#my aroace experience

[fizzamess]

Keep the aroace positivity flowing (day 8):

Our aroace experience.

🧡💛🤍🩵💙

What was the most fundamental part about your aro/ace/aroace journey?

My story:

From a very early age I realized that my experience with love and attraction (in its most popular sense) was different from the others. I would idealize someone in my head but strip them from any characteristic that would make them “real humans” because the idea of them being too real and too close to me made me feel uncomfortable.

Sadly when I was a teen I started positioning myself in romantic and/or sexual scenarios because I thought that was what meant to be human (you can see the internalized aphobia and amatonormativity weighing on me). I thought if I made someone else feel good (romantically or sexually) I would somehow find the right person that would give me the kind of intimacy I longed for.

It was just until March 2024 that I became aware of the aspec community and everything began to fall into place one by one: first, my asexuality. Second, my agender identity. Third, my aromanticism. It took a whole lot of deconstruction of my personality, facing my worst traumas, and hours of therapy to finally start feeling like the truest version of myself I’ve ever been.

What I can say for sure is that:

Stripping myself from the weight of social pressure in regards to sexuality and romanticism allowed me to build the most intimate relationships with my closest family and friends.

And this is only the beggining of a life journey being aroace.

[xx-ace-raccoonz-xx]

Sharing my Aspec Experience

When I was a teenager (circa 2013-2015), I initially did not identify as asexual. Simply put it, I thought I was just a heterosexual girl who was just celibate or not interested in intercourse.

However, one day in October of 2015 when I was 15, I was watching a video by a cartoon-reviewer YouTuber and it got to the part where he mentioned he was "asexual". So, I got curious and searched up the definition of that word. At that moment, though I had my doubts, it all started coming together. Perhaps I was doubting it because at the time, I was also active in the furry fandom (and still am), and that crowd is known for being a bit...promiscuous in certain circles.

As time marched on, all of the doubt began to fade away as more of my friends started having sexual relationships and getting married. Eventually, I found out about the word "aromantic" and realized that this fit me, as well. As a younger ace, I unfortunately started out as more sex-negative and think that I had no business being in the LGBTQIA+ Community (despite the "A" being there and standing for asexual, aromantic, agender, and possibly ally). However, I gradually became more sex-positive as I got older, albeit a bit repulsed by the idea of myself having it. I also realized that I kinda do fit in the Community (as much as certain people like to exclude anything past the "T" or sometimes the "B".) XD

Thankfully, a lot of the little aphobia I have experienced has been online, with only one possible case of it IRL (a friend telling me that I might just be a "late bloomer" and that "I'll find someone that I'm attracted to"). A lot of people that have found out IRL were actually pretty cool with it (perhaps because the area of the Appalachian Mountains I live has a lot of genuinely nice people who may also be LGBTQIA+).

TL;DR: I think I have always been aroace, but I simply didn't figure out the terms for it until my mid-teen years.

[since-times-long-forgotten]

I did technically have a made up crush but I thought it was a real crush and it was one made without any prompting of “who’s your crush.” I simultaneously liked being around someone but also being around them made me slightly nervous and uncomfortable at many times, which I thought was the “nervous butterflies” but no they actually were not a very nice person to other people

Arospec Bingo Card requested by anon

I finished the card! Have a go, and feel free to tag any aro friends :)

People who wanted to be tagged:

@feelingthedisaster

Edit: I love that we all just collectively decided it must be filled in green lol

[fiftypiercings]

I can't believe I decided to read orv on a whim because I just wanted a good manhwa with no romance subplot and here I am knees deep into the novel questioning my whole life because whatever these mfs have got going on is much more nastier and visceral than any romance.

[lemonycranberries]

"No, I know they would be [supportive]! Honestly, I... I just can't be bothered to give everyone a vocab lesson" IS SO FUCKING REAL AAAHSJAHJHJHISJHJHK

[sminny-wew]

Me when I realize that being aro doesn't stop me from being a real person with real feelings and that I can in fact live a happy and meaningful life

[cherrytea556]

Aroace

I figured out through realizing that I'm not attracted nor desire anyone romantically/sexually. My aroness was discovered before my aceness for me.

I've seen some representation regarding aroaces and aces like lilith from toh (aroace) and todd from bojack horseman (asexual) and it was really nice to see. I haven't seen much representation. regarding aromantic people though, I did research it at one point but I haven't seen those types of medias yet. I wish aros got more recognised in media because it always seems like were left out in a way.

