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aromantic = no love in a relationship? What IS love...?


Pygmalion

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I am very confused right now, what aromanticism is actually about

I thought it's about not having romantic feelings, but I think there are at least three kinds of love that you could call "romantic". So wich kind is it about? I'll try to explain what I mean.

 

To differ them in an extreme way:

- amorousness (like a crush, very intense and crazy feelings)

- love (what makes relationships last) 

 

To go further into details, what I think can be/belongs into a relationship:

 

0. sex, but this isn't about sex now
1. amorousness: Very strong mental and physical feeling that takes over your mind for a short period
e.g.  being totally crazy about someone, to crave for physical closeness, unable to stop thinking about someone, daydreaming about them, never cleaning your shoulder again after they touched it, unexplainable force that makes you smile every time you think about/see them, burst of strong feelings in your body when they finally grant you their attention, always trying to watch them, smitten, "like on drugs", butterflies in your stomach, very strong desire, "the chemicals"

2.  warm-love: also a warm, physical feeling, but calm and deeper, rather in the background of your mind, rather less intense 

e.g. love their smell, like kisses, cuddles feel good, would be nice to fall asleep holding their hand, enjoying candlelight dinner, love their smile when giving them roses

3.  trust-love: What makes relationship last, even if 1. and 2. are missing sometimes, not a physical feeling
e.g. deep trust in each other, (feeling like) knowing each other all along, no need to "wear a mask" in front of each other, wish to live and die together, feeling no separation/border between each other, possibility to spent time alone in the same room, striving for the other one's wishes with the same importance as for your own, knowing each other very well, unable to be mad at each other for longer time


(I can only describe what i know/ can imagine. I'm not sure if no 3. can be 100% friendship too, at least I never had a friendship even coming close to that.)

If I read threads about aromanticism, I always have the impression that people only talk about amorousness.

 But here's the thing: I don't even think that amorousness has anything to do with actual love. I rather have the impression, that people love the feeling, not the person the amorousness is about. Just as if you have a crush on a celebrity. You don't even know the person, never met them... how could that be love? We make up a picture about what we want to see in them and that's what we love.  

 That doesn't make it a bad thing of course, but still isn't enough to rely a long lasting relationship on in my opinion.

I was always worried something is wrong with me because i never fell in love. My father once told me, he was only smitten one time in his life. He had a relationship with her, but it didn't last for long. And he wasn't in love with the two women he loved enough to marry them and found a family with. Because he also thinks that amorousness is something else than love.

 

However. I found someone to love. It's part of trust-love and now, after two years of relationship, a lot of afford and wishful thinking also more and more of warm-love. No sexual attraction or amorousness.

 I've never felt amorousness, besides for my fictional character. For him I fully experience sexual desire, warm-love and trust-love, also sometimes amorousness. I even love him in other ways too. But yeah, I already know I'm fictosexual/-romantic 😬

 And I'm still not sure if I talked my self into having feelings for my partner. At least I know that I've tried hard to make myself love someone somehow four times in the past and it never really worked. And I know these feelings from being fictoromantic, so maybe I try to trick my brain into applying this feeling onto a real person?

I wish to be sure about my feelings. And to experience at least a bit of amorousness for some time in my life would be really nice.

 

 

So yeah. Whats being aromantic about now? Not having this warm and prickling feeling in your chest? not loving at all? Not wanting a relationship with someone? 

And can you relate to how i described love?

Opinions? 

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letusdeleteouraccounts

“What is LOVE, BABY DONT HURT ME”

Lemme stop 😂 in all seriousness, I’ve only experienced romantic attraction once as a grayromantic. It was definitely what I’d describe as love. I had that heart racing, my eyes starring, overflow of joy, and pressure on myself to express everything I was feeling over a complete stranger. The feeling was strong enough that I would actually walk up to this stranger and ask them out. I was a little kid too, what did I know about love and dating and blah blah blah? I didn’t really, all I knew was that what I was feeling was something incredibly different than anything I’ve ever had. I doubt that I will ever feel that again in my lifetime towards somebody. If I was in a relationship, I would most definitely describe it as relationship without love (of the romantic partner sense). Maybe I’d love you as a brother or sister? I just wouldn’t be nearly as enthusiastic about it like I was when I felt my one experience of romantic attraction. I would just be like, “best friends strive to be us! We have so much fun together.” Most regular people would be so confused to hear that from a couple lol

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I can only give me experience but...

