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Obviously we can…

fun fact:

HOT PEOPLE CAN BE AROMANTIC/ASEXUAL/AROACE TOO

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Wagner’s opera, Siegfried, had entered the chat.

why are there so many songs about romance like dragons exist write a song about them

#aromantic #dragon music

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Feeling-Like-an-Adult Hack

If you need a quick reminder that you’re the adult you are, then go on a solo vacation, even just for a weekend! Go somewhere alone. Plan the trip alone. Pay for it with your own money (work trips won’t have the same effect). It can be an hour away or an ocean away. Just go somewhere where it’s all up to you.

A few hours into the trip, you’ll get this big crazy rush of accomplishment. “Holy shit, I’m doing this! It’s just me! Eeeeeee!”

You’ll get that same rush with every hotel you check into, or campsite you set up, or hostel you unfurl your sleeping bag in. You’ll feel it every time you navigate from one place to another in a new city, or national park, or remote village. You’ll get it every time you order from a menu at a table for one, or when you find your way around a grocery store in a strange country. You’ll get it every time you have to solve an unexpected problem, as little as a broken shoelace, or as big as how to pack lightly.

Every thing you do during any kind of solo travel—big or small—will remind you how grown-up you are.

“I did that. I got here. I went there. I found this. I figured this out. I tried that. I avoided that. I chose this. I did this. Me. Not my family. Not my chaperone. Not my host. Not my cruise facilitator. Not my camp counsellor. Just me.”

Being asexual doesn't make you a child or child-like. If you are an adult you deserve to be treated like an adult.

#ace positivity #asexual #aroace #aromantic #aspec #aromantic asexual #solo travel #asexuality #adulting #life hacks

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I zoomed in to Everybody Lives / Nobody Dies which matches my theology, but got me thinking about my current little wave of post-vacation depression, and how I worry that I’ll be that guy in the afterlife who’s like, “Look, this is great, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I miss the almond croissants from Caffè Nero.”

First thing you see after you zoom in is how you die

How you dying 👀

#travel #afterlife #caffè nero #memento immortālis #croissant

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The Empty Days after a Solo Vacation.

There’s always a few days after a solo vacation where you feel the urge to feel lonelier than you ever felt while you were on the trip, and lonelier than you will feel in a few days, when the confusion clears up.

That’s amatonormativity. That’s the crushing sum of all the other travel social media posts—and all the imagery advertising travel as romantic—trying to make you feel like your solo trip was somehow “less.”

You’re going to be tempted to frame it with the language of internalized discrimination: “Your whole trip was childish, sad, pointless, empty, a pantomime of what real people have. Experiences have to be shared to be real!”

Let those feelings flare up, let them scream, let them have their moment, and then let them fade.

Look through your photos. Remember the fun. Remember the peace, and the freedom, or the limitlessness, or the joy of chasing one impulse after another other. Remember you did this. Remember the sense of accomplishment, and the self-reliance, and the discoveries. Normativity attacks happen. They never ever last. They have no truth to anchor to.

And then just be back. Bigger. Fuller. Free. Proud. Excited. Relieved. And ready for the next adventure.

#asexual #aromantic #aroace #aspec #solo travel

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Art and Empathy.

How can I understand what romance is, but not feel romantic attraction? Visit a modern art gallery. Go with an open mind. Go honestly—not in character, not on display. Go as you, not as someone trying to impress your cultured friends or your cynical friends.

If you can do that, then you absolutely will see, touch, or hear things that strike you as beautiful and even thrilling, even if you can’t explain why. Those are what friends or family or community feel like to me as an aromantic person.

But if you’re honest—and not putting on a performance to fit in—then sooner or later you will round a corner in the gallery and see, touch, or hear something that you know is profound and beautiful, but that doesn’t stir anything in you other than confusion or maybe even discomfort. This is what romance feels like to me as an aromantic person.

And it gets worse. Imagine you’re there with friends, and they’re all excited about the piece that does nothing for you—they recognize the artist, they know the backstory, they comment on its historical importance and its influence in other art—and suddenly you feel the urge to say “Oh yeah. Mmm. Totally.” Why? Because you know you enjoyed some other abstract art, so clearly this piece is just more complicated and will take time to grow on you. That’s what it was like for me in my mid 20s when I understood and loved friendship, community, and my causes, but romantic love was a black box, and everyone else was singing its praises.

