r/aromantic

I just wanna discuss about picking out fake crushes growing up, I don't really see this topic brought up often

I remember in elementary school, girls around me would always talk about the boys they liked. I never really liked any of them beyond platonic relationships

I specifically remember one (we are still best friends to this day) had a crush on me, but I just didn't know that feeling so I had turned him down

I did eventually pick someone else who was in my friend circle years later as a "fake crush" so I wasn't "left out"... And also so the others would get off my back if I tried to say I didn't have a crush

I kinda picked one out online during these years as well, but I never really spoke about it because it was irrelevant to me in a sense

This happened another time in middle school, but it was with a guy I only knew online and I never really addressed him as a "crush" or anything

Of course, I eventually found out between middle school and high school that I was aroace and in high-school entered a QPR with someone I was already familiar with (we've been in a relationship for over 3 and a half years now)

Other than aroace... I'd say I'm also very neptunic 😐

So I want to know if there's anyone else with a similar experience. Not necessarily to the extent of even dating your fake crush, but to see if anyone else has robotically picked someone to name as a "crush"

this is mostly a rant i guess

I feel so blindsided and betrayed by my dear friend who I've been sexually intimate with over the past 5 months.

I feel hurt that this person who I thought understood me appears to have just prescribed their desires onto me and got upset when I fell short of them, when I did not eve realize there were those expectations.

I tried multiple times to initiate conversations about my lack of attraction and my stance on preforming "romantic" gestures to make sure that we were both on the same page, that we were friends fooling around and that I did deeply care for them and love them, just not in a romantic way.

They said each time that they didnt feel it was nescessary to define anything, and I thought everything was okay until Ive been having a really really rough and insanely busy month and haven't been able to reach out as much as I would have otherwise liked to.

When I finally was able to speak to them last night, expressing that ive been thinking of them each day despite not reaching out as much, they told me they were heartbroken that they werent important enough to me and we needed to stop seeing each other. That we have been dating for this entire time and I should have known their feelings were obvious. That they were falling in love with me but wont date somebody who doesnt give them consistient attention.

I feel like I keep failing at this, as if I should have somehow known. Or I should have tried harder. Looking back, I wouldn't want to date someone who treated me the way I treated them, and yet I thought we were just friends fooling around and had no clue that was expected of me. I thought they understood how stressed I have been and wouldnt take it personally.

I'm so tired of trying to be intimate with people who end up expecting more from me even when I try so hard to be clear with them about my intentions and feelings.

If I think about someone in a sexual way in my head, does that mean I am feeling sexual attraction to them?

Thinking about them makes me aroused, but I am not aroused when I see them. I feel very happy when I talk to them and see them.

I am definitely aromantic. I’m not interested in romantic relationships and don’t understand what romantic attraction is.

I’ve thought that I might be interested in a fwb with people sometimes. I feel like what makes me a little more confused is that I’ve never had sex with anyone before and sex doesn’t seem super important to me.

Also, calling myself ace doesn’t sound correct to me.

I've been single for 7 years now. All my past relationships I was told the same time. They couldn't tell if I cared. They didn't feel loved. I wasn't romantic. I gave up. I was the problem so I took myself out of the equation. Concentrated on my kids and work.

I made the choice to not inflict myself on anyone else. I miss sex. It's just not worth hurting anyone else.

Then last year my child brought up that they think I'm Aro. Looking it up I mostly came across aroace and that is not me. Eventually came across AroAllo and so far that is what best fits.

For now, I'm trying for certain things. But killing time online to have more understanding.

Basically the title,

I’m aro, almost asexual and I have a high appeal and i’m always bullied by my friends. Because they don’t comprehend i couldn’t care less about women and they make me feel inadequate.

I feel desperate for people who are so primitive that they only use their cocks as their brains. Those people whose only aim in this life is to get laid.

I posted a picture of my thinning hair on a subreddit, there is a certain drug which prevents hair loss. Someone says: there are side effects. It kills your libido.

I was like, that’s okay. I don’t care about it anyway.

He was like, can i ask you a question? Why do you want to fix your hairline if you don’t care about women? Most people use these drugs and fix their hairline because they want to appeal to women.

This is beyond crazy to me.

I want to prevent my hair loss because i want to appeal to MYSELF. I want to look good.

Sorry for the rant. I want to see that there are people like me and im not alone.

Please tell me your thoughts.

