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gothfatherr · 11 months

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about two months ago, I found out someone was romantically interested in me, and in that moment, I felt very uncomfortable because I knew he would create illusions and expectations, and that eventually, he would confess in a straightforward manner.

keeping that in mind, I had been thinking about it quite a lot, just knowing it would happen eventually. I thought about how to politely reject him, how to avoid hurting his feelings, how to be as soft and gentle as possible, etc. well, it happened. just at the beginning of this week.

we sat outside the institute, and he just started talking, saying, "I know it may seem random and very soon...." and I let him speak, I didn't make direct eye contact so as to not make it any worse for him because he was very, very nervous.

by the end, he asked me if I was interested in anyone or if I was open to the idea of dating, and this is where my jaw unintentionally clenched, because I asked myself "should I tell him I'm on the aromantic spectrum?" to which I quickly answered no.

why not tell him? well, it would've destroyed him. even if I am not interested in him romantically, I still care about his feelings, and I didn't want to make him upset. so, I told a half truth: "I'm not really interested in dating anyone at this time, I'm not up for that because I recently recovered from a heartbreak, it's been difficult and I honestly don't feel like jumping into that pool again". he said he understood, and we both agreed on remaining as friends.

what I said is true. I did experience heartbreak, maybe not in the way allo people do, because it wasn't romantic attraction, but it did affect me emotionally, and this pain came from someone who turned my whole world into something different. we "dated" briefly, and then we just...fell out. it didn't work because he was no longer interested and met someone whom he connected with romantically, which made me feel replaced and worthless in that moment. it hurt because it felt like I wasn't enough for the simple fact that I was aro and I couldn't give him what he wanted.

the other truth is that I don't feel like jumping into that pool again. I learned from that experience. I learned that I shouldn't try to force myself to feel romantic attraction for someone just because they feel that way for me, I learned to accept my aro identity completely and I was able to find happiness within myself. I learned that society is wrong for trying to impose that a person could only ever be truly happy with a partner.

so I felt incredibly relieved after this conversation. I may not have told him the entire truth, but I told him what was most important, and best part was that he left with a huge smile on his face, meaning he didn't get hurt.

#aro #aromantic #lgbt #queer #aromantic spectrum #aroace #arospec #aromanticism #aro positivity #aroallo #greyromantic #greyroace #grayromantic

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aroaceconfessions · 2 years

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I have IDd as arospec for a while now (still do, sometimes I feel like specifying and sometimes I don't) and I'm also neurodivergent, and sometimes I wonder if those two are connected for me. A major part of how my brain works is that I am usually thinking, feeling and aware of a lot of things at once. I don't look at them from both sides, I look at them from 4.817.36 sides. However, I have trouble getting an overview over the information in my head, putting it in some kind of order. Basically it's like I'm always in the centre of a tornado and EVERYTHING is flying around me in circles and I see all the different things caught in the storm, and I've gotten very good at taking them all in and estimating where I am and what kinds of and roughly how many items I'm surrounded by most of the time, but it's not like ... exact. And most of the time I couldn't tell you if I've seen more bricks or more branches unless there's an absolutely overwhelming amount of branches, just that I'm seeing lots of bricks and branches so I'm assuming the storm has passed houses and trees, possibly the park because I think I saw one of those park benches and now that I think about it I think I've been seeing more branches in the last few minutes so maybe we actually just passed the park, speaking of the park, I just randomly remembered how I used to -

You get the picture. It's the same with emotions. I'm pretty good at identifying what I'm feeling, but unless there's one very obviously strong emotion, I am bad at telling you if I feel mostly good or mostly bad. It's not that black and white you know. (Which is hilarious because one of my best friends is also neurodivergent and has one emotion at a time and thinks in absolutes way more, so when I recount complex emotional stuff to her she goes back and forth between Things Are Good and Things Are Bad and eventually lands at Things Are Good when I'm done processing and say "But it's fine lol.")