[And that’s how to turn leftover vacation photos into a little empathy science-kit.]

#2slgbtqia+ #lgbtqia+ #lgbtqia #aromantic #aromanticism #empathy experiment #abstract art

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A Follow Up to “Sent”.

He replied. We’re still friends. I’m gonna go have a good cry.

“…as my friend, you can be asexual, gay, a furry, an alien, even a Liberal (😱) and you're still my friend and I'll want to be there as a friend to support you... And do stupid things together.”

There are just four people left to tell.

#asexual #aroace #aromantic #aspec #aromantic asexual #lgbtqia #coming out #aromantic joy #asexuality

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The Bridge.

Yes, when I was in Durham, I went looking for Georgia and Rooney’s bridge from Loveless, based on clues from the text. Because yes, that novel was the only aroace representation I had found during my coming-out year, and it still wrecks me in a good way. And no, I don’t care if anyone thinks that’s silly. 😄

1) Across the Elvet bridge. So, east of St. John’s College.

2) Following the route from Elvet Riverside Lecture Hall, then the Sudent Union Building, then the Bill Bryson Library.

3) In a field by the river, “maybe a kilometre away.”

4) Following small, worn footpaths.

5) Near a bridge.

6) Rooney would have a path to the bridge from town.

That narrowed it down to this bridge, Maiden Castle Footbridge, built in 1974 and named after the remains of a fort that stood on the hill near the bridge.

(The other bridge roughly 1 km from the Bill Bryson library is reached by Church Street, which doesn’t have fields or small footpaths. And the run back—in Part 5—wouldn’t be “all the way along the river” since it’s only about 200-220 meters from the Elvet Bridge back up towards the Student Theatre which is up on the peninsula, with the Castle and Cathedral, and St. John’s College.)

#osemanverse #alice oseman #aroace #travel

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Sent.

Just told the last remaining “I’ve known this guy forever” friend that I’m aromantic and asexual. This friend watched me recover from the first fake relationship (late 90s), and watched me go through the second fake relationship¹ (2005-2008). He’s only known me as someone who assumed they’re allosexual and alloromantic, but who was just really, really bad at it.

The send button used to take me about an hour to tap. And I’d often hesitate and delete the message, and wait a few more days. But with each person, it gets a little easier. It used to be terrifying, but now it’s just really scary.

Anyway, all that to say, it gets easier, but I don’t know if it ever gets easy. Don’t feel bad if there are people you just can’t (or won’t) ever tell. This isn’t something you owe them. This is something they earn.

Whether it’s your sexuality, or an invisible disability, or the special way your family formed, or even just your secret carrot cake recipe, you don’t owe anyone anything you feel they haven’t earned the privilege of knowing.

Invitation Only.

Some friends of mine like to replace the idea of coming out with a different way of seeing it: “Inviting in.”

Sometimes, with certain people and to certain audiences, using the term “coming out” can feel like you’ve kept a secret and you’re admitting to it. It has a lot of cultural baggage. It can feel like confessing to something bad. And fuck that.

“Inviting in” changes the dynamic. Now it’s about exclusivity and qualification. It’s members-only clique or an invitation-only club, and there are standards to be met. You must be this emotionally mature to ride.

For something like asexuality and aromanticism I even use the term “clarifying”. I have friends who’ve only even known me as single, or other friends (like the one I just came out to / invited in) who’ve seen me damaged by a failed relationship, then in a really unsuccessful and loveless one for a few years, then apparently happily single for 15 years. So they know something’s different. Maybe gay? Maybe I’m just traumatized? Maybe I think people of our faith aren’t allowed to remarry? They see the stuff. They just don’t know what’s causing the stuff. So I’m mostly just clarifying.

But whatever you do—come out, invite in, clarify—do it when it’s safe, when you’re ready, and only to people who’ve demonstrated they deserve to know you that well. There’s no timetable, no cutoff age, no obligation to your community.

