#grayro pride

Day 13 of Pride Month: Gray Aro Toriel from Undertale! :)

I wanted to take the time to talk and bring awareness to grayromanticism, because I’ve noticed that it doesn’t get talked about as often as aromanticism in general, or other parts of the community. Prepare for this to be long, because I have a lot to say.

To start off, for those who aren’t familiar, the term “grayromantic” is similar to “graysexual”, in that it refers to the “gray area” between being aromantic (experiencing no romantic attraction) and alloromantic (experiencing “normal” romantic attraction). This can mean different things to different people, but a common definition is that a person experiences romantic attraction to an extremely lesser degree than alloromantic people. It falls under the aromantic umbrella, and is used to distinguish those with extremely limited romantic attraction from those with absolutely no attraction.

This can look different for different people, and can exist alongside other sexualities! I myself am grayromantic and bisexual, and felt that these were the best labels to describe myself because while I am bisexual, I experience romantic attraction extremely rarely.

Growing up, I simply didn’t have crushes. Not on people I knew, not on celebrities, not on fictional characters. I had friends, and music artists I enjoyed keeping up with, and fictional characters that were my favorites and that I even fixated on, but at no point was there a desire to date them, to be with them, to want them to be mine in any way. The romantic aspect didn’t exist.

Now, I think that the important part to discuss here is that while its rare, grayromantic people CAN experience attraction. And this is the part that I feel gets left out.

My first ever crush was in high school, and it is the only crush that I ever remember having before meeting my current partner. And it was intense!! It was exactly the thing that had always been described to me, that felt like some fairy tale, or something that only existed in movies, and not in real life. The butterflies, the way my mind was on him constantly, the nervousness and the giggles, the whole shebang. It was exactly like the stereotype.

But after that crush faded (and it took a looong while to fade), it was just gone! And it would be years before I experienced anything even remotely similar.

I am now in a committed romantic relationship. I met my partner a few years ago, and while it wasn’t as dramatically intense as that high school crush I had, I felt the feelings arise in a way they hadn’t since then, years ago. And I got so, so lucky that he felt the same way, because being grayromantic, I had accepted that the likelihood I would ever experience a romantic relationship was very slim, because the likelihood that one of the rare few I would feel that kind of attraction for would happen to feel the same felt impossible, and I had made peace with that.

I am grateful to have my partner in my life, and I am happy with him, and I experience romantic feelings towards him, and I am still grayromantic. My past experiences are not erased by the relationship that I am in now, and if somehow this relationship were to end, I don’t feel that my relationship with romantic attraction in general will have changed.

There are people who will say that having that experience at all means that you are not aromantic, and are not welcome in aromantic spaces. And while yes, it is important for those who are strictly aromantic and no-romo aromantic people to have a space to themselves, it is also the case that for the majority of my life, I have not experienced romantic attraction, and that during that time, the thing that kept me from feeling absolutely broken as a person was the aromantic community.

I was able to see that I wasn’t alone in these experiences! That there were others who had fake crushes in order to fit in, and who thought that a stereotypical crush was a myth, or only fictional, and who felt extremely excluded amongst our very amatonormative society.

The point of grayromanticism is that its gray! Its that you experience a little bit of both. You are too aromantic to be considered fully allo, and too alloromantic to be considered fully aro. You can relate with the experiences that aromantic people have, and you are familiar with what romantic attraction feels like. It can be hard sometimes, not feeling like you’re enough for either end of the spectrum. I am here to say that there is a place for you.

I am here to say that if you are grayromantic, the times that you have romantic feelings don’t erase that. They are a part of that. And if those feelings ever get returned, and you are in a romantic relationshilp, that does not erase your grayromanticism, and your aromantic experiences in the past. You are still a part of this community. I see you, there are others that see you, and you have a place here.

I am grayromantic and proud. While this isn’t necessarily meant to be a post all about me, I wanted to share my experiences in hopes that it would help others to know that they aren’t alone in theirs. Thank you for listening, if you’ve made it this far. And to all the other grayromantics out there, thank you for being you, and for being a part of this community. You helped me to realize a lot about myself, and I only hope to be able to give something back in return.

Forget About Love is just a bunch of arospec talking about their opinions on love ngl.

Hey, sorry it took me so long to answer this!

Sadly, I haven’t heard of a ring specifically for greyros yet (or any other arospec identity, for that matter) and couldn’t find anything on google either. Some greyros seem to wear the white “aromantic” ring (using aromantic as an umbrella term).

On AVEN there were several suggestions over the years, including a grey ring (though this was also suggested as a symbol for biromantic aces) and something with the ace of clubs symbol (for both greyaces and greyros), but no actual decision.

Jiraiya sensei from Naruto based Grayromantic moodboard~ ^^ For an anon!! Hope you like~

Like stated before, this poll represents which character will get a moodboard in pride month. First up, lesbian! I will always have a group of 5 characters, canon or headcanon, and an other. Comments count as votes as well (one per person, to account for the other category).

Day 22 of pride month!: Wintercore Gray Aro!