#the worst thing is that im not even aro

[lazykebabvagina]

Rereading loveless and having to go though the despair of the never have I ever scene. It literally gives me flashbacks from film camp last year while everyone was describing their first kiss (and everyone was younger than me) and I was LITERALLY agonizing and hoping my turn never came because they just wouldn't have fathom the possibility of me being kissless at 18 (and still am at 19).

#kissless #loveless #ace #the worst thing is that im not even aro #just extremely antisociale and undesirable ig #i feel ugly #alice oseman #osemanverse #georgia warr #aroace Queen #oseman #loveless by alice

[butchhatred]

I think being like "love is the best thing in the world and its soooo much better than hatred!!1!!1!" Is a red flag

#txt #like if you legitimately assign moral value to fucking emotions im not gonna trust you to be respectful to like. #people with intrusive thoughts or otherwise not infantilizable mental illnesses #sorry but emotions dont have moral value #hatred #loveless aro #←not to even mention loveless aros. if you genuinely believe that love is the best and anything not about love can go to hell #then sorry but im just gonna assume that youre an absolute dick to loveless aros/loveless people in general #or people who unashamedly hate their abusers #or autistics who dont get love or npders or or #you get the idea #oh and also! #do you guys really think its a coincidence that love is everything stories always have the worst fandoms #but miserable stories have not toxic ones?? #examples are undertale steven universe and xtianity all have toxic ass fandoms (or followers in xtianitys case) #but hollow knight rain world cult of the lamb all tell a miserable angsty story #but the fandoms are all cool #its almost like believing that only good things should happen is unrealistic and makes you a toxic ass!! #rant over

[chisatowo]

Valentines is my worst enemy except for when bndori does it then it's my best friend. Catch me getting stress headaches from valentines day and then turning on my sayotsugu valentines Moca background tablet to go look at screenshots from the time I tiered valentines wasn't built in a day

#rat rambles #band posting #the valentines being my worst enemy is an exaggeration cannot make it clear enough I do not hate valentines day #well ok I do hate a Lot of the stuff surrounding it and its almost always a bad day for me but like fun heart stuff and giving out silly #valentine cards to ppl is fun even if I dont tend to engage in it #I just am alas both aromantic and anti capitalist so I have my issues with the holiday to put it mildly #rly the thing that makes me feel the worst on valentines is less the celebration and more the ppl who are shitty to aro ppl abt it #and Im talking abt all you 'dont hate valentines day its abt platonic love too!' ppl specifically #anyways big fan of the valentines mocaran we got moca fang my best friend

[themagical1sa]

Go write a love letter for him! Then you can give it on valentine's day! I think it's pretty obvious that you both like eachother, why not confess first?

🫂

Well, you see– [loud construction noises from the neighboring house making my speech incoherent /j]

#[ 🗣️ | the magical girl replies ] #[ 🫂 | hug anon ] #the last time i sent a crushie a v-day letter they confessed they kind of. cheated on me #we were mutual crushies (they did the 'crush-back' to me as we Filipinos would say) and we were basically in a mutual understanding #friends with feelings fr #feb 14 2021 i write him a poem like i did my friends #feb 15 2021 he confesses he'd been s/xting one of my now ex-bestie. #lmao imagine making a cute hand-written card and origami and it gets set on fire by accident #and to top it all off: my ex-bestie went like 'dont blame him. blame me. but im not apologizing because u two arent even a thing yet' #what in the disrespect of my friendship and trust #the worst part of feb 15 2021 was that *it was an exam day* #so i get heartbroken and then gaslit and i end up with a headspace so bad i couldn't do my practical writing exam #i'd never felt so angry before. my blood went warm to hot and i was shaking #i was screaming so much in my head it hurt too much #i hated my crush i hated my bestie i hated ME because who else let this happen? who introduced one to the other? #well it's about to be two years since anyways and i like to think i'm over them lol #my main concern is *how my crush trauma now affects current crush feelings* HAHAHHAHAHhahahaha. ha. #sometimes i'd want to be aro instead but i'm not aro. i experience every aspect and every form of love #the scope of how i feel love also happens to include romantic love #like ik how there's love for family & friends & creators & craft & people & also romantic love. ykw i mean right #so there's... that going on haha #new person new time different outcomes right?

