#aro thoughts

[ilovedthestars]

A thought I’ve been having: While it's important to recognize the long history of many current queer identities (and the even longer history of people who lived outside of the straight, cis, allo “norm”) I think it's also important to remember that a label or identity doesn't have to be old to be, for lack of a better word, real.

This post that i reblogged a little while ago about asexuality and its history in the LGBTQ+ rights movement and before is really good and really important. As i've thought about it more, though, it makes me wonder why we need to prove that our labels have "always existed." In the case of asexuality, that post is pushing back against exclusionists who say that asexuality was “made up on the internet” and is therefore invalid. The post proves that untrue, which is important, because it takes away a tool for exclusionists.

But aromanticism, a label & community with a lot of overlap & solidarity with asexuality, was not a label that existed during Stonewall and the subsequent movement. It was coined a couple decades ago, on internet forums. While the phrasing is dismissive, it would be technically accurate to say that it was “made up on the internet.” To be very clear, I’m not agreeing with the exclusionists here—I’m aromantic myself. What I’m asking is, why does being a relatively recently coined label make it any less real or valid for people to identify with?

I think this emphasis on historical precedent is what leads to some of the attempts to label historical figures with modern terminology. If we can say someone who lived 100 or 1000 years ago was gay, or nonbinary, or asexual, or whatever, then that grants the identity legitimacy. but that's not the terminology they would have used then, and we have no way of knowing how, or if, any historical person's experiences would fit into modern terminology.

There's an element of "the map is not the territory" here, you know? Like this really good post says, labels are social technologies. There's a tendency in the modern Western queer community to act like in the last few decades the "truth" about how genders and orientations work has become more widespread and accepted. But that leaves out all the cultures, both historical and modern, that use a model of gender and sexuality that doesn't map neatly to LGBTQ+ identities but is nonetheless far more nuanced than "there are two genders, man and woman, and everyone is allo and straight." Those systems aren’t any more or less “true” than the system of gay/bi/pan/etc and straight, cis and trans, aro/ace and allo.

I guess what I’m saying is, and please bear with me here, “gay” people have not always existed. “Nonbinary” people have not always existed. “Asexual” people have not always existed. But people who fell in love with and had sex with others of the same gender have always existed. People who would not have identified themselves as either men or women have always existed. People who didn’t prioritize sex (and/or romance) as important parts of their lives have always existed. In the grand scheme of human existence, all our labels are new, and that’s okay. In another hundred or thousand years we’ll have completely different ways of thinking about gender and sexuality, and that’ll be okay too. Our labels can still be meaningful to us and our experiences right now, and that makes them real and important no matter how new they are.

We have a history, and we should not let it be erased. But we don’t need a history for our experiences and ways of describing ourselves to be real, right now.

[aromanticduck]

Being aromantic is like knowing most of your friends will one day move to Paris, but you don't want to live in Paris. And if you ever get sad about how much you're going to miss them when they go, people just try and tell you that you too can find a place in Paris! As if the problem is not having a house yet or being unable to sort out your transport, rather than not wanting to live there at all.

[merely-a-caricature]

Me: -So aros come out of the quiver and aces come out of the deck-

[aroace-cat-lady]

Shout out to mean aros. They keep the world moving

[lovequeerindigo]

“i could never have a fwb, one of us would just end up catching feelings and getting their heart broken.” skill issue.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i've been thinking about my relationship with romance again. it's so weirdly complex but simple at the same time. i don't like romance in media, unless it's tragic or violent or toxic. maybe because i view romance as all of those things, inherently.

but at the same time, non-romantic codependence is something i understand so well. human connection and two people wanting to become one and not being able to survive without each other is something i've felt, and it's something i want to see portrayed.

i don't know where the line of romance lies for me, but i always know when it's crossed. it sucks, because i can't set proper boundaries with my friends, i want to be intimate with them, i want to make out with them and fuck them and spend as much time with them as possible, but i'll get uncomfortable if that invisible line is ever crossed.

i'm also polyamorous, and i think that my discomfort with romance is heavily tied to my discomfort with monogamy. i don't like the idea of there being only one person in your life that's more important than the others. i want there to be as many people as possible, all of them equally as important to me.

