r/aromantic

Hey folks. Recently joined this sub. Are there any 30+ aros in here? Still not feeling a sense of community as this sub seems geared towards a younger demographic. Are any of you out there?!

I often read posts or see tiktoks about aromantic people wanting to feel romantic love or be in a relationship. which is completely okay, but I just rarely find any aro people, who are just content with being single 😭and I feel like I am the only one who prefers being alone (although I have lots of friends!) and live on my own rather than to date someone, even if it’s a queerplatonic relationship. my question is: can someone relate?😭❤️

this is rlly just a thought to harbor discussion, but thinking about how i will live when i graduate highschool and get my own place sometime into college is a bit too nebulous for my liking. Like, I want to have a queerplatonic partner and ultimately wife as well as a good network of friends that I’m around. If everyone’s just prioritizing their romances or will at some point prioritize their romance, maintaining these friendships will be suuuuper hard. Not the mention that it makes finding a qp lover all the more difficult, since i prefer the friends the lovers trope (which is common in qprs). friendship is hard for me already for personal reasons, and i’m honestly expecting to be so lonely very soon. idk how i feel abt that. I really love people and that would devastate me. Going remote during COVID sent me into depression and cause a mental health crisis, so idk how i’ll actually be okay living life. I hate how institutions make partnering romantically the way to properly live and not be sad, it’s not fair.

Hello!

I am 24, and have been in two relationships. In passing, I mentioned to a friend love means to me a friend who i want to spend my life with. I must mention I am autistic, so this might just be not being able to recognize the emotion of love itself in a conceptual manner.

He mentioned I might be aromantic. I would have never thought to put that label on myself. I do want relationships.

The thing that got me thinking though, is that when i broke up with both my exes, I would have been judt as happy being friends, only sad about the loss of shared future.

I have had crushes. People I want to be able to have reliably around, be close to, even sex. So I am unsure.

I do not understand dating just to date. If I date i do so because I want a shared future. If not i'm just fine with being friends.

I am not looking for anyone to tell me if I am on the aro spectrum,. I am mostly wondering if your experiences are similar.

Footnote: english is my second language, which is why my post might sound "clinical".

At one point in my life, I identified as demiro/demisex. I was a firm believer that I had to be close/best friends with someone before knowing if I wanted to be with them or not. I never understood the concept of simply finding someone attractive and then wanting to be their partner. Like, you don’t even know them! I guess that’s the point of dates where you go out together to know the person first before determining if you want them as your romantic partner, but I still don’t really get it…

And when I actually took the time to think about the whole “friends to lovers” thing, I was even more confused! You are friends with someone then one day you realize that you want to be more than friends with them and then boom, you two are dating. How does that shift…work? Does the air around you two just feel more “romantic”? Won’t the dates just feel like regular hang outs. The changes I usually see when it comes to two people becoming lovers are hand-holding, pet names, kissing and cuddling, but you can do that with a friend if you two are really, really close (except the pet names and kissing I guess).

Whenever I thought about the possibility of dating a friend, I would go, ”Nah, besides nothing would really change.” I remember back in elementary where I told my guy friend that I liked him and he agreed to be my boyfriend. After that…nothing. I just thought, “Wow he’s my boyfriend now.” When my friends would bring up the things we’d have to do together as a couple though, I didn’t really wanna do them. Even when he moved schools, I didn’t feel devastated that my “boyfriend“ was gone, I was like “dang he’s gone…he was such a cool guy“.

You would think that someone like me, who has shipped characters together and with myself for almost all of my life, would know a thing or two about romance and stuff but I still haven’t got a clue.😭 (Maybe that’s why I go for fanfics tagged “established relationship“.) Does anyone else relate?

had a nap and i’ve been having bizarre dreams recently lol. this one was much more normal but there was a girl who i had a huge crush on/was in love with. now my dreams are so vivid that i can feel any emotional and physical feeling, so i felt what it was like to at least have a “normal” crush on someone (not the first time it’s happened in my dreams)

i just feel so empty, honestly. i’m in a relationship (and yes she is aware of my sexuality) but i wish i had those feelings to go along with it. i also hardly ever feel sexual feelings anymore and that sucks too

the closest thing that’s felt like a crush and/or love was when someone is my FP because i have BPD. i don’t have any feelings romantically or sexually towards my partners *unless* they’re my fp, which usually doesn’t happen.

