thinking-aromanticism

[thinking-aromanticism]

personal thoughts on “bihacking”

(Thoughts in response this post, and Ozy’s recent post on bihacking.)

“Dating” and “crushes” are socially-defined enough that I’m not even sure I was bisexual in high school.

Mayleaf-in-high-school would’ve had to do a nontrivial amount of mental restructuring to interpret her feelings for various girls as “attraction”. I would’ve felt weird dating a girl then. It wouldn’t have felt like “real dating”.

And then in college, I did that mental restructuring, and started to get crushes on girls frequently.

I guess “romantic attraction” is not just a set of feelings, but a set of stories you tell yourself about those feelings. (At least, that’s how it seems to work for me.) In high school, the Most Important Person In The World to me was my female best friend, and I used to frequently think about how much I loved her and how close I felt towards her – but I interpreted all of that as a natural part of us being Best Friends. When she told me that she was bi, and confessed romantic interest in me, I felt sad that I couldn’t reciprocate that. 

But the only behavioral difference between my relationship with her and my relationship with my high school boyfriend was that Best Friend and I did not kiss on the lips. We spent lots of alone time together, shared our innermost thoughts and feelings with each other, held hands, cuddled all the time, kissed each other on the cheek – and I loved doing all of that with her. And had she asked to kiss me on the lips, I would have probably said yes and I would’ve enjoyed it.

But I’d have still thought of it as being “platonic”, and an expression our closeness as Best Friends. It would’ve felt weird to call it dating. I knew what romantic interest felt like – it felt like those crush-feelings I got for various male friends of mine – and it didn’t feel like what I felt for her. I would’ve kissed her and it wouldn’t have felt the same as kissing my boyfriend.

In college I began to “““question my sexuality””” – but all that really meant was that I tried telling myself different stories about the affection and admiration I felt for various girls. Instead of saying, “wow, that girl is so kind and charismatic and intelligent, I keep thinking about how awesome she is because I see her as a role model”, I would say, “wow, that girl is so kind and charismatic and intelligent, I keep thinking about how awesome she is because I see her as a role model and because I’m attracted to her.” And instead of just daydreaming about being like her, I’d also daydream about kissing her, and imagine myself in various silly romantic scenarios with her. 

And once I started doing that, I started feeling the exact sort of feelings for girls that I’d felt for guys in the past. And now I identify as a Kinsey 3, and I have two wonderful girlfriends, and I’m very happy with all of this.

(Also, I’m low-key long-distance dating my high school best friend. I saw her in December and we went out for dinner together and kissed a lot and it was wonderful.)

I’m not sure whether to call this “bihacking”, or just “discovering my true romantic orientation”. But I did have to change something about my mindset before I could experience romantic attraction to girls.

(tagging @ozymandias271 for bihacking datapoint)

[thinking-aromanticism]

[thinking-aromanticism]

i hate it when someone behaves in a way that's silly or goofy. it's very difficult for me to see the point of something like that

[thinking-aromanticism]

Anon, I don’t think you have an unusual understanding of the phrase “just friends”, I think you’ve just (merely) correctly identified an ambiguity in what it can mean. As aroace-people-are-lgbtq notes, what it means is contextual.

There’s “just” as in “merely”, with the connotation that there’s something lesser in the mere thing, and “just” as in “solely”. Lesser can be good or bad, depending on whether the additional thing being denied is bad or good. “I wasn’t going to steal anything, I was just looking” vs “She didn’t even consider helping, she was just looking”.

The same applies with “more than friends”. There’s “more than” as is “something more significant than friends” and “more than” as in “something else in addition to”.

It sounds to me like, in addition to whatever other people might think when you’re talking to them, you’re also sensitive to the way your words sound to yourself. To me, I think saying (the literally synonymous) “we are only friends” can avoid some of the “I’m negating the meaning of the friendship” ring of “just friends”, but another way to pick out words against this is to say something about the friendship - “we’re close friends” or “we’re completely platonic friends”.

