How do you figure out romantic orientation?

[chellexlouise]

I'm super confused about my romantic orientation and I can't quite seem to find a starting point on figuring it out. I've known I'm asexual for two years now, that's pretty solid and I'm absolutely sure of it, but the fact that I don't experience sexual attraction makes it a bit hard to tell what my romantic orientation is. I know I'm romantically attracted to guys, but I'm confused about girls. The way I experience love is really blurry and I can't tell what's romantic and what's platonic, and I think some of it comes from my own fear of being anything but "straight" due to the constant bombardment of that idea from people in my life. How did y'all figure out your romantic orientation, like what helped you in that process? Thanks so much!

[axl_gnr]

I am in the same boat as you, in some ways. How do I tell if Im aromantic or not (i am sexual btw).

The problem is that romance is dating, talking, interacting, flowers, pulling chair, coochie cooing etc. I have never done that. Nor will I consciously try to do that. So is that aromantic?

[starry-night-sky]

I'm in the same place. So far I always had crushes on guys but I don't know if I really had crushes or if I just exaggerated thinking someone is cute or interesting into something it wasn't. And then I'm very confused about girls, too. I never had a crush on a girl but I can totally see myself in a relationship with a girl and I'm very sensually and aesthetically attracted to girls and think about kissing/cuddling girls a lot. And then again sometimes I feel like I'm romance-repulsed and don't want a relationship ever. So I have absoluetly no idea, I only know I'm ace (at least I know that for sure haha).

I heard that a lot of people figure out they're ace first and then they're confused about their romantic orientation, so you're not alone.

Sorry for that rant, I don't know how to figure that out, too. But maybe we should just wait for what's coming.

[Still]

It's actually not that easy to define, since people experience falling in love/romantic feelings so differently: some get really intense feelings and some don't. I'd say if you're interested in doing stuff like kissing and cuddling with a person, but I'm sure some people aren't interested in that but still have romantic feelings...

[Homer]

On 5/11/2016 at 6:16 PM, Still said:

I'd say if you're interested in doing stuff like kissing and cuddling with a person, but I'm sure some people aren't interested in that but still have romantic feelings...

I just want to add some more confusion by saying that for me it's the other way round. Yay for cuddles (and, say, a kiss on the forehead), but I don't feel any romance attached to that. 

[SpeedinThroughSpace]

I'd say if you're interested in doing stuff like kissing and cuddling with a person, but I'm sure some people aren't interested in that but still have romantic feelings...

I just want to add some more confusion :D by saying that for me it's the other way round. Yay for cuddles (and, say, a kiss on the forehead), but I don't feel any romance attached to that.

Oh, confusion! Great, I have some of it over here, too! Wait, I'll pass it over! :D

Jokes aside, I feel like you about cuddles, Homer. Cuddles with friends and family are the best. My sister and I are totally awesome cuddle buddies. :)

Part of that is what has me confused about my romantic orientation. For most people I know, cuddling and such are exclusive to romantic relationships. To me, they're cool with people I love and trust a lot. How do I differentiate a friendship with cuddles from a romantic relationship if I want neither sex nor kissing (the actual mouth to mouth thing)? O_o

Oh, sorry OP for my lack of helpfulness regarding your problem. But maybe you feel less alone with plenty of confused people around?

[chellexlouise]

Well at least I'm not the only confused one, glad to see I have other confused friends lol :P I'm sure we'll all figure it out, I just wanted to see if anyone had any insight.

[Blue Phoenix Ace]

Part of what makes this difficult is that romantic attraction is very hard to define. I tried asking on Facebook what differentiates a friendship from a romantic partnership and got eight different answers from eight people.

The best description I've heard is, if you feel romantic attraction, you just know it. If you feel like calling your feelings for somebody "romantic" then it is. If you think they aren't, or you're really unsure, then it isn't romantic.

It sounds like in your case, you are sure you feel romantic attraction to men, but probably not for women. That doesn't mean you couldn't have a very close and meaningful relationship with a woman though, but you might never feel that it's romantic. Or, maybe that would change over time? It's hard to say. ;)

[Vara]

Maybe (borrowing from other terminology pools) you are romantic to males and demi-romantic for females?

