u/Emergency-Pair5343

I recently had someone show romantic interest in me, and I really freaked out and spiraled a bit. Like, my immediate reaction was the need to never to see this person again, severely uncomfortable, and anxious for hours. It was such a small thing, though not even like serious flirtation, and I kindly shut it down immediately. I called my mom, who is a retired mental health counselor. She doesn't know much about aromantic stuff, but she says that this visceral response is typical when parents or people around them have bad romantic relationships. Like kids feel unsafe in romantic situations as they grow up. No one around me has any rocky relationships, so my mom is concerned as to why I have such an extreme reaction to romantic intentions. And I realized that I don't really know why, too. It's just been a thing, and I've successfully avoided romantic interactions most of the time, so I never really thought about it. Is this response normal to romance-repulsed people? To immediately never want to see them again, and will make their own life harder just for that reason? How do other romance-repulsed people react to romantic intentions? It seems like most people in this community have dated people before or made up fake crushes, when I couldn't even bring myself to think of doing that. So now I'm wondering if my response is way too extreme, and if I should seriously analyze this. Like, could this be something more than just aromantic?