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Incredible Aromantic Moments (other romantic orientations invited)


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We're reading The Great Gatsby right now in my English class. My teacher keeps telling up to put ourselves in Gatsby's or Daisy's spot and keeps saying things like, "I'm sure we've all had a crush before." Needless to say, this Gatsby unit has been extremely hard for me to understand.

I realize it's been close to a year, but: I'm currently listening to the audio version of this book under the misguided belief that, as an adult, it would make more sense to me (I read it in 11th grade English approx. 29 years ago; ye gads!). There are things that make more sense than they did at the time, like the how WWI affected that generation and the fallout from the economic booms, the emptiness of people's lives, Gatsby's parties (think Katy Perry's song Last Friday Night and tell me that isn't an accurate description), etc.

Why Gatsby is so caught up in Daisy is beyond me. She's an empty headed, emotionally stunted, person who only cares about herself. He wanted the dream person who was more smoke and illusion than reality. Poor guy.

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Sockstealingnome

We're reading The Great Gatsby right now in my English class. My teacher keeps telling up to put ourselves in Gatsby's or Daisy's spot and keeps saying things like, "I'm sure we've all had a crush before." Needless to say, this Gatsby unit has been extremely hard for me to understand.

I realize it's been close to a year, but: I'm currently listening to the audio version of this book under the misguided belief that, as an adult, it would make more sense to me (I read it in 11th grade English approx. 29 years ago; ye gads!). There are things that make more sense than they did at the time, like the how WWI affected that generation and the fallout from the economic booms, the emptiness of people's lives, Gatsby's parties (think Katy Perry's song Last Friday Night and tell me that isn't an accurate description), etc.

Why Gatsby is so caught up in Daisy is beyond me. She's an empty headed, emotionally stunted, person who only cares about herself. He wanted the dream person who was more smoke and illusion than reality. Poor guy.

But that's why that story is so realistic. Who doesn't know someone who has fallen in love with an imagined ideal of a person? It's obvious to all the bystanders and yet somehow that person is completely blind.

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Dodecahedron314

We're reading The Great Gatsby right now in my English class. My teacher keeps telling up to put ourselves in Gatsby's or Daisy's spot and keeps saying things like, "I'm sure we've all had a crush before." Needless to say, this Gatsby unit has been extremely hard for me to understand.

I realize it's been close to a year, but: I'm currently listening to the audio version of this book under the misguided belief that, as an adult, it would make more sense to me (I read it in 11th grade English approx. 29 years ago; ye gads!). There are things that make more sense than they did at the time, like the how WWI affected that generation and the fallout from the economic booms, the emptiness of people's lives, Gatsby's parties (think Katy Perry's song Last Friday Night and tell me that isn't an accurate description), etc.

Why Gatsby is so caught up in Daisy is beyond me. She's an empty headed, emotionally stunted, person who only cares about herself. He wanted the dream person who was more smoke and illusion than reality. Poor guy.

This was my exact problem with this book when I read it (also as a junior, coincidentally). All of the characters are so caught up in their romantic drama stuff that none of them make any sense. (Incredibly aro moment: I actually had to reread the book again to catch that Nick and Jordan were in a relationship for part of the book.) And I hate it when English teachers say that. That's been an issue for me from the time we read Romeo and Juliet (and watched the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, oh god WHY) my freshman year of high school all the way to now. When we read Fiela's Child last year, not only did I just not get the romantic subplot at all, but (spoilers???) when the huge romantic scene everybody had been waiting for finally happened, I was that one person just staring at the ceiling going "Come on, is it over yet? Get back to that beautiful mountainous ocean scenery." ...Hey, it was a really cool landscape.
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People assuming I have crushes on certain guys..drives me nuts. I am super careful now about what I say to people to avoid the "oooohhh you like him!!" Responses. Singers and bands are the worst, I can't talk to anyone about my favorites because I'm automatically "in love" with them..this is compounded by the fact that I have a very strong preference for male singing voices and I'm a girl so you know.. obviously I don't love their singing lol. Funny thing is? I deliberately AVOID anything visual in music, the voice itself is my ONLY interest lol

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Any of you ever played Dragon Age Origins? I have the minor fame of being the only person (that my friends know about) to accidentally start a romance with one of the characters.

Morrigan: "My tent is awfully cold..."

Me : Is this a new dialogue tree? I tried talking to you on the mission and there was nothing new. Must be a camp only thing. Hmm... yeah, okay lets talk in your tent. So what new dialogue... wait this is a cut sce-

I have never hit the skip button faster.