My best friend was telling me about he and his boyfriend's sex life. Just the current state of it. There isnt a tmi between us. And I never want there to be. But I get so jealous when he goes in detail with what his boyfriend will be doing with him. Im aromantic, not asexual. And ive never had a partner that wasnt a middle school relationship that I agreed to just cause everyone told me romance was normal. I have no interest in a relationship like that

I even almost had a sexual relationship with a friend, then he tried calling my pet names and talking about kissing me and my body. I could tell he was getting a crush and it made me feel so sick and gross that I pulled away completely. (For months I told him i was aromantic and that would be the outcome if anything romantic happened) And to be clear, these are all online relationships with friends ive had for years. In my real life, there isnt a single person I could be sexual with. And I dont want to go to a random person. Theres no girls or boys in my life like that. Its upsetting. I have one aromantic friend and he gets into relationships AND DOES SEXUAL STUFF

Im so jealous. And further affirmation that my life and needs go nowhere. And probably never will. I want sex. I have kinks. I want things.

For those that have a fluid romantic orientation, obvi

My autism makes me wanna take one label and claim it forever to describe myself, but my feelings and thoughts keep changing. I keep thinking I’m one sublabel and a month later I find another one, but it doesn’t feel right for me to identify as aromantic outright since I feel some kind of attraction at least, or something around Cupio/bellusromantic yk?

I was wondering if others struggle with the same and what your solution is. I just need more romantic experience too to figure myself out, but I’m not into dating (:> shit’s difficult

Long story short someone I’ve gone on several dates with recently realized they were aromantic. They said that they really like me platonically, and the only thing they can offer is friendship.

Unfortunately, I have developed romantic feelings for them, so it has been stinging quite a bit. But I still really want to be friends with them and keep them in my life since they’ve been such a great companion, just not immediately as I have to detach those romantic feelings first.

How do I proceed so I can better process the situation (how to understand and support them better, how not to take this so personally, how to have a good friendship when the time comes, etc). I am admittedly quite new to the topic of aromanticism and lost in how to deal with this, so any advice is very much appreciated.

ive known im aroace for like 3 years and i haven't told my parents. ik theyll be supportive and accepting but they rly want grandkids n stuff and im scared ill be wrong and ill have broken their heart for nthn. they making ne doubt myself a little even tho im sure i am

I’m extremely happy!
For context I’ve been pansexual for pretty much all of my life and it was mostly my gender labels that changed, I came out at 14 and now I’m 20 and I feel like I’ve definitely gotten more freedom to explore who I am without rejection or limits and I tried using unlabeled/queer for a bit and it just didn’t feel right, labels for me personally have always been important and it feels better than scrambling words to new people I may meet!

With that being said I’m coming out again as aroflux, greysexual and genderflux !

I can’t explain how happy I am from finally feeling like myself again and feeling like I have a home in these labels just like how I felt for so many years being pansexual, in a way even though I’m aroflux I’m still attracted to most people regardless but I’m happy and fulfilled with other kinds of connections and have even thought about QPRs!

This subreddit has been so helpful with information and helping me learn and understand parts of myself I didn’t before <3

Thank you 🫶

hi everyone σ(≧ω≦*) forgive the pessimistic title but like, ive been thinking bout it quite alot recently.

I wanna preface this by saying i am quite young, and I'm very sure I'm on the aspec. that could change but I very heavily doubt it.

growing up i never really felt any romantic attraction, be it for men or women. and when id tell people they'd never believe me and wave me off as a late bloomer. and since everybody else feels romantic attraction around me, I figured itd be a matter of time. it hasn't happened yet and I can't help but feel resentment.

romantic love is painted as the ultimate goal and framework for society, it's the one thing everybody feels. it's in all media; games, songs, shows, books. romantic love is painted as the be all end all. fiction is shaped by reality and society excels in rubbing the idea of romance in my face. all of my friends, my siblings and people at my school have all experienced romantic feelings and/or have had romantic experiences. and all it really does is remind me that im never gonna be first place to somebody. people place so much emphasis on romance that their partner is always their #1 person (rightfully so) but that leaves me feeling unfulfilled.

I want to kiss, cuddle and hold hands with someone as friends. i want to be their top priority, the first person they think of and have them think of me as their favourite person. I want romance without the romance. but in today's society that seems virtually impossible. dating regularly (from what i know) is already hard and I imagine its impossibly harder with these almost nonsensical standards. it sucks!!!!!

most of my friends either have people theyre closer with than me or are in relationships and i just feel horribly lonely. again, I know I'm young, but idk. it sucks. as happy as I am being aro id also trade it for being allo sometimes.

