We continue our series of Aspec Voices for Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. Once again, we are focusing on the struggles and issues of specific parts of the aro community – people who are often overlooked by mainstream alloromantic people talking about orientations and even hidden within aro communities.
There are many aromantic people who have or want romantic relationships, but some people assume that anyone who is aromantic can’t want or have romantic relationships. We wanted to highlight the voices of aros who are in or want to be in romantic relationships. Thank you to all who volunteered their time and shared their experiences.
Introductions
Alex – I run the a-romantic–aromantic tumblr blog, and the associated discord/ virtual community events. For my identity: I mostly just identify with the label “aro” now, or “romo aro”, but I guess technically I’m somewhere in the nebulous cupio-quoi-crux allo aro area. I’m also polyam, and enjoy having romantic partners.
Amalthæ – Demi aro, in a long distance queerplatonic / romantic / polyA relationship
Chris Thompson – aro who wants romance
Eryn Goetz – aromantic, in a QPR
Ky – aromantic, wants a romantic relationship
Magpie. I’m a demi and/or grey romo aro who desires a romantic relationship.
Mars Naomi, It/Its, Aroflux; dating for three years and in a QPR (queerplatonic relationship) for a few months now
Ryan, they/them, aromantic (but possibly quioromantic?), single but possibly about to be in a relationship.
S. – he/him, I identify as aroqueer, but specifically Demiromantic and alloaro. I’m currently single.
Theo – demiromantic, greyromantic, allosexual, interested in a romantic relationship
Interview Questions
How has being aro impacted your romantic relationships, or your search for romantic relationships?
Alex: I oftentimes, at this point, end up dating other aros, or other people who are polyam, as they usually don’t have the same hang ups about the relationships and what relationships mean that most people do.
Amalthæ: At first I sought relationships with alloromantic people. It was nasty. They were very bitter because of my lack of romantic love. They tried to change themselves in order to make me fall in love “for real”, accused me of cheating, and other nasty things. I gave up on alloromantic people and instead engaged with another aroace-oriented person. We both love romantic mushy things even though we do not feel the romantic love. Together we can be as romantic and mushy as we want without feeling pressured into stuff we don’t want to do. It’s healthier because we are on the same page.
CT: So aromanticism is a spectrum and as I’ve come to see it it’s almost like I’m looking for half of a romantic relationship, like I enjoy the intensity of getting to know someone and participating in their interests and I like the feeling of getting that back as well but I find the co-dependance and the lack of ability to have some separation really off-putting.
EG: I haven’t yet found it affects things too much: I suspect more people are aro than they realise. I don’t think romance ‘works’ for people as a concept. I think as I am more flexible and I don’t wheel out the relationship escalator, that the other person tends to feel more secure.
Ky: Naturally, realizing I was aro ended some relationships. There have been many times where I’ve tried to fit myself in a conventional romantic relationship, and it almost always ends because I realize I can’t force myself to feel romantic feelings long term.
MN: Being aromantic affects a lot of aspects of my relationships. Since I’m aroflux, my orientation switches around a lot. I’ll go from being romantically attracted to someone to suddenly wanting no romance at all. When this happens I usually tell my partner, “Hey, I don’t want to do romantic things for a bit, is that okay?” And he usually says yes and then we do things platonically. Such as doing hobbies together, cooking together, watching movies, playing video games. You may wonder, “Hey those things are romantic.” I would say, if you specify it’s not romantic and platonic, it doesn’t feel romantically charged anymore. It’s still intimate but not in the same way romance is.
Ryan: The last romantic LTR I was in, eight years together, ended amicably. But towards the end, my partner had a complaint that something was missing from the relationship. I had no idea what she was talking about. We were the closest of friends, we had built a life together, we were roommates, we had sex. Everything was perfect, as far as I was concerned. But that wasn’t enough for her. I did not know I was aro at the time, but once I realized I was, a few years after the relationship ended, I realized that’s what was missing for her: Romance. (NB, the relationship didn’t end because of the lack of romance, but because our lives took us in different directions.)
After her, I was not interested in romantic relationships again for a long time. I had a few relationships with aros (who actually discovered they were aro by hearing me talk about it), which was nice to be on the same page as someone. I was in no way seeking a romantic relationship until I met Lauren.