And I wonder if maybe part of my arospec-ness is due to attraction rarely being just one emotion. There's so many different ways to be attracted to someone, and it's different and unique with every person, so how could I possibly just disregard most of my feelings and only focus in on the romantic part. That's just not how my brain works. It feels like cutting a part of myself off.

And sometimes I just wonder if maybe (NT?) Allo people have similar attraction and emotions to me but they're better at and feel more comfortable with doing some convergent thinking and summarising their feelings as "I am romantically in love" and genuinely feel like that encompasses most of their feelings. Then again I do also experience romantic crushes differently because they're not this ... All-encompassing thing, they don't take over my entire life. And I can very much hyperfixate (including on people) and have poorer impulse control than most people, yet romance has never been this intense obsessive thing for me. It's just... One of many feelings I can have for people, it doesn't occur alone with no other kinds of attraction, it doesn't fill up my entire brain, but it's there. It's really just a small part of the whole.

So I still feel more comfortable IDing as arospec, even though I do experience romantic attraction to some degree (and it fluctuates). Sometimes I just wonder if my feelings are all that different from those of an allo person or if I just process, weight and interpret them differently because I don't usually identify a "pain part", especially not long-term. I don't know. Orientation is weird. I'd still rather not label, like, 90% of my relationships.

#aro #aromantic #aspec #arospec #neurodivergent #neurodiverse #questioning

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sapphic-sex-ed · 3 years

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Hi~ first of all I wanted to thank you for your work and community here! And providing the "am I a lesbian?"Masterdoc! I'm so thankful that you represent inclusiveness and advocate for using whatever label feels comfortable and seems useful for communication! It really made my personal "re-questioning" a lot easier (even though it's still stressful), because when I look(ed) at related tumblr tags there is a lot of gate-keeping and it just not feeling all too welcoming for questioning people... because reading your answers to other questioning people made the guilt and fear inside me more bearable, but I still have these confusing and sometimes guilty feelings since I'm questioning if I still identify as bisexual or maybe rather lesbian, because I have a really difficult time finding out if my attraction to men is real or not, but what I know is that I don't want to do date any men right now and that shouldn't really be a problem, because that is included in bisexual, but I feel like I'm lying, but I have the same issue with lesbian, because I don't know about my attraction to men... and I kind of feel bad to call myself lesbian, because I do enjoy some fictional men/male celeb crushes (and fanfiction), because it helps me cope when my insomnia is bad... I have to note, that I can't really enjoy it like before anymore, since I started questioning again... and I have this situation where the wish of being a lesbian grew strong within me and if I where to give a friend advice on this (a way to handle my worries I learned in therapie) I'd tell her it'd be okay to call herself lesbian, but I can't tell that to myself and feel like I'm faking and lying and harming others... I really don't know what I'm asking of you- I guess I just needed a place to ramble><° Sorry and Thank you! I hope I didn't make (m)any language (or any other) mistakes🙏🏻

It sees like you have given this a lot of thought and that you have somewhat ablivalent feelings on the subject. On the one hand, you express that you fear the risk of “harming” others by identifying the “wrong” way. At the same time, you tell us that you feel a special connection to the lesbian label and that you are aware that you’d tell somebody else it is fine to use lesbian.

The issue that I interperete - and correct me if i’m wrong - seem to be emotional vs cognetive understanding and acceptance. You seem to have a cognitive understanding that it is okay to use the label that you would feel most comfortable with, but emotionally you still have fears, predominantely about being “wrong” and “harming” others.

these feelings are understandable in the very gatekeep-y climate that is the online space. I’m lad to hear this blog has been a refue for you through that.

I promise you, you are not harming anybody by identifying in a way that may not fit later. Exclus tend to pit diferent queer people against one another, claiming that X or Y group are what is actually hurting the ~real queers~

But what is hurting us is allo-cishet normativity. Other queers (or LGBTQ+ if you don’t like the word queer for you) are not the enemy. And the only people benefitting if we are divided is the allo-cishet status quo.