I am not sure about myself and my romantic leanings, but I know I am an asexual romantic. I actively like the idea of a special sort of cuddling while watching a movie, and a sense of having a greater tolerance for--and even desire of--hugs, leaning on a shoulder and sitting side-by-side up against each other. I don't want kissing (mouth/mouth) and I am not overly keen on forehead/cheek kisses but I'd be open to those.

The best I can figure out for my gender attraction...is that it doesn't matter to me. I don't care if their inside matches their outside or which set of plumbing they have. I seriously imagine a personality, not a body. ....So....maybe that's my orientation?

hehe

Thank you for this topic though! It has been something I returned to Aven to explore because I have been thinking about it myself.

[Mickey1101]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one! I've known that I was ace for the last year or two and was pretty solidly heteroromantic, but now I'm questioning myself and am just all-around unsure. Great! Maybe I'll get it one day...

[pureerie]

I question my romantic orientation constantly! I constantly switch been panromantic, heteroromantic, and aromantic.

However, recently, I've started to say to myself, that what happens, happens! I don't have to figure out my romantic orientation, but this may not work for others.

I've just been living life and meeting new people. If some type of relationship forms, than let it be! If issues or problems come up, then i'll deal with it when it arrives.

I still question it from time to time though, but ultimately I just go back to the what happens, happens mindset.

[Bezzy-Loo]

I think that romance has less to do with what is culturally viewed as romantic (flowers, dates, etc) and more about a special form of intimacy that can come from a variety of different activities that those involved just really click together on. That probably doesn't help to make it clear, but that's just to say that I don't think feeling neutral or negative toward the more traditional romantic gestures necessarily means a person is aromantic, nor does enjoying them necessarily mean one is romantic if one's view of those gestures is different from the norm (like for those who enjoy cuddling with friends).

[Whispearl]

I'm with you on the confusion thing. I'm demiromantic (I intentionally haven't attached a gender to it yet because I'm very confused.) I've only been in two relationships, and only one good decent one, and they were both with males. I don't experience crushes easily; both times the guy initiated things, I accepted because I thought they were cool but didn't have real romantic attraction, and the feelings came later when we spent more time together. I feel like the only time I could ever test anything out with a girl (or anyone, really, but I'm most confused with girls) is if a girl ever had feelings for me, because it's so hard for me to experience attraction. I mean, I don't think anything would be especially different but I can't really make that assumption. All I know for sure is that I am very, very aesthetically attracted to girls, more so than boys. Everything else is very situational and varies from person to person. But it'd be nice to now for sure what I can call myself.

[theotherfey]

I am currently romantically confused as well. I am confident in my asexuality, but not my romantic orientation. I too have trouble telling the difference between romantic and platonic feelings.

[Ally Fey / Alaxer]

On 15/06/2016 at 3:51 AM, Mickey1101 said:

I'm glad that I'm not the only one! I've known that I was ace for the last year or two and was pretty solidly heteroromantic, but now I'm questioning myself and am just all-around unsure. Great! Maybe I'll get it one day...

i'm in the same boat. i'm confident that i'm asexual, and used to be confident in being heteroromantic, but now i'm considering if i'm biromantic or not. are feelings for girls softer for some people, or is what i felt purely platonic? i don't know.

[Apathetic Echidna]

I had some repulsions, coupled with my general indifference and aversion, it made figuring out my romantic orientation easier than figuring out my sexual orientation. 

I guess the only way to figure stuff out is to live your life and learn from experience. Piling theory upon theory upon a theoretical fantasy doesn't help. You are romantically attracted to guys, so that is one solid point. Being confused is fine, at least with the solid point you know what romantic attraction feels like, so if it happens with a girl you should be able to eventually recognise it. If it is just too blurry and mixed up for you to separate then maybe you don't ever feel separate romantic and platonic attraction for girls, maybe it just works as one blended attraction. 

[martinicus]

Yeah, for me it's complicated too.

 

I definitely like having close friendship and beyond with specific "my type" of women. And if a woman starts showing interest towards me, I might even start feeling slightly "sexually empowered", but it's in some way directed at myself and not towards her. Something like "autosexual", I guess. It is a positive feeling, I feel more powerful, I want to take care of this girl, to protect her and do my best to keep her safe. I have had romantic crushes with some girls, hugging, cuddling but no kissing - as soon as it gets physical, I start feeling some physical repulsion. Still, it does not impact romantic attraction at all and in all other senses it is nice. I feel as if she complements me in some way, especially if we have lots of common topics and interests or musical taste (music really boosts romantic feelings to the next level - listening to the same song and feeling united through the sound of it feels wonderful).

