#aromantic things

All aro and ace representation I’ve seen is about never dating, never feeling attraction or wanting to get married, never wanting a physical relationship, never wanting kids

It’s so extremely on the far end of the spectrum when in reality there’s so many ways to be aro and ace than what is shown online

But at the same time I can’t relate to allos, which is why I identify as aro ace in the first place

i swear if i see 1 more post by an ace going 'u have to tag all ur smut for sex repulsed folk' (very true. i do 100% agree with this for many reasons just to make that clear) but then proceed to post so many romantic lovey dovey posts and ships with no tagging at all to say that theres romantic content i swear i am going to punch a hole through my thick brick exterior walls. tag ur romance please. and stop acting like thats so shocking or like were evil for wanting u to tag.

also this weird expectation that u have to 'make up for' ur lack of atraction through romance and platonic love and this weird treatment of romance as this amazing thing that has to be experienced and its clear theyre just trying to say fuck you to acephobes but they just end up coming across very aphobic and like they dont veiw aspecs as valid unless theyre alloro and/or allopl

and the fact that i cant bring up being aspec without it being assumed that im either alloace or completely unloving (neither true (also the fact they go to 'unloving' instead of aroace is odd (im not aroace either but still odd)))

and how very 'aspec pride post' i come across consists only of ace demiace maybe aroace if ur lucky but no aromantic or aplatonic or afamilial or anything else

and 'aspec inclusive' places/event never even having the aromantic flag available let alone other aspec flags or alloace and alloaro flags. and their focus on romantic relationships even tho they were never labeled as having any focus on romance

and the focus on needing love in aspec communities. ive seen so many posts go along the lines of 'aspec doesnt mean we cant feel love' which is true but then go on a rant about how evil and 'psychopathic' it is to not feel love and how theyre 'not 1 of them' and trying to separate themselves from loveless and love complicated folk

tldr: i dont feel comfortable in the aspec community due to the heavy focus on lovefull alloaces and how any1 who doesnt feel love or is a non-ace aspec is just left out and how romance repulsed folk r ignored and treated like were some evil anti-love villian for wanting a bit of tagging

Firstly in that amatonormatism is just so wide spread and expected of others. When I assumed I was alloromantic, and saw other alloromantic get into relationships, there was this pressure that you Had to prioritize your romantic relationship over every other relationship in your life EVER. All of your friends, all of your family, your children, co-workers, every single person in your life (oftentimes including yourself) MUST take a back seat to your romantic and sexual partner. And it’s ridiculous because I am also sure that most people don’t actually want that.

When I was in my toxic relationship, I was essentially expected to stop talking to all of my friends. Most of that was just due to the controlling nature of my ex but it was also the expectation from everyone else in my life too. People who weren’t negatively effect by the harmful nature of that relationship distanced, people who didn’t even know what he did to me and didn’t experience my negative outlash from being in that position still left and distanced. Everyone assumes you’re prioritizing them now and they react accordingly. I hated this, and so did many of my friends. But it was just the assumption.

I’m loosing track of my thoughts but my other thought is just that— it’s so expected yet literally no one I know actually wants that. So many people have expressed to me sadness and anger and lonliness when their other important friends got in a relationship and stopped talking to them, I’ve felt and seen other people experience the pain of the pressure to have to stop being as close to their friends as they once were— stop talking, stop engaging, no more touching ever, no more sleeping over, no more intimate private conversations. You seemingly have to forfeit the depth of love for everyone else you have.

I have also had potential partners + people I’ve engaged in more-than-platonic behavior with get visibly weirded out when I prioritize my relationship with my friends. They see it as weird when I tell them there are things I will only tell and do with my friends, that I will never tell them. They get weird when I prioritize my friends over them. They get weird when they see that romance isn’t my priority. This goes even with relationships that it’s been made clear it’s only sexual/platonic but engaging in more actions that are seen as romantic.

Allo people really can’t grasp that we don’t wanna worry about cheating, finding “the one”, getting our partners something for every month-iversary, figuring out the best way to propose, having to constantly keep up with rules of relationships, and rather or not were in the talking stage or the situationship period or whatever their terms are.