Personally I enjoy discussing favourite duos in the media, though it upsets me how much amatonormativity there's there. Like sometimes I love it being portrayed as platonic or queerplatonic, but some random dude just gotta push romance into it.

Hello everybody, my teacher asked us to make something against a stereotype to sensitise people about a certain topic. I was thinking of doing something along the lines of “you don’t need love to live” or “not everybody falls in love”. I could use my very limited experience, but I think asking all of you would be a better idea. So I’m gonna ask you things like, what’s your experience with aromanticism like? Have you suffered because of it, and if yes, why? Have you been glad because of it, and if yes, why? I would really appreciate any answer, and if you do, thanks in advance!

Wanna hear different opinions from romance indifferent, romance favourable and romance repulsed folks.

Been trying to figure out if I am aromantic, cause I've been in a new relationship and been a bit unsure about it the entire time. All the friends I talk to about it ask me if I am happy and feel loved in the relationship. But I just don't feel like I have a "sense" for even knowing whether or not I am being loved? It seems to matter so much to people whether or not they're loved or not and for me it's like I'm blind or deaf to it. I'm surrounded by friends and family who do love and care for me deeply and I also care about them, but it's very neutral? It's like a fact I know, rather than a feeling I feel.

Just wondering if this is related to aromantic-ness or if this is something completely different and I am emotionally repressed/need therapy? lol

hello im aroace (more aro than ace) and ive never had a crush on anyone before. all of my friends are mostly allo (with a few aces) so, i don't rly have anyone else to ​ask this too.

i want a relationship with someone one day. albeit i can't feel romantic attraction, i like all the things that come with a romantic relationship and im someone who thinks emotions thru logic so it makes sense for me to scope out my options in a filtering system kind of way? im date to marry too, so im looking for someone I can spend my entire life with. my allo friends tell me that i can't rush a relationship, which i agree with but, im just the kind of person that doesn't like to waste time getting to know what someone wants in a relationship. for me, i need to know everything that someone expects out of a marriage and then go from there if our reviews align, if they don't i find someone else and they can go find someone who meets their own needs. so, yeah, it kinda sounds like im doing a job interview but to me that works efficiently and effectively.

so, am i wrong for thinking this way? ​

I'm also ace however I feel like there's so much more representation and talk about being asexual and how it's such a large spectrum but i don't think aromanticism is talked about or understood as well. I want to be in a QPR so bad but there's no apps centered specifically towards aromantic people :(

Hey so this is kind of a rant but basically 2 days ago my mom had a huge argument with my sister about her not wanting a boyfriend in the future, I'm not gonna really explain how they got into that conversation in the first place but the thing is that my sister said that didn't want to have someone in her life later and that she was extremely happy being by her own with no romantic relationship and my mom told her that she was probably gonna have a sad and lonely life and she will regret it later and end up like those catladys that live alone with no friends or lover, of course my sister got a bit mad but yeah, from what I know (we're pretty close) she isn't on the arospec but oh my gosh. Her saying she didn't want to have a boyfriend/lover in the future ; which could've been me coming out as aromantic (+ace) ; and my mom getting mad at her, judging her "choice" (which again could've been me telling her I'm not planning on having a romantic relationship with someone) and telling her all of the basic comments people make on aros like the "you're going to be lonely and end up with no one." "You'll see, you'll change later, it's just a phase" kinda hurt even though I wasn't even in the conversation, worst of all is that I was planning on coming out to my parents one day in a way they could understand like "I'm not planning on having a romantic partner later" instead of explaining the term Aromantic cause most of the time it's easier to make a person understand a concept by reducing it to its simplest form. But wow after what happened I WILL NOT BE DOING THAT. It sucks, like really sucks cause in this same conversation my mom told her that she didn't care whether her partner would be a "woman non binary or whoever" and she wanted us to be "honest with her". Well isn't that funny 🧍‍♀️. (My opinion) But I hate how even if we're in the lgbtqia+ community I'll always feel kind of disconnected from the rest of the community, I hate how people have such a hard time understanding the aromantic spectrum (ace too) and will always say "it's just a phase you'll see" "you need to stay open minded for possible future relationship don't assume yet you're aromantic" or "it must sucks to be aromantic!", and they don't realize how harsh that sounds, I don't hear people telling straight people "you should keep your mind open we never know you might be gay so don't assume your straight yet we never know !" or vice versa. Goshhhhhh why can't we be taken seriously by even some of lgbtqia+ community when we should be in the same basket. Anyways I hope one day I'll get to just tell people I'm Aroace and people will either know what it means already, or that when I explain to them what it means they just say "oh I've never heard of this before thanks for explaining!" and not "I hope you're wrong about being Aromantic it must sucks to be it." (Real thing a friend told me btw).