[dyketubbo]

making posts on here is like trying to navigate a minefield sometimes bc i swear this fandom has given me like upgraded paranoia about being misunderstood/taken in the wrong way bc of my wording. like i already grew up with this fear bc autism and disorganized speech esp w having a speech impediment etc etc but while i get the instinct to try and bite back i feel like sometimes i can never just say personal feelings or mess around without it being made into a Big Deal. like sometimes im not making takes or super indepth analysis im just talking at the air about my own experiences and frustrations yknow. being scrutinized over word choice is fucking scary when you have like 50 fucking things that make it incredibly hard to be able to get your point across in a concise and understandable manner

#still have such intense leftover fears from the qpr drama #people widespread the idea that i was arophobic for so fucking long even after the fact and constantly took what i said in the worst way- #-possible and im not even sure if its stopped yet considering even like in. what was it early june. i had someone say they heard i was- #-arophobic #n like nowadays yeah i see where there were points where i messed up with wording #but other times it was like. definitely Intentional misreading #like somehow claiming i thought the word relationship wasnt connected to friendship and then mocking me (an aro person.) for supposedly #not having friends #or claiming i was calling ppl misogynistic/racist/fatphobic bc i . said i felt weird about kristin being shoved to the side #or ppl who fucking somehow got the idea that i was arguing that qp relationships were inherently platonic #when the whole point was that i felt like people were using qprs as a way to hide that they were just doing romantic shipping #and were putting qprs behind a /p tag or talking abt them as if theyre not much more than 'platonic spouses' #when the entire point . is that they arent strictly platonic. and that was what i was trying to address was that i felt #they werent just headcanons. because theyre committed and intimate relationships with a wide variety of descriptions #based on the individuals in the relatio ship. and making it into a 'two bros who kiss' thing and nothing more was yeah! a bit weird! #like disregarding the discussion of cc boundaries n if ccs should get involved with that esp bc i dont feel comfy talkin abt that point #nymore. the point was just. that i felt like reducing qprs to 'close friends but More' or Just Headcanons was disingenuous #and that in the dsmp fandom for a good fucking while yeah people would slap /p or the qp label onto a relationship that they clearly just- #-shipped so they could pass it as just headcanons and Not Shipping #but instead it got misconstrued into the idea that *i* thought qprs were strictly platonic relationships #slash just another word for best friends. when that was what i was actively Against labeling qprs as #and then i went down as arophobic and had people fucking harass me over it for like a month like #it felt fuckin shitty to be put in a situation where i was (even if indirectly) the center of attention in such a large negative way #with a bunch of full grown adults dismissing my actual concerns and points while widespread vaguing me to a point #where i would have to doublecheck posts even ppl I followed reblogged .bc i had 2 check if the person i agreed with secretly was vaguing me #and i got told i was playing the victim card for saying as a teenager that was stressful for me to go through #like even now i still feel intense anxiety around emduo fans that i dont already know are chill bc that shit ruined me for a good while #i couldnt even enjoy the characters themselves. and i always feel like itll happen again #i know a lotta ppl hold me as som1 good w words but its scary to be held to that standard when ive so many mental problems tht make it hard #mask mews

[aroaceconfessions]

What the fuck even is sexual attraction. Like what am i even trying to parce here. Has the one singular event of ‘wow i might be attracted to this person actually’ ive experienced been genuine sexual attraction or am i just being emotionally attached to my close friends again. Like how many times do i have to think that about this person before it starts tipping into probably being true

I understand that human experience does not fit into neatly divided boxes and i get that its a good thing but it would be soooo much fucking easier if i could just read a checklist and get told if im ace or gray or demi or whatever the fuck is going on with this whole mess

Its been literal years. The entirety of figuring out where i am in regards of gender and romantic shit took mere months, and its been over three FUCKING years. Simply is not fair