i just wish i could experience that stuff normally!!!! the dream felt so real and i wish it was (but not with some random girl lol)

hi so im having a really hard time with understanding what romantic love even is and its completely messing me up. so im not ace but i litterally have no distinction between the "types of love i feel" like i feel the same love for my family and my friends and its a huge amount like i love the people in my life so so so much but like i said there is no difference. but every relationship ive been in has felt off, like really off. like i was always missing something and no matter what i did i couldnt make like it feel like more than it felt to me. Like the love i felt for those people felt the same as all the other love i feel. My friends explained it like different catagories of love and it "should" feel different and it most likely doesnt feel different for me because of my neurodivergencies. And the point is if i decided to could i be in a relationship with no romantic attraction. i want like to have someone to choose yaknow i grew up with romcoms ive been indoctrinated into thinking that i need to have someone to love me and if i dont im worthless. and i mean sometimes i think im never gonna enter a relationship and im okay with that but other times i want a special someone yaknow but i cant think of any other reason of why that person would be more "special" than everyone else in my life if its not just choosing them over other people to spend my life with. Because i dont think i would like them more than any one else or like i would feel something different for them than everyone else we just mutually agree that were the one each other wants to spend forever with or whatever. but what makes that different from a romantic relationship? am i not aro? im so confused please give me your opinion thanks!

I hope this is in the right category I apologize if not.

I have caught feelings for an aromantic person.

I do not know what type of aromantic but they have described it as they are a ball of horniness they just despise people. So I assume they feel sexual attraction just not much of any romantic. They also have dated someone in the past but I don't know if that's before they realized they were aromantic.

I will say I did not become friends with them with the intent to date.

I have known this person for about two years now they joined in our group and we did a full year of DND (dungeons and dragons) online the table top not the online mmo.

After the DND campaign ended we went our separate ways for a couple months and we have gotten into another DND campaign and I started to realize the more time we had spent together the more I had grew to like them and the feelings grew romantic.

Now we have had constant contact everyday unless an incident has happened. We usually spend time in discord talking, watching shows together and playing video games as well as having another DND campaign for about 7-8 months and the feelings have not gone away.

Now I really enjoy their company but I find myself sad more frequently because I don't want to ruin what we have but the potential to be more eats at me time to time.I do not expect to make them suddenly have feelings if they don't and I do not know how aromantic people think. These are all my thoughts I don't believe they know I have romantic feelings and if they do it has not been spoken of.

Now my question is should I just keep it quiet or should I tell them? How common is it to lose aromantic friendship over telling them you have feelings?

This is my first time in this situation and I have absolutely no idea on what I should do I. Should I push my feelings down and hope they fade should I tell them and risk it?

Just today I broke up with my girlfriend of a little over a month because I am pretty sure that I’m aromantic. I’d been thinking about it for years but I never admit it out loud or even to myself until I told her. It was over facetime too, even worse. She went quiet for a bit before we talked about it for a little and then I ended the call. She texted me later and she says she doesn’t hate me but she wants time away from me for a few weeks, which I get. She also wants to be friends again in the future, which is great because I still like her platonically. I just feel like shit because I lead her on for so long and she‘s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. Has anyone else ever been through this?

I’ve been thinking a lot about something and I just want to put it into words somewhere where people might understand.

**TL;DR: I feel most aligned in friendships where there’s strong independence, consistency, and mutual priority. I often feel disconnected when friends’ romantic relationships naturally take priority and reduce spontaneity/availability, and I’m wondering if others relate or see relationships and friendships similarly.**

I (24F) find myself really wanting to be around people who don’t prioritize romantic relationships in a way that takes over their lives. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with having a partner (there isn’t), and not because I want my friends to be single, but because I’ve noticed I personally feel more aligned and comfortable around people who have more independence and flexibility in their time and identity.

What’s been frustrating for me is that a lot of my close friendships have slowly shifted in a way where their partner becomes the primary relationship, and everything else gets filtered through that. So plans become “I need to check with my boyfriend/husband,” availability decreases, spontaneity decreases, and even things like going out, traveling, or just hanging out feel more structured and limited.

For example, I’ve noticed this with my best friend in particular, where her availability and spontaneity just isn't there because her life is structured around her husband and his family. I don’t say that as a judgment of her relationship, it’s just a dynamic shift that affects how our friendship functions. Since she’s one of my closest friendships, I’ve found myself feeling more alone at times, not because she’s doing anything wrong, but because our friendship will naturally never have the same priority level in her life as her relationship does.

