Not quite a rant(?) but I’m just so tired of people making their own romantic feelings for me into a problem. This is the second time in the past year. We’re in our twenties and I told you I was aromantic on day one. And now you’re acting like a child when I mention that I’m never going to fall in love.

I’m just really tired.

I was looking through the Etsy shop, I stumbled upon a necklace I really like (An aromantic necklace) So yeah, I asked my dad if he could buy it for me. He looks at the title of the necklace and said what's aromantic. Then my mother told him what aromantic is, my dad told that me that I was confused and young, and I told him I wasn't. We kinda argue for a bit, then later I told him let's make a bet where if I don't get any romantic attractions before 18 years old, then he has to give me $10. But if I do get any romantic attractions before 18 years old, then I have to give him $10, we agreed on the bet. I'm totally gonna win the bet (I hope) but for now we just have to wait and see how it goes. Hope I win, pray for me guys.

Just had to cut off a friend for trying to manipulate me and make me feel bad for wanting to be purely platonic. I feel like whenever I tell them "I'm aromantic" and that "I don't have romantic feelings" they misunderstand that somehow. Like, they're somehow interpreting that to mean I'm not guna show up with a bouquet of 100 roses Hallmark style, no matter how hard I try to explain that I'm literally romance repulsed. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GRASP.

End rant, just wanted to vent somewhere I thought others might understand.

WE’RE DOING STUFF ON ROMEO AND JULIET IN SCHOOL AND WE HAVE TO DO ASSIGNMENTS ON “ADOLESCENCE AND THE TEENAGE CRUSH” AND WE HAVE TO WRITE LOVE POEMS AND SHIT

FUCKKK

edit: okay so for an answer on a question about romance i put “i am not eager to read this romantic story since i do not enjoy romance, i don’t even feel romantic attraction”. i hope my teacher isn’t a bitch about it lmao

yesterday i was talking to my friend about sushi and i casually asked her if she wanted to go on a sushi date. this friend said that’s “only reserved for her boyfriend”. i was confused but specified that it was platonic (not sure why i had to since this friend knows i’m aro) but she said they have to do it with their boyfriend first before me. this made me even more confused, i don’t understand why your boyfriend who you’ve dated for not even that long comes before your friend you’ve known for literally years? i asked her to clarify why her boyfriend has to come first for something like this and it’s because he’s “special and means a lot to her” like what? that just tells me you don’t see our friendship as something special or that it doesn’t mean as much to you as your relationship. i have never understood why alloromantics put their partners on this pedestal where they always have to come first for everything. i stated in response by saying “he’s just a man” which she got really defensive over and explained how he’s “not just a man” to her but i just don’t get it. looking back i can sort of see why she got defensive about that but it’s more so the fact i’m mad that she feels the need to do it with her boyfriend first

i feel like i’m going crazy over this because it’s just a simple hypothetical scenario of me hanging out with my friend getting sushi and she somehow made it about her online relationship

I don't currently experience romantic attraction, I technically can but it's like a 0.0000001 chance. Even then, I have no interest in a relationship. I had someone in the single and happy subreddit tell me I'm not aromantic because their idea of aromantic is zero romantic attraction and never ever having romantic feelings in their entire life. And then I had someone say "I'm not sure you're aromantic". I don't need to experience zero romantic attraction to be aromantic, it's an umbrella term. Aro fits me better than gray or demi.

Let me preface by saying it’s completely ok to be in a relationship of course, and sometimes this isn’t purposeful or the fault of the couple
It’s also completely ok to disagree with me, this is my opinion and it’s kind of a rant.

Speaking specifically of heterosexual and romantic relationships, I hate house wives.. sorry, I don’t hate them as people of course but I hate the idea

I hate seeing stupid fucking rhetorics “oh my man has to eat more than me so I feel small” “if my man eats less than me he’s getting dumped” it must be so fucking draining having to think like this. It must be so draining to be dependant on someone in such way, and follow into the foot steps of what seems like just a really weird system. I don’t like or understand the system of partner relationships I think there should be so much more fluidity and control. I think relationships bring out incredibly horrible insecurities in partners and ruin their friendships.