i don't like love songs, except for love songs written by will toledo or will wood or john darnielle. i don't know what's so different about those three specifically. i think because all their music about love reflects the inherent conflict of it, without romanticizing it? it's an unromantic idea of romantic love, in a way. twin fantasy is one of my favourite albums of all time, and a lot of the songs on it remind me of my own past relationships. how i felt connected to both of my exes, but never in the same way they were to me; how it was really just about needing each other, rather than wanting each other. it was all codependence and circumstance and me accepting that a romantic relationship was the closest i'd get to what i actually wanted (it wasn't).

i don't really know what this post is about. just thoughts, i guess.

don't tag as ace, you cunts

[wonder-and-wildflowers]

I think not realizing that I was aromantic until I was like 19 is kinda mental in retrospect.

Not just because of the way I used to 'assign' crushes to myself. Or would genuinely become heartbroken when very specific best friends (who I now realize were squishes) would date someone and that person would become a priority over me.

Or when I would start mourning when one of said very specific people (the squishes) would confess romantic feelings for me.

But, if for no other reason, because I have literally always treated friendship rings/ necklaces/ bracelets with a level of reverence mirrored primarily in allo's comitment to their weddings/ engagement rings.

I wear those things until they break and then become genuinely completely devastated when they do.

[aroacefurb]

why do aphobes whine about how we arent opressed every time we breath and then just ignore it every time someone explains in detail the opression aspec people face. like wow. its almost like you don't actually care and just want to discriminate against us

[villain-life]

You know what? Aphobic people messed my mind and my brain created a huge dilemma.

I’m aro, yes, but have i ever experienced love? No. Will i? I don’t know. What i want to say is, i might feel that. Will i still be aro? Yes. That’s the thing. Maybe if i experience it someday for someone, or eventually have the chance to feel something romantic, it will be different from what i expect. Maybe i’ll feel something. Maybe not. Who knows.

The unknown makes me say i’m aro. At the end of the day i’m 18 and i never had a crush in real life, just a “fictional/mostly platonic” online relationship that never had the chance to become “real” in real life.

I never had my “first kiss”, my first “holding hands”, my first “hug with someone special”. Absolutely nothing. Why? I don’t know. I always felt like i’m waiting for someone who doesn’t exist, someone perfect, someone who deserves that attention. But at the same time, i want to do this things, to understand me better. But with who? With someone i feel comfortable that also has to be attractive

Do i think people are attractive? Hell yeah, sometimes i even develop s3xual feelings. But would i step out of my “comfort zone” and go talk to them? No. If i do, my attraction always ends. This is the reason why i feel i’m aro. I never had the possibility and i never felt attracted for someone i had the chance to meet.

[i-might-be-aro]

When I'm talking about being asexual, it's simple. Like, I'm ace and sex-repulsed. That pretty much describes it.

My aro identity? That's difficult. Like. I am in a romantic relationship and happy with it and don't want that to change. If we broke up I can't imagine doing romance again, because romance is our thing? And it'd be weird to try and replicate that with someone else. The same way it'd be weird to watch the same TV shows together, or tag a new partner as being the same fictional couple I did with this one. I just think any future relationships would be QPR. And I wouldn't say I'm romance repulsed. Nor would I say I'm romance favourable, because I don't particularly like any romance tropes nor do I like shows about romance, and nor did I ever want any of the things that are presented as romance before I loved my partner. But romance neutral feels wrong too? Because I'm so tired of romance as a plot line. I hate sex, but I'd rather read a fic with sex scenes, because at least they're easier to avoid and tend not to contain any plot relevant details. But the amount of things I've read with a great premise where I give up before the conclusion because it was fucking "slow burn" and so the further into the plot you get the more everything interesting gets shoved to the side for two characters to gaze into each others eyes. And it makes me want to scream. Were I in a neutral society, I think I would be romance neutral. But it's forced down my throat everywhere, and it makes me wish sometimes that the concept was never invented. That being said, I still enjoy being in a romantic relationship. It's just. Like. I enjoy eating pizza. A lot of people enjoy eating pizza. But if every TV show or book or fic had scenes dedicated only to eating pizza, I'd get really bored. That's how romance is to me.

