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100% this. This world is built for couples and families, but when you are single it’s easy to get left out.
This is such an important point. Many aros like myself end up in romantic coded relationships simply because it's the socially expected, highly prioritised thing to do. I remember that my first relationship was awful but it was really nice to feel I was doing the socially expected thing that supposedly made you a real adult in a way that platonic friendships supposedly didn't. (Obviously, I'd never heard about aromanticism at the time.)
The system is flawed af.
I do :/ it’s not necessarily that I want a partner, it’s that I wish I could find someone as easily as everyone else can. I simply don’t have the ability to date casually
I get you. On one hand, yeah I do feel like I'm missing out a lot, especially because not only do I see it irl with my friends, but because I'm someone who reads a lot of romance LMAO. It was a big shock to me to learn that despite me liking romance in fiction, I'd get squeamish with the thought of being in a romantic relationship myself.
But maybe that was just me being nervous because I've never been in one right? Wrong. Because then I tried to date my best friend for a couple of months and I felt anxious all the time, because I couldn't match their intensity of feelings and I felt... Like I was drowning? And then we switched to QPR and suddenly it was as I thought being in a romantic relationship should've been- as easy as breathing. There was love there, just as intense as I thought it should be, but just different?
Later on I tried dating again when the QPR fell apart, and again I just felt all around uncomfortable.
So in the end it's like- I am jealous, but I know I am uncomfortable if someone aims romantic feelings towards me. So it's like, I don't know LMAO.
In the end though, I think what I want is a partner and to be part of someone's top priorities. QPR was the best kind of partnership for me, because it met those two things, without all the expectations and pressure of a romantic relationship.
whew! i am pretty similar. i looove consuming and writing romantic books and poems but the actual reality of it... completely different
I feel very content with not having a partner. I would appreciate someone to talk to very closely bc I don't really have that. None of my friends are close enough for that and my family would get too worried but I dont fell jealous or like I'm missing out.
I was in an 8 year relationship, 4 of it married. So I’ve been on the other side. I think it’s normal to feel jealous or have some FOMO over it, but I think it’s more important to feel happy in staying true to who you are.
Yeah, i can relate.. its a whole big part of most peoples lives and i feel left out because i can’t relate to them and never will. Not being able to feel romance can be frustrating, but i don’t try to think about that much and instead think about how i don’t have to deal with the mess and risks of finding a good and healthy relationship, a romantic one more specifically. I do enjoy emotional closeness, and though QPRs are amazing for me, i cant help but wonder what its like to actually be romantic with someone.
At the moment,no. Im happy where i am (with my best friend RN in an all u can eat buffet with lots of sweets) i am happy where i am and wpuldn't change a thing.
Often I just feel happy for them but there are moments that I think daam it would be nice to be in one and feel all this emotions
Nah not really to be honest. Relationships sound like too much trouble for what it's worth to me
i understand. most days i'm fine (and even happy), but...some days, i feel awful about being aroace spec.
i sometimes do wish i was able to feel romantic feelings in real life, but that's just not an option. instead, i try to focus on the positives: i can have much more free time to myself, and don't have to deal woth organizing my life and goals around another person. whenever i feel down about this sort of thing, that's what i do!
edit: spelling
Yeah that’s also primarily what I do, I have so much free time to spend on my hobbies and education, my social battery is extremely low due to me also having autism, so even if I wasn’t aro, I could not be able to handle a relationship on top of everything that is going on in my life at the moment
i totally relate to the super low social battery thing!! like i can barely find the energy to go to work, classes, hang out with my friends and then find time for myself... i can't imagine having to give so much romantic energy towards someone else, it's too much lol.
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It' really a crap shoot.I'm serious. It's a one in a million thing.
Healthy love exists for 1% of people (but not THEE 1% look at all the billionaire divorces in the last 5 years)
Do you have friends in bad relationships? Surely you do.
There was a time when I was SURROUNDED by bad relationships. I knew like 2 people who were in good relationships. . .slowly, those people in bad relationships got out of them. Some of them stayed single. Some of them found good ones.
So there was a period of time when I had many friends in good relationships. . . .as far as I know (I gotta tell you something, your PDA couples? your friends who make mushy posts online? the people who do elaborate romantic gestures in public? THEY ARE OVERCOMPENSATING. nine times out of ten.).
Then, one of the happy couples I knew vanished offline and I stopped hearing from them for a year. Then one day the guy calls me, says come hang out. I get there he's like "guess who's not here".
yeah.
They had a really good relationship, and it died. . .horribly.
I've watched that happen to a lot of happy couples I know. . .and the happy couples I know weren't that public with shit either.
I am now 43. I know 3 happy couples.
The happy couples I knew in my 20s all broke up. . . .and they went horribly.
...hell, even if that was not the situation, I can think back to all of my cousins who's fathers I've NEVER MET.
I'm not saying you need new friends, but surely you have friends who went through bad breakups, divorces, whatever. I don't know how old you are, granted (and you don't have to say). A decade changes a lot. A pandemic changes a lot. I watched so many relationships fucking DIE in 2020. DIED.
So what I'm saying is, you're not really missing anything. Don't let yourself be brought don't by people who's honeymoon periods you're witnessing, especially if these people haven't moved in together yet.
There are real horror stories out there. Pay attention to them. They're the majority.
100%
Oh man, yes. You've explained it exactly how I feel it :/
i feel you and even if i wasn't aromantic, i would understand. i feel like i gained higher standards, researched and knew more about love to the point where i wouldn't be able to date casually if i tried. too many toxicity within the dating world. even with my friends, they're good at painting their romantic relationships as beautiful and then eventually they mainly tell me behind closed doors what it's actually like. and it's not pretty :/
but i will say that the feeling of missing out could help if you were able to gain more connections in your life of people where they have really beautiful friendships or even QPRs and they gush about them. it's not just a feeling, it's also a reality that you're experiencing too when a lot of the people around you are experiencing one that you aren't able to participate in.
i also agree with another comment here that said it can also be due to the issue within our system that makes us feel that way. society, quite literally ostracizes and punishes people who aren't in the norm. it sucks :/
No I don't
No. Being aroace is a boon for me.
We can't experience love but we can experience FOMO.
What a life.
Honestly, I sometimes forget about that. I'm definitely not missing out, because there's nothing to miss out for me. I'm just having the time of my life with gaming! 👍
one thing i can say to you is youre still able to get a qpr if you wanna! i was in the same boat as you until i got into a qpr, and while it sucks that society prioritizes romantic relationships so much, i get it now that im in a qpr which is the platonic equivalent of what society tells me to go for
Not really, my life goals kind of have nothing to do with romance. I’m excited to live life on my own terms.
There’s also communities of people who just live life how they want. It’s kind of invisible and hard to find at first, but it’s there.
I’ve come to learn that maybe it isn’t so much that I feel like I’m missing out and more that I’m being left out which is a problem with socially constructed prioritization of romantic relationships. Talk to your friends if you’re comfortable and begin educating others to the flaws in the system.