Lauren is a really neat person. A former UCC pastor, a boxer, a writer, a comedian, an activist. We are wildly compatible with what we want from a relationship, and have become good friends. She is truly a rare specimen. So I am pursuing a romantic relationship with her, because that’s what she wants, and because allos often reserve their closest friendships for their romantic partners. So it’s not so much that I want romance or a romantic relationship, but I want that closeness that allos only have with their romantic partners, and I want that specifically with Lauren.
S: Being demiromantic has made pursuing romantic relationships difficult because I also do not feel comfortable with casual dating. I need to have some sort of comfort with them (unrelated to my demiromanticism) to date them and do romantic things. Most people aren’t willing to wait or they think I’m unavailable. It can be difficult to find someone to be in a relationship with. I’m about to be 26 and I’ve only had a handful of relationships, I could count on one hand and even of those, looking back I can see some of them were me being confused about romantic vs sexual attraction.
Theo: It’s meant I tend to only be interested in people I know are good and I know I work well with, and that’s awesome, and then it’s also meant that progression towards a relationship is agonizingly slow if I know I will be able to be romantically attracted to someone once a connection is formed. Usually my alterous attraction to someone means this is likely going to happen over time. It also means I am barely ever interested in someone despite pretty much constantly wanting to be which is frustrating.
How do you seek out romantic relationships? Do you find that certain methods of finding/forming romantic relationships are better or worse when paired with aromanticism?
Alex: I tend to personally form relationships with people in places that I’m already spending a lot of time, like my local lgbt+ group (that was somehow full of so many aros) or my online communities that are surrounding my interests.
Amalthæ: I tried online dating but it was a mess. I tried talking to people about a relationship, it was misinterpreted too. My past relationships were found by sheer chance, and they ended up being very bad for me because the other persons were projecting their allo needs and feelings onto me. I cannot really explain how I found my present queerplatonic partner because it’s just a huge pile of sheer luck.
EG: I don’t seek them out; sometimes they evolve organically which is great. For me, looking for someone who suits me is impossible. It is better to just muddle along and see what happens. I would think that unless it was a specific aro/ace group, it would be hard to use a dating group or equivalent.
Ky: I find meeting people online is the easiest way to make connections, and through this method of being upfront about what I’m seeking in a relationship, and my boundaries, it’s become easier in some ways to not do things that feel unnatural to me.
MN: Personally, all my life, I’ve never ever seeked out a relationship. I never needed one in order to feel complete or happy. They always seeked me out, they always came to me and I’ve always said yes. Not because I liked them but because I wanted to feel loved, it didn’t have to be romantic love though. I wanted to feel loved because at home I didn’t have love, I was abused a lot. Wanting to be loved is different from experiencing romantic attraction towards a person. I haven’t been single since middle school. In conclusion, I don’t seek out relationships, they always came to me, I just always happened to be in one since middle school.
S: I tend to let them find me, it’s a lot easier that way considering I don’t often casually date as well. I am not asexual so I can’t speak on that personally, but I have definitely heard from aces about the hurdles they’ve encountered dating while Ace, I hope they share their experiences here if they’re comfortable.
Theo: I don’t seek out romantic relationships really. I seek out friendships and often flirt with interesting people until I know if I like them more potentially-romantically or platonically or am happy for them to be an acquaintance I can continue to flirt with. I’ve only pursued relationships within queer spaces where people already have an understanding of demiromanticism, and I imagine that makes things a lot easier than dating heterocis people.
Could you describe your ideal romantic relationship?
Alex: I really enjoy affection and the act of being cared for in a romantic way, but I also need my partners to understand that I don’t have relationship hierarchies in my head- I don’t value them more than my friends.
Amalthæ: Doing mushy romantic things with each-other whenever we feel like it, being best buddies the rest of the time. No pressure. Just communication and mutual respect.
EG: Lots of space. I call my love my emotional entanglement: we talk a lot but he lives pretty far away. I can see us living in each other’s spaces for part of the time but also keeping our lives separate. I get subsumed so easily in partnerships, sharing friends, etc. It doesn’t work for me. Some distance physically is good.
Ky: Ideally I wouldn’t live with my partner, we’d have our own space, and they’d understand I’m seeking intimacy and closeness more than romance and sex. I don’t have all the details worked out, but through trial and error I’ve learned a lot of what I don’t want.
Magpie: I’d have one or two partners and we would all be a close-knit group. If I was involved in a trio, I’d want it to be closed. I’m not entirely monogamous, but I also can’t deal with multiple partners at once. Both monogamous and polyamorous relationships have their own set of challenges, but I want my relationships to be a simple as possible.
