*realises I'm more aspec than I thought*

My dad has 4 half siblings and two step siblings. They're all a decent bit younger than him. When I was a teenager, we went to a family reunion, and I realized something—my dad did not respect his siblings. He looked down on all of them. He saw them as fuck-ups and overgrown children. My dad had the American dream: well paying management job, suburban house, wife, and three kids. My aunt and uncles did not. Excluding my aunt, none of them were married or in serious relationships. They hadn't really settled into long term careers. Several of them were working the kind of jobs that get called "Unskilled labor." So he looked down on them because the youngest one was in his thirties (and several were much older), and yet none of them had "settled down" into what he saw as lifelong, permanent careers and relationships and lives. He was polite to their faces, sure, but I heard how he talked about them behind their backs, to my mother.

And then a few years ago, we visited his brothers again for Thanksgiving. And I realized something again--he respected them now. He saw them as equals. Why? Well. All of a sudden, every single one of them had serious, committed romantic partners. They didn't even need to still be with those partners—one of my uncle's fiance passed away from cancer before they could marry—just having had one showed that they matured into a real adult participating in society. In fact, at one point, my aunt was telling my mom about how one of my uncles was no longer living in an apartment she owned, but instead, after having a steady girlfriend for about a year, he moved in with her. And my mom literally said to my aunt, "wow. Look at that. He finally grew up."

One of the lines that frequently gets repeated about anti-aspec sentiment is "why would anyone hate asexuals/aromantics/etc? They aren't even doing anything." And that's exactly it. In the eyes of amatonormative culture, we aren't doing anything. Adults are supposed to do things. That's how you become a member of society.

We are doing something. We’re rejecting allonormative ideals and that’s a massive thing to do. We’re actively fighting not just to help other aspecs, but to help everyone, because amatonormativity (and allonormativity as a whole) hurt everyone. Single people who want to find a partner but can’t also deserve to be able to exist.

There are so many issues with the expectation of marriage, including:

A single income isn't enough to get by anymore

Having a spouse is almost necessary under the current medical system

Society shames and pressures people who are single to get into relationships constantly

Rejecting allonormativity means fighting against these things that hurt everyone.

i'm constantly in this weird cycle of "i love love but i'm fine without a romantic relationship personally but i want to be someone's person so badly but not in a romantic way but also not in a platonic way but that's too complicated for the majority of people to understand and it's not like i'm objectively attractive enough to even be desired in a romantic or sexual way but also that's a good thing because i don't want either of those (aroace gang) but i'd lie in a heartbeat if it meant i could be someone's priority but i also know that's selfish and horrible of me but i almost don't care because i know no one will ever love me in the way i love other people and i would rather lie to myself and someone else than be alone for the rest of my life because the way i love people is wrong."

As soon as you say you value sex more than romance everyone stares at you like you're the Devil. Let people have preferences...

Like idk, dear alloro, it sound like you were leading them on. It sound like you were the asshole and only kept them around in hopes for something that wasn’t agreed upon while lying to their face about what you wanted and felt for them. Sound like a fucking you problem to me.

"But they did [thing] for me and that’s obviously romantic 😭"

Did you tell them that you view it that way? Did you communicate your emotions and how you perceived their actions? Or did you expect them to just know how you felt and respond accordingly? And then got mad when they couldn’t read your fucking mind? And now you’re expecting everyone to feel bad for you and call them an asshole?

this is alloarophobia