Sorry I have a hard time understanding the widespread anger at the phrase "just friends" I mean I get it if its being used to reduce the importance of platonic relationships and maybe im just autistic but it seems like the best way to describe relationships in which "we are friends" is the only vibe we have? Like my platonic relationships have always been the closest and most important ones for me, but sometimes you're friends with someone and you're also something else, like roommates or romantically involved (but not dating) or dating their partner (polyamorously) and you know what I talked myself through this and i figured it out. I am actually annoyed that I cant describe the people who don't fit the relationships above (my closest friends often do not) as "just friends" without people assuming that I dont value them as much as my other relationships (it particularly strikes a nerve rn) when actually its like no. Not "just" as in "I value this less and will be more willing to let it go" but as in "most of my friendships have some other kind of thing going on and this one does not"

Anyways sorry for the long rant(?) I feel that maybe I am an outlier here in my understanding and usage of this phrase

Actually I totally get this and I feel that way sometimes. Similar to other words on that list It bothers me more in a certain context and way that it gets said.

I don't think anyone has to feel any certain type of way about words And it's more than okay to just not agree you know?

-mod Ama

[thinking-aromanticism]

Why do you feel the need to go onto other people's posts and argue with them? You're being a bit of a jerk to the community. Other people have different experiences and it's fine, you don't need to start a whole debate on everything

I think the mindset in this ask is basically what’s holding the aspec community back from producing meaningful theory and analysis. (This and singleminded focus on inclus/exclus bullshit, of course). Asexuality and aromanticism could be grounds for some pretty radical writing! But the community is just mired in the idea that engaging with people with anything other than agreement is meanie meanie misbehavior! It results in an environment where anyone can pass around any lie, any bad philosophy, any terrible analysis, completely without challenge as long as it has the vague verbal shape of stuff people already accept. The sole exception to the no criticism rule, of course, is pointing out failures to Include, meaning that every objection someone has to an idea going around in aspec spaces has to be understood as that idea being insufficiently inclusive or somehow exclusionary. Poisonous environment for critical thought.

It’s really frustrating! I want better for the aspec community than this kind of anti-engagement censoriousness.

[thinking-aromanticism]

Cheers. For the best.

Why is “dying alone” considered a bad thing lmao. Like imagine loving your life completely free and on your own terms. Working on your career and passion and friends and/or family. Just- immersing yourself in all the people and things you care for. Creating so, so much, and living a life of passion and peace and authentic self expression.

Just for people to feel sad for you because you didnt have like, a romantic partner or whatever. Maybe you didnt have much of family either. So what?

Alone is not necessarily lonely. Why do people think it is? I want to spend my life alone and fullfilled and so full of worldly and spiritual satisfaction that it practically rolling off of me in waves. That is what i want. No life can be perfect, but i want to get as close to my definition of perfect as i can. This is all that matters.

[thinking-aromanticism]

The only nitpicking more pointless than criticizing the implications of aro tumblr posts is adjudicating whether individual additions to aro tumblr posts are “necessary”. If you find this behavior so annoying, stop doing it.

As to the question “what if someone dies alone because it’s too difficult for them to make connections”, then that’s bad. It’s not morally bad on their part, it’s bad that there’s suffering in the world. That’s what my additions are about.

Why is “dying alone” considered a bad thing lmao. Like imagine loving your life completely free and on your own terms. Working on your career and passion and friends and/or family. Just- immersing yourself in all the people and things you care for. Creating so, so much, and living a life of passion and peace and authentic self expression.

Just for people to feel sad for you because you didnt have like, a romantic partner or whatever. Maybe you didnt have much of family either. So what?

Alone is not necessarily lonely. Why do people think it is? I want to spend my life alone and fullfilled and so full of worldly and spiritual satisfaction that it practically rolling off of me in waves. That is what i want. No life can be perfect, but i want to get as close to my definition of perfect as i can. This is all that matters.

[thinking-aromanticism]

I don’t care if some people dislike me. The point of this commentary isn’t to make friends, it’s to provide an alternative point of view in aromantic community discussions. I consider what OP is doing here to be an instance of something that’s harmless per individual post but harmful when it’s very common in aro spaces: cheerfully promoting social disconnection as an aromantic lifestyle with no drawbacks and implicitly dismissing basic practicalities of what life is like without social connections as not worth thinking about. I comment so that there will be a note on the post that draws the discussion some little bit toward considering more realities and practicalities of life.