[aromanticduck]

Often when aromantic people express a fear of loneliness after their friends partner up and have less time for them, people's solution is to encourage us to partner too, just platonically/queerplatonically. And that works for some, but it kind of misses the point. I don't want one person to spend most of my time with. I want several people who have the amount of time for me that single friends do. Not someone to live with, but someone to meet up with for a few hours on a fairly regular basis. Someone who'll be there for me in times of trouble (and vice versa), but isn't part of my major life decisions.

I know most alloromantic people aren't jerks who completely forget their friends when they get into relationships (I have friends who are married, and they haven't ditched me), but time is a finite resource, and someone else getting more of it inevitably means you get less. I don't blame my allo friends for that - it just isn't pleasant to experience.

The fact is that some people need to balance their emotional connection between multiple people, not concentrate most of it on just one. I'm a 'one or two eggs in each basket' kind of person (polyamorous people will know what I'm on about - we're fighting the same war on different fronts).

I mean, I'm not 100% sure that platonic partnership isn't for me. Maybe it'll appeal to me more later in life, maybe not. But it's annoying to have it presented to me as the ideal aro lifestyle. It feels like Amatonormativity Lite.

[merely-a-caricature]

I will never understand how the slightest bit of physical contact with one’s crush will send lightning through their body, make them red as a tomato, and cause them to go crazy and make a fool out of themselves?! Like, my dad told me how “when you get to that age”, even a little bit of contact is gonna cause a lot of feelings?! No?! It doesn’t sound real to me lol

[lady-phasma]

I often wonder about closeted arospec celebrities. When I was a kid, it wasn't easy for celebrities to be openly queer. My friends and I would speculate, as middle schoolers do, about celebs.

On the rare occasions that I pay attention to a celebrity outside of their profession, I play a mental game of "are they arospec?" It probably stems from the same need for representation we had when I was growing up, but sometimes I wonder if there are significantly more public figures who are arospec than we realize.

[aroace-cat-lady]

You know, it took me a long time to accept I'm aro. At first I tried to convince myself I was an ace heteroromantic pal, even though deep down I knew I was just scared of how an aro identity would impact my life.

It took a couple years to accept it, some more time to feel comfortable with it. A little longer to embrace it.

I cried a lot to get to that point. I cried when I read one character I really liked (a mexican boy who died at the end) was aro. I cried the night a friend asked me out. I cried that time I found out the writer of a series I adore was aroace. An actual person, who had created something I connected to, that felt so human and tangible and real.

I've always been louder about my aromantic identity than about being ace. Because it took so much learning and growth, because I hated it and was so afraid of it and now I cannot imagine being any other way. Because with every valentine's and every birthday I remember being a child and knowing the world wouldn't be kind to me for who I was.

Because that child was so terrified of the future it was impossible to even see one.

The world still is not kind to us. I know we've faced so much hostility lately. That it's hard to see a way out of it.

So this is for those who are afraid of who they are or are mad at the world for how we are treated, that feel alone scared and bitter.

I'm feral for you. It doesn't matter in which part of the spectrum you are. I'm so fucking feral for you. Please, never forget that.

We are in this together. We are here and we are loud and we aren't alone. We have each other.

There's still so much to fight for, but you aren't fighting on your own.

Even when it feels that way.

[angelicutz]

I lowkey love being aroace

Like there's just so much more to focus on in life than romance, love and sex

[fallenrain40]

random aro thoughts again,, i really love the term for friend crushes- "squishes". my only problem is being afraid people will interpret it as an "inbetween" romance and friendship when no... for me it's not even queerplatonic or anything like that... it's literally just wanting to know someone and thinking they are cool, or maybe admiring them in some other form. but no level of romantic attraction is ever involved and i hate to think people will misinterpret that.

im almost afraid to even call it PLATONIC attraction cause... platonic can be really strong too. idk. its like some mysterious fourth option (just like my gender pfft-),