I also understand we’re adults and that time naturally gets more limited. But I do notice that people often make consistent time for their partners, and I think I feel hurt sometimes by how much less consistent friendships can become in comparison. For a while I thought the solution was just to get a partner too, but I realize I actually dislike that (in theory and practice) for myself whenever I think about it. It doesn’t really resolve what I’m feeling.

I think what I’ve realized is that I tend to see friendships as my “primary” relationships, and I would love to be in relationships where that feeling is mutual. Not necessarily in a romantic sense, but in terms of priority, availability, and emotional presence. And I’m starting to think that I personally feel most comfortable with people who are either single or just very independent in how they structure their lives.

I also want to be honest that I might be speaking a bit in black-and-white terms here. I know there are absolutely people in relationships who are very independent, who don’t constantly check in, who maintain strong friendships, and who don’t revolve their lives around their partner. That exists, and I don’t want to erase that. My experience has just been more on the side where relationships tend to become very consuming and structured, and that’s what feels limiting for me.

I don’t think it’s about judging people in relationships or thinking they’re doing something wrong. It’s more that I personally value autonomy really highly. I want to be able to fully develop myself; my thoughts, beliefs, and identity without feeling like my life or mindset is being shaped or negotiated through a romantic partner. I want to become who I am because of *me*, not because of a relationship I’m in.

With my best friend specifically, I also recognize there’s history there. She grew up in a very strict household where she had very little freedom, and it feels like her life structure has shifted from “her mom” controlling things to now “her husband and his family” influencing a lot of her time and decisions. So I don’t think it’s random. It’s more of a pattern in how her life has been structured over time.

I also think part of my discomfort comes from how identity can become intertwined in romantic relationships, especially when people are young or still figuring themselves out. It makes me uncomfortable to think about losing parts of myself or not fully knowing who I am outside of a relationship. I want to know myself fully on my own first.

I think part of what makes this harder to express is that I often feel like I have to explain or justify this perspective, since it doesn’t seem to align with the way most people structure their relationships. I guess I just feel a bit out of sync with the way a lot of people around me approach relationships and friendships, and I’m trying to understand that about myself without feeling like something is wrong with me for feeling this way.

I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this or sees friendships and relationships in a similar way. Thank you for reading.

I was talking about professors on my college’s anonymous app, and I ended up meeting someone who happens to be on the aromantic spectrum too! We have a lot in common, and they seem incredibly nice, so I asked them if they want to be friends! Now, I have a new friend! My mom was right, you can make friends out of nowhere!

Here’s how it happened:

I posted a hot take that professors everyone says they hate are actually great professors.

I commented about why they are great professors.

Someone responds to my comment about how they like Professor [redacted] as well and talks about being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community and she was respectful of that.

I mention that I like that professor for that reason too, and say that I am glad that the professor was very respectful of their identity. I asked if other people are accepting too, because I’m aromantic and wondering how people would react to that.

They mention they are a part of the aromantic community too and talk about how it often depends on the person.

I reply enthusiastically that it’s great to meet another aromantic person and I’ve never met anyone who is aromantic at school before.

I message them privately asking if they would like to be friends because we have a lot in common.

We become friends and we share our socials!

We ended up talking for a bit before their social media time limit went into effect.

Hi, I (M,27yo) have never been in a romantic relationship in my life. I have had sex and I like it and enjoy it, but it's always been casual.

The thing is, I have never felt anything close to romantic attraction to anyone, never had "butterflies in my stomach", never had a crush, never felt ANYTHING. But I do want it, I would like to feel it for someone, but doesn't matter how much I try, nothing happens. My friends usually describe their experiences and I couldn't relate less and tbh I don't understand half of the things they say, I don't get how they can feel/do such things.

I'm not sure if that makes me aro cause everything I have read about it also includes the fact that aro people don't want not desire that romantic feeling/experience, but I do, I feel like I'm missing something from life, from the experience of being human.

So in a nutshell, how do you tell the difference between being incapable of feeling romantic love for someone and just not having found the right person? Cause I don't wanna set myself in a cage thinking I can't feel that when in reality I can, but I also don't wanna be holding on to the hope of something that will never arrive.

Any help/comment is appreciated. And sorry if I didn't use a term in the right way or if my understanding on the topic is clearly limited, cause it is, I'm new to this concept and I'm trying to fully grasp it in order to find out if it applies to me.