Why is “dying alone” considered a bad thing lmao. Like imagine loving your life completely free and on your own terms. Working on your career and passion and friends and/or family. Just- immersing yourself in all the people and things you care for. Creating so, so much, and living a life of passion and peace and authentic self expression.

Just for people to feel sad for you because you didnt have like, a romantic partner or whatever. Maybe you didnt have much of family either. So what?

Alone is not necessarily lonely. Why do people think it is? I want to spend my life alone and fullfilled and so full of worldly and spiritual satisfaction that it practically rolling off of me in waves. That is what i want. No life can be perfect, but i want to get as close to my definition of perfect as i can. This is all that matters.

[thinking-aromanticism]

OP careens between “alone” as in romantically unpartnered and “alone” as in literally alone. More to the point, though, they equate dying alone with living alone.

Living alone - unpartnered for sure, and actually alone as much as one is comfortable being - is fine. Great lifestyle if you enjoy and can practically manage it.

Dying is a different story. It is an inherently difficult, vulnerable process. It doesn’t matter who will be at your funeral but it matters a lot who’s there for your end-of-life. Connection with other humans is, for many people, the difference between slipping away on opioids in a hospital bed and gasping out the last few breaths before the final unconsciousness on a cold floor.

This isn’t about love, it’s about the basic practicalities of dying. The other humans involved don’t have to be people you have any other connection with if they’re capable of providing competent and comforting end-of-life care, but people are afraid of literally “dying alone” because it means complete lack of aid in the most helpless and terrifying final moments of life.

The answer to “Why is “dying alone” considered a bad thing lmao” is “because dying alone sucks and is bad.”

Why is “dying alone” considered a bad thing lmao. Like imagine loving your life completely free and on your own terms. Working on your career and passion and friends and/or family. Just- immersing yourself in all the people and things you care for. Creating so, so much, and living a life of passion and peace and authentic self expression.

Just for people to feel sad for you because you didnt have like, a romantic partner or whatever. Maybe you didnt have much of family either. So what?

Alone is not necessarily lonely. Why do people think it is? I want to spend my life alone and fullfilled and so full of worldly and spiritual satisfaction that it practically rolling off of me in waves. That is what i want. No life can be perfect, but i want to get as close to my definition of perfect as i can. This is all that matters.

[thinking-aromanticism]

@cherrytea556

Make even the most cursory effort to find funk and R&B about topics other than sex and love. Politics, dancing, nightlife, oppression. Listen to instrumental funk. Listen to Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler). Dismissing funk and R&B as being mostly about sex and love and thus naturally unpalatable to aro audiences is ignorant to the point of being offensive.

Speaking of common aro sentiments, I keep seeing this complaint that “most music is about romance.” What are people listening to? Is it top 40 pop hits? You know you can just listen to Negativland and Sweet Honey in the Rock if you want, right? My Chemical Romance? I know romance is in the name of the band but mostly the songs are about like, vampires and stuff. Paul Robeson? Shea Diamond? Against Me!? Talking Heads? I mean you have to listen through the music and exercise some editorial discretion in your playlist building, I think most performers with decent size discographies have at least a few romantic songs on the record (ba-dum tssh!) but there is music out there other than Boy Problems by Carly Rae Jepsen or whatever Ariana Grande is doing. You can listen to music that’s about unions, or drugs, or frankensteins, or Jesus, it is all pretty easy to find.

[thinking-aromanticism]

If you feel “rage” at the correct statement, necessary for basic explanations of asexuality, that asexuals can be in romantic relationships, that’s a you problem, not a problem with the people making the statement.

It’s not an anti-aro dogwhistle, it’s a piece of information often used to correct a common misconception about asexuals. It’s possible to say the innocuous and correct statement that aces can have romantic relationships and also say something anti-aro, but in that case the problem is the anti-aro statement.

Framing basic “AVEN FAQ answer” level asexual advocacy as an aggression against you as an aroace is poisonous to the aspec community.

