Relatable
Ace culture is laying in bed at midnight every Wednesday having a crisis because you don’t know what does and doesn’t count as attraction and if you’ve ever felt it before because that shit makes no sense and is confusing as heck.
Tag: aromantic
Listen, I like a good romantic pop song as much as the next guy, but there’s always that point when you’re listening to a song that you’ve heard a thousand times before and you’re suddenly just viscerally aware of the fact that you relate to absolutely none of the lyrics, and never will, and that’s just a real time.
As an aro, I can joke that at least I don’t have to worry about dating, but an alloro person cannot tell an aro person that.
Similarly, a lesbian can joke that at least she doesn’t have to date men, but a straight woman cannot tell a lesbian that.
Essentially, when someone else jokes about it a marginalized identity in this way, they are doing it without the context to understand, but when I joke, I’m doing it feeling the weight of the good and bad, and trying to make myself feel better by joking about good
The Worst Part
Asexual: a sexual orientation in which a person does not feel sexual attraction towards anyone.
At all. Period. Full stop.
Synonyms: Not, despite what you might think, “unnatural.”
Aromantic: a romantic orientation in which a person does not feel romantic attraction towards anyone.
At all. Period. Full stop.
Synonyms: not, despite what you might think, “broken.”
The worst part of being asexual and aromantic is trying to consume media:
Book? “Of course I’ve been in love, I’m human, aren’t I?”
Ugh.
TV? “Once they met, they knew. They were two halves of a whole, incomplete without each other, their lonely lives meaningless…”
Ugh.
Radio? Sex! Sex! Sex! Sexy sex!
Ugh.
The worst part of being asexual and aromantic is coming out:
“You just haven’t found The One yet.”
“I thought that way too before my first time.”
“That’s not natural! Love is what makes us human!”
“But do you… you know… masturbate?”
Ugh.
The worst part of being asexual and aromantic is people.
It’s people who will treat “getting into your pants” like the ultimate challenge,
Like some sort of sexual boss fight,
Like proof that they are so irresistible that no one can deny them, even those who claim to dislike sex –
C’mon, baby, no one dislikes sex.
Gimme a whirl.
You’ve been sleeping with the wrong people,
I’m different. I’m better.
It’s people who will develop crushes on you and convince themselves it is a tragic love story.
They will tell you repeatedly they don’t mind that you don’t reciprocate their feelings.
They will not ask if you mind their creepy,
Overbearing feelings.
They will not take into account that you did not sign up to be the subject of their tragically beautifully unrequited poetry.
They will use you as an excuse to tell anyone who will listen that their selfless brand of love is different.
That they are better.
It’s people who will pity you,
Your sad, loveless life,
How broken must you be,
What happened to cause this martyrdom?
Why can’t you trust? Why can’t you love? Why must you be alone forever?
Poor, lonely soul, what a brave face you put on.
It’s people who will tell you to stop complaining.
There is no downside, they will say, to being asexual or aromantic.
It’s not as though you face any great hardship.
Our culture does not look down upon you.
You have not been systematically erased,
Cut out of a culture which praises love and sex above all else,
You have not lived all your life feeling broken
You did not dig up your label from some obscure corner of the internet,
You did not weep in relief when you found it, overjoyed at the notion that there are others like you,
There are no others like you –
You are a lie, they will say.
The worst part of being asexual and aromantic,
Is that for most of your life,
You will believe them.
so uh. can alloro aces please stop pretending there’s a stereotype that all aces are aro? people either don’t know what either of those words means or they know that ~asexuals can still fall in wuv~ because that’s what you’ve been pushing for years. Maybe people equated those terms back in the day but not anymore unless its their first intro to asexuality, at which point one of you inevitably steps in to make sure they know you’re still human and experience romantic attraction. kindly shut up now please and thank you.
