Am I demiromantic?

[Guest]

This may be a stupid question to ask so I'm sorry if I'm in the wrong place but this is something I've been thinking about for a while. Am I demiromantic or not?

I barely get crushes. I've had one. I had known him for two years and the whole thing built up gradually. I do desire a romantic relationship though. I don't believe in love at first sight because I have to know them very well before I fall in love. I don't have crushes because of how they look or how they act. Only after I've been knowing this person for quite a long time I possibly can develop a crush. But on the other hand I can see someone who's very attractive and wanna be physical with them (without emotions because I can't fall in love with someone I don't know). What I'm saying is basically that I don't believe in love at first sight at all but I still can feel physical desire for someone I don't know if they're attractive (this is not the same thing as crushing on someone I don't know, I mean I can think they look good but that doesn't make my heart race). 

[viennaguy94]

It's up to you how you define it! Crushes are different for everyone. There are even people who never get a crush but they still consider themselves romantic. If you desire romantic relationships, I think that's enough to call you romantic.

[Pramana]

Demiromanticism is usually defined as a person who only experiences romantic attraction once they have formed a close friendship/emotional bond with someone. Now I gather it's fairy common for friendships to develop into romantic relationships, but what distinguishes demiromantics is that they only ever experience romantic attraction in this way, so they would never get crushes or become romantically attracted to people they don't know well. Romantic attraction is distinct from sexual attraction, so you could be demiromantic without being demisexual.

I hope this information is useful. It's your choice to decide what labels fit.

[malacat]

First welcome to AVEN 

 

Second, I am uncertain about what you meant by "wanting to be physically with". Only you can determine if this desire is sexual attraction, aesthetic attraction, arousal, or something else.

 

15 minutes ago, Pramana said:

 

Demiromanticism is usually defined as a person who only experiences romantic attraction once they have formed a close friendship/emotional bond with someone. Now I gather it's fairy common for friendships to develop into romantic relationships, but what distinguishes demiromantics is that they only ever experience romantic attraction in this way, so they would never get crushes or become romantically attracted to people they don't know well. Romantic attraction is distinct from sexual attraction, so you could be demiromantic without being demisexual.

I hope this information is useful. It's your choice to decide what labels fit.

 

 

I agree with this! And even if a demiromantic person forms an emotional bond with someone, that does not guaranty they will experience romantic attraction towards this person.

[Charlie Weasley]

I have never heard this label before but now t strikes me that ofc this is a thing

[Lgbtq+]

I just learned that being demiromantic is a possibility and I feel like this fits me very well. I have known that I only like someone if I knew them first or were friends already. I never got how people could fall in love at first sight, or go on blind dates, or have crushes on people that they just think look good. I did picture myself with someone or in a romantic relationship though. I thought that that was just me being weird and something that just happens to me but now that I learned about this I realized how much this fits. I am now also questioning if I am asexual because I realized that I don't have any desire for sex and I don't want to. I only see myself with someone romantically and not sexually. I am still figuring myself out though.

[Xstatic]

39 minutes ago, Lgbtq+ said:

I have known that I only like someone if I knew them first or were friends already. I never got how people could fall in love at first sight, or go on blind dates, or have crushes on people that they just think look good.

This was very much my take on demi until I had a discussion with my partner about it who is aro/ace and he seemed very stern about my definition of demi-being wrong. It wasn't the same as needing to be friends first, it is more of a needing to be in a partnership with a person for an extended period of time and then maybe those feelings start to take place eventually over a long period of time. Once he explained that to me, I realize that maybe I didn't understand the definition of demi and Maybe I was trivializing it unknowingly.

[Lgbtq+]

Oh I didn't realise that there were other ways to define it. I only just found out about it but I will keep exploring.

[maybeimamazed]

Sounds like demiromantic sexual (homo, hetero, bi or pan - you haven't specified).

 

But then again... why do we need a word like "demiromantic"? Nobody actually falls in love with people they don't know! That's just a crush.

[Xstatic]

I think maybe it's specifically for people who take a really long time and it's a good heads up for the partner going into a relationship ahead of time.

 

But I haven't done a ton of research on the actual definition of demi.

 

It is actually possible that my boyfriend is demi, we just don't know it yet.  And I only say that because again, we are in the exploratory phase of aro, since we've been together a year and there still are no romantic feelings, but he has never been in a relationship before.  

 

We're just trying to figure it all out. 

[Lgbtq+]

I think I understand that people don't exactly fall in love at first sight but for me I also can't have a crush at first sight, only after I know them for a while and am close to them.

[Tundra]

On 8/29/2019 at 6:57 AM, xstatic ☆ﾟ°˖* ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ said:

I think maybe it's specifically for people who take a really long time and it's a good heads up for the partner going into a relationship ahead of time.

 

But I haven't done a ton of research on the actual definition of demi.

 

It is actually possible that my boyfriend is demi, we just don't know it yet.  And I only say that because again, we are in the exploratory phase of aro, since we've been together a year and there still are no romantic feelings, but he has never been in a relationship before.  

 

We're just trying to figure it all out. 

This is true in my sense atleast, I've only had romantic attraction to really one or two people in my life and that was because I was friends with them atleast a year or two, never really felt the crush phenomena or love at first sight.