Worst part is everyone else in the game comments on it at some point, which just makes things awkward when you try to find the dialogue tree for "I didn't realize what was about to happen!"

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People assuming I have crushes on certain guys..drives me nuts. I am super careful now about what I say to people to avoid the "oooohhh you like him!!" Responses. Singers and bands are the worst, I can't talk to anyone about my favorites because I'm automatically "in love" with them..this is compounded by the fact that I have a very strong preference for male singing voices and I'm a girl so you know.. obviously I don't love their singing lol. Funny thing is? I deliberately AVOID anything visual in music, the voice itself is my ONLY interest lol

I agree 100%. The majority of my college friends are guys, and I feel like I'm constantly watching what I say so that I don't come off as flirty by mistake or give anyone the wrong idea. There are still people though, that no matter how platonic your interactions are, assume any friend that is a guy must be your secret boyfriend.

I'm also the same way about music. I couldn't care less what the artists look like when listening to my favorite songs, and when someone tries to talk to me about what they look like, I usually have no idea.

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Ricecream-man

People assuming I have crushes on certain guys..drives me nuts. I am super careful now about what I say to people to avoid the "oooohhh you like him!!" Responses. Singers and bands are the worst, I can't talk to anyone about my favorites because I'm automatically "in love" with them..this is compounded by the fact that I have a very strong preference for male singing voices and I'm a girl so you know.. obviously I don't love their singing lol. Funny thing is? I deliberately AVOID anything visual in music, the voice itself is my ONLY interest lol

Ditto on that, it might be just me but seeing the person singing it actually ends up ruining the song for me sometimes...

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People and romantic stuff officially confuse me. Within the past 2 weeks I've accidentally gone one dates with 3 separate people without knowing it any of them were dates till it was too late to back out of them. In my defense, no one ever specified that they were dates beforehand! Although, apparently I am just that oblivious...

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People and romantic stuff officially confuse me. Within the past 2 weeks I've accidentally gone one dates with 3 separate people without knowing it any of them were dates till it was too late to back out of them. In my defense, no one ever specified that they were dates beforehand! Although, apparently I am just that oblivious...

The way I see it, if the person doesn't explicitly say it's a date it shouldn't really count. But unfortunately, that is not how most of the world sees it.

Posts like this make me wonder how many accidental dates I've gone on without even knowing it. I'm sure it's happened at least once given how often I hang out with guys and how rarely I normally think about romance.

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Ricecream-man

Yeah, that always bothered me too and I'm more on the romantic spectrum (still a little unsure sometimes). If it's a date then you ask someone out on a date using those exact words. If you just want to hang out and get to know someone then it's just hanging out.

Had a girl give me the weirdest look once while we were (at least I thought so) hanging out, and then she got upset when I said that I didn't mean it as a date. Super awkward :unsure:

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Incredible aromantic moments- Watching "Fifty shades of grey", finding out Ana is aromantic, and the movie as a whole was pointless to people who are aromatic and "don't do romance". Christian Grey said it right.

Wait, what? Ana is aro? And Christian seems pretty aro I guess. I've never seen or read 50 Shades so I have no idea.

Is she confirmed aro or is it just that she is written like one without it ever being brought up?

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People and romantic stuff officially confuse me. Within the past 2 weeks I've accidentally gone one dates with 3 separate people without knowing it any of them were dates till it was too late to back out of them. In my defense, no one ever specified that they were dates beforehand! Although, apparently I am just that oblivious...

this happent to me as well. I been on several "accident dates" where thought we where just "hanging out" one guy asked me if I ever had dated a guy like him and I was like "what are we dating???"

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ElephantsAlways

I'll dump some moments here. XD

I have problems with people and celebrity crushes... People assume just because I like a youtuber or a singer means that I'm attracted to them. I don't really understand that... Isn't the content they create more important?

I've also spent much of my life trying to construct "crushes" for myself, since that seemed to be normal... I would just pick a random person, make a list of things I think are nice about them, and then bam! crush. I've since learned that it doesn't actually work that way, and all of those "crushes" didn't really count. I also feel the need to reciprocate crushes people have on me, but really, I don't. I also never want to lie to them, so it leads to this awkward situation of me trying to deny it when it's obvious they have a crush on me (like drawing hearts next to my name).

In general, I've become kind of terrified of guys, since I can't seem to make any male friends without them having a crush on me, or my friends thinking they have a crush on me, or my friends thinking I have a crush on them. I only have three male friends/acquaintances at the moment, and I was already friends with one of them before he came out to me as transgender.

