Acceptance of asexualIty vs aromantic

[seshat]

This is something I been noticing recently, as I have started coming out to more people. I'm finding that being asexual is fine, but being demi- or aromantic is not. Quite often I get 'I don't care what you do (or don't do) in bed, but why would you want to be on your own for the rest of your life.'.

Anyone else had similer reactions? I sometimes think it might be a generational thing (I'm in my twenties, and I mostly get it from my colleges, who range from fourties to sixties), but I don't know.

[Lia]

Yep. I'm not arom or demirom, but at this point in my life I'm not looking for a partner or SO. My mom asked both me and my sister one night last year when we were going to get married and she gave me weird looks when I responded "the day after the apocolypse" O__o Not sure why that wasn't an acceptable answer but apparently it wasn't? *shrug*

[skmetoff]

Yeah, I think it's just more understandable in society ... "okay, you don't like sex". Plenty of people can relate to that because they didn't like with a certain person; they will probably never say it but they think you'll like it when "you'll meet the right one". But "everybody falls in love sooner or later". It's quite understandable if you look from their point of view. If you're not exactly in aro/ace circles, you practically never hear about people who don't experience love. If you do hear about them, it's probably from the movies where they fall in love in the end anyway or it's about someone who is supposed to be "emotionally damaged".

[Guest Invisible Pumpkin]

I guess it's that some people get the feeling that aros are heartless or that they can't get deal with people. I don't know but I somehow have noticed it.

[Kitty Spoon Train]

I think a lot of this comes from the cultural baggage that pairing off and "settling down" carries. "Finding Love" is seen as pretty much the be all and end all of being a fulfilled human adult. Unless you're some kind of Nobel prize winning rocket surgeon peacemaker who never had the time for dating and relationships because you were so busy with world-changingly important stuff, you're seen as a failure for being single.

On the flipside, sex is seen as more of a personal thing - in this sort of context at least. As long as you're paired off and have "Found Love", nobody really questions the details of your relationship behind the scenes. Well, that's not entirely true, otherwise tabloids and the like would not exist - but you get the gist of it.

Aromantics are like the ultimate naysayers to the most basic assumption about human adulthood fulfilment and happiness: that we all want to find someone and settle down and live happily ever after. Romantic asexuals can at least get away with being in a modified version of that narrative.

[Texace 12]

Yep. I'm not arom or demirom, but at this point in my life I'm not looking for a partner or SO. My mom asked both me and my sister one night last year when we were going to get married and she gave me weird looks when I responded "the day after the apocolypse" O__o Not sure why that wasn't an acceptable answer but apparently it wasn't? *shrug*

Well you better start planning your wedding! December 21st is approaching VERY rapidly! :P

[Lia]

Yep. I'm not arom or demirom, but at this point in my life I'm not looking for a partner or SO. My mom asked both me and my sister one night last year when we were going to get married and she gave me weird looks when I responded "the day after the apocolypse" O__o Not sure why that wasn't an acceptable answer but apparently it wasn't? *shrug*

Well you better start planning your wedding! December 21st is approaching VERY rapidly! :P

I know, I know. I'm just a procrastinator though xD

[JAKQ7111]

I think a lot of this comes from the cultural baggage that pairing off and "settling down" carries. "Finding Love" is seen as pretty much the be all and end all of being a fulfilled human adult. Unless you're some kind of Nobel prize winning rocket surgeon peacemaker who never had the time for dating and relationships because you were so busy with world-changingly important stuff, you're seen as a failure for being single.

On the flipside, sex is seen as more of a personal thing - in this sort of context at least. As long as you're paired off and have "Found Love", nobody really questions the details of your relationship behind the scenes. Well, that's not entirely true, otherwise tabloids and the like would not exist - but you get the gist of it.

Aromantics are like the ultimate naysayers to the most basic assumption about human adulthood fulfilment and happiness: that we all want to find someone and settle down and live happily ever after. Romantic asexuals can at least get away with being in a modified version of that narrative.

Just to play Devil's advocate here, it's not only aromantics that fight that cultural baggage of "settling down", "partnering up", or anything like that. You and I are both romantic aces, but we are polyamorous, at least in theory, and I know that I personally have zero desire to settle down with a romantic partner, or get married, as I thrive on that "fresh new relationship" phase, and would not want to restrict my love to simply one person for the rest of my life, rather letting new loves come in and out as they and I please. My mom has given me much more flak about that than about being ace, to be honest, so I guess that stigma is real.

