#reminder that I'm aroace-flux for this post

[littlest-bugz]

Love Isn't A Feeling

[one neurodivergent person's experience with the feeling of love]

This post is going out to my fellow neurodivergent folks, especially those who struggle with social concepts like the feeling of love and other similar things. This post has been drafted and redrafted about four times. This is a complicated subject to talk about due to the nature of the subject I'm talking about.

Ever since I was a child, and into my now early adulthood, I have always struggled with forming emotional connections to others. While detachment isn't inherently a bad thing, what I have going on was born out of trauma and abandonment, but I didn't always realize that. This lead me to wondering why I couldn't form meaningful emotional connections with others, and why things seemed easier for others than for me. I have always known I was 'different' in some capacity when relating to my peers, which boiled down to me having undiagnosed Autism.

Cue to me in 2024, the current year. I had been in a romantic rut, very much yearning on main. I have always craved a partner in some capacity, but as I continued to brew on the thought- I couldn't remember the last time I had felt love for another person. I honestly don't mind being alone, but something in me churned at the thought of not having felt love for another person for so long that I forgot what it felt like. I wasn't worried, per say, but I was concerned about what had happened to make me like this. Admittedly, I am a deeply traumatized, but I don't think that alone would crush that. I stewed for days before I brought it up in therapy.

I talked to my therapist, who is also Autistic, about how I couldn't feel love or have not in ages. That's when she dropped a bombshell-

"Love isn't a feeling- it's an experience."

So I was confused because I had been led to believe that love was a feeling- It's baked into western society that love is a feeling. I began to poke at her, asking what she meant by that because I couldn't believe what she had told me.

She went on to explain that love is the collection of three things; Trust, Respect, and UPR.

UPR is a concept that is personal to my therapist- she's talked about how she hasn't heard much talk about it outside of her practice, and I personally haven't heard anything about it outside of her. UPR is the abbreviation of Unconditional Positive Regard. This means extending grace to a person, knowing that everyone has their flaws and downfalls. It means forgiving when it's safe to. For example; if you're in an actively abusive situation, UPR doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. UPR is reserved for those who don't personally hurt you on purpose, essentially. People mess up and will hurt you on accident, but it's different when its abusive.

So she explained to me that love is the concoction of three previously mentioned things, and I felt like it just clicked for me because if I thought by the list she had given me, I truly did love some people- such as my friends. I asked her why so many people view love as a feeling because I had thought the same thing for a long time, and she explained that it's something, at least in the US, that is baked into our society. Think of it; The Hallmark Movies, The holiday of Valentine's. Many depictions of love portray love as something you feel, something that can be 'at first sight', if that makes sense. That made a lot of sense to me because I had never believed in the concept of love at first sight, and now I knew I was right in that assertion.

Love isn't and has never been a feeling, in my opinion. You can go your whole life not 'feeling love', but when you think about how its a matter of Trust, Respect, and UPR, it suddenly becomes a truly tangible concept. It suddenly becomes something you can point out within friendships and other sorts of relationships.

Of course, there will still people who do not love, even including this concept, but I hope this post can help explain something that can typically be hard to grasp as a neurodivergent person- I needed an explanation of love from a fellow Autistic individual in order to understand it, and I know not everyone has access to a therapist, let alone one that is also Autistic.

[oscconfessions]

Sigh... I'm gonna add my two cents about the Balloon arospec drama(I'm AroAce BTW) and by my two cents I mean I'll mention it two times and just talk about something else related. I'll also be providing some knowledge about AroAceness and all that.

For those of you who don't know,

Aro: Aromantic - Little to no romantic attraction.

Ace: Asexual - Little to no sexual attraction.

Aro+Ace are spectrums and aren't just "every Aro person doesn't feel any kind of romantic attraction" or "every Ace person can't feel sexual attraction." I feel as tbough people forget that all the time so I wanted to remind you lot haha.

I'm noticed this kind of drama a few times, where people argue about a character on where they are on the AroAce spectrum. It's difficult for me to put what I think into words here, but if a character(either canon AroAce or not) doesn't have a canon placement on the spectrum then whatever, go wild.

To help with my previous statement, I'll use SakiK from... SaikiK. People generally agree he's AroAce, yet people argue about where he is on that spectrum(mainly the Aromantic part). Since it's not ever stated where he is on that spectrum(or even if he is AroAce but SHHHSHSHHSH 🤫🤫), everyone has their own interpretation of it.