I don't experience romantic love unless I've first experienced a "crush" on a person. Not every crush turns into romantic love, but all romantic love (in my personal experience) comes from a "deepening" and "settling" of the initial crush feelings. I have been in romantic love twice, so it's perfectly possible that I just haven't had a chance to fall in romantic love with someone I haven't had a crush on prior, however I doubt it since falling in love for me feels very much like a deepening of the crush and a "calming down" like idea of it. It settles into this deep rooted intense bond/affection/love/whatever, much like you described in number three, but it really feels like a growing/deepening/settling of the crush. (I guess in a way you could say for me a crush is a shallow feeling, while romantic love is a deep one, as if the crush was the seed of romantic feelings and the actual falling in love was the plant that sprouted from that seed).

From what I understand I don't experience celebrity crushes, so there is that. Sometimes I'll get a kind of fascination with a celebrity, and while it's close to a crush on a person I know in real life and I'll often call it a celebrity crush, it's overall a different feeling for me. Sometimes it comes close to being just as intense, but it's still at it's core a different feeling.

 

Oh, and I have experienced number 3 in a non-romantic sense with two people. At least according to your description. I love these two people as much as I am capable and am completely comfortable with both of them.

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AcornCarvings

I have all three of those types of love in my friendships, so idk. It's sweet the way you characterized trust love though :redface:

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From what I've seen of aromantic discourse, it might be a lack of #1, amorousness. 

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Oh, but to answer your question a bit better:

I think of aromantism as someone who doesn't experience romantic attraction or romantic love. What romantic love is... is hard to describe for me. All I know is that I have no confusion as to when I'm experiencing romantic love vs non-romantic love. They are distinctly different for me.

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I am not sure what it means to be aromantic really. I know that I am romantic, I get silly in relationships. My fiance identifies as aromantic but we do 1, 2 and 3

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I think it means that you will never love someone as like a partner. I know for me at least, the person closest to me feels like a brother in arms (meaning that they'd do anything for me and I for them) but we aren't really attracted to each other in any physical sense or romantic way. For example I like hugging my best friend but it feels awkward to hold hands and would be super awkward to kiss that person XD.

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I'm relatively young (18) so feel free to chalk up anything I have to say to a lack of life experience, but I'm going to toss my two cents in here anyways. I guess the quickest and easiest way would be to go through each type of "love" individually, so here goes:

 

11 hours ago, Heliar said:

1. amorousness: Very strong mental and physical feeling that takes over your mind for a short period
e.g.  being totally crazy about someone, to crave for physical closeness, unable to stop thinking about someone, daydreaming about them, never cleaning your shoulder again after they touched it, unexplainable force that makes you smile every time you think about/see them, burst of strong feelings in your body when they finally grant you their attention, always trying to watch them, smitten, "like on drugs", butterflies in your stomach, very strong desire, "the chemicals"

I can't say I've ever experienced this, though it sounds really fascinating. I once tried to feel romantic attraction by thinking about someone constantly, but my mind would always wonder off very quickly or I'd have to imagine them with other people, so I guess you can't force it 😆. Honestly,the only time I have strong feelings around others is if I'm being empathetic or intimidated, so I think I'm a bit of a failure on this front.

 

11 hours ago, Heliar said:

2.  warm-love: also a warm, physical feeling, but calm and deeper, rather in the background of your mind, rather less intense 

e.g. love their smell, like kisses, cuddles feel good, would be nice to fall asleep holding their hand, enjoying candlelight dinner, love their smile when giving them roses

Also a no for me on this. The only time I like others' smell is when they're wearing nifty hand lotion or something. I do like hugs though, but I'll hug just about anyone who isn't armed or creepy 😁.

 

11 hours ago, Heliar said:

3.  trust-love: What makes relationship last, even if 1. and 2. are missing sometimes, not a physical feeling
e.g. deep trust in each other, (feeling like) knowing each other all along, no need to "wear a mask" in front of each other, wish to live and die together, feeling no separation/border between each other, possibility to spent time alone in the same room, striving for the other one's wishes with the same importance as for your own, knowing each other very well, unable to be mad at each other for longer time

There are two parts of this I can relate to. First, the "no need to 'wear a mask'" part describes my relationship with my family quite well - they've always been excellent confidants and are just generally relaxing to be around. But, at the same time, I don't spend every second of every day with them (nor do I desire to), so that part doesn't really apply. Second, the "unable to be mad at each other for longer time" part, is honestly how I am with everyone - not because I'm a particularly virtuous person, but because anger and resentment are just things I'm bad at maintaining. Everything else, however, aren't things I can say I've experienced. Especially not the desire to "live and die" with anyone - I'm perfectly happy with people flowing in and out of my life. I don't see any reason to cling onto anyone, and I don't expect nor want that from anyone else.