Yes, I definitely did. Main reason was my age since I was questioning my sexuality 2 years ago being aroace along with questioning if I was lesbian or bisexual (despite not being into women or anyone apart of finding them pretty). I only found out last year since it's been 3 years as a teen and I still don't feel any nor desire any romantic/sexual attraction (hell i didn't know kids my age were dating or having sex cuz it wasn't on my mind since then) and it still continued even when i considered myself old enough to experience it now so why not?

Nope, mainly because I'm closeted to my family. I'm more public in school where classmates keep making the old 'aerodynamic' joke whenever I bring up me being aro though but no one seemed to mind. Plus my friends are queer too and they support me which made my experience better.

I think I would come to terms with my sexuality more earlier if I had that kind of representation as a kid (especially aroace kids) since I feel like I would resonate with them in a way.

Aroace makes sense for me because stuff like sex and romance weren't even on my mind throughout my whole life, I just never seemed to care for it. Plus there's nothing wrong with being aroace and how it can be for anyone at any age, children can be aroace just like straight or gay kids. They won't be miserable or need fixing just because their not into romance or sex and it's definitely not a phase. You may fallen in love or had sex in a later time but that's not for everyone, with 8 billion people on this planet, why not assume theirs someone out there who never fall in love or want to have sex? Those are basically what I have to say.

Hi it's Hampter and I got questions for aroace indivdials or aro and ace peoplle.

I am doing research project for school about rep for aroace people in the film industry but I would like some of everyone's opinions.

I can't use our aroace experience blog as a source because I didn't actually "interview" them. All quotes will be anonymous unless you give me a fake name that I can put down.

What do you identify as?

When did you figure out your sexuality?

What representation do you see in today's world concerning aroace individuals?

Did you struggle with coming to terms with your sexuality?

Did coming to terms with your sexuality hurt any aspects of your life? (Friends, family, relationships etc)

Do you think you would have benefited seeing characters in tv shows/movies growing up if they had aroace characters?

Is there anything you would like people to know about what being aroace means to you, or anything you would like to say about it?

You can answer all of them or some of them. You can DM me or reply in the comments.

Hugs!<3

[dailyjermasparkle]

I've seen a lot of stuff going down on tumblr and I just wanted to let you all know that all aromantic, asexual, and aroace people are valid members of the LBGTQIA+ community. It doesn't matter if they are cishet or not.

[miitopia-cake]

I wish some aces would stop excluding other aces with complex sexual experiences. like I get why but you have to realize that being ace does not mean they don't enjoy sexual experiences and it's weird when you complain about allo people and boil it down to "people who have sexual experiences" and also shame people for their sex life and kinks as if your own community doesnt INCLUDE those people. because there are other aces out there who still masturbate, who feel sexually attracted to their own body, who barely experiences sexual attraction but still enjoys sex, who like consuming sexual media, who like sfw kink. being ace is so so much more complex than just "disliking sex". and also aromantic exclusionism in the same genre of posts is something i see a lot. especially aro allos. I hate hate hate seeing a community that SHOULD be inclusive boil down sexuality and exclude people.

[angryducktimemachine]

Aromanticism Zine but it's just my incoherent thoughts.

[hoofpeet]

When the aroace 💯

[battlekidx2]

“Do you like girls?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you like boys?”

“I don’t know. I think I like TV shows.”

I remember when I was in middle school all the other girls were talking about the guys they liked and I said I didn’t like anyone. I just wanted to do my own thing.

I didn’t really get why I would want to date anyone. I understood friendship, companionship— having someone to share my interests and mutually info dump to sounded cool— but I struggled to understand the appeal of spending every day and every night with someone else. Of holding hands and going on dates. 

This led to a lot of homophobic bullying and a few of them would act disgusted that I might be into them. Constantly acting like I was looking at their boobs and sexualizing them (I never made eye contact with anyone and would frequently look at the wall or space out while looking in their general direction). Or make a big show of not being interested and many other things.

I didn’t get this either. I didn’t know why I would be interested in any of them. They treated me poorly and I thought attraction was something people made up and simply just claimed to feel towards other people.

Just like I never understood celebrity crushes. You don’t know the person so how could you possibly know you liked them? And I never understood how people “chose” who they dated. Did they just choose whoever they liked hanging out with the most?

But any time I voiced this it was always met with worse and worse reactions. It led to isolation among peers and my family. My parents made it pretty clear I wasn’t who they wanted me to be. That I wasn’t normal.

I soon learned to fake it. Pretend I understood it.

The idea of not being attracted to anyone seemed like a foreign idea to most people I met. Even when I branched out and moved away, I met a few people in the lgbt community who couldn’t grasp it either and reacted poorly and it made me feel stupid. Like maybe I wasn’t just screwed up to people who fit in the neat little box society wants you to fit in, but to everyone else as well.

