Asexuals and Aromantics Unite!

I hope your crush is requited, TC!

Oh that's what you say, Death's Apprentice is much better with this whole people thing than I am.

Hello, everyone, aromantic heterosexual guy here.

Hello! It's nice to meet you!

Hello Syme.

Nice to meet you all.

I've been trying to get girlfriends before, but it seems that I just seriously can't get myself to develop romantic attachments. I just... like them as friends, that's all.

I do like shipping characters together, though, although I don't really like it when a story becomes too focused on romance.

edited 25th Dec '15 7:21:32 PM by SymeSynth

I feel that. I've definitely tried to force myself to have crushes on certain guys before. It didn't work, naturally.

Yeah, that's true.

The frustrating thing about being aromantic for me is that other people (as well as the society of this planet) constantly pressure me to get a girlfriend.

They all say something along the lines of: 'Oh, you're twenty-three, and you still don't have a girlfriend? Do you really want to die alone?'

Luckily I haven't had to deal with that yet, but my parents have started talking about how they have to find potential marriage partners for me in four years, and that's freaking me out.

edited 25th Dec '15 7:34:58 PM by DeathsApprentice

...Wow. I'm thankful that my parents aren't that creepy.

I still have to deal with peer pressure, though, and their remarks about me dying all alone if I don't get a girlfriend is pissing me off.

edited 25th Dec '15 7:41:30 PM by SymeSynth

That really sucks. Peer pressure is the worst.

My family leaves me alone about my desire to stay single. They used to give me a bit of trouble about it, but not anymore.

I haven't had any problems yet but I'm also 23 in a family where pretty much no woman has married in their 30s since my grandma so, I might get it later.

Funny, but not really funny, story:

Back when I was ~12 (I’d been identifying as Ace since I was like, 10 and saw this ace married couple on an episode of 20/20 or something like that [fun fact: the couple was probably actually Demi since they were considering having sex at the time of the interview, but had been happy with cuddling for like 5 years of marriage, but it was still pretty early in the… movement {I guess? <look at all these nested parentheses> }]), this older teenaged guy from my church had been really confused/concerned that I wasn’t looking at anyone romantically. It just so happened that one of the church mothers had her granddaughters come up from Jamaica for the summer, so I approached one of them in private and basically asked her that since she won’t be around for the rest of the year if it was okay if I pretended to like her to get him off my back and she said it was okay and we kept up this ruse for the entire summer and pretty much the entire congregation had eyes on us and it to this day it remains one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever accomplished.

Okay, that does sound hilarious. Although I'm sorry you had to do that. I think I must be lucky, usually if people ask I just say "I'm not interested in that kind of thing" and people back off.

Haha! That sounds pretty amusing, though I'm sure it must have been really uncomfortable for you at the time. Pretty annoying that you had to do that to get him off your back.

Yeah sad you had to do that (and honestly I've lied about crushes before but never pretended to have a relationship so that is something you've done that I haven't).

I see no one's posted in a while, but I guess you can consider this a free bump ;)

I'm aromantic and asexual to the absolute core. I've never had as much as a crush on anyone, and I find the ideas of sex and marriage absolutely abhorrent. I'm currently trying to figure out how to come out to my family.

My family's very supportive. My mom even told me that if I ever told her I was gay, she'd support me 100%. But the problem I have with telling people I'm aro is that whenever I tell an adult, I always get a variation of "Oh, you just haven't found the right person yet! I didn't think I was going to get married either!" *laughs while playfully shoving spouse*. I'm just afraid that no one's going to take me seriously.

Any advice?

edited 25th Jan '16 9:15:38 PM by Cailleach

Maybe express that actually feel distaste for the whole marriage/relationship thing. Try and re-enforce that kind of thing. Make sure they know that's it's more than mere apathy.

I'm afraid that if I tell people how much marriage disgusts me, it'll get categorized as "disordered thinking"

I'm autistic, and have had other mental problems that have had me hospitalized, so I'm afraid that this'll be just another sign of a "disorder"

Oh shit, man. That sucks. Hm, that is a dilemma. Perhaps start off small by saying you're really not interested in the romance/marriage thing and you doubt you ever will be? Dunno. I'm a bit of a romantic, so I dunno how to phrase that sort of thing.

Hey Cail! I'm aro ace, too! I wish I had advice for you, but I'm struggling with the same problem.

Ahoy Cail!

Regarding your problem, this is how I went about it:

I asked my mother once if she would care if I lived my life alone and never had any kids. She told me that it was all up to me to decide how to live my life and she accepted it. I didn't really feel like there was more to tell my mother after that. Whether she sees me as asexual or not, she sees me as me, no need for any labels.

Such a conversation might not count as "coming out" for the rest of you, but in my family we don't usually discuss these kinds of matters - for better and for worse - so to me it was a heartfelt discussion.

So yeah, I would suggest just telling your family you're not interested in having a family of your own. I can imagine that to be easier to understand, seeing as there's still a lot of people who don't believe in asexuality or aromantic people (aromance?).

I wrote a lot of words. Maybe some of them help?

Yeah I have the same problem so I don't know what to tell you, well besides the fact I'm just aro not ace and I'm not in quite the precarious position you are for being told I have disordered thinking, but I do have apathy rather than active dislike for romance. None of the women in my family married until they were like 30 in my parent's generation, though I am around the age (24) my grandmas married. Also I'm also disabled so as uncomfortable as it makes me that might be why no-one has bothered to ask about boyfriends etc.

The way it is with me, I rarely ever used the word "asexual" to describe myself, but I explained the concept several times, so a lot of my friends and family understand that I'm asexual without really knowing it. Maybe I'll put a video up on Facebook for the next National Coming Out Day or something.