I also tried to come out as grey-aromantic to a friend of mine. The guy was even asexual (though not an AVENite), that's how easy I thought it would be. And he looked at me very seriously and said, "No, aromantics don't really exist. They're just psychopaths, and you're not a psychopath." I was so shocked I didn't even know what to say, so I kind of backpedaled and "realized that I wasn't aromantic" because I talked about the one guy I've ever felt any kind of romantic attraction toward. I really could have used the moment for some education, but I was dumbfounded. I've gotten this kind of thing before, but I really didn't expect it from another ace.

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I also tried to come out as grey-aromantic to a friend of mine. The guy was even asexual (though not an AVENite), that's how easy I thought it would be. And he looked at me very seriously and said, "No, aromantics don't really exist. They're just psychopaths, and you're not a psychopath." I was so shocked I didn't even know what to say, so I kind of backpedaled and "realized that I wasn't aromantic" because I talked about the one guy I've ever felt any kind of romantic attraction toward. I really could have used the moment for some education, but I was dumbfounded. I've gotten this kind of thing before, but I really didn't expect it from another ace.

That's awful! I'm so sorry that that happened to you, especially from someone you expected to understand. Just remember that your friend is wrong, and there is nothing wrong with being who you are!

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ElephantsAlways

I also tried to come out as grey-aromantic to a friend of mine. The guy was even asexual (though not an AVENite), that's how easy I thought it would be. And he looked at me very seriously and said, "No, aromantics don't really exist. They're just psychopaths, and you're not a psychopath." I was so shocked I didn't even know what to say, so I kind of backpedaled and "realized that I wasn't aromantic" because I talked about the one guy I've ever felt any kind of romantic attraction toward. I really could have used the moment for some education, but I was dumbfounded. I've gotten this kind of thing before, but I really didn't expect it from another ace.

That's awful! I'm so sorry that that happened to you, especially from someone you expected to understand. Just remember that your friend is wrong, and there is nothing wrong with being who you are!

Thanks. ^^ I'm past it now, but it was quite unexpected.

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Any of you ever played Dragon Age Origins? I have the minor fame of being the only person (that my friends know about) to accidentally start a romance with one of the characters.

Morrigan: "My tent is awfully cold..."

Me : Is this a new dialogue tree? I tried talking to you on the mission and there was nothing new. Must be a camp only thing. Hmm... yeah, okay lets talk in your tent. So what new dialogue... wait this is a cut sce-

I have never hit the skip button faster.

Worst part is everyone else in the game comments on it at some point, which just makes things awkward when you try to find the dialogue tree for "I didn't realize what was about to happen!"

I kinda went in the complete opposite direction in Mass Effect and Dragon Age... I didn't even realize that romance was an option in those games until Dragon Age 2, where the icons explicitly tell you if your comment will take you down the romantic path for that character. Which prompted me to say to my friends, "Neat, they added romance options in Dragon Age 2."

Apparently I had never looked at the achievement screen for any of the previous games. I still avoided the romance stuff, and was glad that they highlighted the options so accidents didn't happen.

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Had a rather amusing aro moment today. In choir, we were working on a song in which the text translates to "Let us go to the baths of Nis where we shall kiss, kiss, kiss." The director did not feel that our facial expressions matched the tone of the piece. The following exchange ensued:

Director: The way your faces look, no one will want to go with you!

Me: Good.

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Had a moment last week. I work on a collage Art and Literary magazine and one of the submissions we were looking over was a poem about crushes. One of the other members was talking about how they liked it because it was short and sweet and everyone could relate. They're a demi friend of mine so I turned around and said..

Me-"Not everyone can relate."

Her-"Fine most people can relate. I'll just write in the margins here 'aromantic do not understand' for you, ok?"

The faculty advisor was surprised and was like "really you've never had a crush?"

Me-"No."

Him-"Well I'm sure you'll get one soon.

Me-"NO!"

Another student saved me by adding "if you want one."

Me-"No, no I don't."

Just the bad poetry I've had to read on relationships this semester is enough to make me incredibly thankful that I don't have to deal with all of that.

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Neighbor: "My fourteen year-old granddaughter is dating and doing all that stuff kids do."

Me: (This is going in a bad direction, I can feel it) *laughs nervously*

Neighbor: "So I'm sure a girl like you has a boyfriend, right?"
Me: (Intuition was correct) "No."

