Aro ace advice

[H. Van buren]

Hi!:

I'm a 30 years old aromantic asexual and I just discovered about it a couple of years ago of this due to the fact that sexuality wasn't relevant in my life until I reached adulthood as sexuality becomes part of adult's life either on work or between friends so I just had to pretend I was on the same boat. However what I need advice for is this situation: ever since high school I knew people would start dating and I thought I'd have to, I didn't but nobody mind so I was ok, but the problem was my friends started dating they'd be obsessed with their partners and start cutting me off their lives, up until this day this keeps happening with my current friends and even family members and I think that's the most difficult part of my situation as ace to handle, I'm really into fraternal love, so when I feel ditched by my friends or family because of their romantic/sexual life, it just hurts, I know I sound selfish and I feel bad for that too because I know at the end these people will be for me when I need them, so I understand, support and wish them well, however that still hurts and I can't control what I feel, sometimes is really tortuous, sometimes i feel like i'm in a wheelchair while the rest is running free, any advice to cope with these situation? Thanks in advance and sorry for the long message but I needed to get this out of my chest.

[bonny]

I don't really have any advice but I wanted to offer some sympathy and empathy. Sometimes I feel like I have a completely different definition of "friendship" to most other people. I have never been in a relationship that I would describe as "fraternal love", but I find that kind of relationship very beautiful and inspiring (both in fiction and on the rare occasions when real people appear to be in a relationship like this). I have also been in a few situations where I would've liked to be close friends with someone, but I know it would never have worked because they were already in a romantic/sexual relationship.

By the way, I saw that you list philosophy as one of your interests - I studied philosophy at university. :)

I think you might like this cartoon: http://www.savagechickens.com/2013/08/large-talk.html