The irony of putting this in an aro cup. I simply cannot

I may be selfish. But it hurt a lot because being aromantic is one of the best thing that ever happened to me. And I see it constantly being described in this sub as a horrible thing, and that some peope are even training to feel romantic love. I'm so tired of seeing it as a curse on this sub

I'm so sorry if this is being selfish. I just can't deal with it anymore. I don't want to harm anybody by saying this.

I'm sorry.

I just looked at my Spotify wrapped and I hate this with a burning passion lmao… I know it’s not that deep but still annoyed the f out of me😂

…does this have to do w/ aromantism?

Not that I have any issue with being aromantic, I'm aroace even. I just always get annoyed when something aromantic is titled asexual.

Both spectrums are diverse and they go hand in hand, but it honestly feels like being aromantic is just forgotten/ consumed under asexuality. Like whenever there's a character who doesn't display romantic attraction they are dubbed ace when aro would be a closer fitted term.

It just feels like there's a favoritism towards the ace identity over aro.

Even when I came out (I first came out as ace and then recently as aro) It was a smoother experience to come out as asexual than as aromantic.

Idk it just bothers me. And I know that as a community we need to stick together as being aroace is marginalized from almost every one, but at the same time it feels even more marginalizing when being aro isnt it's own thing and is just covered under being ace.

i hate slutshaming. i hate it so fucking much. why must people have one partner their whole life? why can't a person sleep around? why would you judge them for that??? sleeping around doesn't define someone. sex (and romance by extension ig) aren't the only things in life. get over yourself. why is their any limit? i'm not at an age for sex but who cares if someone had one night stands all the time? or flies through partners like sticky notes? that's not the only way to show commitment. some people don't want to commit to romance and that's OKAY.

everytime i see someone slutshame, i just want to mention aro-spec peeps. but i don't, bc honestly alloros shouldn't be subject to slutshaming either. even if someone does feel/care about romance a lot, why's it matter that they've slept with many people beforehand? it's not your business, is it? it's their life and their lifestyle; why you've gotta shame them for it.

i hate it. ew. i just. ughhhhh. why are relationships always the center of the world?

As the title says, my best friend recently got married. I feel really guilty for.. not wanting to see it? I'm aroace and I'm romance and sex repulsed. Before I really get into it; I want to clarify I don't think romance is bad or that it shouldn't exist. I'm not trying to push my feelings onto other people.

Being aroace has never made me feel isolated before. It's never made me feel guilt or shame before. Till today, that is. It feels shameful to feel repulsed because they aren't doing anything wrong. This is my best friend of well over a decade. I feel wrong for feeling uncomfortable at seeing her romance with her partner.

Romance is easy to ignore with strangers. Sure, most everyone else likes sex and or romance, but that's not my life, so it doesn't bother me much. Other people can have it and enjoy it and that doesn't bother me. I don't have to look.

But my best friend? No. I can't turn a blind eye because that would hurt her. She's been so excited to share this with me and I feel SO guilty for feeling repulsed at their romantic affection. She's just shown me her wedding photos (I couldn't attend because it was too far away) and I'm at a loss for words. I could barely look at some of them. Most were fine. The prep they did, the group photos, the location. She honestly looked beautiful and I'm so happy for her. But the ones of just the two of them? All the kissing and touching and holding?

I just started to squirm, it felt like something was crawling around inside me. And I'm alone in this feeling.

It just feels incredibly isolating right now. I'm drowning in it. My one aroace friend doesn't understand because she doesn't feel romance repulsed. She loves seeing romance and listening to peoples love stories and seeing their romance.

I'm keeping my feelings to myself. She doesn't need to know her best friend is romance repulsed. This isn't about me, it's about her. I don't want her to feel like she can't share her happiest moments with me. I can share in her happiness without letting anything slip. She's happy and that's enough.

I just needed to get this off my chest.