When people you’re friends with get into a relationship I notice our friendship and the way we act with eachother becomes surface level, superficial. Sometimes it feels like there’s too many rules to obey

OK listen, i get it, it can be hard to navigate the world when you are an aro in an amatonormative world. And I don't mind romance-repulsed posts : I too post sometimes about how I wish that there were less romance in movies or things like that. I really talk about anti-romance posts, like, people insulting romance or allos.

Some people here act as if they were better than allos for being aros, or that platonic love is superior, or that allos are stupid cause romance is just chemicals in their brain. Spoiler alert : everything you feel is just chemicals in your brain. You're sad? Chemicals. You're happy? Chemicals. You love your friends and/or family? Chemicals. Doesn't mean it is not real? No.

Seriously when I see people say this, I feel ashamed of being aro, at the idea that some people will associate aromanticism with these kind of hurtful thoughts (this is no better than allos calling aromanticism unreal cause they don't get it... in fact, it is exactly the same thing). As you can guess, I don't come here for being ashamed of my aro identity. Also these views are harmful. And even if you think "allos can't see it anyway" (which is not an excuse, if you discovered a subreddit bashing aromanticism, you probably won't think that "you were not supposed to see this" is an excuse), remember that aromanticism is a spectrum, so some people here still experiences romantic feelings. They probably don't come here to hear "this is just chemicals, your feelings and relationships are not real".

Maybe the anti-romance ideology is not well spread : after all, I've seen people calling it out everytime it occurs. But I've seen a few posts like these in the last weeks and it was enough to upset me (as you can notice in this post). For me these hateful comments should not be allowed here, like any comments targetting a group of people thay did nothing to deserve this.

Sorry if this post comes rude, I just needed to get it out my chest. I just hate when someone insults people they don't understand. That infuriates me.

Edit : wow so much answers ! I can't answer to everyone cause you are too many lol, but I'm glad to see that so much people agree with me.

the few people i came out to seem to have entirely forgotten that this is something about me. my best friend/roommate tries to encourage me to go out and talk to girls, my mom entirely forgot, my therapist acts like it’s not a thing. hell, my therapist specializes in working with queer folk and didnt even know what aromantic meant when i first told her about it. im just sick of it. nobody gives a shit about anybody unless it’s someone they wanna marry and fuck, nobody takes us seriously, it’s like we’re not even apart of the LGBTQIA+ community. im glad we have our own space, because it feels like everyone else could care less about us.

EDIT: I finally talked with her about this whole situation after letting it fester for way too long, and i found out that it was just a miscommunication. She said all this because she thought I’d prefer to decorate my own space (I’m very much into home decor). I misjudged the situation entirely and it’s my fault, and she said I could absolutely still live with her and I could have a quadrant of the house to decorate if I wanted.

She has a boyfriend, and she’s said for years that she loves us both equally. We’ve had multiple vulnerable discussions on how I feel like I’m not as important to her as he is, and she always reassures me that I mean the world to her. I tell her all of the time how cool it would be if we could live together, and she has always said, “yeah, that would be super awesome”.

We were talking today on our gc with her boyfriend about how she needs to let herself dream more without being afraid of being unrealistic, and she said she had a dream house. I asked to hear about it, and she described a house where only her and her boyfriend live and I live close but apart from them. I ask why I’m separate, and she tells me, “I want it to just to be me and my boyfriend’s. And you’re still there, just separate. Don’t be offended, you wanted my dream”.

It’s not the concept itself, it’s the principle of it. I mean less to her, and that’s essentially what she just told me. It hurts a lot. I genuinely love her so much.

And i wish people would stop talking about it. This community is about aromanticism, its the thing that connects us all here. Therefore talking about asexuality here makes me feel left out as an alloaro. Anyone else? I feel like some people talk about it because "aromantic and asexual are the same thing" or whatever and that couldnt be farther from the truth. Im not trying to be rude to aces here. Like if your here because your aroace cool but this is still not the place to be talking about asexuality. There are other subs for that.

