#aroacevent

every so often, i think, and it might be so selfish of me, but i crave to be someone's first choice. i want to be the person that someone sees fun things to do and their first thought is to ask me to go with them. i want someone to be willing to inconvenience themselves a little bit sometimes for me as i would do for them. i want to be looked at in a list of people and to have someone pick me out of all of them. i want to be held at the same level as a romantic partner in terms of effort and closeness. i want someone to want me as much as i want them, even though it's not in a romantic sense. i want to be important to someone.

i will never understand the emphasis society places on romantic relationships. why is the ideal future always portrayed as living with your significant other in a happy, committed, romantic relationship? why is there a whole holiday dedicated towards romantic love? i've heard so many people i know say that they're so lonely because they aren't in a romantic relationship, and i can't help but wonder how are they lonely with so many friends around them? so many things have become romanticized to the point where people no longer think it's socially acceptable to do them with friends. maybe people would feel less lonely then if it was normal to hold hands with people, to give them your sweaters, to lay together on the couch while watching a show. human connection is so so so important. i will never understand how is it that in a world full of love, we only seem to idolize one part of it.

it is painful, sometimes, to love platonically in a way that is so rarely fully reciprocated. i really don't know how to explain the way i feel, but right now, it feels like when you're a child and you have your best friend, and they're the person you will always go to to hang out. the way you'd beg your parents for an extra five minutes to play together with random little secrets and handshakes. how you'd talk about the future and plan out how you both will live together in the same apartment and go to the same school, promising that you'll be together forever. it feels like every friend i've had grew up and found love in romance where i'm still clinging onto the same dream from childhood.

having a platonic crush is so awful. why am i so infatuated with you. why does this never truly fade. every single time, i will come when you call. i'd walk to the ends of the earth for you. for nearly everyone i've felt like this towards, i will do the same. i want to tell you all the little things about myself. i want to hold your hand and go on fun little "couple" dates. i want to make things for you. i want to put my art onto something for you to have, so that a piece of my soul is yours. i want to be yours in the least romantic way possible.

i don't think the people i know understand just how much i love people. humanity, i fear, will always forever be in my mind. i tell myself that i was made to be on the aroace spectrum, so that i could love the world. but it always seems to circle back to humanity, to people. life's best and cruelest gift to me. born to love, but not always in the right way.

am i the problem in all my friendships? i genuinely cannot tell if i expect too much. if i want too much. if i give too much with the expectation that i'd get the same in return. how could i not when all i've ever felt is platonic? i would give myself to my friends, and maybe that is why i cannot find satisfaction with my friendships. who would give themselves to you while holding out for another? do i give too much? do they give too little? is it too much to ask for people to inconvenience themselves for me when i have done it again and again for them? i don't know if i'll ever know, but it does hurt.

i hate hate hate how inferior i feel as a friend to people in comparison to a partner. it's always that the end goal is romance. all my friends want a romantic partner, and it sucks to know that you'll never be enough to fulfill a person's needs completely in terms of a relationship. i know they value me as a person and as a friend, but i also know that it's different. and i've tried so many times to try and explain how it is, but i don't know how. it just isn't the same.

i wish i was more content existing for myself. i hate that i keep holding on to the hope that maybe one of my friends could be more similar to me, and then i have to come to terms that they're not. and it's okay, it's just lonely sometimes.