Neighbor: "Oh, really?"
Me: "Yep."

Neighbor: "So you just have guy friends?"
Me: "Sort of?" (This is you business because?)
Neighbor: "Do you like any of them?"
Me: (Ms, are you seriously asking me this?) "No."

Neighbor: "Oh, so....just friends?"
Me: (Mam, I just want to prune my trees in peace. Please, take you pug-huahua and leave me be) "Yes mam."

Neighbor: "Oh....you sure?" *disappointed face*
Me: (Do you not see my face? Do you not sense the disinterest? I could be reading right now). "Yes....oh? I just remembered I have an important thing to do. Bye."

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Kuromi Akumura

I was holding hands with my zucchini and a girl saw us and without permission snap-chatted it to a bunch or people now everyone in school is calling him my boyfriend =-= and since he is over 18 and they keep saying " your relationship is illegal!" these are what has been said to me.
" if you care about eachother then he is your boyfriend"
" you are dating if you to are emotionally connected!"
" you were holding hands with him....so he is your boyfriend"
" It is a romantic relationship without s*x. It's romantic if you are close to eachother. You don't need to be lovey dovey and with romance all the time to be in a romantic relationship!"
" it's black or white either he is your 'friend' or boyfriend!"

-sigh- ignorance saying that you can't be close with someone of the opposite gender unless it is a romantic relationship =_= no one has heard of queer have they?

So what business is it theirs of my relations? Who i am friends with and what i do with them? what right do they have to label and tell me that i am a certain way with someone? They don't know my relations outside of school so they have no right to judge or have their own ideas of how i feel for someone.

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Dodecahedron314

News flash: male + ostensibly female + corner table in a restaurant + nobody else at the table DOES NOT NECESSARILY EQUAL a date. I really shouldn't have to explain that to a teacher who was chaperoning the dinner trip this occurred on, even if she was just joking. I'm pretty sure she's overheard me talking to my queer friends about being aro/ace, even if I'm not out to most people in most of my classes, so either she forgot, is oblivious, or doesn't believe me, because otherwise she is the absolute most politically correct person you'll ever meet and takes great pains to never make assumptions or generalizations (Theory of Knowledge teacher, so it's basically in the job description).

Taking the otherwise unoccupied corner table with my somewhat-ex-squish was a good call though. Not only do small tables get served faster, but we had the most awesome conversation about physics and philosophy, with absolutely no romantic subtext whatsoever. Now, that's my idea of a great night out.

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Oh I have a few strange moments

One happened not to long ago,

I was talking to a classmate of mine about a singer I find really cool

(Paraphrased)

Me: come on, he's awesome, have you heard him sing and look at his beard! It's epic!

Classmate: why do like HIM?!

Me: cause he has an awesome voice.

Classmate: but he's like 40!!

-silence-

Me: yeah.... So... I like the way he sounds.

Classmate: so you don't have a crush on him?

Me: no, I never said I did.

(I was baffled, she thought I had a crush on him)

Or another one happened a few months ago while we were doing poetry in class and reading some romance poem. My teacher said "I think we can all relate, we've all been in love and heartbroken in our lives", I started to think to my self, yeah I remember my last romance, last summer with Daseldinkfinhart Sadkelduson, we were sooooo in love, I was so heartbroken when he had to go back to his home county of Yingulastanland. All the while a friend of mine was staring at me with a giant smile (she thought this was all funny, and it was, we both agreed later that my teacher apparently doesn't know I'm in her class.)

Similar thing happened a few weeks later in ethics

Something that happens a lot

(Paraphrased and generalized)

Person: so you have a boyfriend?

Me: no

Person: you just split up?/you have a crush?

Me: no

Person: have you ever had a crush or boyfriend?

Me: no

Person: o_0 really?

Sorry, bit long, I know

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I recently had a small aromantic ace moment, when an acqaintance implied I should be on the lookout for "young, beautiful men". I was not really into that idea since romantic subtext was implyed, so the subequent question was, if I'm maybe more interested in "beautiful, older men"? Uhhhm I guess that's the most logical conclusion? Anyway I was relieved when they ran out of ideas what type of men I could be romantically interested in after that and let it go. :P

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Princess_Rhaella_Stark

I've had a few aromantic moments methinks...

1) Grandmother: Do u have a boyfriend?

Me (age 16): No

Grandmother: Do u have a boyfriend?

Me (age 17): No

Grandmother: Do u have a boyfriend?

