Itza

i hate the way that, while growing up, everyone sorta just implies that the only way to find happiness when you’re older/the ideal adult life was to be with a husband or wife?  so growing up you think “oh yeah when i’m older i’m going to be married and happy!” and somehow that gets you to thinking that a happy marriage/romantic relationship = a happy life.  and then you would see on TV that romance is everywhere and you would have single characters who complain about being single and it seemed like everyone was vying for a romantic relationship of any kind.  idk romance just seemed like the end goal?  for everyone?  maybe there’s a main plot of something but oh look the main character likes this other person!  they’re gonna stare at each other now and maybe kiss a few times!  and then they would prioritize their new love interest over all their long time friends. 

all of this cultivated the idea that “oh yeah friendships are cool but girl/boyfriends?  way more important”.  book!  movies!  songs!  most of them have romance and a main story line for the main character which also serves as that character’s happy ending!  and all of this made me think that i needed a romantic relationship to be happy!  so when i was starting to question my sexual and romantic identity, while i was fully okay with being ace, i struggled a lot with my aromantic identity because it was cemented in my head that romance leads to being happy.  i was trying to figure out who i was, why i didn’t feel romantic attraction or sexual attraction like the people around me.  when i finally came to terms with being aromantic, which took a while because i didn’t want to admit to myself that i didn’t feel romantic attraction.  i kept looking to other identities and reading about them in some hope that maybe one of them would fit better so i could have some ‘hope’ at a happy future because what i was told growing up was telling me that i was never going to be happy growing up because:

1. i wouldn’t have a romantic relationship

2. all my friends would get married and then leave me because romance is more important than friendship

and??? that was not great for me to come to terms with?  and it’s not even true!  because you can be happy without all that stuff!  friends are super important!  and if i’m being honest going through aromantic and asexual tags on tumblr or going through that stuff on reddit and such did help me because it showed me that there were other people like me who were grown up, proud of their identity, and seemingly happy without a romantic relationship.  reading Loveless by Alice Osemen was also fantastic for me because it showed me that you can meet someone, and you’ll love each other so much and want to be there for each other even in the future when one of you is married.