liking the idea of romance but not interested in reality?

[Guest]

I'm beginning to wonder if I may fall under this description. It's hard to say. Honestly in all probability I am simply a largely apathetic heteroromantic, which doesn't seem un-normal to me.

[Someone Else]

I can use my imagination to imagine sex, romance, and broccoli being great, but the reality falls short.  

[sweetbitter]

Same thing! Sometimes I even think that it would be cute and great to be in a romantic relationship, but then I start imagining myself in romantic situations and I'm like:

Huh, nope. Nope, nope, nope. 

[Guest]

Yeah, pretty much. It is what it is, confusing.

[Guest Deus Ex Infinity]

 

Just now, Messen said:

Yeah, pretty much. It is what it is, confusing.

Absolutedly!

[Guest]

I mean, it does sound nice and all, and it does appeal to me on some level. And I have had crushes. But they're not strong or often, some of them were so slight I questioned if they were actually there at all, and I just seem to be way less interested than a good deal of people around me. 
I think until it's proven otherwise I'm just gonna avoid labels though.

[Lemonsky]

I think I can kind of relate and it's pretty confusing. The idea of romance does sound quite sweet at times but every time something romantic has happened to me it suddenly starts to feel bad for whatever reason. To me it sometimes also feels like in my mind I appear as some kind of an idealized version of myself while in reality I'd be far from that.

[rtlloyd98]

What gets on my nerves about romance is when in a film/tv a character would give up their career and lifestyle for love. It used to drive me insane!

 

Also I would laugh when people would "break-up" in school as I never ever felt that way and looked like a waste of time and energy to me.

 

 

[Lord Jade Cross]

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[goat cheese]

I'd say that from where we stand, it is all confusing at times.  One of the interesting things about feelings(romantic sexual love,sex, etc) and states of consciousness is their completely internal, subjective, and private nature.  You can watch others have these feelings and experiences.  And you can listen to others use words to describe these feelings and experiences.  But you can never get inside their skin and experience these conscious feelings and sensations with them.  That is, until you experience them yourself.  Not saying that we as aces should, but that we can never really know, cuz our brains just aren't in on it.  Sexuals seem to me to give mixed and contradictory messages about all of it.  One minute they may say it is wonderful, and beautiful and all of that.  The next they would say that "It's just one out of million things in life" or "At the end of the day, it's not all it's cracked up to be".  Just recently, I was thinking to myself that I would say to them "DON'T tell me that it is beautiful and glorious after you admit something so contradictory that it is just one out of million things to life,  that it is not all it's cracked up to be, etc"

[awesomazingizzy]

The idea of romance kind of appeals to me but in reality I don't really want a romantic partner / I've never met someone that I wanted to be in a romantic relationship with.

It's more like I enjoy reading fluffy and lovey-dovey fanfiction but I can't see myself in those situations at all (I'd be way too awkward lol)

I kind of long for the more sensual parts of romance though : cuddling, hugging, holding hands, pecks on the cheek and maybe (huge maybe) kissing.

But to me these wouldn't be acts of romance because I don't consider them to be applicable only in romantic relationships.  I suppose it would be more like in the context of a QPR.

Idk, I guess I like romance on others (sometimes I just find it annoying though tbh) but not on myself.

[Lord Jade Cross]

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[helana12_03]

I like it on TV but not in reality. I tried being in a romantic relationship but it felt so unnatural and inconvenient. I like my freedom and despise commitment wayyyy too much  

[dio]

I consider myself ace aro flux and rarely term myself with anything in front of that label i.e grey, anymore. I can be very romantic and sexual in nature, mostly represented in my art, music, and passion for life but I don't know anyone who doesn't erase my asexuality when they find out, and then they want me to commit to them and they are all boring and don't listen to any good music if not many bands at all and they don't inspire me. I do feel closer to some people but they don't realize that being ace is like holding up a pane of glass and seeing through the universe and our reality. I mostly play along and that's how the confusion starts. I'm good at it and I just enjoy the positive feedback mostly and the pitfall is wanting to feel normal. It might be cool to have some Ace friends nearby but you know how that goes. To wrap it up, I just realized that when I was put into a situation recently while visiting home that my parents assumed I would be dating my friend in the picture and her parents assumed that she should date me. I had a bad moment that night at my parents trying to explain myself ( my mom already knows I'm Ace) I realized it became a phobia. Fear of commitment but for different reasons than most. For reasons only Ace people scattered around the planet know. I'm not sure what having Ace friends in real life would be like or if it would make life better, but I'm sure it would. I think we can't be found easily bc of our nature of being self entertained/distracted? Idk.. I need to post on here more often. I don't know about socializing so much on forums but maybe some other social network. Hit me up if you'd like, I need to make some Ace friends this year!

[Grant me grACE]

I was recently super into this girl (a lesbian, who made the first move, and was the first person I came out to - loooooooong story short: our relationship, if you can call it that, was brief, and we are no longer together), and when I told her I thought I might be biro-ace, she didn't take it overly well. I told her I was doing all the things I thought would make her happy because I knew that those were the things a romantic relationship would require, but that I wasn't really feeling them at that time. I felt compelled to snuggle on the couch or hold her hand because it seemed like the thing to do, but it would be for her, not for me. She never pressured me or even mentioned it because she knew she was the first woman I'd ever dated, and wanted to let me set the pace, but I still knew she would have expectations eventually. She said she didn't want me to live a lie for her sake, but still broke up with me. I'm disappointed, of course (the built-in companionship was nice), but not overly sad. It'd hurt her feelings to hear it, though, so I'll never tell her. I may skew more toward aro-ace than I previously thought, and she was just the unwitting trigger, target, and victim.

 

Conceptually, I like the thought of doing "romantic" things, like dinner, movies, quality time spent alone together, but even when those things are happening, I feel like I need to escape. I've felt like this for years, and figured it was all in my head, like there was something wrong with me. I've only discovered all this in the last 3-ish months, and finally having language to describe it (even though I shy away from actual labels, as they feel constricting to me, personally) is really empowering.

[drjohnhwatson]

I feel like I've been spoiled by watching all these movies with grand acts of romance, people being swept off their feet with fountains of roses and serenades and men dashing recklessly to be with the woman they love no matter what.  Then I look at my own life and go "well, that'd be nice", but it's hard to even imagine the very basics, like hand-holding and cuddling and stuff.  I'm kind of weird with touching, so I daydream, but then I go "would I really be satisfied with it?"

 

As I've said elsewhere, more than once, I would have to be in the situation to decide, and I've never been in any romantic situations, even down to something as basic as holding hands.  So I'll just have to wait and see whether reality fits up with my daydreams or not.

 

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