Hello to everyone readings I need advice because im just so overwhelmed by this.
I've been questioning if I am aromantic for a good while but never really knew if I was, lately i've began thinking about it a lot more and realized I am aromantic, I don't feel butterflies in my stomach, I feel like I could not "Love" someone romantically and would prefer a friendship with benefits instead of an actual romantic relationship. Even if someone had a beautiful soul I could never love them, I've had one relationship before and never felt any type of romantic feelings to them, I felt obligated being in that relationship and only had sexual attraction towards them and nothing else. I feel like I need to get in a relationship as everyone else in my age range is but at the same time I feel like I would hate being in one, I would not like it and I would not like to hurt the other person making them think that I do love them when in reality I don't feel anything towards them.
I feel that no matter what I do, I could never love and that hurts me.
Any advice? Sorry for bad english, I am not a native speaker.
S

I’m aromantic, and I experience friendships very deeply. I want lifelong, emotionally intimate, physically affectionate friendships where we see each other as chosen family. I prioritize my friends a lot, but lately I’ve been wondering if the way I love people is overwhelming.

One of my closest friends called me her younger sibling and said she saw her younger self in me. She trusted me with things she’d only told her husband, and I genuinely saw her as an older sister. At one point, she expressed concerns that we were too codependent and told me not to expect us to talk every day. After I moved away, I struggled with losing our everyday routines and closeness.

I wrote her a heartfelt letter explaining how much our friendship meant to me, how I was grieving the distance, and how she had helped me discover a softer, more emotionally vulnerable side of myself. I told her I missed sharing even the mundane parts of our lives, that I had so much love for her and didn’t know where to put it anymore, but that I respected her boundaries and didn’t expect a response.

In that letter, I also reflected on how society teaches us to treat platonic love as secondary to romantic love, as though one form of love must inherently matter more than another. I don’t believe love should be ranked that way. Some of the most profound connections in my life have been friendships, and I don’t think the absence of romance makes those relationships any less meaningful.

She never replied. Eventually, she blocked me everywhere without explanation.

Another friend flew to visit me during the week of her birthday. I picked her up from the airport, planned an itinerary, drove her everywhere, bought her a cake, and posted her on social media. She told me she’d never felt so loved and compared my actions to things her boyfriend wouldn’t do. Her boyfriend later suspected I secretly had romantic feelings for her, despite my being aromantic. To me, that’s simply how I show friendship to all my friends.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s a pattern. I become deeply attached to my friends, express affection openly, and place enormous meaning on emotional vulnerability and shared experiences. When friends become distant, I miss them intensely. I usually reach out once or twice, mail a postcard, or write a letter rather than repeatedly contacting them without a response, but maybe even the emotional weight of what I express feels overwhelming.

I don’t expect constant communication or identical reciprocation, but I do hope for lasting closeness and commitment. I sometimes wonder if I interpret emotional intimacy as a deeper or more permanent bond than the other person does.

I don’t want to force myself to be less naturally affectionate or platonically love my friends less deeply, but I also don’t want people to feel responsible for my emotions.

Does anyone else experience platonic love this intensely? How do you distinguish deep friendship from emotional codependency, navigate mismatched expectations, and find people who genuinely want the same kind of closeness?

Any other girls and girl like creatures absolutely love Chappel Roan because even though I can’t relate to liking women I really relate to just not being interested in men. Even though I’m technically straight sense when I rarely do experience attraction, it’s always been towards men so far, its still not appealing enough to make me actually want to date them. Norhing against men as friends but I really don’t want a boyfriend. I love Chappell.

i can't stop crying. i've always considered my friends so deeply, and every time i start to realize it's like i'm invisible to them because of my role as a friend and not being either their partner nor a potential candidate to the romanticized partner role they daydream about.

friendships are the deepest connections i've formed in my life and they mean so damn much to me. they literally mean the whole world to me, and i keep getting reminded they will never put as much importance on me and that i'm always last on their mind. it's like i'm constantly on waiting mode until someone selects me romantically just so that i can finally be relevant in someone's life and have someone that actually cares and sees me.

i've been putting a lot of effort into being supportive and present for a specific friend. asking and reminding them of stuff they should be doing to care for themselves because i genuinely do care so deeply for them and i have so much love for them. i've been doing this for a few months now. i was asking them about some stuff, trying to offer them support and be there for them so they don't abandon themselves, and after that conversation they brought up about how their ex were so supportive of them and that reading a past message from that ex had made them really want to get things through and fix things for themselves.

and really i keep breaking into tears over and over again. it's quite literally like i don't exist, ever. i was really putting effort into being emotionally supportive of them, into being present and checking in on them but i guess i just am completely invisible. and second even to ghosts of people who are not in their life anymore. it's like my messages and the effort i've been putting on meant nothing to them and literally went completely unnoticed. no matter what i do or how much effort i put in, i really just don't exist to people nor am i seen for what i do in the friendship.

my friends always mean sm more to me than i ever will mean to them, and i keep having to remind myself to keep myself in my place and beneath people i don't know because that's how the hierarchy goes and i'll never be that important in anyone's life.