If you feel most comfortable using lesbian, if the label speaks to you, use it. But before you feel comfortable with the label, you could use queerp or sapphich or gay or simply “I’m into women” as they are all umbrella terms that you may feel more comfortable with while questioning.

Writing your feelings down is a good way of sorting through them, even sending this ask may have helped! You could try and keep a journal over these feelings to help reflect on them for a while.

Best wishes

-mod liz

#mod liz #labels #questioning #queer #Anonymous #long post

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swords-and-aros · 4 years

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Hi - I'm really confused as to whether I'm aroace, or lesbian or some combination of that? Could I use lesbian if I want a QPR with a girl? I've never had crushes, but always felt 'attracted' to women. Idk if this is internalised lesbophobia or I'm just looking to be more represented and special and different. Any advice you can give would be great tbh. Xx

I’ll do my best to assist you in this journey, I went through a similar confusion

First things first, there are two things I want you to keep in mind:

One, you don’t need a label if you don’t want it, some people hold off on labels until they are sure of their identity, some people never use a label, for me, not having a label felt like my own personal circle of hell, but everyone’s relationship with identity is different

Two, it is ok to change your label, maybe you’ll identify as aroace now, but as a lesbian later, or a lesbian now and aroace later, or maybe you’ll identify as a different label, sexuality can be fluid, so can our understanding of our identity, how you label now, isn’t necessarily how you’ll identify later, choose a label for present you, not who you might be in the future

You don’t have to be aroace to be in or want a QPR, it’s more common with aros since we tend not to want romantic relationships, but you can be allo (not ace and/or aro) and be in a QPR

I’ve heard of people being platonically attracted to a certain gender, I don’t have a preference, so I can’t speak to this, if anyone reading this experiences platonic attraction to only one gender, if you could add in your experiences, that would be great, I don’t want to spread misinformation for something I have little knowledge on

It’s possible to be aroace and a lesbian, aroace is it’s own identity, but it is also an umbrella term, there are many aroace identities, I probably don’t even know them all, I’ll list what I can, other people, feel free to add on

Demi - needing a strong emotional bond before attraction occurs

Grey - very rarely experiencing attraction

Fray (also called Ignota) - experiencing attraction until attraction is reciprocated

Ace/Arovague - attraction is affected by neurodivergency

Cupio (also called Kalos) - doesn’t experience attraction, but still desires a romantic/sexual relationship

Lith (also called Akoi) - experiences attraction, but doesn’t want it reciprocated

Ace/Aroflux - attraction fluctuates

Ficto - attraction is affected by fictional characters

Quoi (also called WTF) - not being able to separate attraction, not wanting to separate/categorize attraction

With the exception of acevague, arovague, aceflux, and aroflux, sexual and romantic can be added to the end of any of these, for example, lithoromantic or WTFsexual

It is possible this is internalized lesbophobia, I can’t speak for that, I remember questioning if I had internalized lesbophobia as well, looking back I was experiencing internalized aphobia (there were many moments I came across the word asexual, only to immediately dismiss it as a possibility for me), internalized phobia of any kind is hard to dissect and understand, I wish I had a way to figure it out so that I could share it with you, but I don’t

You’re last line really hits close to home, it’s why I thought I was straight for so many years, I figured, since I wasn’t sure, I must have been straight and just wanted to be special (I’ve actually been told this), I don’t know you, but I can say with confidence that you aren’t looking to be special or different, you’re trying to figure out who you are and that’s ok

The journey to figure yourself out can be a long one, I still have moments of questioning myself, but that’s ok, you’re ok being whoever you are, I’m always going to be here, I promise, if you have more questions or simply want to talk, don’t hesitate, I wish you the best of luck in figuring yourself out, and remember that you aren’t alone

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