#for the record: i wouldn't even consider myself as aromantic (I even have my own reservations about that term tbh)

[gothicastles]

I know this will come across as pick-me and so dramatic for no reason but like I can't stop thinking about the fact that I've gone basically my whole life without understanding the "relatability" aspect of art as a means to enjoy said art in the first place because I've never fallen in love (romantically) nor experienced heartbreak (romantically) and literally the breadth of art IS about romantic love. Ofc that doesn't mean that I cannot empathize at a human level with these experiences but I still get a bit frustrated whenever I play music on shuffle and 99.9% of the songs that come up are all about romantic love to some degree (desiring it, having it, losing it, etc.), or that whenever I search fics on ao3 99.9% of them deal in their majority with romantic love/relationships and ppl falling in or out of love, or that whenever I sit down to read a book or poem I can always expect that romantic attraction/relationships will thematically take center stage or constitute the major plot points that'll move the story forward.

Now by this I don't mean that everyone should just stop singing, painting, writing, or making art in general about romantic love ever; after all, it IS something that affects and concerns so many people at a fundamental level and that calls for catharsis and abstraction and creation. But I simply wished that this specific part of human experience (among the literal kaledoiscope of experiences that constitute our lives) wasn't SO pervasive in all areas of art to the point that it becomes a real struggle to find those narratives that explore other themes or don't place romantic love at the foreground of everything, and that the majority of those who DO feel simplistic and disney-fied, as if targeting a younger audience with largely "feel-good", wholesome vibes (I'm thinking of like those painfully bland and derivative "found family" narratives or that fucking book the house in the cerulean sea I don't know what the fuck that follows me fucking everywhere).

I hate that it's rare to find well-constructed, elevated, adult works of art (both current and old) that don't place romantic love at the center stage, or aren't preoccupied with it at all, while still exploring various facets of life that are just as important (especially sex and sexuality). What this does is send the covert message that romance IS and SHOULD BE the ultimate pool from which we must extract artistic inspiration, and this by extension implies that a life lacking in romantic love is not worth the effort of artistic endeavours. Also I'm aware that other big themes in art aside from romance (such as death, grief, grappling with identity, justice, family, morality, etc.) exist and have their own weight, however, if you pay attention, they oftentimes come in pairs with romance, or find resolution/solace/complexity as a result of being in tension with romance, instead of existing in their own accord or outside the realms of romance if that make sense.

I've tried to implement my own non-romantic experiences into my writing and to focus on what I'm much more interested in at an intellectual level (themes of desire, sexuality, obsession, possession, destruction, imbalance, the breaking of the inner self, morality) whilst trying not to fall for the trap of feeling like I must add romance/romantic attraction and/or idealization somewhere in the mix for them to feel "complete" or "relevant", but it's hard sometimes when most of the messaging surrounding art seems to be drenched in romance as both the core of human life and the inner force that gives art itself its vitality. I'm so tired of all the stories being love stories and the songs being love songs. Like amatonormativity makes the arts (and fandom spaces by extension) a bleaker place.

Again, I'm not saying that "romantic stories" are wrong in any way or that works that deal with other topics don't exist, just that the ratio of art about romance in some capacity vs. art without romance is DIRE. Like WHERE is the rich tapestry of life outside of romance being represented. Where where where.