 

TL;DR: I definitely haven't experienced #1 or #2, and I've only experienced a couple aspects of #3.

 

I just read all this back before posting and I realized it makes me sound like a sad loner person, which I promise I'm not 😅. I love my family very much and I have friends and all that, I promise 😆. I have noticed that I tend not to put as much weight into friendships as others do though - I definitely don't feel the need to have insanely close friendships that last a lifetime or anything, and I actually think that saves me a lot of drama. That might be why I haven't experienced a lot of the stuff described - I just don't have relationships of that depth. 

 

Also, keep in mind that I'm just one person who happens to be aromantic - I'm sure there are plenty of other aromantics who have had drastically different experiences and have formed far deeper relationships than I have.

 

I hope something in there helped - I'm sorry this post ended up being so long! It was a really interesting thought exercise for me though, so thanks for that 😊!

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The first kind of love you describe sounds like infatuation. That is a biological process, characterized by the production of certain hormones (like testosterone and dopamine), that lasts a very short period of time. Infatuation can vary from a purely lust/sexual response (I think Jason Derulo's song "Want to Want Me" sounds like infatuation and he is focused entirely on sex) to an "in love" feeling, that may be somewhat superficial but is also about more than JUST wanting sex (think Romeo and Juliet, who definitely lusted after each other but also had a connection that was deeper than simply wanting to get laid - even though they got married less than 24 hours after they met). And yes, one of the characteristics of infatuation is that it is very self-centered and focused on the "feelings" produced. Being infatuated feels really good, and people can get addicted to the "high."

 

I think "romantic" refers to what you describe as "warm-love" - a desire to have an intimate relationship with someone with physical affection like cuddling, kissing, and holding hands. An "aromantic" is someone who does NOT want to be in an intimate relationship with that kind of physical connection. Most people like both romantic and sexual physical touch, but some like just one kind or another. So you can have some variation of a "romantic" asexual or some variation of a "sexual" aromantic. And, then some people don't want to connect with others in either of those ways.

 

But being aromantic doesn't mean you can't love. I'm demiromantic, and for the most part, I have no interest in having a "romantic" relationship (kissing, cuddling, etc.) with anyone. However, there are a number of people I love (mostly family members) who I have close relationships with. It falls into your last category, which I think is what "real" love is - caring about other people, a shared history, helping each other, enjoying time together, and so on.
 

 

 

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3 hours ago, MLJ said:

The first kind of love you describe sounds like infatuation.

Agreed. To me that's inherently romantic, so I wouldn't regard it as an "aro experience".

 

9 hours ago, Heliar said:

I'm not sure if no 3. can be 100% friendship too, at least I never had a friendship even coming close to that.)

Been there. It can definitely be 100% platonic, so I'd not see it as something particularly romantic.

 

To me, it's that phase of infatuation that makes something romantic. The things OP describes as amorousness, all that stuff that makes my skin crawl (not in the good way :D). I disagree with the way this thread is titled because there are several different kinds of relationships...

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17 hours ago, Star Lion said:

I’ve only experienced romantic attraction once as a grayromantic. It was definitely what I’d describe as love. I had that heart racing, my eyes starring, overflow of joy, and pressure on myself to express everything I was feeling over a complete stranger. The feeling was strong enough that I would actually walk up to this stranger and ask them out.

So it was what I described as amorousness? 

 

17 hours ago, KendraPM said:

I don't experience romantic love unless I've first experienced a "crush" on a person. Not every crush turns into romantic love, but all romantic love (in my personal experience) comes from a "deepening" and "settling" of the initial crush feelings.

Sounds interesting! It probably creates a good an deep connection if it starts with the crush and ends with deep feelings.

 

17 hours ago, AcornCarvings said:

I have all three of those types of love in my friendships, so idk. It's sweet the way you characterized trust love though :redface:

In friendships? 😮 okay, that surprises me. How are they different from romantic relationships then? 

 

16 hours ago, MakeLoveNotWar said:

I am not sure what it means to be aromantic really. I know that I am romantic, I get silly in relationships. My fiance identifies as aromantic but we do 1, 2 and 3

Okay, what makes them aromantic then? Did I forget something?

 

16 hours ago, Agent_Smith said:

I know for me at least, the person closest to me feels like a brother in arms (meaning that they'd do anything for me and I for them) but we aren't really attracted to each other in any physical sense or romantic way. For example I like hugging my best friend but it feels awkward to hold hands and would be super awkward to kiss that person XD.