I feel like aroace rage as a concept does not get enough air time

[thinking-aromanticism]

#the whole point of inclusion is to #idk #include people #I want to welcome aro friends regardless of whatever other facets of queer identity they do or don’t have #I want them to have community that supports and celebrates them #and helps them feel a little less broken #aro #aromantic #arospec #aro issues

Tags via mightymightygnomepriest - who I don't mean to pick on, everything I'm about to say is agnostic of your actual positions/theory/philosophy/advocacy/personality/etc., I just wanted to use your tags as a jumping-off point.

I think the idea that "the whole point of inclusion is to include people" is kind of what gets us into this mess where there are a lot of posts about Including Cishet Aromantic Men (in the queer community) - a cloying number of posts, a number of posts disproportionate to the amount of cishet aro men in the community where the posts are being made - and very little substantive support.

Inclusion isn't understanding, inclusion isn't advocacy, inclusion isn't outreach, inclusion isn't even celebration.

Inclusion-per-itself is just "you're theoretically under this umbrella." Yay?

Aromantic (and asexual, mutatis mutandis) advocacy on tumblr has been intensely focused on whether people agree or disagree with the sentence "aromantics are queer for being aromantic regardless of whether they are also lesbian, gay, bi, or trans" to the point of really failing to discuss aromantic people's distinct issues or what can be done about them other than "be seen as under the queer umbrella".

Hypothetically, inclusion in the queer community - that is, a coalition with lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people - is supposed to make aromantics (and asexuals) more socially visible by getting people to bring up aromanticism (asexuality) whenever they're bringing up the rest of the acronym, provide an analogy through which to explain aromanticism (asexuality), and enlist a bunch of people in supporting aro (ace) social causes. There are actual political purposes to it. It's possible for it to work well or poorly - not just in the sense of whether people accept or reject the inclusion, but in the sense of whether it works to achieve the goals.

If everyone agrees with "aromantics are queer for being aromantic regardless of whether they are also lesbian, gay, bi, or trans" but nobody advocates for aro issues like affordable housing, sharing benefits (e.g. tax, insurance) outside of marriage and domestic partnership, and ending social stigma related to singlehood, inclusion has failed. It's won the battle but lost the war.

Inclusion isn't enough. It isn't anything. Aromantics need activism.

I really like, don't want cis aro men to monopolize the conversation, honestly, I want to talk about trans bisexual aros and genderqueer aros and aros whose identities strain or exceed the bounds of labels that exist. People whose aromanticism is, in a lot of cases, as important to them as mine is to me. It's all a little frustrating that aphobic strawmen make it so we have to keep circling around to this topic. Not that it shouldn't be talked about, but we're just a small subset of the wider aromantic community, ya know?

[thinking-aromanticism]

Aro cis men only getting brought up as anti-aro strawmen is a problem, but the problem isn’t “there’s too much discussion of aro cis men”. In both demographic and who-gets-discussed terms, the online aromantic community is heavily, heavily tilted toward also-otherwise-queer people who were assigned female at birth. It’s specifically pretty heavily tilted toward nonbinary bipan type people. See AUREA’s 2020 Aro Census. For those not clicking through: 1200 bisexual/621 pansexual to 253 heterosexual/250 straight (multiple responses possible, if all bipans are double counted and all straight/hets are unique this is *minimum* 1200 bipan to 503 straighthet or “more than double the amount” but you know it’s more likely the reverse and the bipan numbers are more like four to six times the straighthet numbers), 49% woman/female/girl and 34% nonbinary and 16% man/male/boy. On the tumblr, this is exacerbated by similar demographic imbalances on the site generally.

Cis, het, and cishet men are dramatically underrepresented in the aro community, and it’s not because they’re naturally more inclined to desire romantic relationships than bi nonbinary people. It’s because messaging is not reaching them about the possibility of aromantic identity and life. This is partially because aro activism is, to the massive detriment of non-queer, cis, het, and cishet people who would be well served by the idea of aromanticism if they knew it existed, conducted almost entirely in queer spaces. It’s also partially because aro cishet men’s issues continue to be treated as a sort of hypothetical not just by people outside the aromantic community but by people inside of it as well!