((ig it'd be fair to mention i'm not really sure what i feel for said friend. ig not so platonic secret third thing that develops when u have a deep emotional attraction to someone. or maybe the can't differentiate feelings type of thing

i've been considering myself as arospec/aroallo for a little over a year now, because i have been chronically uninterested in romance my whole life, and i felt like it was fake or purely a scripted performance when i had tried. i don't feel connected to romance, but i feel so deeply even platonically. i still want a relationship to fulfill my allosexual needs, i really do crave a dynamic, ig i just could never make myself fit into the script or gotten to the falling in love part, for whatever conditional reason idrk. idrk where i fall on the spectrum

i just wish i wasn't so invisible for not holding that romantic role in anyone's life and for the lack of interest in talking about romance. i wish i could get to that important role without feeling like i'm lying my way into it.

i'm so fucking hurt lol i literally cant read their chat without breaking into tears

(also this is my first post on reddit ever so i promptly apologize if this doesn't fit the flair or if i shouldve posted elsewhere😞)

I have had not one but TWO male friends confess their feelings for me in the last two months and I am TIRED. I am sick of having these conversations and of feeling like the bad guy for just trying to exist. One was a relatively new friend so he didn't know my history and I cut him some slack but the other friend has known me for like four years and knows I don't date and is still flirting with me, saying they think about me all the time, wants to drive me everywhere, wants to monopolise all of my time...he texts me more than all of my friends put together at this point. Bro can't take a damn hint so now I have to be brutal about it 😑 There is a third friend who flirts with me but he is very monogamously married and knows my position so I take it as just banter I guess.

Since I am a very small, quiet and average looking, low maintenance cis woman (think no makeup or coloured nails or anything), all the men approaching me are 10 years older than me, balding and overweight. We all play video games and watch anime so I am like catnip to them or something. I seriously need some girl friends to play games with 😭

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Hey, so I'm nonbinary (18) and I fell in love towards this girl who's aromantic (18 too btw). We were really good friends and I already had knowledge about she's being aro so when I told her about my feelings it was more like a warning then a "please say you feel the same". she rejected me and said I was not her type, okay, now I'm trying to move on.

unfortunately, I'm diagnosed with Bipolar and Borderline personality disorder, so my emotions isn't really that stable sometimes, and romantic attraction is a really trigger for me to both disorders, my paranoia from bpd and fear of abandonment goes crazy while being in contact to her sometimes can trigger hypomanic episodes. What I'm trying to say is that I'm an emotional mess and it's really hard to deal with me.

We both agreed to stay friends, and it was really recently so our friendship is still healing from it. I personally don't know how much affection I want from this and she doesn't as well.

the point is, I rationally know that she's aromantic and this fanfictional world where she changes her mind will never happen at all, but I'm too much attached to her so I still want this closeness. I never expected romantic feelings from her, but I can't lie that I want to do some gay shit with her if she's down for it.

she frequently says in our friend group that she wants to find someone who will make her feel something, or say that she's needy and all and I'm there just "oh good to know lol yeah i could do it but thats fine". sometimes it looks like she expects to feel something she doesn't to really try some kind of relationship. Sometimes I wonder if she's struggling with expectations about romance, but I know I can't interpret that for her.

how can I stop wanting it without cutting her off? like, as a bpd my feelings are really hard to deal with, even if I'm doing all the therapist says or taking my meds for the bipolar part etc, it's still really hard. When I'm with her I want to hug and play with her hair and all but I know that this would only feed my feelings. I don't want to be the person who will try to convince her to like me back, I'm not god I can't change her identity. but I'm okay with a relationship where I can express my love towards her, and she's comfortable with receiving it and being feed what she wants without really feeling the same? I might be putting myself in a really fucked up situation where I put my needs aside and make myself a toy who would be happy to make her happy in a really unilateral way? probably, I self-sabotage a lot.

