hello aplatonic beings

shoutout to aplatonic people with npd.

shoutout to aplatonic people with aspd.

shoutout to aplatonic people with a dissociative disorder (not just didosdd)

shoutout to aplatonic people with psychosis or a schizospec disorder.

shoutout to aplatonic people who are low empathy/no empathy

shoutout to aplatonic people with avpd

shoutout to aplatonic people with ppd

shoutout to aplatonic people who are alloaro or alloace

shoutout to all aplatonic people, we're really cool ^_^

Sorry to all the A's I couldn't fit on here!

Aromantic awareness week!!!!

No option for allopls because I don't want junk data. (And because every time I see a poll for the apls, the overwhelming majority of votes are from allopls clicking the "not apl" button.)

Aplatonic Spectrum Discord Server

Are you aplatonic? or somewhere on the aplatonic spectrum? Well I have a server just for that!

We have:

An accepting, non toxic community

A verification system to keep out the trolls

Various on an offtopic roles for chatting about whatever

Pluralkit for systems

An 18+ section

So come along and join us!

Regarding the last two posts in the loveless aro tag, id like to hop on the what does lovelessness mean to me train. I personally consider myself loveless because of being emotionally unimpacted by stuff like people close to me dying, immediately losing any interest in someone i find out is toxic, and not understanding some stuff about relationships others do (such as what differentiates a romantic and a platonic relationship, why miscarriages are seen as a sad thing, why a biological family is more important than an adopted one to some people etc). Also i havent actually felt attraction towards anyone but even if i did get a crush or felt platonic attraction i would still consider myself loveless because of the previous things

random rant but. i really do not like the idea of relationships. the whole idea is so weird to me. it's like, you have this unspoken agreement to like, interact? with the other person in your relationship? even in friendships it's like. you are supposed to hang out with them. becuase it is a type of relationship. sure, it's obviously not a super strict thing, but usually it's considered bad to like, ignore your friends for too long. and that makese sense. but it's why i see myself as aplatonic spec. i just... don't like the idea of that kind of thing? i just want to be able to talk to people when i want to, and then not have to worry about it afterwards. no weird unspoken rules that now you have to talk to eachother and interact for the rest of your life or you aren't friends anymore. it just feels weird. another thing is that it seems like i often only continue returning to people becuase we share interests, or have same hobbies, not becuase i feel any sort of way about the person themself. it's like; okay, i am wanting social interaction at this moment and you happen to be interested in the same things as me! cool! i don't get a lot of people who are into the same stuff, so i'll keep coming back! but if those interests eventually change? well, i'll probably talk to other people then. it's not that i didn't like the person before. i just didn't feel a connection, so i had no reason to keep interacting with them. and i hate saying all this stuff cause it makes me feel like a bad person. but i want people to understand how i see things a bit better. idk if it's the autism or what but i've just always felt so detached from people; REAL people. (fictional people aren't the same, especially if they are drawn in a way that makes them appear even less realistically human. it's specifically REAL HUMANS that i cant seem to feel a connection with.)

Aplatonic Spec Corkboard Wallpapers

Aplatonic Spec l Aplatonic-Aro Spec

Closer look at the poems, all have been written by me on @cassemiah

*(•⩊•) like and reblog if you save please! (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) * If you have a flag you'd like to see me use feel free to send me a request! I'll make sure to get to it when I can

@strawberrystarfield here's those corkboards you requested! (I have started posting my lgbtq wallpapers over here instead of on @aceing-on-the-cake )

i don't understand people who say that aromanticism is a sad thing. personally, i'd never felt more liberated than when i realized i didn't have to date anyone, or that the reason i felt uncomfortable with romantic affection was not because i was a horrible person

for me, being arospec means the freedom of not having to fulfill society's expectations of what my life should be like. it means that i can allow myself to find happiness in things that are not romantic relationships. and it means i can stop getting into relationships without actually being attracted to the other person.

i know those are things that alloromantics can also benefit from and should internalize (amatonormativity hurts everyone, after all), but being arospec makes it even more liberating, if that makes any sense

As someone who loves friendship and is constantly yearning for it, sometimes it's really hard for me to understand aplatonic people.

But then I remember when I was a little kid. I loved to just chill on my own. For years, I didn't have any friends, and I was happy that way. People always assumed that I must have been miserable being all alone, and that really annoyed me. The teachers would see me alone and would "assign" me friends, and I hated it.

I didn't have friends, and back then, I didn't want or need them. Sitting and thinking, or drawing, or reading a book, or playing alone, was genuinely really awesome. I don't think there was anything wrong with that, and I didn't need anyone to try to "fix" me.

I don't feel the way I did as a child, and I don't consider myself aplatonic currently, but I think I can understand it through my past experiences. And even though I get lots of squishes now, I still thoroughly enjoy the time I spend alone, and I still think I get burnt out from socializing faster than most.