Being an Aromantic Asexual is Weird
Being an aromantic asexual is weird. We defy not one, not two, but three societal norms; heteronormativity, compulsory sexuality, and amatonormativity. It gets even weirder when you’re indifferent (even favourable!) when it comes to sex and romance because you think your experience is universal, that everyone feels the way you do. It’s not feeling wrong and broken and out of place. It’s feeling normal, and then realizing that you aren’t.
Thinking (read: assuming) that you’re straight for most of your life and then finding out you’re not is weird. Mostly because once you realize you’re not straight, it dawns on you that you feel the same way about boys that you do about girls and non-binary people. And then you wonder if you’re pansexual because they’re attracted to all genders, and you have to be attracted to someone, right? And then that thought is immediately dismissed because you don’t feel attraction, at all. But it doesn’t stop you from contemplating every other sexuality and romantic orientation, because you’ve been taught that everyone wants sex and romance.
And then you remember: you like sex and romance in fiction. You like seeing your friends in happy, healthy, consenting relationships, and you’d always assumed that one day, you’d be in one too. But you’ve never pursued one. You never had more than a fleeting interest in boys, and lingering but still platonic affection for your female and non-binary friends. Those “crushes” that you had in elementary school? Maybe not crushes after all, because God knows you haven’t had one in nearly eight years. The most powerful feelings you’ve had for another person have been squishes so intense that you had to look back and question if it was actually romantic attraction (spoiler: it wasn’t).
And then there’s that epiphanic moment when things start to fall into place. Why you were always so vehement that soulmates could be platonic too. Why the idea of loving someone more than your best friend is incomprehensible (because romantic love is always shown as being more. Hello amatonormativity). Why when you ship fictional pairings, there are people you want to get together romantically, people you want to be friends so bad, and the ships that you like the most are the ones that could go either way. Why you desire emotional closeness and intimacy with the people in your life, but that had always been conflated with sex and romance so you wondered if what you wanted was more than friendship. Why you want to take the expression “more than friends”and burn it to the ground because there is no vocabulary for friendship that exceeds “best friend” without crossing over into romantic and/or sexual territory.
You realize that your ideal relationship isn’t necessarily romantic. It’s best friends who cohabitate and snuggle and hold hands and go on adventures to the library together. Kissing and sex? Well, that’s more of an afterthought. A “yeah, that’ll probably happen somewhere in there.” An assumption, because you’ve been taught that primary, monogamous relationships are always romantic and sexual. You reflect and see that there are very few things that you see and inherently romantic, and that there is a lot of cross-over between things you consider platonic, sensual, and romantic. A grey area that you can’t define.
Being an aromantic asexual is weird, because while I’ve always said that you don’t need romance and sex to be happy, I now realize that it applies to me too.
______________________
Note from mod fitz: This has to be one of the most moving descriptions of this I have ever read. This exactly describes how I felt coming to the realization that I was not straight, and I think had I read this when I first began questioning it would have made things go a lot smoother for me. Thanks so much for submitting!
This is the most spot on description ever
This is a great analysis of experience and feelings. I find that reading stuff like this can help you better understand how you feel, especially if some of this describes you.
I don’t usually reblog ace/aro stuff because I am still so unsure of myself/my identity, but this is me! This is me 100% and it is the best feeling to know that there are other people who feel this way too.
Aro-version of the Bechdel Test
The vast majority of media is so amatonormative/romance-centric, that as an aromantic person it is often hard to find media or characters who even satisfy the bare minimum of being relatable.
