OP just loves apples, not aplatonic

Image description plus more info: AVEN user Mr. Shuttershy, whose profile indicates identifying as asexual homoromantic, says the following on April 6, 2012:

Alright, I’m going to have to explain this really carefully.

I am in love with my best friend, a story you’ve heard if you’ve seen any of my posts. I’ve come to realize that this is not the first time. However, I have also been really evaluating my other friendships lately. If you saw my post in the Tea and Sympathy on not loving my friends, good, but in short I’ve come to understand that most people in my life could be considered an acquantance at best. Now, I have a few friends who are nice, but I don’t feel a psrticular bond with them. If the aromantics are to be believed, platonic love is a type of /love/, and a love that is not to be under-estimated. It runs deeps and means a lot.

I have never had that.

Sure, the people I’ve ‘friended’ are nice, and I’d want nothing but for them to be happy, but I don’t really have a bond with them. The only people in my life that I’ve bonded with are those I feel romantic attraction to.

So, don’t get me wrong, I have friends and care about them; but love is a powerful word, and one I cannot apply to them.

I’ve theorized its because my parents were abusive, so I never learned how to love those I don’t feel romantically for; bur how would one even change that? I’m an adult now, and I don’t know if I can learn to have feeöings for friends.

That’s where the title comes in.

Aplatonic.

I was just wondering if anyone has shared my experience? Do you think aplatonic can exist? Its not that I don’t want to bond, but I just feel so indifferent. I’m not neccesarily looking for a label, but I’m more looking for others who share this experience. I feel empty to feel as I do.

Black aces are incredible and worthy of love and support and kindness, and all their wishes should come true.

[Image description: a screenshot from Xania's wedding stories. No character is on the screen. In the textbox, Xania says "I don't understand love or marriage or my reason for living, and that makes me feel as though I'm lost."]

And you know how this is resolved? She decides to focus on her relationship with herself instead of forcing herself to try to get into romance she doesn't understand! (There's one amatonormative comment that it'll make her a better partner *when* she's ready, but you can't expect alloros to get everything right.)

hey! i got your second message that you found it, but I like using these to reach more people who could like the term so I’m gonna answer it anyways lol

as defined by AUREA:

Neu(tral) aro: Describes an aromantic person whose identity on the allosexual-asexual spectrum and/or on other orientation spectra is neutral, in-between, multiple, or unclear.

Neu(tro)/Neutral aro coined by: A-romantic--aromantic (original, archived)

Discuss

Discuss

(Top is original by woke-truscum, bottom is mine.)

Sam is a nonbinary trans boy (he/xe) who doesn’t know what his sexuality is. Xe can’t compress despite xis dysphoria because xe’s naturally very round and it hurts xim. He loves playing pranks and Samme is his best friend!

Samme is a binary trans boy and a she/her gay. She’s nondysphoric, but she gets a huge amount of euphoria from compressing into a more masculine shape. She only has one funcional eye, but she also has two smaller ones hidden under her fur. Her two favorite things in the world are puns and her best friend Sam!