AroAllo Rep

irl, i live alone. irl, i am disabled. irl, that intersection and my lack of interest in partnering actively makes life really hard. everything is expensive. i can't always cook when i want to or have fresh ingredients, because my symptoms don't care if I want to cut up vegetables and eat something homemade before they go bad. if I have a bad flareup and getting up is not in the cards, that's it. i have what's next to me. the lack of social support for single folks, for disabled folks, for folks whose family care is inadequate or damaging... it's impactful.

I talk about how i once visited a place with an ex partner. i mention how our relationship started because i was pressured into it, and i wasn't really into the level of seriousness and 'forever' she treated it with. everyone says it's weird that i agreed if i didn't want it to be serious. i remember being 16, saying no, and a chorus of people telling me i was stupid and immature, that her family was rich, that we would be cute and to listen to them, not my heart. my heart was saying nothing.

i look at my current age and life goals. for many of my peers, dating and marriage and eventual kids are common goals. i am watching my rights erode and trying to practice good mental hygeine. my five year goal is to be alive. my next major life milestone is a nebulous desire to find a life i can tolerate living.

being aromantic significantly impacts my day to day. i want to see aro people living their lives, and doing so with joy. i want to see aro adults making it, ones like me. i want aro people to thrive. i want to live, aromantically.

And they haven't even gathered significant information on native women living in URBAN areas. It could be much higher.

The youtube channel Psych2Go is a good example. They made one video saying "aromantic people are okay!" and it was a genuinely good video. They also made a video saying how Friends with Benefits was inherently problematic because one of them was bound to catch feelings and it would become abusive. Okay then. And the rest of their channel is just amatonormativity over and over again- why you're single, 10 ways to make yourself more into the dating scene (number three is getting over your trauma!)

I'm a Mexican teenager. Ever since I was little, I've always had a knack for English- Mostly because I'm non-binary and Spanish is very irritating to speak when you're like me*- But that's besides the point. I recently switched schools and have been demolishing the basic not-so-good English classes I've been getting, and the teacher is not paid enough for a student that knows more than him (No disrespect to him! It's just very obvious that I speak it a heck of a lot more than him, and interact with people who also speak fluently) so he's been choosing random topics for me to write essays about, and recently, he told me to just start reading books in English during class and then summarize what I read near the end of it.

I brought in a copy of Treasure Island and read a few chapters before he called me to his desk to check out what I had brought. On its back, the first paragraph reads that it is a 'Well loved story from blah blah blah blah written by blah blah blah". Y'know, classic book stuff. And, for some inscrutable reason, when he read those first three words, he asked me "Are you in love?".

My aro brain thought 'Oh, he means the story!' and answered along the lines of "A bit, I guess, but I'm not really that into it yet. I've only read a few chapters after all." Something to note is that I speak faster than all of my classmates and teachers can keep up with. I don't speak too fast, at least, I don't think so- But imagine you're semi-fluent in another language and some kid comes up to you and speaks like they're talking about their favorite videogame. All the time. It'd make you miss some things.

After a few more awkward back and forths, he mentions what he meant, and I bluescreen. "Oh, no, I'm aromantic, I don't like anyone- Well, I do, but not that way. I don't ever want to be in a romantic relationship. So, no, I'm not in love."

Ahem. As I mentioned before, my teacher and classmates aren't very fluent in English, which makes them miss things. Or maybe he just didn't know the meaning of 'aromantic' and figured I was just being a weird teen (I doubt so, though. I feel like when people don't know a word, they ask for its meaning. Or at least get confused about it). So, the conversation continued along the lines of "I hope you do fall in love one day- It's a wonderful experience" which made me... uncomfortable, to be sure.

How the hell do you explain this difference? This unbreachable gap between me and other (allo) people? Oh, sorry, one of the most important experiences to you is something I never want to deal with. It makes me uneasy to even think about it affecting me actually! If I actually fell in love with someone, I'd probably murder that person just to rid myself of the feeling! (That's an exaggeration, obviously, but my point still stands. I'm romance repulsed, in case you couldn't tell...)

I'm not sure I want to 'come out' to anybody. I don't feel like I should need to, but these kind of comments make me so unbelievably uncomfortable. You'd think these things come up less often, but it keeps blinding happening. Most classmates I've talked to more than once have asked 'Do you have a boyfriend?' or 'Do you have a crush on someone?' or 'Have you had any past relationships?'. One of my teachers once did a little game where we had to say the name of our crush when she was checking attendance. I've even been confessed to, once or twice, though luckily enough the people who did clearly only had very light crushes on me.

How can I mention it without coming across as weird? Should I even mention it, after a single annoying interaction?

Anyway, here's a rant about why Spanish is so hard for non-binary people. Skip if you want.