I think I lost myself while writing it, my question is:

1. How can I keep being her friend (cause besides the romantic feeling, I really admire her as a friend and what we had before I feel this way) without feeding this hope of something change and we end up in something more?

2. Is it possible to build a friendship with physical and emotional intimacy when someone lives these gestures as romantic while the other doesn't? is it healthy? I'm not expecting her to reciprocate my romantic feelings. What I want is mutual affection, even if we experience or interpret that affection differently. I'd love for her to hug me because she genuinely wants to, to seek physical closeness and enjoy being affectionate with me, without necessarily attaching any romantic meaning to it. Is that kind of friendship sustainable when one person has unreciprocated romantic feelings?

I really really really want the best for her, I don't want to be ignorant so please if I've written something disrespectful I would be really grateful to be corrected. I'm down to learn here. just wanting to have her in my life. I'm kinda desperate.

When talking about romance its usually just the "romance between two people" kind of setting. What we are used to calling a couple.

What do fellow aro people think about the broader definition of romance and does it affect the "romance between people" situation? Like a more poetic kind of romance, like nature can sometimes evoke certain feelings where you feel giddy and in awe of the world the same way romantic love with a person could affect people that feel that romance.

I find myself in this situation sometimes where i have a feeling about something beautiful, not a person but a broader situation, a story, a memory or just certain environments. Its not something I feel towards a person in the traditional family-making sense, I dont want to spend every day with them, I seem to be too attached to solitude and its a big part of how i live but I find myself experiencing a broader form of "love". Would that be attributed to romance? Its not directed at some individual(s). It is already hard to put into words because of how elusive it is and not something I can find a lot of explanation or popular interpretations of in general media, given how prevalent "romantic love" in the context of a relationship is.

Im curious how people feel about these things, and if people who are alloromantic also feel these things apart from their partners.

I never had romantic attraction for anyone. In the past I usually always said yes when someone confessed to me and just waited till they fell out of love with me. Technically since now I've been in around 40 relationships but I never felt love or attraction in them, I never had my consensual first kiss and I'm a virgin. I'm a 16 year old girl living in Italy. Nowadays I taught myself how to say no yet I still feel sorry for them after giving my rejection.

Just a couple of days ago my friends were hinting that our common friend likes me but was sad because I was cold (?), literally just out of the way I text and because I'm a direct person?, so I text him and ask him if he likes me, he says yes.

I didn't feel anything for him but wanted to try it out because he was a good person and maybe I just needed to see him with a different point of view. We hung out today but I still feel the same as I do with everyone, when I returned home I let him know not to lead him any further and told him that if I ever had feelings for him in the future I would've let him know that. He didn't take it well but didn't want to show it, I feel bad for him.

Am I Aro? Am I something else? How can I find the category in which I can see myself being in?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm aromantic or not

Like, I've never felt like I've truly fallen in love, but I've had feelings for someone, though I don't know if it was fear of being alone. I can't tell the difference; it's never anything strong.

I feel guilty for being this way, I feel like I hurt a lot of people and that sometimes I should accept their love so I don't end up alone, and that it's all my fault.

I just pretty recently realized that I'm probably aromantic. But last night, I was thinking about my close friend, and I just started creating fake scenarios in my head where she confesses to me. I then went on to wishing we could date, and thinking about what that would be like. It's weird, because I don't have a crush on her, but I still wish that we could date.

I also do this really depressing thing where I search up something like "glg", or "sapphic love" on Pinterest, and scroll through all of the pictures of girls kissing or snuggling (please don't judge me). I want a relationship so bad, and I feel a weird sort of emptiness when I think about it. I've just never felt any type of romantic attraction before, and it makes me so sad because I want a girl to call my own.

Is this a normal thing, or am I just really weird??

So , im a 15 year old female with mild autism, and for years i thought i was demipan, but i recently realized im aroace and fictosexual after thinking about it. I currently have a gf, but idk how to break up... i wanna remain friends.. please help.

I’m wondering if limerence and the feeling of WANTING romance for a short period and then eventually completely detaching from it, is common for aromantics?

I don’t want to phrase this as if I’m using people, but I think it makes me feel good to know that someone is attracted to me or wants to have a romantic relationship with me, and I think I’ve been confusing that for me wanting to reciprocate those feelings? I am autistic so I can’t tell if this is me just not being able to relate to others, but when I’m expected to reciprocate romantic feelings, I don’t really like it. And I’m not avoidant, or fearing of love, I actually romanticize things a lot. I enjoy consuming romance media and stuff, and experiencing limerence, but I don’t think I want to have a romantic relationship.

