#acearo

Grace is not a robot. Grace is not a child. Grace is not the youngest of a group. Grace is not naive and innocent.

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I'm used to the question. it's not like it's something outrageous that he's asking. so I simply said no, that's not for me.

he looked at me and said "well, someday." not someday maybe, just.... someday.

of course I'm not quick to anger, but there's a part of me that's a little more defensive about my aroace identity. so I jumped to my defense.

my uncle isn't a bad guy, he's quite nice and tries his best to be respectful in the current political shit storm by supporting queer people. but apparently that does exclude me, an aroace.

I reiterated that I'm just not interested in a romantic or sexual partnership, and I really do not ever see that changing.

and he said something to the effect of "it's okay if you don't want that now."

and I said, "no, it's just okay that I don't want that."

and he said that I was pessimistic. as if I was secretly searching for a relationship or a partner, but was rejecting love because I could not find one.

I calmly (with all the rage in my veins) told him "no, a life without love or sex is something optimistic for me."

he had the gall to look horrified.

I'm sick of aroace people not being seen as normal human people when they don't want the outcome of their life to look like everyone else's. I'm sick of the white picket fence, I'm sick of the assumption that everyone has another half out there.

་　།࣭♰　 ִPride Flag Inspired Ibis Colouring's　 ׁ𝒢𓍢 𓂂　

Happy pride ! I wanted to make these sooner but school and editfight so yh.. I really botched the ace and trans ones so uh yeah TT..

𓏼 ͜͜✚𓈒 ̣̣ ۫　rb2u , creds appreciated but not required 𓏽ִ﹒　 ͜ ͜

Like, obviously there's the fact that so many people are aroace and so the two communities would still have a lot of overlap no matter what, but even if you're talking about people who are just asexual, we both say and feel the same exact things, just about romance instead of sex. Honestly sometimes it feels like I have more in common with alloaces than aroaces because we both have the same central frustration of "why the hell has society decided that these two things have to go together? Why is only wanting one such a hard concept?" They understand the struggle of how hard it is to find people who are willing to do one thing with you but don't expect you to do the other.

Like, I have had a conversation before with someone who was like "I know this is going to sound super weird, especially from someone who is ace" and I got to say "oh my god, no, not only is that not weird, I've done the exact same thing before but with romance." That's so cool! It's great that we can do that!

Whether you're aro, ace, another aspec identity (because let's not forget about atertiaries), or some combination of those, we all share the same frustration of "why is all media so obsessed with this one thing?" We all can't easily explain our identities to other people. We literally feel the exact same ways, just about different things. The aspec experience is the same across all identities, it's just in different fonts.

Saying we should be separate is like saying that lesbians and gay people shouldn't be in the same community, because lesbians know nothing about attraction to men and gay people know nothing about attraction to women. People have said that too, and I hope you all know how ridiculous that is. It's ignoring the common ground of being attracted to the same gender instead of the one you're supposed to be attracted to, and it's also ignoring how much defining those identities as not liking men/women is going to alienate the bi/pan/etc people who also share most of the same experiences.

Anyway. Hi aces. You are very cool. If anyone doesn't want you sitting with me, I'll make them leave instead.