Maybe I was wrong. If it’s an impossibility even in this community that champions diversity and acceptance then can that really be my reality?

I kept trying to force it. To date, but every time I did I always felt that same skin crawling discomfort and it always petered out. It didn’t matter who it was or what gender. It always felt wrong. It was suffocating.

I don’t think there’s a movie that better portrays that all consuming, suffocating stagnation of feeling so out of place– knowing you’re out of place compared to those around you– and in response forcing yourself to fit what other people expect of you than I Saw the TV Glow.

Whenever I think back to growing up or whenever I return home that same feeling this movie is centered around always drenches my experiences.

And even now it’s hard to put into words when I talk to other people what I’ve felt when it comes to this aspect of my life.

That comment from Owen about knowing there’s nothing there when talking about romance and attraction, but being too afraid to look and knowing that his parents know something is wrong with him hit harder than any other scene from a movie I’ve watched this year.

It’s that absence of something that is at the heart of asexuality that makes me always question what I choose to identify as when I have to explain it to someone. Because for the most part my explanation boils down to (in broad oversimplified terms): I’ve never felt attraction, I’m more interested in watching a Spider-Man movie than I’ve ever been into even just the idea of dating, every time I’ve attempted to date it’s been uncomfortable and I’ve actively dodged anything beyond friendship while in the “relationship”.

And when I try to voice that to another person it always feels like those experiences don’t hold water. That’s describing the absence of something. There’s no real proof of the identity.

With being bi or gay or lesbian there’s something you can I don’t know—point to?— that can help you know your identity.

And that’s the fact that you’ve experienced attraction towards one or more people of one or more genders.

It’s defined not by the lack of something but the presence of an experience.

And so every time I try and explain it I end up feeling stupid. Like I just haven’t tried hard enough to find someone compatible. That I need to get back into the proverbial saddle and try again. I always in some way feel ashamed and backtrack as a result.

This is in no way to say that it’s harder or easier to be one identity or the another. Everyone’s experiences are different and everyone experiences are valid. This is just a struggle I’ve found that’s unique to asexuality that many people I’ve talked to have also experienced.

I haven’t felt that part of my experience be seen in media until I saw this movie. Maybe I’m latching onto what I can get or maybe that was an intrinsic part of the movie. That’s not important. What’s important is that it’s something I felt seen in even if it was literally just one scene.

This is my really long winded and roundabout way of saying that I really think this movie is going to stick with me much longer than any other thing I’ve seen this year.

Things can be hard to put into words and as a result I tend to keep things inside. I’m fairly certain I’m ace but it might turn out I’m on a different romantic spectrum then I thought or I fall somewhere different than I thought on the ace spectrum. I don’t know what I’ll discover in the future.

I’m likely not going to express my label out loud to anyone but a select few. I still can’t express this particular label out loud to many people. My family is definitely never going to hear it. A friend or two might.

It’s something I struggle with on a regular basis. I’m fine with identifying with the label in my head—in a lot of ways it makes me feel comfortable and happy— but any time I try to voice it the words die in my throat and I can’t help but feel ashamed. It’s easier to just tell people I don’t want to date right now. That there are all these factors in the way (finances, time, jobs, etc) than it is to try and explain what I’ve just rambled about above.

I know many people have felt and understood that experience and I hope people know they’re valid. You can express your identity with your full chest, shout it from the rooftops and let people know, or you can keep it to yourself, identifying as your label solely in your head. Both experiences are valid. And if your label changes at some point in your life that doesn’t make what you chose to identify as at this point any less valid too. People are always learning and growing. You can gain a new understanding of yourself as time move forward.

Sorry for the way too long ramble. This movie made me feel things.

[xx-ace-raccoonz-xx]

I personally can't separate my ace and aro identities.

For me, trying to separate them would be like trying to separate the neurons from the brain tissue. It would irreparably damage something and cause a whole lotta harm in both ways.

[knifearo]

i think a lot about the loneliness of being aromantic. because it's something that's so profound, right? you're told your whole life that you need something to make you happy, to make you complete, to give you connection with other people, and when you realize you're aro, that's torn away from you. everything you've been raised to want is no longer something that will fulfill you. you are not built to be happy. and it gets better with time, it does! you restructure your world view, bit by bit, and the sting fades, but... i don't think it ever truly goes away. it's hard to express, because i love being aro, and i'm happy being aro, i wouldn't want to be any other way, but at the same time. there is such a profound heartbreak to knowing that you will never be someone's most important person in a society that values romance. that you'll never get the happy ever after that you were promised as a child. and you know you can be happy. but there's a lifetime of amatonormativity that lives in your brain and tells you that you can't.

