I’m 28 and aroace. How can I tell my parents?

[Eleanora117]

Hi everyone, new user here, call me Ellie. I’m an aroace from the UK and grew up on a farm, so my parents are very traditional.

 

Lately, they’ve been discussing their mortality a lot, and as a result, they’ve begun to panic about me being alone after they’re gone. I am about as interested in pursuing a relationship as I am in sky diving. Yeah, loads of people do it and really enjoy it, and tell you you absolutely HAVE to try it, but for me it looks petrifying and unappealing and I’d quite happily live the rest of my life without trying it, thanks.

 

I suppose I’ve been feeling extremely lost because recently my well-meaning mother has signed me up to a matchmaking service and is extremely pushy about getting me on the dating scene.
It’s begun to dawn on me that I’m very likely to end up dating someone I don’t want to because I want my parents to be happy more that I want to be happy. I don’t think they’ll be able to fathom that for me, not having a romantic partner and living by myself are two very positive things.

So, I suppose I was just wondering if anyone had any advice on how to broach the topic of being aroace with parents?

 

Thanks for reading. X

[Sarah-Sylvia]

@Eleanora117Hi 🍰

It's your life and your way into adulthood, you don't have to date anyone if you don't want to xD. You can meet some people and say you're only looking for friends (whether or not you mention being aroace), but it's about your life and happiness here, what your parents think or want doesn't go over that. Even if they don't understand, it's not something that affects them in the same way it does you.

 

They likely would have trouble understanding being aroace, so it's up to you whether or not you want to bring up the topic. If you can feel confident in yourself about wanting to be single unless 'you' want to, that can probably help in it not feeling like a charged topic. Just say thanks mom but I'm fine and want to be single until I decide different 😜.

But you could bring it up, it's just that you'd have to expect possibly a harder time trying to explain it to them, and still having to confidently stay your ground. If you do though, you could find information around it to share how it's an orientation of itself and has to do with how someone inherently feels, that you are how you are and in your case prefer being single. Or however you feel.

It's really up to you how you want to go about it, you don't 'need' to tell them unless it's something you want to be known.