[Kitty Spoon Train]

Just to play Devil's advocate here, it's not only aromantics that fight that cultural baggage of "settling down", "partnering up", or anything like that. You and I are both romantic aces, but we are polyamorous, at least in theory, and I know that I personally have zero desire to settle down with a romantic partner, or get married, as I thrive on that "fresh new relationship" phase, and would not want to restrict my love to simply one person for the rest of my life, rather letting new loves come in and out as they and I please. My mom has given me much more flak about that than about being ace, to be honest, so I guess that stigma is real.

Oh, absolutely! Anything that goes against the Pairing Off And Settling Down societal narrative has a stigma attached, no matter the cause. Far more than any "alternative" sexual issue behind the scenes in that relationship.

In fact, I was going to mention this in my original reply, but I thought it was too much of a tangent to the main point. The main point being of course that the traditional marriage-centred life is still the social ideal, and the further you are removed from this the more of a non-accepted social freak you are.

[5_♦♣]

We live in a weird world where it's seen as impossible to be single and happy at the same time. But yet, there are plenty of people in unhappy, even downright abusive relationships.

[Bye Bye Birdy]

x

[JAKQ7111]

As for this:

I know that I personally have zero desire to settle down with a romantic partner, or get married, as I thrive on that "fresh new relationship" phase, and would not want to restrict my love to simply one person for the rest of my life, rather letting new loves come in and out as they and I please.

It's not wrong but I understand how this could be very off-putting to most people. To me, this style of life would be utter misery. Because I'm ok with everything else changing--job, house, location, etc.--but a partner, who is my family, is a point of stability. That's how I (and lots of others, I'd suspect) work. It makes me ill thinking of all the friends I loved who grew bored of me and moved on to newer, "cooler" friends. I admit I'd run like hell from any potential romantic partner who stated they "thrive on the 'fresh new relationship' phase". Still, even though it's a horrifying prospect to me, it's not wrong, and you're free to do what works for you. As long as you're very open about exactly you're looking for (which it seems you are), just keep on doin' what you're doin'. 8)

I think you may have misunderstood me when I said some of the things I said. I never intended on saying that I would "grow bored of someone" and move on to newer "cooler" friends/romantic partners; I simply meant that I do not believe that love is something that should be restricted to two people for the rest of their lives, and that if I want to be affectionate with multiple people, that should be totally fine. I guess my ideal relationship dynamic is a series of polyamorous romantic friendships.

[byanyotherusername]

I just think it's funny that people equate not being in a relationship with being "alone." I am not married now, but I have plenty of positive friendships and family relationships, and no one thinks of me as "alone" since I'm still generally considered too young to marry. Am I supposed to believe that five or ten years down the road the social circle that has sustained me for my entire life will magically become inadequate?

My sister often says that when she kids married and has kids I should just move in with her for the extra help/company. There are a many different types of families/relationships/living arrangements, and many people who desire a relationships often end up single for large portions of their adult life anyway due to divorce, being widowed, etc. Most people, married or not, have a support network or extended community to meet their social needs.

In terms of whether people accept my aromanticism or my asexuality more, it's hard to say...I really only come out to close friends/family members, and they know me well enough that both make sense to them. I think I've had the asexuality challenged more, mostly because people who know me tend to recall instances that seem to go against that idea ("but you said that one guy was hot that one time! And you make so many sex jokes!") whereas I've always been seen as a romantic cynic. I think people might still have it lodged in their brain that I'll find the "right person" one day, but they seem to at least accept that I am happy and fulfilled without a relationship for the present. I'm not so concerned about whether they believe it will last "forever" because while I certainly think it could, I'm also open to the possibility that my feelings/desires will change over time. I use words like "aromantic" to try and understand myself better, not put myself in a box.

[Bye Bye Birdy]

x

[Kitty Spoon Train]

I just think it's funny that people equate not being in a relationship with being "alone." I am not married now, but I have plenty of positive friendships and family relationships, and no one thinks of me as "alone" since I'm still generally considered too young to marry. Am I supposed to believe that five or ten years down the road the social circle that has sustained me for my entire life will magically become inadequate?

One of the things you'll find as you get older is that as people pair off, get married, and start having children, your social dynamic will probably change - unless you happen to have a lot of friends who also aren't doing the pairing off, marrying, kid-having stuff.