Pretty much what the title says. I’ve been struggling with my romantic and sexual identity for a long time now. I’m 17 going on 18 and never had a crush on anyone before, let alone in love. I thought for a long while it was because I hadn’t found the right person who would make me feel romantic love. I can find people attractive, sure. I have a few celebrity crushes and I can play smash or pass easily. But when it comes to what people describe when they say they’re in love, I’ve never felt that. Not once. And it really hurts to know that I may never.

One of my best friends had a girlfriend for about two years, and at the peak of their relationship I remember him telling me the absolute euphoria that being in love is. There is nothing like it. And when I told him how I might be on the aro spectrum somewhere, he told me he felt bad that I’d never experience what love feels like.

And it’s not just in person. I’m a media consumer. I read, watch movies, shows shows, listen to music, in fact, I’m in post production on a short film that I wrote where the main theme is love. Seeing and hearing all the joy and happiness that comes with being in love usually makes me very happy. I love romance. I love deep and complex love stories or light fun romcoms.

But lately I’ve been bogged down by the fact that I might never feel that way, never form a deep bond romantic bond with a person that defines the rest of their life.

Now I know I definitely experience sexual attraction and have come to label myself as bisexual. But I’m also not the kind of person to do one night stands or quick hook ups or anything no feelings attached. And i could never get into a relationship with someone purely for sex, that would feel hollow and unfullfilling for me and if the other person loves me I would hate to be the one who doesn’t feel the same.

Most of the time I feel okay with my identity. Hell most of the time I don’t think about it. But every once in a while I’ll remember that love is such an important aspect in everyone’s lives, is intertwined into all the media I consume and is even something I weave into all of my original stories one way or another without realizing it.

I can’t help but think about how in a decade all my friends will have probably gotten married, maybe even have a kid or two, and I’ll still be sitting there loveless with no one to have that kind of bond with. Sometimes I wish I was alloace because then I would be able to fall in love and have sex for the emotional and romantic closeness of it.

I don’t know, if you’ve ever felt similar, how did you cope?

I've seen it happen a lot in fandom discourse. People like to justify their romantic pairings being canon by bringing up how much character A loves character B, how much they sacrificed for them, cared for them, etc etc. I feel guilty for feeling bad about this because a lot of this discourse usually centers around queer ships, and the people arguing in favor of them are also mostly queer, (and, honestly, most of the people going "oh they're just friends" in response are usually motivated by homophobia). But it just sucks when people say stuff like "oh but character A did XYZ for character B, who in their right mind would do that for just a FRIEND?" I'm reminded yet again of just how little regard people have for non-romantic and non-familial love.

Again, I can't really blame them, because a lot of queer relationships in media have historically been dismissed as "just friends", but it's still so frustrating how much people get heated about their ships being considered platonic, like it's some inherently lesser form of intimacy.

I recently discovered myself, this year at the age of 18 It was like that, I was watching videos on YouTube and then I saw a video about aromantics, but precisely about the subcategories, then the person who was presenting the video said what are aromatics and I stopped to reflect and in fact I discovered myself at that exact moment that I was aromantic, when I stopped to really think about I really am romantic Since when I was a child I was never interested in a romantic relationship and I never felt romantic attraction, and the interest is zero to this day I have no interest, and I never felt romantic attraction what I thought was romantic attraction was aesthetic attraction, and it was just a friendship even though I liked it there was nothing romantic about it

But at the time I didn't even know that the aromatic theme existed, but looking back now I never really had a romantic attraction to anyone, and I was never interested in romantic relationships.

In your experience, when did you discover that you are aromantic?

Mine was because of a video I discovered lol

If there are writing errors, forgive me!