I really like, don't want cis aro men to monopolize the conversation, honestly, I want to talk about trans bisexual aros and genderqueer aros and aros whose identities strain or exceed the bounds of labels that exist. People whose aromanticism is, in a lot of cases, as important to them as mine is to me. It's all a little frustrating that aphobic strawmen make it so we have to keep circling around to this topic. Not that it shouldn't be talked about, but we're just a small subset of the wider aromantic community, ya know?

[thinking-aromanticism]

There’s no reason for aromantic inclusion to lead to regarding loveless or aplatonic people as queer (on the basis of those experiences or identities). Neither of these things are sexual or romantic orientations.

Loveless and aplatonic people’s needs would almost certainly be drastically better served by being understood as neurodivergent than by being understood as queer.

Shoutout to loveless and aplatonic ppl! Y’all are so fucking awesome and an important part of the queer community!

[thinking-aromanticism]

The book in which “amatonormativity” was first coined and defined is Minimizing Marriage by Elizabeth Brake.

some quick quotes from the book (if you think the quotes aren’t so quick, consider that they’re a lot quicker than reading the entire book):

““amatonormativity”—the focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value”

“The belief that marriage and companionate romantic love have special value leads to overlooking the value of other caring relationships. I call this disproportionate focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal, “amatonormativity”: This consists in the assumptions that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types. The assumption that valuable relationships must be marital or amorous devalues friendships and other caring relationships, as recent manifestos by urban tribalists, quirkyalones, polyamorists, and asexuals have insisted.”

“Violations of amatonormativity would include dining alone by choice, putting friendship above romance, bringing a friend to a formal event or attending alone, cohabiting with friends, or not searching for romance” [note/analysis from me: this specifically applies to situations where these things are considered unusual. Going alone to get a bite to eat at a taco truck while single is not considered unusual or something that one “should” have a partner for, so it doesn’t violate amatonormativity, while preferentially dining without one’s partner and eating dinner alone at a nice sit-down restaurant may. Having roommates while single in college does not violate amatonormativity, choosing to live with friends instead of one’s partner does. Use your discretion to figure out what would actually register as “abnormal” in your social context.]

“Amatonormativity wrongly privileges the central, dyadic, exclusive, enduring amorous relationship associated with, but not limited to, marriage. By “central,” I mean the relationship is prioritized by the partners over other relationships and projects. Such relationships tend to be characterized by sexual exclusivity, domesticity, and shared property, but need not be: Couples who maintain an enduring amorous relationship but refrain from sex, maintain separate domiciles, or keep their property disentangled, can still be recognized socially as amorous partners. Conversely, two friends who have sex, live together, or share property would not be privileged by amatonormativity if the friends did not present themselves as romantic partners. Thus, legal marriage, sex, shared domicile, or shared property are not necessary conditions for privilege; an amorous, enduring, central love relationship is. While marriage is not necessary for privilege, it is usually sufficient for it. While amorous love, endurance, and centrality are jointly sufficient for privilege, no one of these features is independently sufficient. A brief, amorous summer fling or extramarital affair would not be privileged, and friendships may be central and enduring but still not privileged”

“The relationships penalized by amatonormativity may or may not involve sex and romantic love. Polyamorous relationships fail to meet the norm, just as groups of friends do. Polyamorists have multiple domestic or sexual partners, who in turn also typically have other partners, and these multiple relationships are character- ized by affectionate bonds as well as sex (although there is some debate within the polyamorous community as to whether polyamory must involve love). Elizabeth Emens gives examples of the range of polyamorous configurations falling outside the norm of “compulsory monogamy” as well as amatonormativity: Mormon polygyny, an “ethical slut,” a woman with two “husbands,” and a four-partner family or “multi- party marriage.”” [note/analysis from me: because Brake is writing from and to a USAmerican perspective, her examples relate to what is normative in the USA as a whole. Polygyny may be amatonormative in a social context where it’s normative, like within a Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community or in Saudi Arabia. Even then, however, the same behavior that may be normative in an accepting community is still non-normative when the Mormon or Saudi polygamist is talking about it with a circle of secular Americans in New York.]

