it might not be, but my recent ex did that with others. she said she found out she was aromantic but while we were dating, didn’t have feelings for me and didn’t make jokes or flirt with me but she would with others.
it might not be, but my recent ex did that with others. she said she found out she was aromantic but while we were dating, didn’t have feelings for me and didn’t make jokes or flirt with me but she would with others.
I mean, I’m aromantic and have a partner. It’s not like I don’t love them, I do, intensely. I simply don’t understand what the difference is between romantic and platonic love.
Like, what’s different about the love you have for a romantic partner than the love you have for a friend? Is it simply the addition of being sexually attracted to someone? So romantic love is friendship plus sexual attraction? What happens when the sexual attraction fades? Do you stop romantically loving your partner? Do you then break up because you’re no longer sexually attracted to them? I just don’t get it, frankly.
Sexual attraction for me is so, so fickle, it comes and goes and never stays. If I tried to build partner relationships on sexual attraction, well, I’d never stick with one partner for long, I’d be breaking up with people constantly, and that sounds like a miserable way to live. Especially since I’ve found a person I get along great with, we have similar long-term goals, senses of humor that mesh great, they’re everything I want in a life partner. I really don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to be married to this person, we’ve built our life together, why would I throw that away just because I don’t really “get” romantic love?
ive been with my partner for a couple decades and am still sexually attracted to them. i dont know what to tell you. im just saying from my perspective if i were to be dating i would not want to be involved with someone who is “aromantic” because it would be pointless. maybe i just dont understand the kids these days.
I’ve had many many conversions where I’ve tried to get people to define what romance means, and so far nobody has a satisfying answer. It seems like everyone thinks it should just be obvious what is meant by that word, and can’t or won’t pin it down in a way that describes what’s unique about that kind of love compared to other kinds of love.
The dictionary definitions are also highly circular. It’s like, romance is “the desire to be in romantic relationships”, and romantic relationships are “oriented towards expressions of romance” and so on.
I’ve started to suspect that the very fact that I’m unable to determine what romance even means is a hint that I’m probably aromantic. It’s a very strange thing though… how can I call myself a word that means “not romantic” when I don’t even know what it is that I’m not?
Yeah, it’s sex + love. “Romantic” as a descriptor was always a euphemism. Sexual desire waxes and wanes, and varies between people and over time. Always has been. But it would be a very weird kind of categorization if you had to redefine your feelings constantly based on the present moment.