#aroace rant

follow up to this, i also hate HATE that oftentimes aroace people cannot talk about our experiences and feelings around romance or sex without some sort of judgement being passed. like even in therapy aroace-ness is viewed as something to be 'fixed' and not just a facet of your identity. also, how idk if this is just me, but it feels like i specifically cannot even mention my aroace-ness and my aroace experiences around my friends because they do not relate at all and it just breaks down the conversation, almost being a big pointed neon sign at me saying 'THIS GIRL HATES ROMANCE. STOP TALKING ABOUT IT AROUND HER'. which, to be fair, would maybe be great, but i feel the distance it created between me and my friends and i hateeee it.

but

As an aroace person, this was my idea while growing up. I was taught that girls grew up to like boys, that was the 'natural' thing to wait for my life. I didn't really discovered I was ace until I was 19 and aromantic until I was 21. Discovering I wasn't a girl was easier than discovering this lack of attraction (and the name for it).

While it's easy to understand, through this chapter, that Norma needs time to adjust, for me, it was also easy to relate to Badyah's fear.

Because as someone that sees friendship as something very special, it's hard to see something wonderful with someone wonderful disappear because you couldn't feel the same way, despite them being the most amazing person you know.

aro people who like going on dates

aro people who like being in relationships

aro people who love to cuddle and kiss their friends/qpr

ace people who have high libido

ace people who like the idea of sex

ace people who are sex favourable

aroace people who have partners

aroace people who's attraction gets mistaken for romantic

aroace people who don't mind being seen as a couple

aroace people who don't feel represented by online content about aroace people

aroace people who feel like impostors in their own community

aroace people who feel not aroace enough

this was like months ago but I still think about it a lot. so there was like a school dance happening at my school bc of course there was and I was in class with this one guy friend/acquaintance/person I amicably talk to. idk if I'd fully call us friends, idk him THAT well but anyway. I'm pretty sure he kind of liked me but I basically just ignored that completely whenever it vaguely got brought up bc it was realllyyyyy awkward for me and i didn't want to deal with it. and my constant state of changing the subject or acting oblivious i think kind of put him off from ever trying to make a move. (like fr i was so good at just ignoring it lol) we were in class at a table with two other ppl and kind out of nowhere one of them was like "omg you guys should go to the dance, you'd be so cute together." EXCUSE ME. and the other one started backing the first one up and I didn't know what to say bc i didn't like this guy and that was kind of awkward. so I was kind if like "um no?" and then another one of their friends chimed in and was like "yeah you guys literally flirt all the time" and I was like UM WHAT. oh whoops my bad I forgot girls (I'm a girl btw) and guys can't talk to each other unless they like each other I'm SORRY?? Anyway I was like um no we don't??? and for the entire rest of that period they kept bugging us about it like "but you guys are so cute together" and such and they got a few more of their friends in on it too and it was so awful and awkward and I didn't really know what to say. I felt kind of bad for the guy bc I was pretty sure he liked me and I had very clearly shot down the idea of us going to the dance together. so anyway the amatanormativity was raging and even if I wasn't aroace this is still such a shitty thing to do. like I don't have a crush on this guy. I kind of said that. I said no. we're both clearly uncomfortable with this situation. so just shut the hell up please and stop bothering us. and the people saying this didn't see anything wrong with what they were saying, they just kind of thought it was harmless hahaha.

I'm complaining about this because I've had this conversation so many times and most days I'm just not in the mood to explain my sexuality to someone who (if they knew what it was) would be aphobic.