Footnotes:

¹ “fake relationship” is a slightly harsh way to put what happened. This was when I didn’t know what aroace was, so even though I was aroace I had been raised to assume that as someone who felt male, I was were either straight, gay, or bi, and that everyone needed someone. (Extreme allonormativity, amatonormativity and compulsory sexuality.) The most I ever felt was what we would call Platonic Love, but at the time I assumed what I felt was just my broken version of romance. I wanted to be like everyone else (even my gay friends felt love, FFS, what was my excuse?). So I tried. I really, really tried. And I couldn’t. I could be enjoyable, but I couldn’t enjoy, and that hurt the people I was with. It made them feel undesirable even though really it was me who couldn’t desire anyone. And I hate how that happened. I don’t hate why it happened, but I hate that it had to happen because words like aromantic and asexual were hidden away back then. And my way of dealing with how that hurt is to incorrectly call them fake relationships, for now. I hope there’s a better term out there.

#asexual #aroace #aromantic #aspec #aromantic asexual #asexuality #coming out #inviting in

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England. My first overseas trip.

12 ½ days, one suitcase, 16 Underground stations, five train trips, three cathedrals, nine museums, one Osemanverse fan pilgrimage, one pub, two phenomenal local tour guides, three invisalign trays, dozens of deeply emotional and spiritual experiences, three hotels, two coasts, two kilograms lost, one fist-bump from a stranger because I had an ace pin on, five rivers (two of them with the same name!), 195.8 km walked, 2357 photos, 181 videos, 203 instagram/meta posts, 24 much deeper tumblr posts (not including this one), zero jet-lag (no idea why). Loved it. Will return.

#solo travel #2slgbtqia+ travel #neurodivergent travel #travel #osemanverse

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⚠️CW: SI and CSA⚠️

I almost didn’t become an older aromantic asexual person.

Generation X wasn’t told about asexuality )or aromanticism). We were told we absolutely did have a sexual preference and if we hadn’t figured it out, it was because we were broken, and because we were Generation X we were told to fix ourselves.

Asexual doesn’t automatically mean sexually repulsed. I wish it did. Because if I had been sexually repulsed, I wouldn’t have let a well-intentioned dear friend try to fix me. And then I wouldn’t have hated myself for how badly that all went. And then I wouldn’t have let that secret self-hatred make me start [very very incorrectly] blaming myself for the time someone else violently tried to fix me, when I was a kid. And then I wouldn’t have felt like an unfixable malfunctioning thing… not even a real person… And then I wouldn’t have tried to get rid of myself four times (thankfully, this was before widespread internet access, so I had to guess how to do it and I guessed wrong).

Generation X asexuals weren’t allowed to discover our asexuality. Were weren’t allowed to feel proud, or whole, or valid. We weren’t allowed to know that the self-loathing we felt was what we’d now call internalized aphobia. We weren’t allowed to know we didn’t have to try to fix ourselves. We weren’t allowed to be.

Those of us who made it this far made it here against the odds. The majority of those who made it probably feel some kind of survivors’ guilt, or don’t know there are others like us.

How are there so many young asexual people all of a sudden? Because most of the older asexual people got erased by conversion therapy (by a hundred different 90s names), by masking as any flavour of allosexual to survive, by self-destruction, or by any of a hundred other awful ways to be erased.

I’m here.

I wasn’t allowed to be the real me, then.. So now I’m being the real me me, aloud.

Oh, shit, I’m drawing that.

#queer history #mattxiv #lgbtqia #most would be in their 50’s & 60’s today #asexual #aroace #aromantic #aspec #aromantic asexual #asexuality

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I have things that I want to say but it all kind of boils down to this:

I think its pretty awesome that you just like. Are yourself.

I mean, its cool for me as a young aroace guy who is like "classically" masculine and loves star wars and building shit and whose queerness is not always understood to see you. To see that there is a future for me as myself. Because I feel like we have a lot of things in common, even if I only listed some surface level stuff.

Idk just like. Thank you for putting yourself out there, it helps people. It helps me.

You’re welcome! Yeah there’s no right or wrong way to be you. Just be you. Asexuality and aromanticism doesn’t mean you’re attracted to a certain hair dye, or a colour-palette for your clothes, or a specific genre of music. Those are their own things.