“One way of demarcating the privilege accorded by amatonormativity is that the privileged relationships are given family status. Family tends to be understood, for legal and census purposes, either by marriage or a marriage-like relationship (such as monogamous cohabitation or “common-law” marriage) or by the presence of chil- dren. Further, the reproductive family tends to be understood in marital terms… while single parents and married or “common law” parents are recognized in law, extended-family or friend parental groups tend to remain invisible.”

“Amatonormative discrimination does not consist merely in stereotyping and lack of social recognition. Much tangible discrimination attaches to marital status. Discrimination in housing, with preferential treatment for the married, is legally permitted in the United States, and is official government policy in military housing. An array of government benefits is accessible by the married, widowed, and divorced. Married or formerly married persons qualify for U.S. Social Security payments based on their spouse’s employment. Married workers receive significantly higher benefit packages when these include spousal health insurance at a reduced rate, while unmarried persons receive no opportunity to purchase health insurance for a friend. Workplace discrimination is the apparent cause of the fact that married men receive significantly higher pay than their unmarried male peers with similar levels of achievement; moreover, singles widely report being expected to work evenings and holidays, to take on assignments involving extensive travel, and otherwise being treated by employers as if their nonwork commitments were less important than those of married co-workers. Physicians report providing better care to patients whom they saw as family members. Finally, law enforces “compulsory monogamy” by imposing penalties—not just in criminal law penalizing adultery and bigamy, including bigamous cohabitation in some states, but through residential zoning laws limiting numbers of unrelated cohabitants and in child custody decisions. (For example, the child of a woman with two “husbands” was removed due to the judgment that her lifestyle was immoral.)”

-

A lot of people in the aromantic community online use “amatonormativity” to mean, basically, alloromonormativity, that is, an expectation that people will feel an emotion of romantic love and engage in romantic relationships based on it. Sometimes they will use amatonormativity to refer to the expectation that people feel emotions of love at all, including love toward family and friends. I would caution against using it in the former way and I would caution strongly against using it in the latter way. That said, Brake’s definitions and analysis aren’t the last word on amatonormativity just because they’re the first words. There are valuable expansions on the idea of amatonormativity from aromantics, and you should use your own judgment to think critically about how this term and idea should best be understood.

truly being an ally to or a supporter of aro/ace folks means doing your best to understand what amatonormativity is, how it impacts aspec people's lives, and how it constrains us all.

[thinking-aromanticism]

I’ve complained about this before and I think it’s important because this weird idea that saying love doesn’t just mean romantic love is broadening the definition is terrible for the aromantic community.

The idea is extremely obviously incorrect, to the point that it’s difficult to understand how someone would come up with it. It’s wrong according to dictionaries, it’s wrong according to popular culture, it’s wrong according to highbrow literature, it’s wrong according to parents, it’s wrong according to children, it’s wrong according to pretty much anyone you could find to ask. The obvious logical corollary of “saying love doesn’t just mean romantic love is broadening the definition” is “love is defined as meaning romantic love specifically and exclusively”. This isn’t true, and nobody believes it. It’s like saying “when you say ‘vegetables’ doesn’t just mean ‘broccoli’ you’re broadening the definition of ‘vegetables’”. No you aren’t, that’s not true. It’s a bizarre lie.

It’s obviously incorrect semantically, in that it’s an idea immediately disspelled by looking the word “love” up in a dictionary, but it’s also a catastrophically enormous misunderstanding or purposeful ignorance of how “love” manifests in people’s actual lives, which is very frequently nonromantic. To swallow the enormous lie that love is exclusively or even centrally defined or thought of as romantic, someone has to purposefully forget about the entire extremely mainstream concept of parent/child love, as well as love of God, love of country, self-love, and love for animals.

Peppering your discussions and analysis of social conditions with extremely obvious lies requires that people engaging with the discussions either gloss over people repeating extremely incorrect beliefs or adopt those beliefs themselves if they don’t want to argue with the weird lies.

