m told that there’s no greater joy than the taste of someone else’s lips, but I have smelled the rain and tasted warm food after coming inside from a storm and held an instrument in my arms and fallen into the music I create until it feels inseparable from myself, and I know that I have felt true joy. I’m told that I should fear being alone, but there is a community of people like me, and I know that I will never be truly alone.

I’m told that my life is missing something that will give me meaning, but I have seen the stars shining in the sky and admired the golden glow around the clouds during a sunset, and I have looked out at the ocean as far as my eyes can see, and I have met people who are so wonderfully and intrinsically different from me that I can never fully understand their experiences, but can only squint at those experiences and view them through the blurry lens of my own, and so I know that the universe is far too infinite for meaning to only exist in one form, in one place. I am aromantic and I am alive and I am so, so happy to be who I am.

[portapottyprophet]

Years from now, I think I’m gonna look back at 2023 fondly. It was the year of Barbie and Isaac Henderson and My Love Is Mine All Mine. It was the year I finally downloaded tumblr and saw all these wonderful, diverse communities on here. I don’t know who, if anyone, will read this, but 2023 was my aromantic awakening year. So hello 2024: I’M ARO AND I LOVE BEING ME!

[bathroomchained]

i don’t know if this is because i’m aromantic, but i prefer to describe things with “joy” instead of “love”.

arophobes always try to have their gotcha moment questioning aros (specially loveless aros) about “oh but when you eat good food and spend time with your friends and hug your pet, you don’t call that love?” and the answer is: no. i don’t. personally, “joy” describes those experiences so much better. those are the little things that bring me joy and make me stay alive.

and all this is coming from a person who does feel love, by the way. no aros are trying to shame you for feeling love or describing those experiences as love. the problem is when you try to push your personal feelings towards us.

it’s also why i hate posts like “the whole point is about love” etc etc. your life is guided by love? great for you! just don’t make aromantics feel like they’re the worst people in the world just because we disagree with you.

i’m not sure where i was going with this but, i think my point is: as a aromantic person who does feel love, feeling joy is the most important thing to me and it will always be the better way to explain how i feel.

[goondah]

Came out to one of my straight friends for the first time today and it went well!! :)

[huggythedictionary]

Aromantic:

Experiencing limited romantic attraction. Not to be accidentally conflated with asexual.

I think it's going to be okay. My friends are lovely and strange, just like me. I hope you find some lovely, strange people to be friends with, too. We don't have to know exactly what we want, or exactly why we don't feel that romance in the same way. We're going to be okay, you and I, though it doesn't always feel that way. Your bones will hold your joy, just like they hold your sorrow. May you find your peace, and maybe other ways to live a lovely life.

I believe in us.

[aaaroace]

loving the colour green even when everyone called it “the ugliest colour” really should’ve been the indication that i was aro

[rhubarbplants]

Dispelling aro dispair

I recently saw a tiktok where a person was talking about they get called selfish for wanting a relationship as an aromantic person. I related to the video but what I saw in the comment section devastated me. While I was appalled to see that plenty of allo people were saying it was selfish the thing that really made me sad? all of the other aro people who had internalized the idea that their desire for love is selfish. 

It reminded me of who I was a few years ago, I thought exactly the same thing, and that kind of mindset? its Painful. It Hurts. I wanted to hug all of them and tell them something important that I have come to understand. And its something I will repeat over and over until everyone who needs to hear it has heard it as many times as they need to.

Loving someone is never selfish, not ever. Loving someone is one of the most beautiful things we do as human beings and you should never feel shame about caring for someone.

Yes not every relationship will work out. Not everyone is ok with the idea that their partner is not attracted to them, but there are people who will be okay with that. 

Romantic attraction doesn’t necessarily lead to a better more fulfilled relationship so you are not keeping your partner away from a happier relationship.

You are not selfish for wanting a relationship or being in one, the two of you came/will come to that decision as partners and equals and so you will both be equally selfish and selfless in your decision to be in a relationship.

Finally, the people who will love you, Truly love you. Will love the way you love them, regardless of whether or not attraction is involved.

[gdsplicer]

I'm actually really happy with my trans aro joy and life to be honest.

Even with some of the hardships and the struggles that come with it, it be past or present, I'm happy that I am a aromantic trans man. And it feel like I don't give off that much of an impression, even though I normally don't care, but... I dunno, I'm just happy that I'm aromantic and a trans man and queer.

Just something about it feels joyous now.

[heartless-aro]

the best thing about being aromantic is everything about being aromantic.

[sapphireluminescence]

It’s June and I’m thinking about what pride means. Or, what it is when it’s not the gemstone brilliance of people in love when the world might try to shut it down at a moment’s notice, when it's not the steady defiance that comes from being honest to the world about who you are.

I can claim neither kind. It took me a week to stop hiding Loveless in the closet and place it on my bookshelf, and another two to stop angling it so that the spine couldn't be read. I got a black dragon-wing ring and some days that feels a bit like pride, but it comes off before I come home and my heartrate doubles if anyone steps too close to where it rests.

Half of my queer experience has been fear and mourning futures I never had. Living with a lack of attraction when so much is built around experiencing it—sometimes it's lonely, y'know? But somehow, in a world where it feels like we are few and far between, we gravitated towards each other. Our little trio of disaster aspecs, in various stages of questioning and "out," built ourselves a safe haven.

And so, maybe pride can be something quieter, tucked carefully under curled fingers, joy appearing in bright flashes like a magician's coin. Maybe pride is no grand gesture, just the mundanities of knowing and acceptance.

"Fuck you" gets instantly met with "nah" and "please don't" before we all dissolve into giggles—it's a joke that will never grow old.

Someone is telling us how love is the most important thing in the world, at an academic ceremony, of all places; I'm raising my eyebrows at her while she shakes her head back over a sea of intent faces.

I flip through a deck of cards, muttering about how there are no aces, and without missing a beat, he tells me that there are two already in the room.

I think that's all it is, really: the three of us sat on a bedroom floor, debating attraction and playing card games. She’s showing us memes, he’s cracking anti-sex jokes, and I’m making terrible terrible puns. Something warm uncurls itself in my chest, and it is the closest to home I've ever known.

pride | jun 2022 | @nosebleedclub ​

[queer-joy]

told my friend i was aroallo and she was cool!

woooo! that’s great!

[our-aroace-experience]

hey, aro and/or ace people

garlic bread!!!

[somiray]

How are you lovelies 💗...reblog let's get naughty 😜