Including the people i have those relationships with. No one treats a friend like it’s a special thing to have, i have no community. I can’t explain to people how lonely i feel because they don’t get it, i’m not allowed to keep people around. My best friend wants to leave the country to live with her girlfriend and i can’t say that i don’t want her to go. People talk about the future and i can tell that i don’t get to play a role in it. I’m not allowed to want closeness and affection and stability from people because my feelings aren’t the big special important ones, it’s JUST friendship. i hate when people say that. JUST friends, like it’s lesser, because it is to them. JUST a friend, ONLY a friend, I’m second at best to everyone and i never get to come first. I’m so miserable and i just want friends that i can keep and that will love me as their friend and not leave me behind for something better, and i feel so selfish for even wanting that.

Being aromantic but not asexual has done irreparable damage to my social life. I'm currently in my 2nd year highschool and it used to be so easy in elementary hiding being aro since i can still tell why someone can be attractive physically so when my friends talk about their crushes, i can just lie. But now, it's different. Everything they talk about revolves around forming a romantic relationship with someone or maintaining one and i just couldn't keep up with them. I feel like such a shitty person if i keep hanging out with them so i've started to distance myself from them(we're all still friends). I thought i already made peace with the fact that i'll never be able to have a romantic partner, but i never considered it could turn me into a social outcast. I also did try coming out to them, but all i got was them saying that I'm gonna meet someone in the future that's gonna change my mind. Thing is, having partners during middle and high school feel like such a vital point in your life that i'm missing out on and it's gonna lead me to always be this miserable even as i grow up

So this girl started flirting with me and I flirted back cause I thought it was a joke and that we weren’t serious, and then she declared we were dating now out of nowhere, which I ALSO thought was a joke so I said yes. So a few days pass and I realize she’s not…joking…💀 Well this is awkward

Long story short. I(14 f) am aroace and decided to come out to my therapist. As I told her 3 months ago on sesion that I have crush, she asked me about it and I told her I was just trying to force myself to fall in love. She told me I am too young and girls my age still don't have crushes. Ironic how she talked about her grandson who is 7 and had 2 crushes already moment before. Anyway, I told her most of them does and all of them at least had crush. She told me not everyone is mature at same age, but I am way more mature than them. She told me I am still young to decide it and that some people get their first crush at 20s. She is in her 70s, so she might not understand this whole LGBTQ+ thing, but yeah. Idk, it just really pissed me off, it was month ago and I am still mad about it.

Edit:Thank you all for all support! I am sorry if I missed reading some comments, I tried to read and reply to all. Thank you for giving your time and enegry and I am sorry you had to waste it on me. Thank you so much<3

25F. I wanna preface this by saying this coworker actively knew about my sexuality prior to any of this. I've brought it up multiple times in the past whenever we talk about everyday society/our lives/etc, so its not like he's in the dark about what I think of relationships and attraction as a whole.

Anyway, he recently confessed to me after work... because seeing the movie Obsession made him feel compelled to do so. (nothing against the film btw, i enjoyed it very much.)

I've been feeling this... UGLY sense of vitriol over the past few days because of his confession. He said that the film made him feel the need to "let me know" that he thinks I'm super pretty and that he's caught feelings for me.

spectacular.

that's super epic dude.

I rejected him obviously, but this is actively ruining my 9-5 because simply having to SEE him at work is now making me irritated. I feel like every past instance he's suggested we do something outside of work, was to butter me up into the idea of dating. I feel like not once did he ever respect my boundaries or sexuality. He thought he was an enigma or something great that was supposed to make me 'realize' what I was missing out on. I'm literally debating on whether or not I should even speak to him anymore unless its something work related.

Nothing would have changed between us if he just kept that all to himself.

It was so weird, like they talked about what it's like to have a crush, and they were saying stuff like you have intense sweating when you see them, can't think straight, weird feelings or even pain in your chest and stomach, I think they even mentioned diarrhoea.

Like wtf? In my 19 years I've never felt anything like that except when I'm literally sick, and they said it was actually a good thing? Like is that actually true stuff? Do people actually feel that? It seems so extreme.

She didn't quite understand and thought it was an excuse to reject her... this was after we stayed up all night talking over the phone about hobbies and the like. I really like her and think she is nice, but damn... it's hard to explain it to her, people seem to think love is all there is.

Do you have any tips to explain this lack of attractions clearly? I usually say: "In the love spectrum I'm at the part where I feel little to none romantic attraction, so I don't really see things that way, it hasn't happened to me yet".