MN: I think every aromantic person who wants a relationship wants what you want. Care, respect, comfortableness, vulnerability. That’s certainly what I want in a relationship if I happen to be in one. The only difference is some, including me, want romance out of the relationship sometimes. Sometimes we don’t want to do anything romantic at all and just wanna hang out and be buds. But then sometimes I’m in the mood for everything to be romantic. Like Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday. What I need is flexibility in understanding my romantic attraction and action to my needs.
Ryan: Close friendship with sexual intimacy. A close friendship of the kind that allos tend to only form with their romantic partners. Also polyamorous.
S: My ideal romantic relationship would be someone who puts as much effort into communication as I do and has a basic acceptance of my facets. I’m a queer man, and I can’t be anything else. I truly believe relationships have to be open emotionally and communicatively to thrive.
Theo: It’s pretty much a strong friendship but with me also being in love romantically. Other than the mandatory friendship, it’s pretty much the same as most alloromantic people’s ideals.
How has your experience in aro communities been impacted by your romantic relationships or desire for romantic relationships?
Alex: For a long time, the aro community felt more hostile and unwelcoming to romo aros. When I first joined, I watched tons of people leave altogether, with their posts disappearing, due to how bad it was. It was really isolating.
Amalthæ: No impact at all but maybe I’m just not active enough in the communities for that.
EG: For me it has helped me recognise that my feelings against relationships isn’t sour grapes but that it doesn’t work for me. Seeing alternatives, QPRs, poly relationships, partnerships out of the norm, means it challenges me to get more creative about how a relationship should look.
Ky: The few aro friends I have understand a yearning for partnership, and certainly coparenting, and that’s made it easy to not have to explain myself when it comes to seeking dates, or queer platonic partners. Actually finding a suitable queer platonic partner is a whole other ballgame, though.
Magpie: I largely try to stay away from it, but I’ve seen quite a bit of anti-romance sentiment coming from some aro people, and I understand ranting about it, I understand wanting nothing to do with it, but the homophobic, racist, and ableist implications of being anti-romance make me uncomfortable. Queer people and people in interracial relationships have been fighting for their rights to express their romantic attraction for ages, and disabled people still can’t get married without losing their benefits in the US. As someone who writes romance, I can’t help but feel sometimes like I’m causing a problem for the aro community. I understand that most media shoehorns in a, usually cishet, romance, and I feel for romance repulsed aros who feel like they can hardly interact with most form of media because of it, but a lot of marginalized people don’t get to see themselves represented in romantic situations the same amount as white abled neurotypical cishets, and and a nonbinary person who only loves and wants relationships with other enbies, there’s hardly any romantic content out there for me, so I have to write it myself. I shouldn’t have to feel bad about it, but I do. I just can’t help it.
MN: I’ve learned being single was okay and that it doesn’t make you less than for not being in one or not wanting one. I never ever hated being single but seeing people dread being single makes me cringe and hurt because there’s so much you can do single that is amazing! Like taking care of yourself, making autonomous decisions on the fly without thinking about another person, all sorts of things! Companionship doesn’t mean wholeness and that’s something amazing I learned from the aro community and has made me approach the idea of being single different.
Theo: It’s only affected which parts of the community I am most involved in.
How could aro communities better support you?
Alex: They’ve actually gotten a lot better, I really appreciate the adjustment to “little to no romantic attraction”, I think that change made the biggest difference. Make sure you share our experiences, and understand the impact of never sharing them.
Amalthæ: They are already doing what I need.
Ky: Talking more about one’s experiences is always helpful. The more I hear from people who have similar experiences, the better.
Magpie: I don’t know if it’s possible, but I would like for romance repulsion to not be the default in aro spaces. Romance repulsed aros definitely need places to talk about it, absolutely, but I wish discussions of romance could be more neutral in aro spaces, and I wish that romance repulsion wouldn’t automatically be assumed of every aro.
MN: A lot of the community doesn’t understand aroflux, they think it’s weird that one day you can be one thing and next be another. But my sexuality is just like that! You know?
Theo: The aro community is very accepting of demiromantic and greyromantic people, and I’ve never had it fail to support me and people like me.
If you have been in a romantic relationship: did you find it easy to explain aromanticism to your partner? Was your partner accepting and understanding? Did they react the way that you expected them to?
Alex: Sometimes. A lot of the people I tell (both allros and aros) tend to get stuck on how confusing it is to be both aro and still have romantic feelings (ish?) and how that impacts my feelings for them.