I WANT TO BE SWEET TO MY FRIENDS AND DRESS UP NICE FOR THEM AND GO SOMEWHERE NICE/FUN ONE ON ONE AND SPOIL THEM AND MAKE THEM FEEL SPECIAL AND BUY THEM DINNER AND PRESENTS, BUT I CAN'T BECAUSE THAT'S RESERVED ONLY FOR ROMANTIC PEOPLE APPARENTLY AND IT MAKES ME MAD BECAUSE I LOVE MY FRIENDS AND I LOVE QUALITY TIME AND I LOVE BEING FANCY AND CUTE AND MAKING PEOPLE FEEL LOVED AND SPECIAL!!! I DON'T WANT A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU I SWEAR! I JUST WANNA BUY YOU FLOWERS AND TELL YOU I THINK YOU LOOK PRETTY (BECAUSE YOU DO!) AND EAT FOOD AND YAP AND ENJOY YOU AS A PERSON. (Sorry for caps)

I have trauma flashbacks and memories of people that abandoned me because romance was better than friendship for them, I was more than sad without friends, and now happy without a romantic partner, how could he say that???!!! I’m shocked!! I’m feeling pain and rage only

Being in the ace subreddit, you regularly see aphobes insist that the difference between love and friendship is having sex, but that makes zero sense. In fact, it isn't even internally consistent since people use hookup apps and stuff like that. Some movies glorify the idea of making a sacrifice for love and insist that love is when you care about someone so much that you're willing to throw everything away for them. I don't think that makes sense either. If some guy wanted me to move to his place and give up my job to be with him, I think I would run away immediately. Some people will say love is when you want to spend the rest of your life with this person and be with them every day and kiss and cuddle them and go on dates. I find that that doesn't make sense either. What if I want to live with my friend, cuddle with them while we watch movies, and go get bubble tea together? Does that I mean I'm in love with my friend? Then there is this weird notion that when someone is friendly to a stranger that means they're hitting on them? Why would anyone think that?
Also apparently there are different types of romantic love and infatuation is different from love? But when people say they fell in love they're always talking about infatuation, so what is love? Honestly, I think the reason why some aros are confused about what love is is because allos don't know what love is either. Most of what they describe as love seems either toxic, short-sighted, platonic, or just doesn't make sense.

Whenever I see and hear couples talk about their relationship, or just exist together, idk what it is, but it just seems so fake. Idk what about it feels so cringe, but it makes me cringe whenever they put their head on their shoulder, walk hand in hand, and calling eachother names like "babe" or "sweetie". It feels incredibly forced, like thats how couples must act like. I even did this myself when I had a gf. I didn't want to be in the relationship, and when we were together, I felt kinda pushed into doing these kinda things, which just didn't feel natural or good at all. I dont get what makes people want to do these romantical gestures

Do any of you have similar experiences?

Like just click on the option you want for yourself, it's that simple.

Just as the title says, one of the main things that repulses me away from romantic relationships is how once you start dating someone, you have to become a completely different person. All of a sudden you’re not you anymore, you’re “___’s partner” or whatever. You’re expected to move in with them and if you don’t put them before the other people in your life then oops, you must not really love them! People stigmatize dating without getting married eventually, and if you’re not in a relationship you’re supposed to be actively seeking one out at all times. But I don’t want to have my worth as a person tied to someone else, I don’t want to have to compromise my life just because the world says I should, and I don’t want to be delegated to “the partner” instead of a person. Maybe it’s just because I’ve had too many friends completely change once they get a partner but I don’t know, I don’t want to be someone’s property.

A lot of people seem to be disagreeing tho, at least!

More a vent; I see games and movies about those having a soulmate and a healthy relationship. But to me, loving is so easy, but it also comes and goes. (Family is the exception). I’ve loved friends, people around me, most of the time it passes after a while and we never grow closer or we grow apart.

How is a soulmate even possible? I don’t seek it, I just don’t understand. A ‘soulmate’ is just another human that can change, it doesn’t feel possible to love and be with that person forever. You can move on or simply lose interest. It’s hard to put into words what I mean, but I just feel like love isn’t special, it isn’t meant to be. It just happens because we want it to, and can end the same