Many people are familiar with the Bechdel test, which was created by Allison Bechdel in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For to emphasize how most media is inherently alienating to lesbians because it doesn’t even have two women talking to eachother about something other than a man. Considering this context, I thought of an aro-version of this test:
One, it has to have at least two characters who are not in romantic relationships who, Two, talk to eachother about, Three, something besides romance
imo a key difference between aces and aros is that aros are told from birth that having romance is a desirable thing and what makes us human while aces are told that sex is a desirable human thing later in life
I remember posts like this being helpful when I was questioning so I thought it might be good to make a checklist of sorts for The Aro Experience:
- not picking up on your friend’s crushes
- not understanding the appeal of kissing
- thinking about your future and being excited to live alone/with friends rather than immediately thinking about marriage
- being annoyed or grossed out by romance in the media
- alternatively, seeing romance in the media as formulaic, saying things like ‘these two characters will kiss once then break up I can tell from the portrayal of their first interaction’ rather than getting emotionally invested.
- choosing not to read/watch something because there is romance
- not getting why people say they want a relationship if they don’t have a crush at the time
- your ideal romantic relationship being suspiciously similar to your ideal friendship when you think about it
- being able to explain your ‘type’ with fashion style, aka caring more about clothes than looks when considering if you find someone attractive
- feeling like your views on relationships are more ‘childish’ than your friend’s views are
- feeling uncomfortable when family or friends ask if you’re dating/like someone, even if their questions aren’t particularly invasive
- assuming other people make up their crushes to fit in or seem cool
- making your own crushes to fit in, or just mindlessly agreeing that people all your friends like are ‘hot’ even if you don’t think so
- feeling out of place and like you can’t contribute when your friends talk about crushes and relationships
- thinking people your age are way too young to date, and this view never seeming to change as you get older
This is mostly from personal experience and obviously every aro is different, but hopefully this is helpful.
to add on, since I also found lists like this very helpful when I was questioning:
- you’ve never realized multiple crushes at one time were a thing until someone informed you, and you’re confused how you could juggle several “all-consuming” emotional attachments
- you’re often surprised by romantic developments, both fictional and in real life, and usually say something along the lines of “that came out of nowhere!” “why did they have to go and do that?” etc.
- friends come to you for romantic advice often for your “objective” opinions on their relationships
- you never get why your friend doesn’t just break up with their partner(s) (and if you’re asked for advice, your most common thing to say is break it off), after all why would you stay if it’s not working out? (assuming the relationship is non-abusive)
- also urging friends to confess to crushes to avoid painful pining, because why would you wait?
- or the opposite, urging them to never confess because the crush will fade in time for sure, and that’s the safer route to not mess up the friendship
- for your crushes, you either confess very soon after realizing, to “get it out of the way/it’s out in the open now/avoid needless pining,” or never confess because “unsure of crush/what’s the point/dating is kinda dumb and I’m too young/it could have consequences for our friendship.”
- however, either of those actions are never or almost never because of you wanting to know if they like you back
- it’s difficult to understand why people can’t still be friends after breaking up, even if they’re less close
- interpreting any interest when you want to get close to a person of a different or opposite gender as a crush, then “oh I just want to be friends with them!” then crush again, then friends again, and you can’t decide
- trying to decide the above point by deeply analyzing how physically and emotionally close you get with them, giving it a lot of thought to what you want to do with them in the long-term and not so much what a first date or kiss would look like
- very paranoid about getting too close with people of a different or opposite gender, as you really don’t want others to assume you have a crush, which manifests in acting very overly friendly or very withdrawn only around that friend
- never got the point of truth or dare, always come up with better ones (in your opinion) than everyone else because they weren’t centered on first kisses or crushes
- gen-rated, non-shipping fanfiction seems a bit like a breath of fresh air, and you like reading about the friendships a lot (even if you like romcom shippy fics quite a bit too)
- not understanding why people say they’re lonely when they’re not dating when they have loving friends
- feeling more content to let love/partner(s) come to you in time, rather than seeking people out through parties, friends, dating sites, etc.
- confusion on how kissing works. “do people just lean in and know? what’s the protocol? lips + lips = happy? put some tongue in there and they’re Super Happy??” and you assume you’ll grow out of it, it’s a germ-averse thing, it’ll fade with experience, or you’ll be able to do it once you kiss for the first time/first real time/with True Love™
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 