I believe it should be the same for Balloon, unless Balloon comes on screen and says "I am *insert very specific thing here* " as he points to a picture of the Aro spectrum then its to to you. Obviously, don't make him a sex crazed fiend or constantly searching for love, you eejit, but it should be up to interpretation.

A little off-topic here, sorry, but I wanted to bring up umbrella terms in both the Aro and Ace spectrums(I'm included ace because eh why not! This is for my people who HC Balloon as Aro AND Ace 🙏🙏)

Here are some terms under both the aro and ace spectrums. I feel as though you guys and many, MANY others tend to forget that there are umberlla terms for AroAce. I'll define them below:

Ace umbrella:

Aceflux: someone whose sexual orientation fluctuates but generally stays on the asexual spectrum

Greysexual: only experience sexual attraction some of the time, and sometimes not at all.

Demisexual: An individual who does not experience sexual attraction until after a close emotional bond has been formed.

Aro umbrella:

Aroflux: someone whose romantic orientation fluctuates but generally stays on the aromantic spectrum

Greyromantic: Some may feel a strong emotional connection with others but do not desire romantic relationships, while others may feel a weak romantic attraction to some people but not all.

Demiromantic: An individual who does not experience romantic attraction until after a close emotional bond has been formed.

Now, there are MANY more, feel free to add in the replies or the reblogs (o: !

Also, my apologies that this post was very long! Also also, my personal opinion on Balloons arospec thing? Idfk, lmao. TBH, this was kinda an excuse to just talk about stuff I like and am interested in so... 👍I've seen the tweet where one of the people who worked on II said yes, Balloon is meant to be Aro, but I couldn't tell you if they went into specifics about it. Sorry for constantly saying AroAce instead of just aro for Balloon, I felt like it was still important to include all my asexuals out there and educate others about it.

(BTW! Any inaccurate info, PLEASE, PLEASE correct in the replies)

Anyway!

TL;DR:

If a character who is just stated to be AroAce(not demi, grey, flux ETC) and never has their place on the spectrum explained whatsoever, it's okay to have a little fun experimenting with it IYKWIM. As I've stated, we all have our own interpretation of the AroAce character and there's no point arguing about it and getting mad because that's fucking stupid, unless they start actively getting rid of the AroAce rep then burn them to the stakes! /j

I know how wild you mother fuckers can be, so don't shank me please. If you disagree, take a deep breath and remain calm because getting all pissy about this isn't gonna do shit. Try to go about it calmly and reasonably. <3

I'd love to see others' opinions on this, remember to be respectful! 🩵

.

[tertiaryspec-culture]

~Intro/About~

Welcome to Tertiary-Spec Culture!! This is a "culture is" blog for those on the spectrum side of tertiary attractions (so labels like grey, demi, flux, cupio, ext)

This is also secondarily a place to spread general information for + about those of us who label our non-rose attraction past allo-/gender terms!!

(other similar culture blogs!! @queercutlureis @alterous-attraction-culture-is @orientedaroace-culture-is @tertiary-attraction-culture-is @demi-alterous-culture-is @cedural-culture-is @aesthetic-attraction-culture-is @caedspec-culture-is)

~About The Mod~

I'm Mod Eventide (She/They) and I'm a white aestheticflux hetroplatonic aroace genderqueer gal!!

~Submission Rules~

• Start all culture is asks w/ the appropriate identity(s)!! For example Demiplatonic culture is, Bi Cupioqueerplatonic Culture Is, and ext

• Don't send anything NSFW or the likes :)

• Please try to use tone tags

• Also add tws to the beginning of your post if you know of any that apply!! This greatly helps me to mod better + faster

• Don't send or tag me in Donation or Flag Combo posts/requests, but do feel free to tag me in anything else about tertiary attraction

• Friendly reminder that I'm just one person + will not know everything!! Feel free to ask questions about the tertiary spectrums but I might not be the most help ^.^

~DNI~

I block pretty liberally, but overall it's just standard dni criteria that will get you blocked including any queerphobia (like being anti; mspec lesbians/gays, lesboys, fae/faer pronouns, aphobic, ext ext), proshippers, and those who's blog are primarily discourse especially around systems + trans people!!

~Tags~

#behind the blog - posts like this + other updates about how the blog is being run

#not culture is - anything that isn't in the "culture is" format

#tertiaryspec culture - the culture is posts :)

#mod eventide rambles - talking about my own experiences w/ non-rose attraction

#rainbow of attractions - other tertiary attraction posts that might not necessarily be (explicitly) tertiary-spec

#.flag spam. - post that are primarily or only non-rose flags

#tw [X] - how I plan to tag sensitive content!!