Some people are aplatonic, and they're aplatonic forever, and I think that's really cool. I don't think friendship is always necessary to find happiness. It certainly wasn't for me when I was younger, and someone else might feel that way for the rest of their life.

in honor of aromantic spectrum awareness week, i thought i'd take the time to talk about how much my personal life and feelings improved after coming to terms with the fact that i'm aromantic. before i accepted this, i found myself in several romantic relationships where i was deeply unhappy, uncomfortable, and made to feel like i wasn't a good enough partner because i just couldn't do or feel certain things.

i've never enjoyed kissing, and cuddling gets uncomfortable for me within the first few minutes of doing so. even hugs are deeply uncomfortable to me unless i really know and care about someone, and even then, hugs only come when that person asks for them. it never occurs to me to touch people this way, the most you'll get out of me is a pat on the shoulder, back or knee.

i ended up dating several people who were very much romantics, and heavily focused on that aspect of our relationship. it kind of felt like torture to me, i felt like i was being forced to live every day like it was Valentine's Day- every day had to be filled with hours of cuddling, kissing, and telling the other person how much i loved them. while not all romantic partners are like this, it wore on my psyche quickly to be paired with folks like this, because i understood how important it was to them, but i just couldn't keep up the performance.

i thought something was "wrong" with me for years and that i just wasn't in touch with my emotions, or that i was somehow embracing some toxic aspects of my masculinity without realizing. it took me ages to remember that i came out as aromantic when i was much younger, but after criticism from my friends, including a friend who was asexual, i stopped identifying with the label, because i was told that aromanticism wasn't real, and that that just made me an asshole.

nearly a decade and several uncomfortable romantic relationships later, it finally clicked that there wasn't something wrong with me, but there was something wrong with the situations i was getting myself into. sure, i love being partnered- i have a queerplatonic partner that i've known for a decade and have only gotten closer to over time. but we've never been romantic. we don't exchange romantic platitudes, and i realized; i've never been happier with someone else than i am with this person.

why is that?

oh. because they don't expect romance from me. they are also on the aspectrum and don't have a romantic partner, either.

this relationship has brought me more joy than any romantic partnership i've ever attempted to pursue. that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me- i was just looking for happiness in the wrong places. i was miserable not because i'm aromantic, but because i was getting into romantic relationships.

romance can be a source of misery. romance does not inherently make everyone happy. we are not all looking for romance as a species. in fact, chasing it makes many people miserable. too many people spend their lives looking for "the one" that they can kiss, cuddle, hold and say all of those mushy things to when they may not even want that to begin with.

i've never been more at peace with myself since finally, fully accepting that i'm aromantic. i love who i am, and i love how i love. i am not loveless, i experience platonic, queerplatonic and other forms of love. but loveless aromantics aren't miserable, either. we are all embracing ourselves in a way that's true to us. we are refusing to warp ourselves to a society that tells us that we all must have homogeneous feelings.

i am aromantic. i am here. my aromanticism is queer in a society that expects and demands romance of me, and this is true of all aromantics, cis, trans, gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, and otherwise. we are here, we are not going away any time soon, and we will not be silent because our identities make some people uncomfortable. we are happiest being who we are.

happy aro week, this goes out to every last arospectrum person out there, appreciate yourselves this week. you deserve it.

Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Everyone!

Learn more about aromanticism and upcoming community events on the ASAW website.

[Image description: A square graphic with a white box of text in the middle. The text is green and black and reads “Feb 18th -24th. Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! We are proud to promote the acceptance and inclusion of aromantic identities! Learn more about ASAW at arospecweek.org”. To the top right of the text is clip art of a brown hand waving an aromantic flag. Beneath the text, there are graphics of the AUREA logo and the ASAW website logo. Behind the textbox, there are two diagonal aromantic flags stretched across the top left and bottom right corners of the image, with a darker shade of green in between them.]

I wish a very happy aromantic spectrum awareness week to everyone on the aromantic spectrum! To me aromanticism is an orientation, a life philosophy, a political stance and a big fuck you to heteronormative and amatonormative society and I think that's beautiful! So shout-out to all aros, your experiences are worth sharing and your aromanticism should be celebrated!

Arospecs!

I’d genuinely appreciate every single one of you sending me your stories so that I can (anonymously) post them during #aromanticspectrumawarenessweek2024 !

Be considerate to aplatonic experiences on ALL days, not just when it's easy to nod along to what we say!

Shoutout to aplatonic aros of all kinds that get told making Valentine's Day about platonic love makes it "for" aros and to not complain, despite being an aro who also feels little or none at all, and for aplatonic aroallos who are belittled and demeaned for their potential relationships lacking yet another type of love.

Shoutout to aplatonic aces of all kinds that get constantly called shallow and callous for potentially loving their partner(s) more than their friends, or for not being able to "make up" for their aroace identity with a separate love.

Shoutout to aplatonics who are just aplatonics and nothing else, who are unseen most times and dismissed as discourse material on others.

Shoutout to aplatonics that are also other atertiary labels, and can't just "hop on" to the next proposal of love that "everyone feels".

Shoutout to loveless people who also identify with the aplatonic label, who only get mentioned in passing and have every concern dismissed as derailing or complaining.

Aplatonics are here all year. Show up for us every time, and don't ignore us.