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Am I too young to know I'm aro?


Luvic

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 I am 17 years old and I think I might be greyromantic. I have only had two crushes in my life and both under a very specific circumstance. I was told it is normal to want to be in romantic relationships with people and even have multiple crushes... I don’t really experience that. When I think someone is cool I just wanna be friends with them. When I found out about aromanticism it made me really happy to know that other people feel similarly and that it is a whole romantic orientation... I thought I was just a cold hearted bitch. 
I told my psychologist about it and she said I am too young to know for sure, and that I probably just didn’t find the right person yet. I am afraid of taking up an identity and being mistaken later on. How can I know for sure? I’m tired of feeling confused.
 

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By 17 it's not unrealistic for you to know how you feel about other people and it may be right for you to identify like this.

HOWEVER, this label is not a "brand" or something that'll follow you for the rest of your life. If you think it doesn't suit you anymore, or you realize it never has then drop it! The "right person" routine is pretty common among ace and aro people so I wouldn't worry too much about that (even though there may be one for you considering you've said you've had crushes before).

 

How can you know for sure? There's unfortunately no way, and you'll have to go with what feels right. There's no science to feelings, no logical deductions and no experiments with an absolute answer for you at the end. It's scary and liberating at the same time because you're not confined to anything, but it may be hard to figure out what's up before that.

 

Anyway my answer is already plenty long so here's the TLDR: identify as what you want and change the label if you find it doesn't fit you, nobody will fault you for it you're still in a (for most people) confusing phase. You won't be hurting anyone by telling them you're grey-aro, if anything you'll save yourself some trouble. Your psychologist is probably right about a lot of things but most of them (psychologists) aren't familiar with aro/ace stuff so they're probably talking out of their ass (just like all of us here, except we have more experience with it).

 

Hope you'll figure yourself out without too much trouble.

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If you do turn out to be mistaken, is that so bad? I don't think that should necessarily withhold you from identifying as you feel is most correct.

 

On the other hand, having had two crushes at age 17 sounds pretty normal to me, maybe it's less than average, but still pretty normal. I'd had one at 15, and the second one wouldn't show up until I was 19. What makes you think you are greyromantic (genuine question, not a gotcha question)?

 

1 hour ago, Luísa Abreu said:

How can I know for sure? I’m tired of feeling confused.

I understand feeling like that, but confusion about these types of things has a habit of sticking around for far longer than we'd like it to. You will have to give it some time. And it will be frustrating. But eventually you will figure it out.

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2 hours ago, Luísa Abreu said:

I am afraid of taking up an identity and being mistaken later on. How can I know for sure? I’m tired of feeling confused.

Identities can change and evolve because people live and grow and change. Just embrace who you are right now and accept chages if they come. 
I feel similar about knowing for sure because I'm not sex or romance averse. You can't really prove the negative. Not just for this question, but for many questions: I admit I don't know for sure and go with what evidence I have right now, knowing that if new evidence comes I will be open to it and may change my mind.

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Lil Timmay Weejee

My best advice to you is to strictly guard your asexuality, clearly, you are asexual, my greatest fear for you is for you to have sex and then labor over it in regret for the rest of your life, which is where i am now, im so sickened by sex and romance for many different spiritual and philosophical reasons that i can surely never have sex again, more than likely will never be romantic again either, even though i discovered who i really am recently, it still pains me greatly and is such a huge burden on my soul that i have ever been sexual, and less so that i have ever been romantic. I really wish i was aro/ace my whole life, but hey, at least i have the rest of my life to enjoy my new found freedom 

 

So please, take my advice, from reading your post you sound like the kind of person that should not ever be sexually active, whether with someone else or alone.

 

Also, in regards to romance, you are probably only ever going to take pleasure in a romantic relationship with someone that you share a very strong bond with, so much so that you both have no ability to feel romantic with someone else, which is impossible.

 

And if you do decide on being aromantic, that does not mean you are cold, the opposite actually, it means you have such a deep understanding and insight into reality that you know, it is the nature of both men and women to have romantic feelings for others, even if they think they is are in a highly exclusive and special relationship, which is definitely one of the innate reasons why people can be aromantic or asexual, they just dont want that in their life, they want the real thing, which no one can have in this life unfortunately, no matter what they do, its just a fact of human nature; the next best thing is a seemingly exclusive romance, and i emphasize "seemingly"

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17 is probably not too extremely young to know, and remember if you find out you actually are romantic then you will just realize you had accidentally incorrectly labeled yourself and just drop the label.