The worst part is im not comfortable with just slapping an ‘acespec’ on there and going, no, because i dont care about the actual label, i just want to understand how my own fucking emotions work >:/

Catch me desperately clinging to ‘non-sam aro’ like a lifeline so i dont have to figure out how my sexuality works ever

Submitted June 18, 2023

#aromantic #asexual #aroace #aspec #aro #ace #arospec #acespec #arose #demisexual #greysexual #graysexual #grey-sexual #gray-sexual #greyasexual #grayasexual #gray-asexual #grey-asexual #greyace #grayace #grey-ace #gray-ace #questioning

[daybringersol]

if asexuality or aversion to sex comes from trauma, that is absolutely something a therapist and you are supposed to address, that's not queerphobia and equating it to conversion therapy is kinda disgusting and queerphobic itself lmao

That is not what I said in the slightest, to a point where im questioning if youre asking me this in good faith at all. Please actually read and/or reread the words I typed before accusing me of things like this. My initial post was not even worded in a way that was vague enough to be misinterpreted this way.

If you still don’t understand how misguided you are, here is my attempt at putting it more clearly :

Yes, aversion to sex and/or romance and lack of sexual/romantic desires can come from trauma. Therapy can help that, if you find the right therapist. However, from my own experiences, I can tell you that the way a lot of therapists approach this is at best, ineffective, and at worst, downright retraumatizing. If sex and/or romance makes you uncomfortable, being convinced to take part in sexual/romantic acts without you having desires for it or being downright averse to it is a recipe for disaster (for most people). It just puts you into more non-consensual and traumatizing positions. That is what exposure therapy is, and that is what most therapists have tried (and sometimes succeeded) to do to me. Horrible experience, would not recommend to anyone. This approach tries to cure the symptom instead of the issue, and is deeply based in ace/arophobia (seeing “fixing” a lack of attraction as more urgent and important than addressing the source of the issue, the actual trauma).

Also, no. If someone doesn’t feel like fixing their trauma for any reason, nobody should push them to. A therapist can absolutely inform the patient on the benefits of doing so, but trauma work is incredibly hard, very much a long-term thing, and can put the patient in an extremely vulnerable headspace. It’s the mental equivalent of breaking a bone to set it right again. For an abuse victim who just got out of that situation, it is completely understandable for them to want to enjoy their new-found freedom and joy as much as they can, for as long as they want. Pushing them towards trauma work without the right environment, mindset or literally anything else they feel might make this not the right time for it can cause further damage, especially knowing how the current psychiatric institution works.

Asexuality and aromanticism, however, do not come from trauma, or any other neurological differences. It might be affected by it, and people with life experiences similar to aro and/or ace people are welcomed in the community (for exemple, sexual and/or domestic abuse survivors that are sex/romance averse), but it is not caused by it. Most therapy settings are not informed about asexuality, and assume it is a symptom of a underlying issue, that needs to be fixed. The same kind of exposure therapy that I talked about earlier is often used to “cure” aro and/or ace people, putting them those same non-consensual and traumatizing situations. That is conversion therapy, and medical use of coerced corrective rape. These therapists are, often with methods similar to gaslighting (and I use the original meaning of the word here, not the diluted tiktok version of it), convincing people to do sexual and/or romantic acts that they have no desire to do, to fix an issue that doesn’t exist, with the explicit goal of making someone not queer. Please explain to me how that is not conversion therapy.

Other forms of arophobia and acephobia are prevalent in psychiatric institutions as they are today, tho I wouldn’t call most of those conversion therapy. You only need to look at the notes on my post to see what I’m talking about.

I genuinely hope that this is a formative experience for you, and that in the future, you learn to actually read what is written before you send messages like this. Have a good day.

#amatonormativity #acephobia #arophobia #aromantic #aromantism #asexual #asexuality #traumapunk #trauma survivor #psychpunk #solanswers

[nams2]

man, i really really want to be positive for aro week but as it goes on I just keep thinking of how it kind of sucks to be an orientated aroace?

