Growing Up Aromantic Is

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You know, if I had to describe my experience as an aromantic in one word, I think I’d go with “alienating”. Let me explain:

Imagine you’re aro and watching TV. There some kind of SciFi show on and they are debating the personhood of an AI.

The AI shows curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. They have desires. They have strengths and weaknesses. None of this convinces the doubters.

The AI makes friends. They take up hobbies. They talk about their hopes and dreams for the future. Surely this is enough to relate to them as a person? It’s not.

The AI is shown to fall in love. This is framed as the ultimate proof, the one thing that must humanize them even to the staunchest denier of their personhood or else that person is irredeemable.

You change the channel.

There’s a children’s cartoon on. “What is this?!” the villain cries, pointing at a couple. Their inability to understand the romantic love between those two is framed as stemming from the fact that somebody so deeply evil simply cannot understand something as pure and good as romantic love.

You change the channel.

There’s a sitcom on. Two characters are discussing a third character. “He’s really not that weird,” says one character. “He hasn’t been in a relationship for [x] years!” the other refutes. Cue the laugh track. The implication is clear: If he’s not in a relationship, it must be because he’s too weird.

You change the channel.

There’s a Christmas movie on. The main character is a successful businesswoman. She’s shown talking to her friends and family regularly. “You need a man,” her mother says as they bake together. The daughter denies this. The rest of the movie is all about proving the mother right, as suddenly her career, her friends and her family are framed as not being enough for her to lead a fulfilling life.

You change the channel.

It’s some show aimed at young teens and tweens. “Ew,” one character comments as the idea of them having a significant other one day is brought up. This is treated as a sign of their immaturity.

You turn off the TV.

Your experiences aren’t enough to humanize a non-human character. You’re the villain. You’re a weirdo. Your life is incomplete. You’re immature.

You’re tired.

There’s a reason it was an aro who coined the term voidpunk.

In case anyone is having a bad night:

Here is the fudgiest brownie in a mug recipe I’ve found

Here are some fun sites

Here is a master post of Adventure Time episodes and comics

Here is a master post of movies including Disney and Studio Ghibli

Here is a master post of other master posts to TV shows and movies

*tucks you in with fuzzy blanket* *pats your head*

You’ll be okay, friend <3

Hallo, Aro

Is it “aay-romantic” or “arrow-mantic”? What if she hears “I’m a romantic” instead of “I’m aromantic”? What if she says “isn’t that just friend…

Hallo, Aro is a series of flash fiction stories about allosexual aromantic characters navigating friendship, sexual attraction, aromanticism and the weight of amatonormative expectation.

I’ve now got twelve allo-aro short fiction and creative non-fiction pieces in this collection!

Folks can download PDF, EPUB and MOBI files for free from my Patreon, read individual stories on my WordPress site or view them all here on Tumblr:

Unspoken

Leaving

Friendship

Lucky

Attraction

Existence

Neuronormative

Loveless

Monstrous

Pressure, Side One

Pressure, Side Two

Abrasive

No story is longer than a thousand words. Please expect sex references in various degrees of explicitness and sundry depictions of amatonormativity.

*through gritted teeth* every day i choose to be kind *barely restraining myself from violence* i choose to have compassion *tamping down the vicious bloodlust inside me* i choose to care and to be kind and to love

TV show writer: I have made a romance.

Me: You fucked up a perfectly good friendship is what you did. Look at it. It's got amatonormativity.

I love that the dinosaurs being portrayed as animals and not part of a 24/7 fight club, but the only thing I still want out of Prehistoric Planet is to see a hadrosaur beat the shit out of a theropod. I'm tired of them being docile carnivore fodder, I guarantee you they contained the same wrath of God as every extant giant prey animal does.

I like to think of relationship anarchy as the foundation that shapes my understanding of aromantic theory.

It creates an inherently anti-amatonormative setting in which relationships are reevaluated and reconstructed based on the collective needs of the people involved. It's the reason I will always be against strict definitions of relationship types and the implicit requirements that come with that. The only people who can define a relationship and what that relationship entails and which label to give it are the people involved in said relationship. The only way to do that is through effective communication. The only way to fight amatonormative relationship hierarchies is through doing exactly that: discarding societies norms and instead explicitly defining your relationships based on mutual understanding, communication and respect.

Relationship anarchy gives aspec people the freedom to have any type of relationship they desire instead of being locked out of certain levels of intimacy simply because of some societal norm that dictates what you can and can't do based on which label you apply to a relationship.

IT IS NOT SELFISH TO FEEL LONELY

my parents aren’t teaching me life lessons.

#i need some adults to TEACH ME SHIT ABOUT LIFE