When I told my grandmother’s friend group about aromanticism most of them didn’t understand, they were polite and asked a lot of questions, some didn’t really believe it bc well, people in their 70s are rarely that open minded; but there was this one lady that looked pensive and when the others quieted down she asked me if the name for it had existed long, and when I said no she told me about her best friend:
A 74 year old woman who had married young, back when my country was in a fascist dictatorship and women couldn’t have/make their own money, so their only hope was marriage. They lived together years, and I’m not sure if they had children, but as soon as it was legal for her to divorce she did, and, living in a small town, she faced her neighbours’ questions and judgement: Was he a bad husband? Did he cheat or treat her badly? Was it the other way around? He wasn’t “man enough”? And many less nice things.
Her answer to all of them was that her now ex husband was a wonderful man, and that they’d remain friends as they’d always been, because on her side that’s all there could be, because she didn’t find it in herself to love, not him nor any man or woman, but still cared deeply for him as she did for all her friends.
She now lives happily in retirement, traveling around the country with her friends, ex husband included, and also has a cat.
When the lady told me this she sounded doubtful at first, afraid she was appropiating but when I told her that the experience sounded like those on our community she looked so happy, and kindly asked me to write down the terms and what they mean on a paper so she could show her friend when she went back home, tell her that she wasn’t alone that there were more people who had united and have a name and are fighting to be recognised.
That day I realised something: That there are more of us than we know about, that in this age of information many of the older generation were still estranged from the net and among them there are aromantic people too. And that for those people who have probably felt other and wrong most of their lives, the knowledge of the label and community, the confirmed existence of others like them that feel it’s important enough to recognise that feeling or lack thereof, can be just as healing, reassuring and important as it was for us, the newer generation who stumbled upon the term on the internet when we were teens.
The internet is great, of course, but if we want to find the older aros de have to look for them, because they most surely haven’t found themselves in that label yet either. And to do so we must share our terms and experiences and shout to the world that we exist outside the screens, that we are real. I know it can be risky or even dangerous but if we wish to find them, and hopefully make them a bit happier, it’s all we can do.
TL,DR: There are old aros out there, we just have to find them by spreading our visibility, not only for us, but for them too.