Me (age 18): No

Grandmother: Do u have a boyfriend NOW?

Me (19): College is way more important and I'm learning archery!!

2) Me (age 13): Wow I would really like that cool guy to be my new best friend. Is this my first crush?!

Me ( seven years later and absolutely no crushes, past or present, to speak of): Well, I guess everyone makes mistakes now and again

3) My younger sister at 13: Justin Bieber! JLS! One Direction! OMG Aiden Grimshaw! Olly Murs!

Me at 13: Pokémon! Star Wars! Jane Eyre! Twilight Princess! Wolves! War of the Worlds! The Tudors! Okami! the Phantom of the Opera!

4) In English class, second year

Teacher: What's everyone reading at the moment?

*Several copies of Twilight shoot into the air*

Teacher: What about you, *points at me*

Me: Star Wars of course and what's Twilight?

*nervous laughter throughout classroom and me feeling highly embarrassed*

5) Goes with friend to see New Moon in the cinema

* Taylor Lautner takes off shirt and helps Bella*

All girls in the Theatre: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Me: (confused voice) Wait, did something important happen?

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As much as I know that I'm aromantic and most people aren't, I'm always a little surprised when I see that side of someone I know for the first time. My brother once mentioned his first kiss, and even though he was 24 and no one else flinched, I was thinking "My brother. Had a first kiss. WHAAAAAT?"

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Oh, also, I'm taking voice lessons, and almost ALL the songs are about love. And I'm supposed to be showing emotion. Some songs aren't that bad, but there's one specific one about unrequited love where I just don't get it AT ALL.

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I didn't/don't understand why my friends keep dating people. Until I learned what aro was, I thought it was just my laziness and not wanting to have to deal with the obligation/hassle of another person, one who's supposed to be 'close' and I'd feel obligated to share things with even if I wasn't sure I could trust them to keep their mouth shut. And what would happen when I got irritated and bored being stuck with them?

My friends suddenly have boy/girlfriends who come to our friend-group events- movie nights, stuff like that. And I don't know how to act around them. It took about a year to become comfortable around my friends in school and close settings, how do I deal with interlopers? It's so awkward because I just don't get it. I don't know why they feel the need to bind themselves to other people, and being ace makes it worse, I suppose, because I don't or can't understand any sort of attraction to these new people.

I never had many friends, I just wasn't good at it. Being in the IB Diploma program at my school, we had all of our classes together. We didn't really have the chance to break away and socialize with other students, so they got used to my weirdness and we started to be okay. I could handle the small group, but adding extra people throws me off and demands the shields go back up.

I just want to know why they feel the need to date. What is it? It's just so odd, and weird to be off balance in a shields-half-up-wait-I-know/trust-some-of-these-people-what-do-I-do?

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I don't always notice when people flirt with me, but when I do (if it's just painfully obvious), I give them a confused look and wonder, "What is this person doing?" I suppose they sometimes pick up on that because it just makes the environment feel awkward and they leave me be while I stand there in lalaland wondering what just happened and what was that all about?

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News flash: male + ostensibly female + corner table in a restaurant + nobody else at the table DOES NOT NECESSARILY EQUAL a date. I really shouldn't have to explain that to a teacher who was chaperoning the dinner trip this occurred on, even if she was just joking. I'm pretty sure she's overheard me talking to my queer friends about being aro/ace, even if I'm not out to most people in most of my classes, so either she forgot, is oblivious, or doesn't believe me, because otherwise she is the absolute most politically correct person you'll ever meet and takes great pains to never make assumptions or generalizations (Theory of Knowledge teacher, so it's basically in the job description).

Taking the otherwise unoccupied corner table with my somewhat-ex-squish was a good call though. Not only do small tables get served faster, but we had the most awesome conversation about physics and philosophy, with absolutely no romantic subtext whatsoever. Now, that's my idea of a great night out.

Likely just my own aroness, but I call any time I'm out with another person a 'date' as I get to have one on one time with them, and just as you had great conversation, and romance is never in my mind since I'll even take my mom on 'dates'.

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This happened years ago (before I knew anything about asexuality), my first boyfriend and I were in the library hanging out with some of our friends while everyone was waiting for their respective rides to come pick them up (none of us could drive then). I ended up leaving before he did and when I left I just hugged him and he gave me this really weird look, like I had grown a second head or something. The next thing he says was, "What? No kiss?" My first thought was, "Why would I kiss you?" It took me a minute to remember that we had been dating for a few weeks at that point. :blush:

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