(also im mostly talking about my experience as an oriented aroace but most of this applies to a ton of other aros)

over the roughly 250 days since i really embraced my orientation without shame, i've noticed that there is a very common sentiment inside aro communities that orientated aroaces don't experience as much aphobia. the idea is either we a) can pretend to be allo and have "allo passing privilege" or b) that since we are "in between" aro and allo we only experience some of the bigotry.

if you've ever had to deal with it, you can tell this is just repackaged biphobia and the problem with these justifications are basically the same. Aphobes dont stop when they find out about my oriented status, they double the fuck down. Usually either saying Im making shit up for attention or insisting what I feel IS romantic and I'm just in denial.

Also, oriented aroaces aren't "partially aro". In my case I'm very firm that I'm aroace, no ifs and or buts. theres just another third orientation that makes it so I still want a partner, just queerplatonic instead of romantic

Anyways, its probably more accurate to say my experience has mostly been getting excluded from both sides. As I said before a lot of allos generally just say I'm making shit up. Meanwhile, I find most aros treat me at best as an outsider who could never truly understand and therefore is not allowed a say, and at worst they just straight up accuse me of faking my oriented status in order to predate on "real aros" and trick them into romance.

Its just fucking tiring man. And I think the part that really just makes it so depressing is that. This whole thing is supposed to be such a positive part of my life. Like yeah some people dont experience love and I dont look down on them or think that they should be fixed even if that was possible. But I'm not one of them and theres just something so fucked up about how many positive emotions are denied to me for no other reason than other people just get really offended at the possibility I feel them.

#aromantic #aro #oriented aroace #not vector art

[specificallymythoughts]

Ok, little rant here about the concept of how « love is what makes us human » because, umm… No? Full disclosure, I am Allo, and I’ve only heard about the « Love is what makes us human » thing once I’ve started frequenting the aromantic side of Tumblr. Which i started looking at cause im writing a loveless aroace character into a story Im working on and needed information about the most respectful way to do that)

And it is the worst opinion ever. If you’re aro, (+ loveless, aplatonic, ex) I’m so sorry you have to hear that dumbassery. So, here’s the two big reasons why it’s so wrong :) :

1) The capacity for love is not a uniquely human emotion. Yes, a big part why we survived in nature is our ability to cooperate and team up with each other (yay comrade original humans), but that doesn’t mean that that ability comes from « love ». Also we are not the only species that do that, many other species do that, and can love each other. Plus, seeing at there’s proof that homosexuality exists in more species that human, it only makes sense that asexuality+Aromanticism do as well. We just don’t see it other than a few remarks about how an animal isn’t breeding how we want it to.

2) As someone who took even just one sociology class (and plans to take more). No, love it not what makes us human. If you actually want to be technical about it, cooking is what made us human. And I’m not saying that chefs and the only valid humans or vegans are aliens or whatever. Just that the ability to cook and eat cooked meat is what gave us larger and more complex brains that other animals, because proteins and stuff (idk, im a sociology nerd, not a science nerd). Which gave us the mental capacity we have now.

TLDR: Love doesn’t make us human, lots of animals love and lots of humans and animals do not. Cooking is what made us into humans.

(There’s probably more I can say, especially about the intricacies of this and of defining a group of people as one thing. Cause that never works and usually ends bad. But I’m writing this at midnight cause I can’t fall asleep and I’m bored. Let me know what you think, let me know what you think I got wrong.)

#aromantic #aro #aroace #loveless aro #aplatonic #heartless aro #asexual #aspec #love #arospec #alloromantic #allo

[the-gay-disney-games]

Round 1A: Moana (2016) vs. The Fox and the Hound (1981)

Propaganda

Moana:

“I'm asexual and Moana is very important to me as an asexual icon because all we want in this life is adventure and garlic bread. There is no garlic bread in Moana but you know she'd love it if she had it. The absolute lack of romantic plots in Moana make it the most aroace movie Disney has put out and the only slightly related thing is when that one guy flirts with her in where you are and she is disgusted. We stan an asexual aromantic daughter of the village chief!“

“One, I just googled the release year, and no way it came out 7 years ago! It’s like, three years old at worst. Secondly, Moana is an aro-ace icon.”

