hello everyone. honestly i'm not really here to debate anything. i'm just here to talk about my own orientation so maybe more people can understand what it means.

I'm aromantic. this means, for me personally, that i do not experience romantic attraction. i don't want to date anyone. i don't get crushes. i never have. i've been in relationships, yes, because i was young and i was scared and i thought that was what was normal and what was needed to be a real person. those were bad relationships, because i'm not a relationship type of person. i had a relationship for two years because i was afraid of saying no.

aromanticism can mean a number of things to different people. some aromantics don't want relationships but enter them anyways for their own personal reasons (to make someone happy? because they want to see what it's like?) some aromantics can't really tell what romantic attraction is, or can't distinguish between strong romantic or platonic feelings. they often go by quoiromantic. some people are somewhere between being aromantic and not. and that's fine! it's a whole spectrum. being between the two can be called being gray-romantic.

note that aromanticism itself does not comment on your sexual attraction. some people are aromantic asexuals, or aro/aces, meaning they don't want any sort of romantic or sexual relationship. people can be aromantic but not asexual. that's okay.

i want you to understand that aromanticism is not a bad thing. please don't view it or treat it that way. thinking there's something wrong with them is very harmful to people who are aromantic. i hated myself for so long because of who i was. there's nothing wrong with me, and there's nothing wrong with any of you who may be reading this who feel the same way. understand that you are not summed up by who you are with. i personally believe there is no such thing as a missing half, or a soulmate, or anything at all that suggests you are less than whole the way you already are. i'm aromantic, and i'm not broken.

feel free to, i don't know. discuss. or ask any questions? i can answer any questions you might have.

- Not a debate. Move it to chit-chat?

- The good thing is Subeta is a super diverse community who is very accepting.

As a heterosexual who is a total romantic, I see nothing wrong with being aromantic. It's just a part of who you are. And what matters to me is personality, not orientation.

But, thank you for the info. I learned something new today. :3

I've heard a little bit about aromanticism before but never completely knew what it was. I do have what might be a stupid question though... Lets say hypothetically you met someone and you did start to feel something romantic towards them, would you completely be closed to it? Or are you sure that would just never happen?

I've never heard of that before. Always interesting to learn something new. Myself, I'm definitely straight and extremely romantic, lol. At least I'd like to be if I were in a relationship, but I'm overweight and I can't seem to get anyone to see past that...which is a whole other thread in and of itself. But anyways, thanks for sharing!

Bisexual and demiromantic here. I have a couple friends who are ace and I am deeply and platonic in love with them all yo. We bros forever.

No judgement from me here c:

if it did somehow happen, i wouldn't be closed to it. i do have strong feelings towards some people but i interpret them as more platonic, yknow? i don't see myself as ever developing actual romantic feelings, but if i did, then i'd take it in stride.

aw! i'm overweight too. you'll find people who'll love you for who you are, i promise.

nice!! aro spectrum hifive.

I call myself bi because it's so much easier than actually having to explain, but I guess I'm partially aromantic (kind of?).

Easiest way to explain it? I'm homosexual, but heteroromantic. I've tried dating women in the past, but as you can imagine it never went well. But I'm lucky in that I can develop a physical attraction towards a man if the emotional bond has already been established.

So, long story short? I married a man (and yes, the physical attraction is there. And yes, he does know this about me =P).

I'm asexual. I imagine both make things really hard? :/

I sure hope so. I just want to find that one person who gets me. I wish I knew where they were hiding. I'd lasso them and pull them out, lol.

that makes sense! and it's good that you've got someone you love.

hard, not really. i've got friends and they've got me and i don't want to date anyone, so i don't. it does alienate me from a lot of people and aspects of everyday living, though. what with the constant push of forced romance. i've got a lot of friends who are asexual but romantic.

I'm not even really romantic. I mean, I want a relationship, sure. But most of the time I don't want to be touched. For the love of God, please don't kiss me. This makes it hard to find a partner to put up with all of that. Then, I'm a workaholic. I'm way too damn ambitious for me own good. Ugh.

aroace to boot here, hello hello. it's nice to meet other aros on this site, yoo.