Yeah, that definitely doesn't sound like romantic feelings :D

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letusdeleteouraccounts
8 minutes ago, Heliar said:

So it was what I described as amorousness? 

Kind of. The thing was that it didn’t just last a short period of time. It pretty much lasted the whole school year until I had to change schools. That’s when I forgot about her. It also wasn’t just like in admiration, it was a feelings that made me want to have this person in my life despite not even knowing who she was

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@iam135 Thank you very much for your detailed description ^^ I also know what it's like to try to force your self to have these feelings. Yep, doesn't work!
But its good to hear that you have such a good relation to your family!

 

12 hours ago, MLJ said:

The first kind of love you describe sounds like infatuation. That is a biological process, characterized by the production of certain hormones (like testosterone and dopamine), that lasts a very short period of time.

Thats very interesting, thanks you for the input! Jeah, it pretty much sound like what I've ment. I want to add, that I'm not a native speaker and that it isn't always that easy to explain what I'm talking about ^^ 

I agree very much with your opinion on what love is. 

I think it's possible to fall in love with someone without knowing them for long and having all three kind of love. At least I felt deep trust for my partner when we met the first time and he still is the only person I can 100% be myself. So it already has been a part of trust-love from the first moment on. Maybe romeo and juliet felt the same, so it wasn't only infatuation.

 

I don't doubt that aromantics can love too, but I'm not talking about friendship or family right now. Is there an english noun that names the relationship between couples? My dictionary says "love attachment".

 

according to your description I'm probably somewhat demiromantic. I' kind of experience warm-love for my boyfriend, but only sometimes and only a bit and sometimes it feels forced.

 

8 hours ago, Homer said:

Agreed. To me that's inherently romantic, so I wouldn't regard it as an "aro experience".

What do you mean by that?

 

Okay, according to your definition I'm aromantic, because I don't experience biological infatuation. So I'm not wiser then before!

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@Heliar I am uncertain why they identify as aromantic. They have said that they don't see much difference between relationships and friendships. One difference between us is that they will cuddle with any friend while I am only willing to hug friends

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6 hours ago, Heliar said:

I don't doubt that aromantics can love too, but I'm not talking about friendship or family right now. Is there an english noun that names the relationship between couples? My dictionary says "love attachment".

I'm not sure I totally understand what you're getting at, but I'll try to answer. English doesn't really have many words for distinguishing love. People use the word "love" to mean very different emotions. I don't think that there is a word specifically for couple love. If you're asking if aromantics can get into "couple relationships," yes they can.  A lot of times even when people don't want romance (or sex), they still want emotional intimacy. They may get into relationships to meet emotional needs and they can love their partners even if they don't want to connect with them romantically (or sexually). There is an ebook somewhere on the site that describes one asexual's experience. He talks about his experiences with relationships and the one girlfriend he had. He said he loved her and the way he described feeling about her sounded a lot like infatuation. But he didn't want to have sex with her (and I didn't get the impression he was any more interested in being romantic with her).

 

So anyway, yes I think aromantics can end up in a couple, can feel "love" for their partner, and can even feel infatuated and "in love" - even if they don't have any desire to engage in "romantic" behaviors with their partner.

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AcornCarvings
11 hours ago, Heliar said:
On 1/7/2019 at 6:46 PM, AcornCarvings said:

I have all three of those types of love in my friendships, so idk. It's sweet the way you characterized trust love though :redface:

In friendships? 😮 okay, that surprises me. How are they different from romantic relationships then? 

yeah, I wouldn't think it is all too out of the ordinary, but Idk. I feel butterflies and that sort of giddy excitement around a lot of different people, but I definitely wouldn't classify it as romantic for me. I have friends in my life who I spend a lot of time thinking about, love being close to, love cooking for, and really feel nice around. As for the trust-love, I'd say I pretty rarely feel that outside of a few of my closest feeling, as that is a lot more intimate and hard to get to for me. But the relationships I hold most dearly in my life, I feel comfortable around them in a way where I can trust that even when things come up, we will be ok and be there for each other, and I can be myself around them.

 

I don't think any of those things are inherently romantic, though. None of them "feel" inherently romantic to me. I think they are just different ways (among many others) of relating and becoming close to people throughout life.

I personally don't draw too much of a line between romantic and other relationships. I just never have been able to get the difference. But people seem to have such a clear idea of what "romance" is, so I generally just assume that whatever I'm doing with the close people in my life isn't that and go about with my life.