“1) No love interest for the main character. And that’s not even a focus for her (or really her family) 2) there’s something about the line “and the call isn’t out there at all its inside me” from I am Moana that really speaks to me as someone who thought I was just an ally to the community but later learned im hella queer.”

The Fox and the Hound:

Honestly this piece of propaganda was so well written I’m just gonna post it separately and link it here (also the way it’s copy-pasted/formatted makes it hard to just put in a post)

“The world forced them apart :(”

#polls #queerest disney movie tournament #round 1a #disney #moana #the fox and the hound

[peepeepoopoo1221]

Am I aromantic or self sabotaging?

ok so basically ive been in a relationship with my gf for two months, we were introduced by a mutual friend and she took the reins instantly. We went on our first "date" and it went great and I had so much fun and we continued to talk and she asked me to be her gf after 1 month of talking and it's been a dream since then. But i have a dilemma, since our first date she has been talking about me moving in with her after high school (my home life is not ideal) and calling us soulmates and saying we are perfect and has been planning our future since day one, the thing is I've been thinking about us and our relationship and i genuinely can't tell if i'm self sabotaging and think i don't deserve her or if i'm actually on the aro spectrum (specifically rose-romantic which is a micro label where you desire a relationship but once you actually are in one the attraction and desire is lost) which is why i'm freaking out a bit cause it's been fun talking and hanging out with her but idk if i was just so excited to finally have dated someone that i was ignoring how i felt or if i was like preforming how i thought i was supposed to act when dating someone and looking back i realised i was more excited about the milestones of going on my first date and having my first kiss more than the actual experience of it.

Like I actually can't tell if i just don't think i deserve this perfect girl (cause like i spent most of elementary at my catholic school thinking i was the actual worst person ever and also the part of me where im living in a house where my relationship would get me kicked out) but then also i feel like if that was the case id be able to talk to her about it but this thing. I feel like i'm fucking her over by doing this and dragging it on. I semi freaked out last night and did over 200 online quizzes which all said i was on the aro spectrum.

It's been causing me so much anxiety lately that my mom will find out and idk if i should be dating right now especially in a situation like this is a house like this with the added part of me like figuring shit out with my sexuality but idk if that's me trying to rationalise it. I have realised I feel more like she is a friend I hang out with and let kiss and do coupley things with me so she is happy but ive never felt good with them or like I enjoyed them, so i dont know if thats part of me being asexual or if its me being aro or even me not liking girls. LIfe is so over complicated someone on the internet please just tell me what I am.

#asexual #aromantic #roseromantic #lesbianism #please help #im freaking out #fyp #fypシ #tumblr fyp #fypage #text post #discussion #reddit kept taking this down so im turning to yall for help

[redysetdare]

As another non-split aroace, you're so correct for saying that we're treated as the punching bags of both aro and ace communities. Like if y'all can accept and support straight aros and aces but are hostile towards aroaces, you're just aphobic. Yes even if you're aro/ace yourself. Aro spaces nowadays literally have the same attitude towards aroaces that exclusionists used to have towards asexuals, that we're weird freaks bringing purity culture into their "safe" communities just by existing and therefore need to be pushed out. And ace spaces still act like we're the bad guys and need to be pushed out of their "safe" communities because we can't romantically love other people, which makes us heartless monsters apparently. It's just exhausting. I've never seen aroaces being so hostile towards non-ace aros and non-aro aces, we're always trying to uplift their voices and bring awareness to their issues. But the moment we try to talk about our own issues in aromantic or asexual spaces we're told to shut up and let them speak over us because we somehow have it better than them. Not to mention the pressure to split your experiences into aro vs ace and prioritise one part of your identity over the other if you want to be taken seriously in those spaces. Like sorry but for some of us our aroaceness is interwined not split. But we're still aros and aces, still a part of your community. Stop trying to push us out of our own communities on the basis of aphobic stereotypes.