Worse, the lie directly concerns the subject matter under discussion. Because it’s so obviously and massively incorrect, it’s discrediting of anyone who repeats it. Someone who’s this wrong about the meaning of the word love cannot be trusted to produce reliable insight about mainstream society’s visions of love because they don’t even know what the word means. And indeed, people who repeat the weird claim often produce analysis of social conditions around affection, connection, and the use of “love” that are completely detached from mainstream realities.

This particular narrowing of the definition of love doesn’t just alienate aromantics from their feelings of love (which is very bad! To be clear, that is really bad and a harm that the aromantic community should seek to mitigate, not to amplify), it poisons aromantic community discussions of love with the pressure to take seriously and accommodate obvious huge falsehoods about what love is in wider society.

hm lets see if i can articulate something else i’ve been thinking - because we gotta talk about the word ‘love’ and the way i’ve been seeing people in the aro community talk about it lately, and i just saw another post to this effect.

i think that it’s true that people, both inside the aromantic community and outside it, need to be careful about trying to insist to others who are uncomfortable with the term ‘love’ to describe their own feelings and relationships that love applies to them. forcing words on people who don’t want them - for whatever reason! - generally just isn’t an okay thing to do. but the way we talk about the words we don’t want applied to us is important too. it’s possible to harm others in the process of defending ourselves, and it’s important to be aware of that.

responding to people saying that love doesn’t just mean romantic love by talking about how they or others are trying to ‘broaden’ the definition of love ‘beyond romance’ or ‘outside of romantic love’ to include more things and experiences really misses the mark and dangerously, harmfully reinforces the idea that ‘love’ is an exclusively romantic notion. it doesn’t need to be broadened to include the way someone might feel about a friend, a family member, a pet, a religious community, a poem, a specific place, a musical instrument, etc. the concept of love already includes those things, it isn’t broadened to. 

i respect the language people choose to define themselves and their experiences. if the concept of love doesn’t feel true to you, or you’re uncomfortable with it for any reason, that’s fine! do you! nobody else gets to dictate the language you choose to describe yourself and your life with. however, you don’t get to define anyone else’s language or associations with that language either, particularly not when the entire… history of the word’s usage doesn’t support that. 

‘love’ does not and has never just referred to romance or to romantic feelings. it just isn’t true. i’m aromantic, i’m romance repulsed to a truly ridiculous degree, and i get the discomfort with it - it’s true that amatonormativity means that society and people will often assume that ‘love’ means ‘romantic love’ when there’s a context in which the intent isn’t clear, and will often disagree with the person expressing it if they believe that they are or should be feeling romantic love. internet and fandom spaces are particularly guilty of this. this can be frustrating, hurtful, upsetting, uncomfortable, 

but that doesn’t mean that the contextless, universal, overpowering default of the entire word is romantic. aros who use love as part of their personal vocabulary - and who are vehemently opposed to the implication or outright statement that ‘love’ and ‘romantic love/romance’ are synonyms as a default - are not redefining, broadening, or reclaiming it. it’s always been ours. it doesn’t have to be yours, but don’t take it away from us because you don’t want it. 

[thinking-aromanticism]

Characters persevering or triumphing for the sake of romantic love is a fairly common trope and, while a lot of people like it, a lot of people (including many of the people who like it) find it unrealistic and corny. The same applies to characters accomplishing great feats for the sake of familial bonds. Romantic, platonic, and familial love are all common sources of strength in some genres of fiction and are all scoffed at by people who find them overly sentimental, immersion breaking, cringe, or overdone. People who dislike “power of friendship” stories often dislike “power of romantic love” stories as well because their objection is that the idea of someone’s interpersonal relationships causing them to win at stuff is just silly, not that they find the narrative generally agreeable but think it would’ve been more realistic if someone summoned an extra burst of strength for their boyfriend than their buddy.

People diss and scoff at "the power of friendship", but they just can't comprehend bonds between characters giving them the motivation to keep fighting and win that isn't a romantic relationship.

Because I bet if a character replaced "my friends give me strength" with "my lover gives me strength" and won a fight that way, they'd all be starry-eyed and going nuts over it.