#voloromantic

Hey, so sorry this took a while!

But yeah, I'm biromantic voloromantic asexual(and therefore angled aroace)

Biromantic means that I'm romantically attracted to people of all genders

Voloromantic means that I develop attraction to someone if I want it. It's not as convenient as it sounds /lh

A person who does not feel romantic attraction in general but may feel romantic attraction after deciding they want to fall in love with a person, or after fantasising about a romantic relationship with the person.

If you are part of the Aro/Ace spectrum, please read this and comment anything you think could be helpful to me, because I am just so overwhelmed and confused and frustrated. 

I was gonna make a long rant/emotional dump post, but I decided to save it for later. I shouldn’t need to bare my soul in order to get validation. 

Long story short, I’ve been doing some research into romantic and sexual orientation, and I feel like the term Aromantic (specifically voloromantic) and/or Asexual resonates with me, and I’ve tried to talk to my parents and friends about it, but I keep feeling invalidated.

I’m confused and scared because if I say I’m not aromantic, then I feel like I’m invalidating myself and how I felt like something was broken in me because I couldn’t have a crush. But if I say I’m aromantic and I end up falling in love, then am I invalidating the aro/ace community by keeping that label? And what if when I try to tell my family I’m aromantic (for the 3rd time), they still invalidate my feelings because I still have so much of life left to experience?

 If you’re reading this and any part of this resonates with your experience, PLEASE let me know, so I don’t feel like I’m alone. If you could just take some time to describe how you came to terms with your orientation, how to have fulfilling relationships that aren’t just romantic, etc, I feel like it would really help me. Any experiences on discovering and validating that part of yourself would be greatly appreciated.

Honestly, I fully understand where you're coming from. I've been made aware that back in 2015 there was even a few people (and by that I mean like five) that wanted to use Volo instead of Allo (I didn't know this at the time of creating the labels).

There are some key differences and I think the best way to describe it is by using fairly well known labels! Volo is more of a mix of demi and cupio. There may by attractionless fantasies for a period of time, or a want to be with a person without any attraction, until suddenly it develops. There's no attraction to the person in question or anyone else, and it doesnt develop when you decide you want to be with them, it can develop anywhere from months to years after.

1. How did you decide on a name to coin it? Like, what was your reasoning behind choosing 'volo' as it's prefix? (Not trying to be mean or anything, am genuinely curious)

2. It currently states attraction is developed by choosing to develop romantic attraction to a person/fantasizing about being in a relationship with them. I understand that this is a developing label given how new it is, but would outside influence fall under this? Like, say you're good friends with someone and never considered them in a romantic way until someone else comments on it? I've noticed that every crush I've ever had (not a lot to begin with) developed after a friend or someone made comments like, "y'all would look cute together", "I think xe/xem has a crush on you", etc. After that, I'd start thinking about what a relationship with said person would be like, and then the crush would develop. I never had feelings before those things were said though, so like,,,,would you consider that kind of scenario to fall under Voloromantic or another term?

This is kind of a long ask lol so if you ever do reply to this, I would be eternally grateful!!

- 🌙

Volo is latin! It's one of the words that mean want, there's several (like cupio, for example). I did a bit of messing around for other meanings each one had and volo had the least-weird secondary meanings in my opinion (the secondary meanings are flight and zoom, if you were wondering!)