Mine was when I was in 6th grade/ 12 years old. I was confessed to by my best friend. I seriously thought to myself "yeah we are too young to be doing romance" and turned them down. I now know that there is no age to feel attraction, the more appropriate thinking is acting on attraction that is age appropriate, which they were doing btw, they just wanted to ask me out and hold my hand and things 12 year old's do. I just didn't feel anything to act on it.

I learned I was aromantic last year.

I(17M) have recently started questioning my views on romantic relationship, and I've started wondering if there was any chance I could be on the aromantic spectrum. The reason I make it a post instead of refering to the pinned post is to get some precise opinion and discuss it rather than getting a "good" answer.

For context, here's the things that got me suspicious :

- I feel like the idea of a relationship kinda sicken me ? I don't really know how to put things into word as english is not my first language, but it's like tasting something so overly sweet and heavy that you just refuse to take another bite. This feeling often happen whenever I see friends hanging out with their romantic partner and demonstrating sign of affection, I can't help to feel...weird ?(disgusted would be a strong word, but you get the idea) And I can't help but feel they're "faking it" in some way, just to "do like everyone else".

- I kinda struggle to see where people draws the line between platonic and romantic, and it's already gotten confusing for me in the past. I've already had people showing romantic feelings towards me and while I usually just decline/ignore it I've had two instance where I just wondered if what I was feeling for this person was love and ending up just "gaslighting" myself into thinking it was, and it ended up in one case in a very cringy relationship where I tried to replicate the other person feelings without having them, and a (also) cringy situationship which I just aborted when I realized how uncomfortable it was making me feel.

- I don't really understand how people can fall in love with someone. Like (hear me out please) I don't mean it in a "I prefer 2d" or something but I find it would be easier to feel attraction toward something fictional, a fantasy, a "perfect picture" rather than a complex human being with it's flaws. I've already had a "crush" (emphasis on the "" it's more like a "wow this person is really pretty" kinda thing) but it just disapeared the second I talked to the person. It was no longer a perfect fantasy I could just project on them, but a real person.

- It's more something anecdotic, but I recently learned that a friend of mine had a crush on me and it strongly repulsed me, like in a disgusted kinda way. I thought that having these feelings and not confessing was a betrayal, especially since it was going on for a long time. I felt it like a "perversion" of our friendship in some way since it meant this person was viewing me in a way I don't view them and just pretended to be "friends" while having a hidden interest. I know that's egoistical because it probably was harsh on them too but yea, that's what I felt.

I'd like to add that I know I'm too young to know yet, that I might have just not met the right person, but I don't think there is any harm in asking for opinions.

Anyways thank you a lot for reading all that, and I'm open to any questions to help me figure out the nature of my feelings and discuss it with people (please)

I’m 17 and I’ve never really been in love. I’ve felt attracted to people’s appearances before, but usually that feeling fades after a few days. And if someone flirts with me, I don’t realise they’re flirting. Because of this, I ended up going out with someone by mistake; it was only when they asked me out that I realised we were flirting, but I wasn’t in love with him. To me, he was just a friend, but I didn’t want to end our friendship , so I accepted. The relationship lasted a month; during that month, we were colder towards each other than ever before, and my ‘boyfriend’ said I’d been very rude to him. In the end, I broke up with him because being in a relationship felt like a burden on my shoulders. Now, whilst my peers are suffering from heartbreak, I haven’t even been able to fall in love with anyone, and even when my friends talk about the time they spend with their boyfriends, it makes me feel sick. Idk if I'm too young to decide this.

I feel platonic love for friends and family, but I don’t experience romantic love.

I can care about people, enjoy being around them, and have real connections, but whatever that “romantic” feeling is supposed to be, it’s just not there for me. And I don’t really understand it either.

I don’t get how people want to be with the same person all the time, build their whole life together, share everything like finances, a home, even a bed. That level of closeness feels like a completely foreign concept to me.

It’s not that I’m against it or judging it, I just genuinely don’t understand it, and it makes me feel kind of left out of something everyone else seems to experience naturally.

Does anyone else relate to this or understand what I mean?

I rarely use reddit please excuse any obvious missteps.

I live with my sister and her husband. We're all close. They know I'm asexual and aromantic. I have talked about it with them, not just the labels but also how it feels.