*In English there's already a standarized pronoun for people you 'don't know the gender of' that has been adapted to non-binary people. Some have a hard time getting that through their heads, but it's definitely more accepted than neopronouns. In Spanish, we have 'él' and 'ella' ('he' and 'she') and when talking about a group we say 'ellos' and 'ellas' (masculine 'they' and femenine 'they') "But what about a group of men and women-?" We use 'ellos'. It just defaults to that for some reason. As you may notice, there is no 'singular they'. So we've had to get creative and make 'elle'. A lot of people are denying to use it, so tons of non-binary people are kind of iffy on their feelings about it, even though there is no better alternative. Not only that, but in English, there is usually only one form of every noun and adjective. The sentences "I am stressed" or "I am a doctor" are gender neutral. The only exception I know of is with actor and actress. Which is what happens with every blinding word in Spanish, so your speech is ALWAYS gendered. Always. Take the sentence I mentioned beforehand - "I am a doctor". In Spanish, they would be "Soy una doctora" (Notice the 'a's? That means those are the feminine version of the words) and "Soy un doctor" (No a's. Masculine version). How do you adapt this to non-binary people? "Soy un doctore" (Which sounds awkward because no one is used to it). So the changes are a lot more than just a pronoun and avoiding certain gendered words. Also! Also! Even 'the' is gendered. "The doctor" can be "La doctora", "El doctor" and "Le doctore". And I'm not even sure we should change 'el' to 'le', but if there's a male and female version, then logically there should be a non-binary one too.

Hi! First off, I'm so sorry for replying to this ask so late!! I usually try to respond to them in order, but I've let a backlog build in recent weeks, I'm so sorry... This is such a crucial experience to share and this ask went straight to my heart, so thank you so much.

We have the same shit regarding language being hard for non-binary people in French, it's been colossal word gymnastics a lot of the time talking about my partner in my native language... So thank you so much for sharing that in detail, it sucks and doesn't get talked about enough, honestly. I'M also guilty of not talking about it enough. And it should definitely not be skipped.

Also, what you said about alloromantic people basically wishing you something that is a nightmare for you (and thinking it automatically comes from a good place because that's all they know) hit the nail on the head SO HARD. It IS worse than simply being dismissive, it DOES hurt, and perhaps even more due to the fact that they have no idea how much that can hurt. I'd love to draw a comic based on this point you've made someday, if that'd be OK with you – if it's not because it feels too private or exploitative or anything else, please do feel free to let me know, and I know you posted this on anon, but if you want to be given credit in any way besides me linking to this post, please let me know as well. Because... Yeah, this point deserves to be shared in more ways than one, I think.

I don't really have much to offer to escape that, or any of the reactions you've described here, though, I'm afraid. My personal life experience has taught me that often times, it's mostly a matter of being in front of the right or the wrong person. Some people may have these facts about you repeated to them over and over forever and never get the point and always wish upon you things you would never wish upon yourself, 'cus they just wouldn't get it. Well- there's always a chance that some might finally get the point after a lot of talking, but you can never know how long that would take, and in the meantime it's tiring emotional labor for you that you're doing on your own, so it's up to you to decide if it's worth your time and energy, and I wouldn't blame you whether you decide it is or it isn't. But also - some people out there will also just take your word for it and never pry beyond that. They're statistically on the rare side, sadly, because we live in an extremely romance-biased work, but they do exist. And I don't just mean other aromantics. Some people will just leave you be as you are. Took me close to a decade to find one of these people, but because I've met them, I know they exist. It's not much, but I hope that brings at least a little bit of solace.

I guess like... I can understand how with some people it might feel like coming out as aromantic is pointless, because even if you do they'll treat it as if you hadn't said anything, or as if that was up to change any day. Coming out as an asexual or aromantic sucks a lot of the time because that IS a stupidly common reaction. But I also understand that, because of situations you described where you get pushed into romantic-coded conversations completely unprompted or without your consent, it may be necessary to clarify things. And then you never know what the reaction will be and statistically it'll often be saddening or awkward or what-have-you. It's hard to avoid. I think replying with a "Why are you saying that when I just said that's what I don't want", or a simpler "Well, that's my business" to such comments is the best I can offer, because it's a to-the-point, sensible and valid reaction, but unfortunately that doesn't warrant that people in front of you will be respectful of said reaction and equally sensible. The truth is, when it comes to that, a lot of people just aren't respectful of our experience, and very, very often that's not on purpose because our experience is so little on their radar. So the best advice I can give is: you probably can't avoid it, so be your own best ally even if no one else is. Never forget that you know yourself better than anyone. Look out for yourself and don't force yourself into awkward situations if you'd rather not, whether said "awkward situation" means forcing yourself to stay silent, or means forcing yourself to speak up to someone who won't understand. A lot of the time awkward situations are unavoidable, so at the very, very least, don't make it worse for yourself. Go with what feels easiest on your heart, if you can. I know it's hard. But don't forget to fight for yourself every day even if it's an internal battle. And if other people are gonna tune out your experience, then, you're more than valid to tune out unsollicited comments, even if it's easier said than done.

So recently I got an ask from a Mexican teen who shared some life experiences that put right back into perspective how brutal this kind of reaction is, even if it comes from people who feel they mean well. I'd kind of tuned that out of my brain due to force of habit over the years, but... Yeah, it does feel like that, doesn't it.