I really don’t understand what the point of marriage is. From what I understand, marriage is simply the government/church approving of your romantic relationship, which somehow makes it “real” or “official” and more respected. Apparently it is also so important that it gives you various benefits. I just really don’t understand what the point of it is, aside from maybe something to do with religion. I’ve also been to multiple weddings but I still don’t understand. Maybe somebody here understands it better and can explain.

So recently I’ve been doing some research on different microlabels and such as a way to maybe learn more about myself. Now that I’m not repressing these thoughts and actually questioning myself, I’ve realized that for a long time there’s always been a very blurry line between strictly platonic and romantic feelings in my head. Growing up like most other people I was heavily influenced by traditional romantic relationships, and what was “normal” and “expected”, cuddling, kissing, lots of quality time and a deep bond. But over the past few years I’ve seen in school and in media, friendships that also do all those “romantic” things. So I’ve been thinking that if you can have a platonic relationship with “romantic” aspects, and a romantic relationship with “platonic” aspects, then how are either that different really? Now as mentioned at the top, I’ve been searching microlabels that would help me to better understand myself, and the three I’ve come across would be Frayromantic, Bellusromantic, and Queerplatonic. I guess I still don’t fully understand why “romantic” actions are almost exclusively for a romantic relationship when they can be done in platonic relationships. But also what makes a romantic relationship special if the things that are traditionally done for one can be found in friendships? If anyone reads this and is on the arospec that has experienced or is experiencing romantic attraction I would really appreciate you trying to explain what romantic feeling feel like.

Guess who's back a third time? This thinggg... Yep.

So I (kinda) told my partner. I at least said hey, I think I'm on the aro spectrum, I think my definition of "love" is intrinsically a little different than yours, but I do still love you. It was kinda hard to get any deeper than that considering it was a very vulnerable conversation for the both of us. But I told them I don't want anything to change for now since I'm still figuring things out, and they agreed that was okay.

It's been over 24 hours since then, we've hung out and it was largely fine—but it's now really getting to me just how often comments about our relationship are in our friend group. Not even bad comments, just bringing it up at all. It felt like a stab every time it was mentioned, since my partner is the only one I've said anything about it to and again we agreed nothing is changing for now.

It's scaring me. I still.. think I want to be with them, at the very least I don't want to lose the closeness we have, but I feel like I've opened a rabbit hole I wasn't ready to go down.

Even between the literal hours of looking into this and myself, I still have NO idea what I want out of our relationship—I really don't think it's helping that we are and have been in one for years, and I don't want to break up with them, but I feel like it's impossible to wrap my head around.

I don't think I love them romantically. Okay, fair assessment, but what if I'm completely wrong on that and I'm just miseducated on the differences? What if I'm just an allo who's been severely misguided? - I used to feel different about them. That's.. kind of true, but I also have a terrible memory and can't really dissect my mind from that long ago.

Expanding on that last point, I've been looking into the lithromantic(+ lithosexual) label. Again, my memory does not serve me well, but I feel like it was different before we got together. The flirting came so easily to me, I was actively looking forward to their company in a different way from how I am now, meanwhile nowadays I barely initiate a lot of "romantic things" and feel awkward when they're directed toward me. But at the same time, I don't know exactly how long the shift in my mind took. I feel like it was longer than the instant-a few weeks I often see. Either way, there's still something else there. I don't know if I can even call myself litho because everything is just so confusing.

A lot of things also sound better in my head/when I'm not mentally involved, so I'm bouncing between that and aego (I'm really thinking it's both but I'm not sure how that even works, lmao..)

I still want a relationship with them, but?? What does the relationship I want even entail? I like being physically close, I like knowing them on a really deep level, I even like the petnames we call eachother and saying "I love you" as long as the difference is acknowledged—I'm fine with getting legally married, especially considering it might make us moving in together easier, but the wedding sounds kinda suffocating. It's like I don't really want to be exclusive but I kinda do. Again maybe it's just the "romantic" bit, but it's not like I completely despise that they're attracted to me that way.. I think.. blegh. I don't know what exactly triggers the discomfort, as much as I'm trying to figure it out. It's just so hard to know where I want us to end up without like, completely ceasing anything "romantic" for a bit to find out, but I really don't want to do that.

I still feel like an asshole. I feel like I told them too early, and things are widely normal but still just feel... Weird, and I can tell in some aspects they aren't taking it too well especially since it's still uncertain, but it was just going to keep eating at me if I didn't say anything.

So I guess, TL;DR: if you're in any kind of relationship or have given thought to the subject, how did you land on what feels right for you? It's hard for me to think about what I want without my consideration for my partners (and even others) feelings clouding my judgement, and I don't even know where to start, really.

