u/Lightmoonwriter

Okay, pretty much what it says on the tin.

So, for the longest time, I denied the idea that I'm aromantic. After all, I'm the hopeless romantic in my family. The one with the crushes. Falling in love with some pretty guy who stands out in class in a way that lasts either a few months or years.

But then, I decided to analyze each of my crushes. And I started to doubt whether they are as romantic as I had assumed.

For my first elementary school "crush" (unsure, really)--and this was the only time that I did so--I had a plan for how to get his affection. My first-grader mind went: I will befriend his friends, and his friends will end up liking me so much they'll have to recommend me to said crush. And then he'll be with me. The End.

But I had no real drive to actually go through with the dating part. I got a lot of guys who became my friends during elementary school though, and honestly, I was really cool with that. Of course, I would see guys who are good-looking, but I was totally fine with them being my playmates in the schoolyard and nothing more, really. Besides, I had homework, and dating was very discouraged in the household if I wanted a future.

Then fifth grade hit, and I suddenly had no friends, for no fathomable reason at all. No one would play with me. Worst year of my childhood ever.

My next crush was on someone new. Now, I know that's a verifiable crush, cause I knew the feelings towards him were different. I became obsessed with this guy. During middle school, I would look for him in the school hallways, then look away whenever I did see him. I would put him in every story I came up with as the love interest. I was so terrified that if he ever rejected me, I would actually fly off the parapet. So I ended up not telling him my feelings, but instead, telling most of my classmates.

Yes, dear God, I am a mess. Moving on.

That crush/obsession went on for years, but as these feelings persisted, they took on a less romantic nature (and more of a desire of being wanted by him), and was less based on the person himself, but on the idea of him that is quite divorced from reality. In my dreams, he is my confidante whenever I cried in the bathroom alone, wanting to shuffle off this mortal coil. He is my hero holding me in his arms as I gave my life for him in some fantasy world or battlefield in my daydreams. He is tormented. He is quiet and keeps to himself (the only part that is based on reality). Maybe we get married. Maybe we don't. The real version of him wears glasses, but I never remember this in my stories and daydreams. His eyes are dark, but I treat that as optional in my daydreams, making him blue-eyed or grey-eyed instead. But mainly so that said crush doesn't find out.

The next crush I am sure of was at first a high school rebound. I was trying to forget my middle school crush. But soon, I too became obsessed with the idea of this next crush that's also divorced from reality. He's someone who cares about me. He's someone who will save me from the crushing reality of the real world by inviting me into a dream realm in a forest. He can turn into a bear with blue fur and rainbow streaks. He is an inventor (the real guy wants to be an actor). Many times in my dreams, he is a villain, a traitor, a besotted man. The one that, if I ever fell to the dark side, would be trying to break me out of it by reminding me that I still have goodness inside. The one who I delude myself into thinking that I might still have a chance with if only he came back to me. After all, our classmates also assumed at times that we were together.

Except I don't want him to kiss me. Or touch me, except in platonic situations.

He is my friend. Someone I would do improv and acting with forever, in a variety of situations. I would write stories and direct films with him if our friendship was close enough to survive pandemics and time. If I didn't feel him slipping further and further away from me right before then. If he wasn't so off-putting sometimes (no sir, looking down at me in a creepy way is not how to pose for pictures!), or had really shitty handwriting.

He used to look at me in the warm afternoon sunlight like I was the only thing that mattered in the room we were in. I still hunger for someone to look at me like that.

And yet, I have a harder time remembering details about him. Not his birthday. Maybe his likes and dislikes. I don't really know him at all (I didn't really know my last crush either, but at least I was memorizing every detail about him I could find, from his birthday to the types of hoodies he'd wear to school--like I said, an obsession). And worse, I don't seem curious to find out. Just content with the fantasy of being wanted and chosen by him.

I tried to get new crushes afterward, but they never lasted long or were that strong to begin with. And they never seemed to be quite romantic. I never imagine going on dates with this person. Not the normal stuff like going to the movies or getting flowers and chocolates.

To be honest, I sometimes thought the whole dating scheme was a sham. If the rhetoric about "first base, second base" surrounding romance indicates anything, it would be that the couple in question is looking forward to being "a beast with two backs" (just to quote Shakespeare, since somehow mentioning sex on the Internet in a forward manner is making me uncomfortable). Anyway, so, if that's the case, why don't they just skip towards that part already? Why not be honest if that is what they truly desire? Why waste time with the dating part? Is that part of the process?

And whenever I see couples together in the flesh, they seem to exist in some kind of invisible bubble (I imagine it tinted pink for magical reasons) that is separate from the outside world. Somewhere where red hearts float around and roses bloom and all that jazz.

That's not to say that I don't like to see romance in media. Of course I do. But as a subplot, not the main plot. I usually avoid rom-coms like the plague because I couldn't handle the stress or the secondhand embarrassment. But I have read romances before, and they're so cute.

Well, now, I still have a hard time letting go of the crush I'd do improv with. Or at least the fantasy of him. We text sometimes with life updates, but I could tell that he does not feel the same way about me. But I honestly prefer it that way. I honestly don't think we'd survive more than a month as an actual couple, anyway.

But I still want to be wanted. I want to know what it means to be wanted but not hunted after. I'm told that's not the same thing as falling in love with someone.

IDK. I just ranted and raved on the Internet like an idiot, hoping for some answers. I think I'm ace, but sometimes I desire the pleasure of being known so badly, using certain crushes in mind, that I have to question whether or not that's also true. The desire still stems from the wanting to be wanted, just in a different way.

Maybe, like any Disney princess, I believed that a true love's kiss would make me feel better. Or get better. Even though logically, that's not true. At all.

I am so starved of touch. But I have so many friends and acquaintances now that I am much happier now than I was before.

I don't really understand myself. What do you think?