#i didnt come out as lesbian or aroace for another two years because this was terrifying lol

[princsstwilightsparkl]

my experience when first coming out as asexual during my freshman year of high school was fresh after a breakup with this dude that i barely even really dated, it was like a short shitty middle school relationship and he pressured me into dating him but eventually when we broke up we stayed friends, and for some reason me coming out as ace just hit a nerve for him... he was absolutely convinced that i was lying and that i couldnt be asexual because i "definitely had been horny for him at some point.." ?? like he took my sexuality as a personal attack because it meant i wasnt sexually attracted to him... WE WERE 14... he literally went around to all our friends and acquaintances and asked them to affirm his opinion that i couldnt be ace and consistently used "horny" as an insult for me for months, OUT LOUD AND AT SCHOOL.

[pharahlesbian]

What are your opinions on aromantic folks?

well, its kind of complicated. on the one hand, i dont rly feel like u guys r doing anything wrong per se, like none of u ever seem to do any of the harmful shit that aces do. and aro is an identity i used to hold really closely. roughly 4-5 years ago, i was on here identifying as aroace.

my personal experience with both labels is that they did measurable harm to my perception of myself and my sexuality. when i did eventually realize i was a lesbian, i didn’t immediately suspect those labels had done me any harm. not until i read several other accounts of ppl who went through a near identical experience as me

see, the answer to your question is complicated bc i first have to address split attraction. its one of my main gripes with asexuality. its my firm belief that romantic and sexual attraction should not be so neatly sequestered the way many people describe them to be. the reality of attraction is that every single person experiences it uniquely and defines it for themselves and themselves alone. i genuinely think the labels “aromantic” and “asexual” and all their variants shouldnt exist at all. and i think they are REGRESSIVE. i really do. they impede progress in a society that desperately needs it. we NEED a more healthy view of sex in our society. we NEED people to understand that its normal and ok to not want sex, or to experience varying degrees of attraction. not wanting sex or romance should be as normal as not wanting your ears pierced. and it should be something you discuss with your partner and your partner alone. having labels for this very normal experience is honestly just setting us back. we dont need to get caught up in a hundred micro labels to describe the ways we have sex. we can just have sex, or dont! or have sex once a month, once a year! or never! and thats your choice and you shouldnt be made to feel like u need to have 5 labels for what should just be how youre feeling. attraction is so nebulous, theres no way we could ever pin it down with labels and we should really stop trying

so. how do i feel about aromantic ppl. well, how do i feel about aromanticism? its a tough conversation to have, because of how personal it is, and its why ive put off this ask for a really long time. i was aroace, yeah, but aro was the label i was really passionate about. im gonna tell you some stuff u might not want to hear, but its my experience.

i was aro because i was lonely, and i was aro because i was scared. i knew i had feelings for girls, but i didnt know how to reconcile them, especially with my burgeoning gender qualms i was also having (which was also happening bc of the aforementioned attraction to girls, but thats another conversation entirely). it was scary, trying to pin down the fact that i was only attracted to girls. and i mightve come to that conclusion a lot sooner if it werent for tumblr telling me about asexuality/aromanticism/split attraction. suddenly i had a copout. cant be attracted to girls if im attracted to no one, right? that plus the fact that when youre lonely and havent experimented with dating, when everything is in hypotheticals, then anything is possible (“well i guess i COULD be attracted to men... but id never have sex with them! so i guess im panro-ace” <-an actual identity i had at age 19. comp het feeds on these micro labels and split attraction)

please keep in mind none of this is directed at you or even aromantics as a whole, im still just talking about my own experience. and my experience was that the aroace label was definitely just a convenient place to hide from being a lesbian. and i know others have had similar experiences.

so...once again. how DO i feel about aromantics? i feel as though we live in a very romance-forward world. romance is everywhere, once youre looking for it. i think i was rather bitter, and preferred pretending that not dating was an identity, rather than the painful reality of firstly not knowing what i wanted, and secondly not even knowing if id BE wanted. i think we all have varying degrees of attraction, both romantic and sexual, and i think for many the two kind of exist in tandem. and again for many, these feelings can exist a lot stronger for them than they do for others. so it leaves a lot of ppl feeling like they MUST be different. i think it makes a lot of sense that i identified strongly with aromanticism, even aside from me using it as something to hide behind. ive never really been much of a romantic. i never had too many crushes, and i only ever imagined romantic scenarios if it were fictional characters i shipped.

of course once i saw someone list these types of things out as evidence of being aro, i was like oh thats me! and latched onto it. and never did anymore introspection. the label was a copout. now, i could tell u that being aroace was a product of knowing i wasnt attracted to men yet not being able to face being attracted to women, so i was like “oh ok guess i have No attraction!” and i can tell u that since ive been with my girlfriend, ive become the sappiest romantic ever.

im not gonna tell you “you just havent found the right person yet :)” but i will say that if you have even the slightest doubt or uncertainty, to go out and experiment! date around and see how you feel. no one can tell you who u are or how u feel except u. u wont be a hypocrite for experimenting. but if youre already sure u dont really feel romantic attraction, then more power to you. not everyone on this earth needs to get married or date. i do think our society needs to normalize just being happy with who you are, and not see it as pitiful. thats an opinion that is so hard to have when youre single, bc u cant help but feel like youre pathetically trying to justify being alone, so im doubling down now that im in a relationship. its fucking ok to not be in a relationship!! if theres one thing that’s stayed the same since i was aro its my assertion that ppl need to fucking chill about orher peoples relationship status

i feel like this answer went in one THOUSAND different directions, but ive been thinking about how to answer this for a while and decided to just word vomit

TL;DR: aromantics are fine, not as harmful as asexuality, you do you, make sure you examime yourself and how you feel often, dont just take the word of ppl on tumblr (me included), everyone experiences attraction differently, i just wish split attraction model didnt exist because its perfectly fine to not want sex/romance or to have low/nonexistent attraction, i just dont believe in the labels/identities.