Honestly I've been kinda biting my tongue on it for a while because I understand why Aro and Ace ppl have been trying to separate the communities. it can be frustrating to constantly be paired with an identity that you don't relate to - but i feel like so many ppl have taken it way to far. They've taken the relatively understandable stance of "Aromantic and Asexual are not the same identity" and pushed it to the extreme of "Aro and Ace are so completely different they have nothing in common and NO overlap" and the worst part is i don't think anyone has particularly noticed.

Idk I was most active in the aro and ace communities when we still kinda shared communities. the idea that aro and ace were separate was still a thing (hell, aroaces were the ones helping to push that distinction. we wanted people to recognize our aro identities too, yknow.) but we recognized the overlap and similarities and supported each other... now it just feels like im seeing post after post reminding people not every aro or ace person is aroace and that people shouldt tag aro posts as ace and vice versa and "no ace people cant relate to aro experiences" "no aro people cant relate to ace experiences" because "They are so different they are completely not the same and don't have any overlapping problems at all" and as an aroace it sucks!

it sucks feeling forgotten in my own communities.

It's almost feeling like they are blaming us for there being this idea that people are are Ace must also be aro and people who are aro must also be ace. Like they know they cant get mad at the allos so they get mad at aroaces and act like we are the reason allos think this way. It's like aroaceness is only brought up to talk about how "Not everyone is aroace" or "aroace characters are so much more prevalent in media (Proceeds to only talk about ace characters)" or how aroace ppl must have an identity that means more to them - how their aro or ace identity must be more important or effect them more because they can't possibly intertwined and overlap and "hey you tagged your post with aro and ace tags but obviously its only about aromanticism/only about asexuality so remove some of those tags because it's annoying me" or worse I see aromantics being acephobic or asexuals being arophobic and it's like.... where do i fit in?

people think aroace ppl ran both communities as 1 community and they say it was bad and that we need to separate - but from my perspective it was two communities who worked together. the only difference now is that aroace ppl are getting pushed to the side. thrown under the bus. "you dont need rep you have tons of rep. society loves giving aroace rep!" and "not everyone is aroace. you're experience isn't universal and so you shouldn't talk about it" Aroace voices just got smaller. we got quieter. because our own communities decided we were privileged. we were more accepted than they were. or worse that we were actually the real freaks for not feeling both sexual and romantic attraction. we weren't palatable enough - there was nothing that could be used to normalize us. and besides, it was easier to just only fight for one set of rights, right?

and part of me understands it. it sucks. it sucks to always be a footnote. but guess what - aro and aces and aroaces are footnotes of the queer community. we're stuck here together and instead we're fighting over who's the more important footnote. we are all in the same boat and we're acting like we're not and trying to sink the ship forgetting we're all on it together.

#asks #and to be clear this isn't saying that other aspecs asking for rep or asking for recognition is a bad thing that was never the issue #it's not about how aroallo people or alloace ppl are bad or evil or oppressors #this isn't about how arospec or acespec people are all actually out to get aroace people #this is about an experience aroace people sometimes have within aro and ace spaces because certain aros and aces decide we aren't worthy #because certain aros and aces decide we dont belong #anyways sorry this took so long to answer I was trying to word it in a way that was understandable #and hopefully in a way ppl wouldnt misinterpret #but then i realized ppl who have bad faith will purposefully do that #so i shouldn't worry too much #ppl who look at it in good faith will have a conversation with me. ppl who look at it in bad faith are just the people im talking about.

[sevenrs]

hi sky :']

8 9 10 maybe ?

violence ask game ; OPEN

hi pipa

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

artificer is pebbles barn cat. rivulet is a short time visitor of moon. sig didn't expect hunter to come back (and it didn't), challenges aren't canon but if they were i'd be a bit pissed if a green bean killed me after i tried so hard to stop it

iterators having little kitties is a fun thought but. thats it. a fun thought. not something that actually happened to most iterators

i will forever die on the hill that suns and spearmaster are odd. because iterators were built with the morals that creatures are "lesser" than them and need to be "helped" (not something i agree w personally but. its in the text.) the fact that suns started getting attached to spearmaster is implied that it is supposed to be embarrassing (nsh: im gonna tell everyone this juicy information~) because it doesnt happen and like. being attached to a lesser creature? lol?

look. no REAL problem with everyone associating an iterator with a slugcat and drawing them like companions for a bit im just forever a strong believer that suns is fucking weird!!!