Hopefully any of what I wrote makes the slightest bit of sense. I'm very bad at verbally unravelling my brain.

Hi so for a long time I would "fall in love" with my friends. For lack of a better term when I would get significantly close to someone I wanted to fuck them. I loved my friends and that sexual pull made me feel like I was in love with them. A feeling that caused me great distress.

Now fast forward I can't hold down a romantic relationship they are restrictive confusing and uncomfortable my closeness with friends is something I felt was a moral failing on my part and I cut them all out of my life (an action I deeply regret)

Now a few survived and one has some kind of aro tendencies. He's been exploring his identity for a long time and I've always been a safe space for him and lately he's really been coming out of his shell.

I've been so happy for him but his newfound confidence has reminded me how much I miss my friends. I miss bolstering them up and watching them grow and ... And when I do that I start wanting to fuck them out of some sort of platonic closeness. I don't want things to become romantic I just want to celebrate their joys.

My friend suggested I be in open relationships but I feel like if I don't understand why I'm doing this I'll just hurt everyone in the long haul.

I do love my partner but even that feels more like a brother to the point kissing him sometimes bothers me and I wonder why when I want to kiss my friends

I think somewhere along the way I got messed up and I'm just trying to understand and fix it

Anyways maybe hearing some of your experiences will help me understand what I'm going through

I’ve been reading a lot about amatonormativity and the aro spectrum lately, and I’m trying to make sense of my own experience. I wanted to share my story to see if anyone relates or can offer some insight.

​I’m 24F, and for several years now, I’ve felt completely unable to fall in love. I don't recall what that feeling even pixels like anymore. I am 100% sure I am not asexual, but when it comes to romance, I feel totally frozen and distant.

​Looking back, my past formal relationships never started out of a genuine romantic desire; they happened purely out of opportunity or physical attraction. My last relationship ended terribly—I was deeply humiliated, and the guy actually ended up in jail just days after we broke up.

​After that shock, I completely shut down emotionally. I spent a long time having casual hookups, and I used to get genuinely angry if any guy tried to talk about "feelings." For me, sex is just a physical human need, an exercise that requires zero emotional commitment.

​Here is the twist: I love romance in fiction. I am obsessed with reading fanfics and shipping my favorite characters. I love the butterflies, the kissing, the hand-holding, and seeing them get together. But the moment I try to visualize myself in that situation with a real person, the feeling instantly vanishes. I freeze, and it feels invasive, fake, and exhausting. I read about Aegoromanticism, and it kinda resonated with me.

​Right now, I am completely at peace being single. I don't feel like I need a boyfriend to complete me, and honestly, the daily logistics of a relationship (talking 24/7, being sweet, giving so much of myself) sound incredibly draining. However, my mom constantly pushes amatonormativity on me, projecting her own fears about me being alone in the future, which is exhausting.

​I recently found the term Caedromantic (someone who used to experience romantic attraction but lost it due to trauma/bad experiences). Right now, the way I experience the world feels exactly like being aromantic, but I don't know if I "became" aro as a defense mechanism or if I always leaned this way and society just forced me into standard relationships before.

​Does anyone else experience romance strictly through fiction but feel completely cold to it in real life? Can you identify as aromantic if it started after a bad experience? Idk if there's something wrong with be regarding this topic. I'm new to this.

Today, my sister downloaded a dating app and was scrolling on it while I was there. I was very surprised because while she isn't aro (probably?), she's been known to be extremely picky and hasn't been in love since 2015.

She told me that her coworker encouraged her to download the app, and she's actually talking to a guy on it. I got curious because since my last disatrous attempt at dating when I was 16, I haven't tried again. I've never had any dating app before either. I was, like, "why not?".

I downloaded it and spent the next hour swiping, but literally no one interested me. Many looked aesthetically great, and they seemed like fun people, but I couldn't muster any interest for them. The more I swiped, the more indifferent I became. This is so uninteresting. I hate real dating too, but online dating feels even more soulless.

I'm still wondering if I'm closer to demi or just aro, but this whole experience just reminded me that I'm definitely on that spectrum.

I put "not sure what I'm looking for" in my profile, but I think I'd like someone I could cuddle and have some kind of strong emotional connection with, but with very little to no sex and no romantic feelings involved (but with deep non-romantic affection?). Like more than a friend but less than a lover if that makes sense?

I have no desire to have someone in love with me, that just feels bothersome, but I think I'd like something because friends and family don't feel enough sometimes.