There’s no ace walk or aro voice. There’s no way to tell I’m aroace from a distance (when I did my armour up in sunset pride flag colours, strangers asked if I was based on the colours of an EpiPen). You can guess, I suppose. I have more spare time, and loads more happiness. But those are the only outward clues about my sexuality.

Think of how there are like a bazillion ways to be a straight guy, from your fancy suits and cocktail party guys, to the big trucks and deep-fried-turkey guys. There are as many ways to be us.

This is the way. 😁

#aroace #asexual #aromantic #aromantic asexual #asexuality #aspec #just be

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I’m aromantic and asexual and I’m 52 years old and male. I’ve felt this way and known what I know since I was 12 or so.

It’s not “a girl thing”, or “a phase”, or something that undermines your gender identity. Your gender and your sexuality are two different things.

I do all the normal stereotypical guy stuff, (other than get crushes, chase relationships, etc..) I weld, I blow shit up, I make things with industrial lasers, I go on wilderness adventures in the Rockies, make bad food choices, make even worse hobby choices, fly off to London on a whim… but I also proudly wear an aroace pin, and love being who I’ve always been. Aromantic and asexual.

And yes, I saw professionals, and yes, I tried to just force myself to fake it till I feel it, in fact I tried a lot. But nope. I really am an asexual man.

(Note: I haven’t come out to my father or my sister yet. They’re from generations who weren’t taught about asexuality, and they’re allo, so it’s just… hard to figure out where to start.)

Help me prove my family wrong!

I don't know if this post will break containment, but will you like/reblog if you are or know a man who is asexual? All of the people in my life seem convinced that being Ace is a 'girl thing' and that Ace men don't exist!

#asexual #i love my family but they're all cishet and sometimes it really shows #aroace #aromantic #aspec #aromantic asexual #asexuality #I’m not out to my dad or my sister either which is why I have to use a username and stay masked

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Figures.

I don’t have to be Etruscan or know anything about what it’s like to be Etruscan or even have any Etruscan friends to know that there were Etruscans, and that they were around before the Roman Empire and had a huge influence on Rome, who in turn had a huge influence on us.

Anyway, here’s a pair of Etruscan statues. The text on the sign reads:

“Terracotta Seated Figures. Etruscan, about 625-600 BC.

From the tomb of the Five Chairs, Carveteri.

These figures were found during 1865 in a side-chamber of the tomb at Cerveteri They were enthroned on two of the five rock-cut chairs, from which the tomb takes its name (see illustration on panel).

The figures are restored; the heads are female but the bodies may be male. The concept of large-scale sculpture and the style of the faces show inspiration from the east Mediterranean area, but details of clothing and jewellery are Etruscan.

A stone altar and other furniture found in the chamber suggest that tunerary rites were performed there in honour of ancestors, whom these figures may depict.”

I don’t know anything about the people these figures depict, but I do know that everything about them isn’t what we’d call gender-normative, and that it was clearly okay to live outside of gender norms in ancient Etruria. The only thing that’s “new,” and hopefully “just a phase,” is angrily enforcing gender norms.

#trans advocacy #trans ally #transgender #lgbtqia+ #genderfluid #nonbinary

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Okay, this is pretty cool. My friend, Neil, and I shot panoramic photos from where we were, at the same time. 8:36 PM London, England and 12:36 PM Victoria, BC.

#travel #geeking out

[prototypesteve]

I just arrived in London a few hours ago by train and went for a walk around St. Giles and the Theatre District by night, so this dream-like quiz wasn’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen tonight.

@bottlecapsandotherthings @aromantic-diaries I’d be curious to see how you process this truly bizarre profile quiz.

hi this is my first time starting a silly rb chain but i’m going to bc this lil quiz was very fun

going to tag many peoples uhhh

@spacedustmantis @alkalineleak @misty-lilies @not-actually-human @pyrriax @enby-ralsei @pariskim @legendoftherisingtide @wings-of-flying yay 🔥🔥🔥 /nf

[prototypesteve]

“We need to go back to that old-time religion.”

“Ok, so like in 1834, when Anne Lister married Ann Walker in a church that had roots dating back to the 12th century?”

“Wait, what?”

“Yep. Married married.”

#lgbtqia #lgbtqia+