 

With men it's totally different - I might have some kind of a fetish or kink that can easily turn into homoromantic crush and I might even have sexual reactions (not desire to have sex with the person but just reaction "down there") but emotionally it's not pleasant because these kinds of attachments always make me feel weak and dependent on this person. 

 

I haven't had any long term relations - at first, it is very difficult to find my type of men (much more difficult than "my type" of women) and if I happen to meet one, most often 10 minutes is enough to kill my attraction to the person. After the event I might continue having dreams and fantasies about being romantically together, but these fantasies are about some "imaginary person" I have constructed in my mind but not the real man. What's bad - I have had such crushes for some heterosexual men. Consciously I knew that these are just emotional attachments and there's no way this person actually would want to be with me, still the fact of impossibility seemed to increase the subconscious attachment even more. 

 

So, with men it's mostly unpleasant, emotionally tough but very strong romantic attachment that never had worked out for me. Maybe I haven't met the right person yet, but considering my experiences thus far, the chances are close to none. And I don't like those dark, intense emotions and sense of weakness that drives my attraction towards men.

 

With women, it's less intense but really pleasant romantic attractions and I have met many with whom it actually might have worked out but now I usually back away myself before it gets romantic because of not wanting to be open about my sexual issues and not wanting to break her heart. If I happen to meet an asexual girl of my type and with the sense that we are somehow complementing each other, then I'd definitely give it a chance. Haven't happened yet; asexual girls in my country seem to be really shy and I myself, being a rural, geeky, introvert kind of guy have troubles to find one. But still I have some hope.

[danvers]

I'm 19 and had never felt (or at least, recognized) any romantic attraction to women until this past summer, so yeah, romantic orientations are confusing! I found out about a new female YouTuber's channel one night, and over the next few days, I watched as many of her videos as I could. I think my first clue that my feelings  for her were romantic was when I was watching a video of her reading her hate comments. One of those comments called her ugly, and I thought something along the lines of "No! She's GORGEOUS! Wait...that isn't how I usually think about women..." I don't know if I would still have recognized my feelings as romantic if the YouTuber herself wasn't openly bisexual and had made videos about how she discovered her bisexuality. As I thought about it more, I realized I also had a crush on Reyna from the Heroes of Olympus books, and I've had a couple low-level crushes on fictional characters since then, but I haven't had any crushes on women I actually know.

 

I'm still not really sure where I fall on the alloromantic-aromantic spectrum. A few months after I realized I was on the ace spectrum, I started identifying as demiromantic. Demiromantic still fits my attractions to guys; I had been friends with my now-boyfriend for a while before I developed romantic feelings for him, I've never had a crush on another real guy, and I've had close emotional bonds with all the male fictional characters I've had crushes on (as far as emotional bonds with fictional characters go, anyway). But I developed a crush on that YouTuber so fast that demi doesn't really seem to fit anymore, and I've developed crushes on female fictional characters pretty quickly, too. I identified as gray-biromantic for a little while, but I still wasn't sure gray-aro really fit, so I dropped the "gray." Now I'm not really sure I'm alloromantic, but saying I'm on the aromantic spectrum doesn't really feel right, either. Maybe I'm demiromantic for men and alloromantic for women? But if my attraction to women was alloromantic, why didn't I notice it until now?

[Yatagarasu]

I hardly process any romantic feelings towards people whatsoever and I'm generally romance repulsed, but then there's that one person I'm currently dating. It's still difficult, yet it managed to make me realize I'm actually grey-aromantic, albeit very dark grey.

[Guest Deus Ex Infinity]

12 hours ago, Yatagarasu said:

I hardly process any romantic feelings towards people whatsoever and I'm generally romance repulsed, but then there's that one person I'm currently dating. It's still difficult, yet it managed to make me realize I'm actually grey-aromantic, albeit very dark grey.

I'm actaully pretty much the same for as far as I can tell. Only two serious relationships in my life. So yeah that's just  me here. Dark Demigray for life.

[arekathevampyre]

I don't have any of those urges to be in a romantic relationship with anyone . So yeah , pretty much how I realised I was aro ace lol

[Kersenne]

I'll jump in the boat with you^^ I identify as heteroromantic, but only because at the moment, it feels easier to identify as such and not ask myself too many questions about it... I think I have crushes, but I'm not certain I want these crushes to become relationships. I enjoy cuddling, and sometimes I love the way it makes me feel when a certain someone puts his hand in my back when we dance, but I can't imagine things going any further... 