 

Being someone who is romantic though I feel as if I should point out this to you:

2 hours ago, Luísa Abreu said:

I was told it is normal to want to be in romantic relationships with people and even have multiple crushes... I don’t really experience that. When I think someone is cool I just wanna be friends with them.

I am not quite so sure it is normal to want a romantic relationship, especially at age 17. A lot of people in high school seem to operate their love-lives off of peer pressure, so just because people are doing it does not mean they actually want to, they might just be doing it because they think it is normal. I myself am 19 and do not want a romantic relationship, even though I feel romantic attraction. Also not all romantics have large numbers of crushes. I have only had 5 total, and 3 were incredibly fleeting to the point of not really being a full crush. Since I do not want a romantic relationship the most I ever want to do with the people I am romantically-attracted to is to be friends with them, so your experiences are not altogether uncommon.

 

I am not saying you are not aromantic, just that don't always trust what people tell you is normal.

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Society has this preconception that children have no sexuality.  As if one day a child has no interest in sexuality and the next they have a fully formed and functional sense of self.  Plenty of cultures even celebrate this moment (debutante balls come to mind).  The truth is far more complex.  You are going to be learning things about your orientation till the day you die.  Once you accept that, it changes the situation dramatically.  The paradigm shifts.  No longer are you normal because you conform.  Normality come from recognizing that there is no normal and respecting the fluidic and ever changing nature of sexuality.  The fact that you are noticing this does not make you wrong (despite what your therapist says), it makes you human.

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  • 10 months later...

Finally updating!!! I am now 100% sure that I'm in the aro spectrum. It took me a while but I'm finally ok with it.

Thank you so much for all of your thoughtful comments. ☺️

 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:17 AM, Laurann said:

 What makes you think you are greyromantic (genuine question, not a gotcha question)?

About those two crushes:

 

After giving it some thought I realized that the first "crush" I had wasn't really a crush.

I was an incredibly lonely 11-year-old. Nobody in my class would even talk to me if not to call me a psychopath or to mess with me in some way. There was only one person that would sometimes give me a "good morning" or ask to copy my homework. That was the only interaction I had with anyone and it meant the world to me. I think I misunderstood my desire for friendship and connection as romantic love. It was not romantic love. (And they were a total asshole btw).

 

The second crush (I was 14) was completely genuine. I got all of the feelings love songs told me I was supposed to have. I got nervous around them and felt the butterflies in my stomach. The only thing was that I had NO desire to be in an actual relationship with them. The thought of them liking me back just scared me. The romantic feeling lasted for less than a month and then completely vanished. I saw them again multiple times and felt nothing.

 

Other signs of my aromanticism.

 

- Growing up, I never understood why kids around me were so obsessed with "crushes". Their "love talk" would always bore me and make me confused. 

 

- People would pester me about who I liked and, since they didn't believe me when I said "There's no one", I would just pick a random person to be my "crush".

 

- When I noticed that someone liked me (usually a friend) I would just pretend not to see it and hope it would go away. (Kind of a jerk move.)

 

*WARNING*: The following text is partially proof of me being aro but mostly a long rant about the toxic relationship I was in (because I wanted to let it out somewhere). If you have no interest in that just skip it. 

 

And finally, the big one...When I was 14 I got into a relationship with my best friend. WORST MISTAKE EVER. 

He was the most important person in my life and the only one I felt I could open up to (I had no other friends and my family was never much help). When I noticed that he liked me I did my "If I ignore his feelings he will eventually snap out of it" thing. It didn't work at all and he confessed to me a year later. I didn't love him romantically but I felt like I was "supposed to" and that there was something wrong with me for not having those feelings. He was so good to me and not reciprocating his feelings made me feel like I was somehow "ungrateful" (he, unfortunately, also thought that). I was scared of losing him so I said I liked him too and we started dating. I thought things wouldn't change too much and that I would develop the appropriate feelings along the way.

 

THINGS CHANGED COMPLETELY. We would no longer have the fun and interesting conversations that I cherished so much. All he wanted to do was hug me, hold my hand and say he loved me. I HATED ALL OF IT. I just let him do it to keep him happy. Having to say I love you back was the worst. This wasn't AT ALL the kind of relationship I wanted to have. He eventually picked up on how uncomfortable I felt and I gave excuses (mostly to myself) such as "I'm shy about romance" or " I'm just a total tsundere". There was nothing about our relationship that I enjoyed and yet I kept going because I was terrified of losing him and being all alone again.