I'm 34, and a huge portion of my old social circle (from around your age) has done this. If I was a different type of person (eg More extroverted and social) I might be taking this quite badly, and feeling quite "lonely" at this point, and perhaps a bit bitter for being "left behind" in some ways. Of course, as it happens, I'm so totally independent, introverted and philosophical that I almost enjoy the increased solitude and unconventional life stage to some degree, and it's quite easy to accept that many of those people literally simply don't have time and energy to socialise like they used to.

My sister often says that when she kids married and has kids I should just move in with her for the extra help/company. There are a many different types of families/relationships/living arrangements, and many people who desire a relationships often end up single for large portions of their adult life anyway due to divorce, being widowed, etc. Most people, married or not, have a support network or extended community to meet their social needs.

This too.

I think there is too much focus on Pairing Off And Settling Down - in the mainstream "monogamous romantic-sexual domestic partnership" kind of way. There is this sense that unless you've done this, you somehow just can't be fulfilled, no matter how active and fulfilling your life is, or how much of a non-sexual-romantic social support network and family you have.

Personally, I believe this is largely a combination of social conditioning and self-fulfilling prophecy - rather than innate desire for that kind of relationship (although I don't totally discount some element of that too). We are brainwashed from a young age that this is just how it's supposed to be - and then when everyone around you does it, and you're left behind to some extent and not equipped to handle it (via philosophical training and/or introverted personality), you end up caving to it even if it's not something you really 100% deep down want. *shrug*

This is pretty much the stage I was at around five years ago, when most of my friends suddenly paired off and I stopped seeing much of them. But then I got through it, and now see the world in quite a different light. :lol:

[UraNepu]

I agree with most things said here

I also want to point out and an Aro Ace who is also a loner (very few friends) being a loner is not something bad that most ppl believe, it is bad if the lonely person feels bad for being alone, but if the loner feels great by themselves then there is obviously nothing wrong with loneliness.

different things work for different ppl

and since we are on it the other day, the neighbour matchmaker turned and told me, "come on find someone to marry and settle down!"

after conversing different things and get to the whole "I can't find a job in this damaged economy" she turned and told me "you are an idiot looking for a job, just get a husband and have him offer you everything" this kind of logic I hate the most, I told her nicely that I prefer to be interdependent, she didn't bring it up again but I'm still scared that she will show up one day at my door with a suitor or something :wacko:

[Mezzo Forte]

I've only explained my Asexuality to one or two close family members and friends, but I have yet to bring up my aromanticism. Being female, it's pretty much expected of me to be romantic, so I'd rather not deal with any flak about being aromantic. However, when I talk about my life plans, I am much more focused on the things I want to do regarding potential careers and don't really mention anything about settling down. I offhandedly mention that I could see myself married to my work sooner or later on occasion, and I actually haven't gotten any flak for that yet. My only fear is that people might start pressuring me about romance once I'm either done with undergrad or college in general (I want my phD though, so hopefully, it will postpone the issue)

[Atuin]

Yeah.. as someone who is both poly and demirom (as well as autistic which means that I have a harder time making emotional connections with people), I'm not sure which people have a harder time understanding and accepting. The combination people have a horribly hard time understanding. (I confuse so many people who think they're accepting of gender/sexuality :(... they think that because they are accepting of people who are gay and transgender they know all about stuff, and then I bring the asexuality spectrum and genderless-type stuff into it and they just lose all semblance of understanding.)

I've found more geeky of settings are more accepting of people not partnering off in both directions. But asexuality is more accepted than aromanticism.

[AlineDaryen]

It's very hard for me to come out as an aromantic, because I have the misfortune of liking romantic things unless they're directed on me. So I love romantic movies and books, write romantic stories (seriously, pairing off makes such a good plot, only rivaled by the good old murder mystery), enjoy being around people in love with someone else than me (to a certain extent, gushy relationships are not romantic for me, just silly). From this, everyone assumes I'm a romantic. I don't blame them because for a very long time I thought exactly the same, even managed to psyche myself into several celebrity/imaginary crushes when I was a teenager, just to be in love and be able to talk about it like every other good and proper girl. Not only was it incredibly exhausting and emotionally damaging, as every denial is, it has made my coming out as an aromantic totally implausible for people who know me for a longer time, though they know for sure I never dated for real and dislike romantic attention. Well, it's my own fault, I guess :)

In general, I noticed the idea of aromantic orientation is not well-received. Romance is very highly valued, especially in women, and romantic relationships are viewed as more important and serious than others (the phrase "more than friends" documents it quite well). Being aromantic is associated with heartlessness, emotional damage, selfishness and plenty of other negative things. No wonder many people rather live in denial...