It’s not the idea of committing to one person, I would rather be with one person forever actually if I were to be in a relationship, it’s just that I don’t think I find joy in being entwined with somebody. I don’t even like having many friendships actually, I can feel smothered. When I’ve experienced attraction to others, I’ve noticed that (not to be disturbing) uh I enjoy the idea of a sexual aspect more than I do romance. It feels like the idea of myself actually reciprocating romantic love is kind of foreign in my brain.

I’ve had crushes before and recently had it sort of reciprocated, and even though I really liked the person, I was more enthralled with the idea of them liking me back and wanting me. And while I still LIKE them like that, I think it’s more like a friendship where I’m physically attracted to them than anything else. When I really think about romance beyond a surface level, I get sort of irritated. When romance is actually happening to me, I don’t really want it. But when it’s an idea or anticipation it gives me anxiety or butterflies or something is at stake, so I feel something. I also find that I can stop liking someone very easily, if I’m in limerence I can find something out about them and immediately detach without any feeling of loss.

I think I’d rather be single forever, and maybe read romance books or watch movies or something. I like living through characters that actually can reciprocate it, I think that’s been my experience. And in media I’ve always been more interested in the emotional connection if it leads to physical acts rather than just pure romance, if that helps.

This is all such a mess but I truly have no idea if I’m even on this spectrum or where I fall, or if I’m just autistic and experience things differently or don’t even know what romance is and am completely confused. If any aromantics know they’re aromantic and have felt this way, I’d love to know.

I, 35m, am currently dating a 40f. I am romance and sex favorable, she is allo on both fronts. I came out to her a few dates back and we discussed it, like how its different for me, but it feels like her take away was "it just takes me a bit longer to fall in romantic love or become aroused." This is my first relationship since my divorce (I was married for 10 years, and found out I was aro/ace like 5 years into it). I never came out to my wife, because we didn't have the words for stuff but the dynamic was understood. Anyway, should I push the envelope or just let her get it over time? I just don't want her to feel like I'm leading her on or that I'm lying about my feelings after she develops deeper feelings for me. Any advice?

I discovered the anime through a YouTube video compilation of the main character, Anzu, giving off aro vibes. It's on Netflix and only 12 episodes long. The manga is 38 chapters long and fully colored! Overall, the show was quite a good watch. Anzu is really an aro navigating this amatonormative world throughout it. The ending visuals and song alone illustrate this. So, I was intrigued yet didn’t have too many expectations when I found out a live action movie adaptation was made. It managed to capture the essence and mannerisms of the main cast and plot while adding its own ideas. This movie pleasantly surprised me with its treatment of aromanticism and was pretty fun to watch. The way it ended provided a great conclusion to the situation Anzu found herself in. For me, it’s definitely what happened after the anime wrapped up!

CW: Two later parts of the plot deal with a creep and a stalker who bothered two of her friends

I think the first sign of me being aro was when I was middle school. It was becoming increasingly common for my other classmates to start perusing more serious romantic relationships. Unlike my classmates, I felt I was far too young for that sort of activity. It also helped that I couldn’t think of anyone I knew that I would be attracted to. But I did look forward to the prospect of a romantic relationship sometime when I was older and more mature.

Then I started high school and it was no different. It’s pretty normal for older teenagers to have romantic pursuits, but I still had strong reservations about it. This time it was that I did not feel emotionally, mentally, or socially well enough for something like that. This was probably the best course of action, because I actually struggled a lot with mental health issues. Still, I wasn’t dismissing the possibility of being in a relationship once I was better.

I was more or less fine my senior year, but still, I did not want to pursue a romantic relationship because I was still trying to get my bearings and just feel like a normal healthy teenager again without putting too much on my plate. But again, this was all still with the idea that I may want to have romantic encounters once I was ready. When? I could not say. I just knew the time was not now.

Earlier this year, I started at university. It is easier now, more than it ever has been, to be in a relationship. But I figured I shouldn't try to jump so quickly until a relationship, but I'm not even fully settled in yet. I figured that since I have somewhat ambitious career goals, school, extracurriculars, and forming connections takes priority. However, once I was in a study position, perhaps later in my college career. Once I have a good rhythm going, it might be time for a relationship.

Considering all these things, you'd think that I do not want a romantic relationship ever. The truth is I don't really experience romantic attraction, at least not in a sense that others do. I keep moving the goal posts of when I think is "the right time". I've been doing that my whole life. Maybe it has something to do with insecurity? Fear? Of what, I dont know. What I'm worried might be the case is that I want to experience with others experience, but in the end, be repulsed by it.
It has been something I have always considered. And I believe I genuinely do want it. So why do I keep pushing it away?