9. worst part of canon

its still the puppet face articulation thing. and as much as i love suns, their reason for not giving spearmaster a mark of communication really didnt matter because, even ignoring the unnaturality of spearmaster, it was traveling with a RED OVERSEER. already obvious that slugcat is special

10. worst part of fanon

this is probably my anxiety talking but i sometimes feel a bit squished. im neutral abt a lot of things in fanon and dislike shipping but i never really get to say anything or complain because im afraid of. either actually ruining someones fun or getting the "you're ruining our fun!" excuse every time an aro and/or ace person dares to talk about how ship-centric fandom can feel at times and how that can be alienating

i keep stressing. theres literally nothing wrong with shipping of any kind. i hope you all keep doing what you're doing forever and ever! (hi pipa. love that you basically pioneered an entire ship and never ever stop posting about it) i just dont know what is appropriate complaining and what is overstepping into rude territory

#asks.txt #dieselpvnk #i love you spearmaster i love you suns but your campaign doesnt always make sense #but about the last querstion. hi im autistic #it's hard for me to tell what is a valid opinion to say out loud and what is petty #i love u mutuals wwwwwwwwww

[aroaceconfessions]

(Tw: I discuss some people who were aro/ace-phobic.)

So I confidentially labeled myself aroace about a year/half a year (I have really a really bad sense of time so I can’t be sure) ago. This has brought on some good stuff, like feeling more confident and self assured now that the puzzle pieces have come together but there’s also been this thing knocking around in my head.

While I’m confident about my sexuality, I’ve been less than willing to share it to anybody outside of maybe 5 people. My sister (best friend), my brother (I didn’t actually share it with him, my sister incidentally outed me. I’m pretty sure she was trying to support me, but it turned out not so good) my cousin, my friend of over a decade, and a new friend who kind of was the trigger for me to realize my sexuality (he asked me out, and BOY, no one saw the bomb I dropped coming.)

My sister took it the best, she immediately understood because she’s seen how I am about this stuff my entire life. My cousin didn’t say anything about it, literally skipped discussing it. The worst offenders were my brother (who said not wanting sex sounded psychotic) and my close friend (his immediate reaction was kind of to ignore it. Then later he basically did the “oh I think you’ll meet someone someday” to which we had a long discussion. I have to regularly re-explain what aroace is, but he’s not made any comments like that since.)

All in all, it’s been 50/50. But even the better responses made me hesitate to share with my parents or talk to my friends about my experience. I know it’s alien to them, so I try not to make talk about it.

But then the other day happened.

Me and this new friend (who had asked me out) sat down and we’re watching my favorite show. I never bring up my sexuality around him because I don’t want to pour salt in the wound; but he brought it up. He asked me if it was okay to talk about, if I was comfortable with it. I said yes so we talked. He didn’t ask me to explain the experience or anything, just my opinion on things. How I view the world because I’m aroace. I was really nervous but I explained, and he was really understanding. He told me he had watched some videos so he could understand it better, and he said “it must be awful to be told by everyone that you have to feel some way you never have.” He said he wanted me to know he was there if I wanted to talk about it. Let me tell you, I CRIED. I didn’t realize before how nice it felt for someone to try to understand my experience and empathize. I am tearing up just remembering it. I have never been so touched by something in my entire life.

I can’t say it’s built the confidence to go out there and publicly share it with everyone but, Im not so scared to make jokes or discussion about it. It’s not a lot but it’s progress and I’m really happy

#aromantic #asexual #aroace #arospec #acespec #aspec #aroacespec #arose #coming out