Figuring out that I was aromantic was definitely a wild ride. I used to think that I was too 'immature' to date other people, when being in a (romantic) relationship would always give me constant anxiety attacks. I thought I had crushes on people, but it was always just this.. sense of dread and obligation to return those feelings when other people expressed romantic interest in me that I wanted to interpret as romantic attraction, because I had no idea how crushes were really supposed to feel like. (I still kinda don't, but I guess the butterflies are supposed to be a good thing and that's definitely not the case for me.)

I used to identify myself as a vague bi-something, but it never really felt quite like my label even though I do experience some sort of attraction towards more than one gender. But since it's not romantic or sexual, it personally feels like a very.. watered-down version of bi-ness for me, hah.

Now I've got a platonic partner who understands that I do not feel romantic attraction (and that I'm mega romance-repulsed), and they're super awesome and understanding ´u` ❤️

Oh my gosh I'm aromantic too?? Like I've never felt crushes or got those butterflies in my tummy anything but I thought I just hadn't met the right person yet,,it feels so good to not feel alone here!!!

same !! same on so many of the things, oh my goodness. especially the... how you feel when you're romantically dating, and obligation to return feelings, oh my god yeah . i feel it. i'm glad you've got a platonic partner! that's very nice.

same!! it's so bad that our culture just constantly pushes romance and significant others and soulmates and shit so when youre trying to figure out yure aro its so much harder because it's like ... but people HAVE to date, don't they? people have to love. but no they dont sorry im getttin emotional fcuk

yess god it was awful trying to fit in when literally everything and everyone keeps insisting that romance is the pinnacle of everyone's life (and that romantic love is what makes people truly human or whatever). I remember I used to fake crushes in school because I got picked on for not being interested in anyone?? Which is ?? really absurd in the first place like ffs what do people even care. And then the whole thing about not realizing that it's not a romantic crush when you simply like someone as your friend, figuring out the difference earlier would have saved me so much trouble and drama. It's so nice to finally find out that hey maybe there's nothing wrong after all, and that there are other people who feel the same way ;--; ❤️

Oh, and I have to mention that I absolutely love it when villains in media get aro-coded, and then people yell about how great it is that you aromantics are getting representation!! Why won't you be positive about it!! Thanks I just love it when it's constantly thrown in my face that I'm evil or a robot for not feeling romantic love, it's just fantastic. 8)

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oh my goodddddd y ea WIT H THTE VILLAIN THING , FCK!! i also hate when someone shits on aro headcanons bc the character's dated someone before. like ... . . . . . eugh. it's hard

yEAH .... I'm pretty sure quite a lot of aromantics have dated before and then noped the heck out of the situation, I know I did (or you know, are dating, everyone's an individual and relationships and their definitions vary from person to another, everyone has different comfort zones yada yada). Love it when people try to invalidate you (or character headcanons) judged by what you've done before.

(btw feel free to send me any and all character headcanons, no matter who the characters are. Gotta love those creative diverse thinky thoughts)

yea!! like ive dated so many ppl because i didnt know how to figure out i DIDNT WANT TO, that doesnt mEAN IM NOT ARO, same goes for charries. and omg youre sweet. every single character is aro. confirmed

woo!! im so happy you made this thread!! i myself identify as a akoi/lithromantic polysexual so I'm feeling that aro/ace spectrum up in here. something that hxc bothers me tho is how much erasure aro/aces get from the LGBTQIA+ community. I know you talked about how aro/ace representation is usually negative, but isn't it funny how like within our own community, one that supposedly embraces marginalized gender, romantic, sexual etc orientations so easily disregards and dismantles the idea of being aro/ace? thats something thats so incredibly frustrating for me as someone who identifies on the spectrum and someone who knows people/care about people within the spectrum constantly deal with not only the hyper sexualized society and media we are influenced by but now the removal and harshness from our own community. some grade A bullshit that is. smh.