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On 1/8/2019 at 12:51 AM, Pygmalion said:

So yeah. Whats being aromantic about now? Not having this warm and prickling feeling in your chest? not loving at all? Not wanting a relationship with someone? 

And can you relate to how i described love?

Opinions?

There is the official definition of aromanticism that was already mentioned here (someone who experiences little to no romantic attraction to others) so I'll just go with my view.
I can see your points with describing love. And based on them I'd say I experience trust-love most of the time.
As someone on the aro spectrum I can say I do love. It's just a different kind of love. You see, I feel strong about friendships and as teen I said I'd die for my friends - because I loved them so much.
But not in the "butterfly-heart-racing-weak-knees" kind of way. I cared a whole lot for them and their happiness and loved spending my time with them.
Sometimes I got jealous and hurt when I got placed back because of their romantic relationships that were more important to them than my friendship.
This was especially horrid as one friend of mine ended up in a toxic relationship in which his girlfriend wanted to control him and forbid contact between us.

All these things haven't changed much. Over the years I only came to realize I feel different about friendship, I love my friends in different ways than they love me.
Like I'd still do anything for a friend that needs me. With my best friend I often get asked if we're a couple.
We talk about everything and anything with each other, support each other, I trust her with my life and we both want the other one to be happy and are willing to go to great lengths to do so.
Sometimes I play with her hair, stroke her, hug her, cuddle or walk close to her - you see it's no wonder people think we are an item.
She herself says we have something special. Still there's zero romantic attraction (and the actions mentioned aren't romantic to me, just friendly and affectionate - I'm rather romance repulsed).
This a relationship I feel extremely comfortable with because I can show affection without the letters "ROMANCE" printed all over it.
For the very first time in a closer/more intimate relationship I truly feel like I can be myself and my words and actions won't be interpreted as weird or "more than friendship" - which doesn't exist in my world because friendship is the strongest connection I can have with someone else.
There is no warm and prickling feeling in my chest but the strong wish to care, support and comfort her when she feels bad or make her smile when I cook her favorite food, etc. .

Some would say we have what people call a QPR (queer platonic relationship) and I talked to her about it but neither of us wants to define our relationship this way.
We're just really really good friends and I'm very happy with the way we are. It's truly a revelation to have this kind of relationship after all the years of asking myself why I feel so weirdly strong about my friends and have problems with romance.
A little sidenote at the end: I get squishes occasionally, especially when I start talking to someone I don't know yet. My squishes are intense as well, like I'm thinking about the person, I'm asking myself how they'd react if I asked/showed them this or that, I can't wait to read their messages or can't wait to spend my time with them.
There is definitely a lot of excitement involved like some people feel with their crushes. But I just want to get to know them more and be there for them.

It was a long and hard way for me to figure my emotions out because romantic love is just everywhere and nobody in my surroundings seemed to feel the way I do.
I was already bombarded with romance as child which made me blind for other kinds of love. But now my eyes are open and I feel like I'm finally myself and don't try to live up to expectations of other people or society in general.
Hope I could gave you a good insight of how an aromantic person can love. Of course everyone is different, aromantic or not.

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Good post. For me...I see myself as a romantic person, despite never being "amorous" over someone. I've never had a feeling of needing to be close to someone or feeling excited when an attractive person talks to me. I do get a rush out of watching attractive people, and I follow my crush on social media so that i can stalk him, basically. Difference is I don't care if we ever meet in real life and I wouldn't want to sleep with him. I just like to watch from afar. So no, definitely never experience the type #1 of love. With my current boyfriend I'd say it's type #3. I trust him with anything, i enjoy spending time with him, we make each other laugh. Good enough for me...I'm happy :)

 

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On ‎1‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 11:51 PM, Pygmalion said:

Not wanting a relationship with someone? 

.

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Chocolatastic AroAce

I'm not sure about other people but I think for me it is the absence of the first two things you described. Also like some other people mentioned there are other kinds of relationships and different ways people love each other.

 

What makes me aromatic is that I am not looking for a romantic partner(so no "amorousness" or "warm-love"). Any kind of relationship I have would be purely platonic and more a friendship, or sibling like relationship. Being in a kind of relationship where you trust and value each other despite what ever hardships you endured, seems to be love to me(so more 'trust love'). I'll take that over candle lit dinners and cuddles.

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On 1/20/2019 at 12:29 AM, Phoenix the II said:

I still admire the ancient Greeks. Not lastly because they knew how to name and describe all these varying forms of love. I approve!

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