 

Every romantic action I performed felt like a painful chore and I grew to resent him day by day. He was also extremely unsatisfied with our relationship. It didn't matter that I let him do whatever he wanted and said whatever he wanted to hear. What he truly desired was to be loved and I could never give him that. I hated myself for it. 

After about a month and a half of this I couldn't handle it anymore, so I confessed that I only liked him as a friend and that I didn't want to date him. He seemed to be ok with that and so we agreed to be just friends again. 

 

*This is the end of the aromantic proof section. The rest is a completely unrelated rant about how he became kind of an abusive piece of shit :)

 

I was sooo relieved when it ended. It meant that I would have my friend back [Yeah. That didn't happen]. He was hurt and angry (rightfully so) and he just let it all out on me (not so rightful). He would call me a selfish liar, an ungrateful bitch, and a monster that liked to see him suffer. Every single thing he ever did for me was now a reason for me to love him and the fact that I didn't was proof that I was an awful human being. At the same time, whenever I'd say that we weren't good for each other and that we should just stop being friends he would start talking about how special I was, how he would never find anyone like me and how he NEEDED me. I was also responsible for all of his problems. He would tell me how he felt and that I had to do something to fix it, failing to do so meant that I was a bad friend. He also continued to hug me and touch me without consent knowing full well how much I despised it. If I were to push him or ask him not to do it, I was the selfish one (which felt especially bad because it was my own fucking body). 

Whenever I started talking to anyone else or looking like I was having fun, he would get mad and accuse me of not caring about him, to which I would reassure him that he was the only one that mattered and I was just faking with those people. (Not true)

He would get mad at every little thing and start saying the same shit about me over and over again. At first, I fought back but after some time I just believed it all. And I thought I had no right to feel bad because he was the one suffering and it was all my fault.

I felt so alone. He used to be the person I could open up to but now I felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time.

This went on for about 3-4 months until I finally found some courage to end things off completely.

 

Yeah... I don't want to date ever again. 

I just want a friend with whom I can have a deep connection!!! Is that too much to ask!?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Ask her if she also thinks people your age are too young to know if they're heterosexual, if the answer isn't a firm "yes" she's playing favorites.

 

That said, it is very possible you're too young to know for sure, but that's a human thing. You'll gain new knowledge and experience all throughout your life, other people and societies and language may change to reflect new knowledge and experiences that we can't express properly today.

 

The thing is, you don't need to be 100% sure. If you look at what you have now and find a word that fits, use that. Maybe it will change. Maybe not. Maybe you just adjust it a little later down the line when you gain new insight. Don't feel like you have to define yourself for the rest of eternity. Nothing is ever absolutely sure in life.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/19/2020 at 12:02 PM, Sisky said:

Ask her if she also thinks people your age are too young to know if they're heterosexual, if the answer isn't a firm "yes" she's playing favorites.

So true!

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Hi. I know which anime your avatar is from, it's one I like :)

I think it's great if you're happy to be find a label that helps you, like being on the aromantic scale. I think though that it's normal for a crush to fade after a while, sometimes they don't last, sometimes they do, but being nervous I think can definitely affect how we feel as well as make it hard to be in a relationship. My first one partly ended because I was too shy I think. It's definitely a negative side to being romantically attracted to someone, the nervousness can get in the way, which is why it's good to be friends and more casual with someone sometimes, but that alone doesn't mean feeling romantic. If you didn't feel those feelings with your friend who you dated, then yes of course it would feel like pressure to try to be romantic. I'm fully romantic and myself can feel pressured to do certain things when I don't feel the feelings, when I'm trying too much instead of flowing with when they're there. I'm not trying to put a damper on your exploration, but I think it's possible for those things to happen to someone romantic as well.

 

The thing is, even if you are romantic, it doesn't mean you have to be in relatinoships, if you don't want to. There's plenty of people who decide to stay single because it's more comfortable for them, maybe until they meet someone they feel really good with in multiple ways. You could still easily be grayromantic, since you're able to have crushes and romantic feelings, but maybe less. Or maybe the anxiety around relationships is putting a damper on them. There can be all sorts of reasons. In whatever case it's ok to just be yourself and follow what feels good, and you get to explore and discover yourself too.

 

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