[redysetdare]

I think i just need to express that the culture surrounding QPRs right now made me think that i couldn't have strong bonds with my friends. Society told me i cant have strong bonds with friends because that was only for romantic relationships. Then i went into aro spaces and this idea was reinforced using QPRs instead of romantic relationships. it was "You can still have strong bonds with people without romance! It can just be a QPR instead!" "QPRs are MORE than friendship so you can have STRONGER BONDS than you would with friends."

it made me think that the relationships i wanted with my friends HAD to be something other than friendship for it to be as strong as i wanted. If i wanted to be the first person in someones life i had to enter some sort of committed relationship. if I wanted someone to care about me as strongly as i did them then it would have to be a relationship that was "more" than friendship.

I thought I wanted a QPR because i was told the only way to get that care and security that I wanted was to enter into a relationship that was "more" than friendship. because friends didn't care that much. because friends didn't live together their entire lives. because friends were never the priority relationship wise. and it took me years to realize that i didn't want any partnership and i shouldn't have to be in one to want these things from a friend. these things CAN be something friends can do. but i found that out on my own. because the aro community kept saying "you want a QPR" when i just wanted a friend who finally saw me as a priority in their life.

[nothingtoseehere00-00]

Just imagine Steve figuring out he's bisexual and realizing that when he dates a girl, at a certain point into dating them, he's gonna have to tell them that he's also into men. Of course since it's the 80s, the chances of them being okay with that is probably slim. They might think he's disgusting or that he's just gay playing straight.

So he tries dating guys instead, thinking that's safer. And he ends up meeting a great guy named John at a gay bar who he really likes. Things are going strong until they started talking about past crushes and first loves. Steve casually mentions celebrity crushes on women and having loved Nancy. And thus Steve gets his first ever experience of the rampant biphobia in queer spaces. John accuses Steve of being confused and trying to hold onto his "straightness". Steve tries to explain himself by saying that, no, he really does like women, but that only makes things worse. John now believes that Steve is just going to eventually leave him for a woman, if he hasn't already been cheating on him. John ends up storming out leaving Steve devastated.

He goes crying to Robin and explains what happened. He's horrified to realize that no matter who he dates, there's always going to be the risk of them not accepting him, guy or girl. But he can't hide that part of himself, it's too big. It's who he is. Robin is there to reassure him that if someone can't accept him being bi than they don't deserve him. It's able to cheer him up a little, but the damage has been done.

Steve is now very reluctant to date anyone. And if he does manage to bring himself to go on one, he gets complaints of being very emotionally distant or having a fear of commitment.

When Steve inevitably falls for Eddie, he's scared out of his mind. It's clear that Eddie is gay based on his hanky, but, again, that doesn't mean he'll accept Steve's bisexuality. One night, while the two get so high in Eddie's trailer that Steve has to stay over, they argue about sleeping arrangements. Eddie keeps insisting that Steve would probably be more comfortable with Eddie sleeping in another room for some cryptic reason and Steve, who gets incredibly clingy while high, keeps shooting back with them sharing a bed being fine. When Steve keeps asking why they can't over and over again, Eddie blurts out that it's because he's gay. Without hesitation, Steve's says he knows and points at the hanky on the dresser by the bed. Staring at Steve for a moment, Eddie then asks how he knows about the hanky code. This time Steve hesitates. For awhile. It honestly scares Eddie for a moment, thinking he's been vecnad. If Steve hadn't been high, he maybe would have been able to think of an excuse, some way to get out of this conversation, but he can't. So he admits that he likes guys.

Eddie very excitedly starts asking a bunch of questions and talking about how they finally found something they have in common, who knew? When he notices the tears in Steve's eyes, he stops, confused, and asks what's wrong. So Steve tells him. He's not like Eddie. He's bisexual. And he braces himself for the backlash. For loosing his best friend and crush.

But then he feels a hand grab his. Eddie tells him that they still have something in common because he's also bi. Steve points out that he said he was gay, though. Eddie asks if he has ever told anyone that he was bi before, specifically gay men. Steve nods. Then he asks if it went well. Steve shakes his head. Eddie tells him that's why he said that. He's explains how tiring it is to have to explain his existence to people who won't get it and/or react badly to it. So he just tells guys that he's also gay. It just makes things easier. And Steve gets it. By God, does he get it. They spend the whole night exchanging stories and experiences, for the first time able to talk freely about their love life.

And by the end of the night, they stumble over each other trying to ask the other out. They laugh and both say yes.