aromanticaardvark:

Please join and signal boost!

oh, i should have mentioned in that last ask- i’m socially withdrawn at this point in my life. i don’t see other people on a daily basis. my friend group consists of just the afore-mentioned friend. i’m just mentioning this because not interacting with others may have some bearing on having crushes.

This doesn’t sound like it would be a too uncommon experience for an aromantic person, it sounds similar to some things that I have experienced myself. While I had perhaps two intense, what at the time I called, crushes in my life I generally felt no desire for relationships.

-Cabbage

1. How do describe your romantic orientation? I started out defining myself as aromantic. And then things started changing, and that was weird, and I thought I might be grey-aromantic. But now I’ve just found out about wtfromantic, and I think I’m that.
2. How do you describe your sexual orientation? Complicated. Uh, sapio-pseudo-sexual? Also, polyamorous, and kinky.
3. How/when did you realize you were aromantic (or gray-romantic, etc.)? I guess it was after I broke up with my first girlfriend and I started to realize I just didn’t feel it. And I hadn’t really felt it when we were dating. I felt romantically colorblind or something, and I started to look for a word that might describe me.
4. What are you interested in discussing with other aromantic people? All the things!

I haven’t actually decided on a good name yet, but for now I go by Aden and Sploof. I’ll be 19 by the time February comes around, and I figure I’m neutrois. Rather be called “they” than anything else but really anything sounds awkward.

1. How do you describe your romantic orientation? I’d personally say demi-gray-romantic, but just gray covers it well enough. I’d say only to ambiguously-gendered female humans, but the sample pool is a whopping two people so I’m not sure how much there is to say.
2. How do you describe your sexual orientation? nonexistent.
   
3. How/when did you realize you were aromantic (or gray-romantic, etc.)? honestly there’s never been a time when I didn’t know. I was genuinely surprised when I figured out I liked a friend of mine.
4. What are you interested in discussing with other aromantic people? I don’t know. Nothing in particular.

1. What types of relationships do you most enjoy?
2. Describe your best friendship(s).
3. How would you describe your ideal relationship?
4. Have you ever been/are you in a romantic relationship?
5. Would you consider being in a romantic relationship or, if you have, in another?
6. Are you more of a planner or fly by the seat of your pants kind of person?
7. Do you like physical affection? If so what kind? (hugging/cuddling/holding hands/kissing/etc.)
8. How do you feel about children? Do you want/have children?
9. What are some of your hobbies?
10. If you’re involved in fandoms, do you/how do you ship? (gen fic, romantic ships, friendships, queerplatonic ships, etc.)
11. What’s your favorite fictional friendship
12. Who is your favorite aromantic character?
13. What is your ideal job/career?
14. What is your favorite aromantic song?
15. What do you like about being aromantic? What do you dislike?

This can be done as either an Ask Meme or a 15 Day Challenge depending on your preference. I will personally be doing this as a 15 day meme because I want to answer ALL THE QUESTIONS and I rarely get to do that with ask memes. :P

—thecabbage

It’s alive enough for me to answer this ask!

WELL there’s also an IRC channel on irc.mibbit.com #secretarc that is sort of semi-active, which this blog existed to create. so join us there. :3

I’m Kerry, also known as the-mousy-spell-checker. I use he/him/his pronouns. I’m part of the Asexual Advice team.

1. How do describe your romantic orientation? Aromantic
2. How do you describe your sexual orientation? Asexual
3. How/when did you realize you were aromantic (or gray-romantic, etc.)? I never understood the point in romantic relationships, nor why it seemed to be such a big deal for some poeple. (Oddly enough, I once had a friend who asked me for advice on romantic relationships. I made it clear that I didn’t share her perspective, and found it a bit silly that she started worrying when her boyfriend didn’t call her for *gasp* a whole day.) When I read about concept of romantic orientations from AVEN, it was obvious which one describes me.
4. What are you interested in discussing with other aromantic people? Experiences and ways to deal with aromantic issues, or anything else that comes up.

1. How do describe your romantic orientation? (aromantic, gray-romantic, wtfromantic, etc. Feel free to elaborate as need be.) I’m grey-panromantic. I guess.
2. How do you describe your sexual orientation? (a-, gray-, hetero-,homo-, poly-, bi-, pan-, demi-, etc. Don’t limit yourself to labels, if you please, be as elaborate or simplistic as you need. :P ) I’m asexual.
3. How/when did you realize you were aromantic (or gray-romantic, etc.)? I didn’t really have words for my romantic orientation, or realize I could talk about my sexual and romantic orientations separately until I found the asexual community in August at age 20. I knew first off that my fuzzy attraction feelings were not bound by gender. But as for whether they were romantic or not, well, I wasn’t at all sure. I had had a romantic relationship with a high school classmate of mine that I enjoyed at times, and that sometimes consumed my life. And I knew I probably wanted to live with some particular person long-term, eventually. In a “let’s spend the rest of our lives bound together” sort of way. And I wanted a lot of cuddles. These things taken together suggested to me that I was romantic person. But then I realized that I did not quite experience platonic attraction and romantic attraction as separate things, or want to express my fuzzy feelings for people in many ways considered typically romantic. The relationship I most wanted wasn’t really all that different from what I had with my childhood best friend—just more… intense? Committed, maybe? And with the addition of cuddles. And now I have a very fulfilling queerplatonic relationship with a wonderful nonromantic person, which is everything I want in a relationship at this point in my life.
4. What are you interested in discussing with other aromantic people? I’m interested in discussing possible solutions to the problem of folks not taking other kinds of committed relationships as seriously as sexual-romantic relationships.

I’m Alice, I define as neutrois and borg. I prefer ‘they’ but will accept most pronouns. I live in North East England.

How do describe your romantic orientation? It’s not something I’d thought about until recently, but I guess I prefer non-monogamous queerplatonic relationships. I can and have bluffed my way through a romantic relationship but it isn’t much fun.

How do you describe your sexual orientation? Cuddling and play is fun, with or without clothes, but I’m not keen on anything beyond that. I’m most attracted to fairly androgynous-looking humanoids.

How/when did you realize you were aromantic (or gray-romantic, etc.)? I’ve only had the right words to describe myself very recently, but I don’t think I’ve really changed much in this respect for many years.

What are you interested in discussing with other aromantic people? Finding the right words to describe relationships which don’t match society’s apparent ideal of straight, monogamous and romantic.

Hey there, name’s J. I’m a neutrois demiguy and I use masculine or gender-neutral pronouns. I’m human, as far as I can tell, and I’m the host of a very interesting multiple system. I just discovered that I’m aromantic so here I am!

1. How do describe your romantic orientation? I’m aromantic, but I’m also ‘polyplatonic’ and am perfectly fine with closeness of that sort— as long as I’m the one calling the shots, that is. Even so, intimacy isn’t something I have a driving ‘need’ for at all. In the bigger picture, I tend to lean more in a strictly demi-xenoromantic direction, but let’s not get into that right now.
2. How do you describe your sexual orientation? I’m asexual, and I doubted that for years (with some rather traumatic results) before I learned to stop pretending I wasn’t. 
3. How/when did you realize you were aromantic (or gray-romantic, etc.)? Just last month, actually. I’ve never been sure what romance is, to be honest, because I’m the sort of person who would kiss another person platonically (Homestuck fans: I’m permanently in the pale quadrant). This made it very difficult for me to really feel like I ‘fit in’ as an aromantic until recently.
4. What are you interested in discussing with other aromantic people? Anything, really— but I’m honestly the most interested in the variations between those who identify as such.