Amalthæ: The relationships with allo people were a huge mess. They reacted worse than I thought and villainized me. They took everything personally as if I was aro only with them in order to hurt them. Even though I explained that I love them in other ways than romantic, they made a scene. Or just utterly denied that I am aromantic. So I gave up on allo people.
CT: When I broke up with my ex I didn’t realize I was aromantic, I just had this slowly building feeling that something was wrong but I couldn’t articulate. When I realized there were certain milestones in a relationship that I didn’t want to cross that’s where things ended but I really struggled not being able to give an actual answer for what I felt. I’ve become a lot better at articulating myself these days but when someone has genuine feelings for you it’s really hard to tell them you can’t like them in the same way.
EG: No…. I don’t find it easy to explain. Being not very romantic is easy for people to get. The aromantic, can be harder. My Entanglement, well, he is very much aro himself so understands very well.
Ky: I’ve only had one long term partner since coming out as aro, and they understood the limited amount of attraction I could feel would vary. I felt accepted, but I think struggling with my aromanticism and fighting against it ultimately led to me keeping them at an arm’s length and ending things.
MN: My partner was very confused when I first told him about being aromantic. He did not understand it at first and didn’t think he had to understand it because it wouldn’t change anything in his mind, it wouldn’t make him love me less or anything like that, so why educate myself? But soon he discovered it does change a lot and takes a lot of accommodation. Soon, he became familiar with the term and eventually learned how to accommodate me and understand me.
Ryan: In my previous two romantic relationships, I did not know I was aro. With the person I am now interested in forming a romantic relationship with, we have talked about me being aro. She finds it interesting more than anything else. It’s something we will talk more about.
Theo: I was sort of involved with a new friend who I told I was demiromantic after it became clear they thought we were going on dates and not platonically hanging out (my bad), and they were understanding and good about it but eventually gave up waiting on me to make a move. Communication could have helped that situation a lot. They knew what demiromantic was, which I expected, and backed off when I asked them to and started flirting with me again once it was clear that was OK.
What do you wish aro people knew about you or other aros in or wanting romantic relationships?
Alex: That our aro identity doesn’t go away. It still impacts us a lot, in how we view, experience, or feel about our romantic relationships. We still need to be included in our community.
Amalthæ: You don’t need to be hungry to think the cake looks delicious. You don’t need to feel a romantic attraction to want to do the cutesy mushy romantic stuff.
Ky: I don’t feel misunderstood by my aro peers.
Magpie: Entering into a romantic relationship is a choice, (same as having sex for an ace person) and it doesn’t contribute to amatonormativity. It’s okay to hate the way that society values romance above other forms of relationships, but just remember, aside from all the other things I’ve mentioned, giving into anti-romance sentiment means turning against members of your own community.
Theo: That being aromantic really affects who I’m attracted to and who I am when I am attracted to someone. It makes me value friendship within romance very highly, and have a lot of cynicism and disdain for amatonormative aspects of romantic relationships, or ones I just think are silly.
What do you wish allo people knew about you or other aros in or wanting romantic relationships?
Alex: The same thing, a lot of how we view the world and relationships can be shifted by this identity. Just make sure there’s an abundance of communication and you’ll be fine.
Amalthæ: THIS. IS. NOT. ABOUT. YOU. OKAY? I’m doing my best. I love you but just not like that, and I still want to do the romantic stuff because I want to be happy with you. How is that complicated to understand? Do you wait to be hungry to eat the ice cream? Well I’m not waiting on the romantic feelings to catch up before I eat a candle-lit dinner with my favorite person after giving them a bouquet of roses. *mic drop*
Ky: That we all get lonely. And sometimes trying to fit in the box feels easier than separating yourself from the rest of the world entirely.
Magpie: Yes, aros can be in romantic relationships, but we’re not to be used as a scapegoat to try and force romance on aros who don’t want it. You can’t assume that aros will approach romantic relationships the same way as allos, as they’re not coming from the same place, even if the relationship looks the same on the outside. Be courteous of any aro people in your life and respect their relationships (or lack thereof) and trust that they know what they want.
S: That there are a thousand ways to be aro. Sometimes an aro person in a romantic relationship experiences 0 romantic attraction and some people experience some or an “average” amount under the right circumstances. Don’t assume things or assign emotions and experiences to people.
Theo: That I’m not automatically attracted to everyone I’m close to, and that wanting a romantic relationship doesn’t make me any less aromantic.