 

I've had two serious bf, but then again I felt more attracted to them before we were together than after... and that was before I accepted I was ace, so I don't know if the way I felt was because I resented the fact that I had to have sex, or because I jsut wasn't romantically attracted to them anymore (but I had been attracted to them before we were going out). 

 

It's because I find it so complicated to figure out romantic attractions that I stopped thinking about it^^ I guess I'll go back to it the moment things get serious with someone. So I hope you will figure yours out someday as well (and I guess romantic attraction can be fluid as well, no reason to stay stuck in only one box!) 

[Orianna LRJ]

This one article says: “There’s no agreed-upon definition of what does or does not constitute romance.”

So maybe that’s why it’s difficult to determine romantic orientation.

I’ve been questioning my romantic orientation a lot too, and got to wonder...

Do you think that maybe, similar to how some people have low libido, there is a sort of romantic drive too? And maybe some aces have a lower romance drive, so it’s harder to tell ro-attraction, because it’s less frequent, or less strong? 

For myself, I think I may be aro-flux ace because I have only ever twice experienced, what I hazily think was ro-attrac, and it just felt like a warmer bond than with other friends, more whimsical and thinking about that person a lot, but not much different from how I care platonically.

I hope this helps a little bit, these topics and chats often help me:) 

 

Article was a huff post article on aromanticism. 

[Applejayz19]

I am asexual and I haven't got a clue on my romantic orientation. I haven't felt anything sense I was younger (and even then it was just a fleeting, rushed, stupid childhood crush) but I feel like I'm wrong or missing something when I think of aromanticism. I don't feel any preference in gender other than fear of public opinion (though again, I haven't felt anything for anyone in about a decade) I'm worried about what might happen in an "experimental" phase, and I don't want to be the kind of person to plan a date just to ditch them saying it wasn't real. I want a relationship, but I have no idea about what to do!

[Fluffy Femme Guy]

@chellexlouise
IDK if this helps, but maybe try imagining yourself in relationships with various genders.
The 'style' of the relationship doesn't have to fit what's considered normal by your family or society at large, just try to imagine what interactions with a partner would be ideal for you.
Try this with males, females, enbies, etc. If something seems ridiculous or repulsive it's probably not for you.

[Sally]

From a romantic ace:

 

Romantic feelings really don't have anything to do with kissing/cuddling/dating.  You may want those things with a rojmantic partner, but not necessarily.  

 

If you feel romantic  about someone, you identify with them being "your person"-- the person you consider to be your other, your partner.  You don't feel that way about your family members or your friends.  And you know it if you feel it.  

[SkeletonCat]

I agree with @Sally about what "romantic feelings" are - it's kind of specific to you and you really do know it if you feel it. It's different from friendship or the way you feel about your family.

 

I think "romance" is the word we use when we talk about whatever that feeling is when you want to, in a sense, create a separate world for you and someone else. You want to be theirs and you want them to be yours. You want to relate to that person in a way that's completely different from how you relate to anyone else. You want to open up to them and share things with them so that they know you in a different and more intimate way than anyone you're close to. 

 

We often use intimacy as a polite way to talk about sex, which is why I think sex and romance are so easily conflated. Intimacy really just means having a close attachment with and deep knowledge of someone else and sharing affinity with them. It's something you can have with close friends and family, but when I think of "romantic feelings" I think of wanting to have deeper intimacy with someone - which can mean physical intimacy, if that's what you want, but it also means wanting to have that attachment and affinity with that specific person on a more intense level. 

[Scandiaca]

I think part of the confusion stems from the fact that romantic relationships and very close friendships have a lot of overlap and similarity once you take the sexual component out of it. Want to spend your life with somebody, see them every day, know what they feel, make them happy, tell them everything, enjoy their company? That could be both your significant other or your best friend. 
For me, and that may be a very selfish definition, when I try to figure out how I feel, I do the following: How happy would I be if they fell in love and got together with someone else? Do I want them to be close to me, but totally good for them to get another partner, or do I want to be that for them? It is a muddy, muddy field I think, but this is how I do it. 

[Homer]

I guess this is something you'll have to sit out and wait to see what happens.