u/TobeyTransport

Ok so I’ve identified as aromantic for nearly a year now. My feelings about it have pretty much been confused for years. When I had a girlfriend a big fear of mine was not being attracted to her, and then I kinda realised maybe I’m not- and now it’s almost flipped a switch to wondering whether I am attracted to some people.

Anyways I am posting this because I’ve had an allo friend before talk about people and say ‘maybe they’re in love and just don’t know it’- yet I have been told by many people, aro and allo, that if you have romantic attraction you’d know it like it slapped you in the face. Just recently I’ve more consciously than usual noticed myself noticing people around me and thinking they look interesting or so on, and yeah sometimes it makes me feel a bit nervous or heightened or something- I saw someone in a cafe recently who sat down, I think what sparked my interest was their sunflower lanyard cuz they seemingly have a hidden disability like me and clearly enjoy using cafes to do things like writing and reading and relaxing like I do, and I almost felt an urge to go and sit with them and introduce myself and talk- and yeah it made me confused so that’s “fun” (sarcasm) I guess.

I have been questioning for a couple of years at this point, and honestly if I ever took time to try and figure out my sexuality or romantic orientation within the last 6 years I wouldn’t understand it, but at the same time I didn’t think about it much.

Anyways I’ve identified as ace for over a year at this point, and before that I was sorta identifying as Greyace, and I’ve identified as aro for a bit less than that as well. But that isn’t the point of this post really, it’s more just context

The point of this post is that, as much as I read about what attraction is, and try to understand people’s experiences (although allo’s don’t make this easy because they don’t often seem to be able to explain their experiences very well), I just can’t understand it. I’ve had points where I’ve thought that I’m maybe experiencing attraction, accepted it, and it seems to go away, I’ve had often had times where I’ve not experienced attraction but my brain forces me to try and figure it out anyways- why? I don’t know. I just wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience- like given how many allos (especially queer allos) question their sexuality or are unsure about their attractions I don’t understand how they can also be so heavily attracted that it causes butterflies, and other things I don’t want to mention because I don’t want to make this an NSFW post… I can’t wrap my head around the contradiction and it makes me just think, what if I’m actually experiencing this and just don’t know it?