Demiromanticism and how it's affected me (and possibly others)!
This is a bit of a serious post today about Angled Aromanticism/Asexuality and mainly the label Demiromantic.
I Identify as queer. My attraction to people is definitely not heterosexual attraction. I have a preference to females and masculine non-binary people. But mostly it's only aesthetic, alterous attraction, and sometimes sexual attraction. especially if I've only seen them a couple of times, or they're an acquaintance.
The only time I ever experience romantic attraction to somebody is when I have had years of building on a friendship. But personally for me to experience romantic attraction is if I hang out with them or talk to them almost if not every single day.
If we only hang out for a couple of times a month I will not have romantic attraction towards somebody which made me confused in middle school when I fully identified as aromantic. I never felt romantic attraction because I never had that connection with somebody, and nobody would hang out with me almost everyday for years on end.
It took me 3 years of talking/roleplaying platonically everyday to fall in love with my ex. It took me 4 years to fall in love with my current partner, we saw each other pretty much everyday, even if we only interacted for a couple minutes each day.
This has positively and negatively affected my psyche. Especially when I was younger. The stories of falling in love at first sight are not true to me and I'm really heartbroken about that. It made me romance repulsed in middle school.
Demiromanticism isn't just about building an emotional bond for me. I have to interact with my friends on what feels like 24/7 to fall in love. It's like a job to fall in love, and when I am actually in love, i I confuse it for aesthetic/platonic attraction unless they confess to me first.
And when I am in a romantic relationship I obsess over romantic activities with only them and fictional characters because this feeling is so hard to obtain. Also being Aceflux with a hypersexual partner, who really loves sexual attraction, and prefers it over romantic, when I prefer romantic over sexual, really affects me.
And I hate when people say Demiromanticism and Demisexuality are not real or valid labels. This invalidates so many people who identify with these labels and experiences people have. I also despise when people use us as an excuse to ship or sexualize full on aroace people who do not experience romantic or sexual attraction whatsoever.
Yes, aroace people can still date or have sexual intercourse, and me and many others are proof of that. But using our label as an excuse to sexualize and romanticize aroace people who don't date and will not have sex is disgusting.
I feel like polyamorous people who are angled aroace have a hard time too. I'm not fully polyamorous myself (monoflexibe), but it's probably 10x harder for you all.
That's my little rant on this topic. I know there's like a wide variety of angled aroace identities, but I'm talking about my label and my experiences. I do however want to go in depth about other identities in the angled aroace community. Maybe I should start a podcast or continue writing these.
Feel free to write your experiences below in the comments, I'd love to read them all!
