#alloro

Alloro Gold - Michael Orwick , 2025

American , b. 1975 -

Trixamoric: a label for suptilic lesbian women; a monorose (monoromantic monosexual) allorose (alloromantic allosexual) aptobinary woman exclusively attracted to other binary women, but not attracted to men; perioriented homorose (homorantic homosexual) fiaspec suptilian.

I’m romance neutral* and greyromantic*. I have been in romantic relationships. I don’t believe I was attracted to my partners as much as people thought I was. But I chose to be in those relationships and stayed with those people until other factors didn’t work out (ie unfixable communication issues or different long term goals).

I’ve had some of my partners ask “so you don’t love me?” when I opened up more about being arospec with a sad tone in their voice. Or I’ve had friends say “why would you be someone’s partner if you don’t love them?” with a hint of judgment and disdain as they say it.

Here is how I look at it, and keep in mind, this is most likely NOT a universal aro experience. BUT I know that some alloro people worry that since their aro partners don’t “love” them, they can’t be sure about their relationship at all.

Aromanticism is the lack of romantic attraction. In my personal experience, this generally means I have equal attraction to everybody in a romantic sense (side note, this is why I thought I was biromantic for a long time). So, imagine, baseline I just feel neutral about everyone. My relationships are largely based upon experiences and connections I have with people, not solely on attraction.

A lot of my partners thought that this means I feel less about them or that they were just like everyone else. But here’s the thing—I literally chose them out of everyone else to be partners with. In a broader sense, take how alloplatonic* people view friendships: you may be closer with some friends, you may trust some friends with certain things more, or you might have just become friends and are learning more about each other. These people are all friends, and the friendship dynamic isn’t always built on platonic attraction. It can be extremely circumstantial.

If you worry about your aro partner leaving you because they’re aro, I assure you that they will not just up and leave at random just because they’re aro. If they do, there is a very different reason for that. It’s a very personal and complex topic. It ties into factors such as commitment, communication, life goals, and relationship satisfaction and compatibility.

So if anyone is alloromantic and questioning if they can be in a relationship with an aro person, think about it this way: the question shouldn’t be “do they love me?”, and try thinking about it as “do they care for me?”

Glossary* and footnotes after the break

[PT: Large Pixel Size Allo- Flags]

Allosexual ~ Alloromantic

Alloplatonic ~ Alloqueerplatonic

Alloalterous ~ Allosensual ~ Alloaesthetic

Allosexual and alloromantic flags use colors from @isobug’s allose-spec and alloro-spec flags.

All flags are 3000x2000 pixels.

I want to preface this by saying I am ~in general~ not a fan of positivity. Trying to “force positivity” is quickly a slippery slope to toxic positivity and superficially. Nonetheless, I feel like I could have realized some lithromantic positivity, and thought it was necessary to share rather than keep it to myself.

It is ok that there’s nothing good about being lithro. It is ok if there are no benefits that we can exploit from ourselves and take advantage of ourselves (or our relationships) with. Lithromantics not necessarily having *any* positives to being lithro (besides our dope flag) means that those of us that have accepted ourselves, are some of the most compassionate, kind, strong, and resilient souls. The amount of self-compassion one has to develop before they can radically accept themselves as lithromantic, is so much higher than essentially any other queer identity.

In a world that has yet to be educated on aromanticsm, aromantics and cupioromantics are scared to date alloromantics, due to alloromantics behaving like it is a “dealbreaker” or “end of the world” if their [romantic] partner is not “in love” [essentially experiencing romo attrac] towards them. It’s valid for both aros and cupioros to be scared to date alloros because of this arophobic mindset they have, tho.

Anyways, a lithromantic might “seem” more appealing to an uneducated alloromantic, since we do experience the romo attrac, or what alloros mistake for “love”. At the same time, once an alloro experiences and returns that romo attrac towards the lithro, the lithro’s romo attrac fades. Not necessarily fades, but flees and turns into romance repulsion (for most lithros). Uneducated, insecure, and/or unaccepting alloros might feel very hurt for the lithros sudden change. Simultaneously, the lithro may also be hurting for not being able to “keep” or “hold on” to the romo attrac. It feels like, being lithro leaves everyone worse off (and is potentially traumatizing for the lithro). This is why lithros who have accepted themselves have learned how to be compassionate and kind to themselves to an extent that most other queer identities never have to go to before they can accept their queer identity, due to there being more external support, education, and acceptance for their queer identities (including for aros).

It is so easy for lithromantics, especially lithros that have chosen to remain closeted, to drown in a sea of their own self-hatred and shame of being an arospec identity that leaves the alloromantics that reciprocated the romo attrac angry and confused. In a world where alloromantics have all the privilege and amatonormativity is everywhere, lithros are so strong, brave, and resilient for existing as our lithromantic identity in a world that refuses to see us, acknowledge us, validate us, support us, accept us, or understand us.

This is where the lithromantic positivity comes in: lithromantics can relate to everyone. Lithromantics know what it feels like to experience romantic attraction; and we know what it feels like to have a romantic relationship look you dead in the face and not want it. We are also romance ambivalent! We understand what it means to have more than one attitude towards romance. We can understand both apothiros and cupioros. We can relate to another largely unknown arospec identity—frayromantism, since frayros also experience involuntary, primary romantic attraction, just like lithros do. We can even relate to alloros in terms of experiencing romantic attraction involuntarily and getting crushes. And finally, we can relate to aros with struggling to desire romantic relationships in the same way an alloromantic does.

There are so many other identities lithromantic is similar to, like aegoromantic, bellusromantic, and frayromantic. Lithros belong in arospec spaces, and lithros’ voices are so valuable to the arospec community. Lithros are essential in terms of helping to bridge the distance and alienation that is only growing between aromantics and alloromantics.

Alt. Alloromantic / Alloro / Allorospec flag

I am Aro but me and some friends thought the current Alloromo design was very... plain and hard to work with if you wanted to make an edit or combo. Also lacking meaning beyond "well it's a conformant label so it must look similar to the black and white hetero flag".

I had Alloromo/Alloromospec and Orchidspec (who considers emself to be more allo/allospec instead of aro/arospec) input while making this. I'm just the flag maker.

White for those who experience full Romo attraction and are Romo-positive.

Grey for those who experience Romo-attraction but are not solely Romo-positive or Romo-repulsed (those who are Romo-ambivalent/Romo-Oscillating/etc.)

Black for those who experience Romo-attraction but are Romo-repulsed.

Purple-pink for Orchidromantics /Orchidspecs (those that experience romantic attraction but do not desire romantic relationships) who consider themselves as (or closer) to being Allospec than Arospec or who simply wish to be included. Color taken from the Orchidspec flag.

Pink-red for Romo attraction itself