My brother in law talked to me today and in a long, winding way said he and my sister were thinking of opening up their marriage and, "I know you're asexual and-- whatever" (like aromantic was a curse word or something) but he was interested if I was.

I told him no. He asked about the hugs we share and I said I didn't like the prolonged ones (I just called them hugs he called it 'cuddling' i NEVER thought of it as cuddling). He said great, glad we talked, he left. I told my friends they all agreed it was weird and messed up and I should tell my sister.

I did. She knew. I said I was uncomfortable with her trying to set me up. She said she wasn't trying to do that. She did not tell me what she was trying to do. I said she knows I'm asexual and aromantic and it was messed up, that she wouldn't have okayed it if I was a lesbian, and that my identity matters to me. She said my identity matters and that she knows I've said I'm asexual "and everything" again, neither of them could say the WORD. She said that when she talked to her husband her main worry was that I "wouldn't get hurt" and that they spoke of opening their relationship and apparently her husband needs an emotional connection first and only thought of me. I didn't say but I thought, "Why should I care about this? Why does his attraction matter but mine doesn't? And his lack of attraction matters but, again, mine doesn't?" She said, "I don't want you to think I did anything bad or wrong." Again, she did not give me anything else to think.

I'm so hurt, I feel so weirdly betrayed? I've felt sick since it happened my friends made it better but it still feels gross and this is weird, right? All of this is weird? It's not just my friends sticking up for me, this is all weird to do no matter what but being aro and ace and his sister in law and her sister and living with them and EVERYTHING, this is all messed up, right? I don't really want to talk about this with them again but also I feel so sick and uncomfortable and I could really use some help or even just some commiserating.

I have an alterous crush/squish on my best friend. We've only been in each other's lives for about 4-5 months, but he genuinely means the world to me, and I can't believe I ever existed without him. He makes me feel so safe and loved. He keeps me grounded and is always there for me. I can tell him everything and anything and he never judges me for my oddities. He's such a fun, creative, kind, understanding person that is always eager to learn and explore and I just... Ugh. I definitely plan on asking him to be my QPP some day but for now we're taking things slow!

Anyway, onto why I'm actually making this post. one of my main special interests is Project Hail Mary. I read the book several times, listened to the audiobook, and went to see the movie on opening night. My squish, however, knows nothing about it. He's never read the book, never listened to the audiobook, and has never seen the movie. He had no idea it even existed til I burst into his life lol.

I have been fangirling about PHM since before the movies release. I always made sure to avoid any major spoilers, but I would constantly share my excitement over the movie, counting down the days, then immediately sent him a giant paragraph about it after I got to see it. I've also been posting things in reference to it on my Tumblr. And y'all... Through my excitement over PHM, he has been sending me endless posts about it. He sends me cute AUs, fanart, clips, references to it, memes, everything. He has probably seen more fan media surrounding it than even I have.

He still knows nothing about it. I have intentionally avoided giving him extra spoilers or context because I am planning on streaming it for him whenever I get my laptop fixed. But through the posts HE has been sending ME, he has slowly been piecing together aspects of the story and is beginning to have a pretty good understanding of what generally happens. And he loves it. I am dying to see how he reacts to it when I finally get to share the full story with him <3

Ethan, I doubt you're reading this cause I'm pretty sure you don't use reddit. But in case you are, ilysm pookie. You make me so happy and feel so loved and cared for and I hope I'm able to do the same for you. Thank you for everything. I am grateful for you every single day <3

(I had already posted this before but I am posting it again because I would like to get more responses).

Hello everyone, I'm 19 years old and for some time now I've been wondering if I might be aromantic, because so far I've only had one crush (who attracted me just because he was handsome, well, I think so, I'm not sure if I really had a crush on him or not) and I've never had another crush and I've never fallen in love.

Even when there's, for example, a handsome guy in front of me, I just find him physically attractive but I don't feel anything.

I also know that I'm incapable of knowing if I have romantic feelings for someone or not, and I've never been sexually attracted to anyone either.

I sometimes imagine love stories or fantasies in my head, but in real life, nothing happens, and on one hand, I wonder if it's because I "haven't found the right one" as people say, or not. The idea of not being in a romantic relationship doesn't scare me. Sometimes I even want to be in a couple to experience that feeling and know what it's like, but on the other hand, I'm not interested (I'm mostly just too lazy).

Anyway, I hope this paragraph isn't too long. Thanks in advance for your replies.