Talking to my brother ab our tragic love lives is so fun but also so interesting to see how different we are

I’m non-binary aroace and I’ve been in a close relationship with a cis gay man for a few months. I have a squish and for me this relationship is important because for the first time I’m able to built close bond having an open identity and understanding myself as aroace. The other person is also experiencing intense and intimate emotions and for him it’s a new type of relationship and a little bit confusing because as an allo person he doesn’t separate sexual attraction from romantic attraction (and all other types of attraction). Recently we had a conversation where I told him that I have a non-romantic and non sexual physical attraction to him. I would like to hug ,cuddle, kiss him (not on the lips) and I would like him to show the same to me. I explained that aroace people can feel this type of attraction as a part of intimate connection with a person. For me, this is a manifestation of tenderness. I also assured him that if he is uncomfortable with it, then our relationship can remain at the same level of closeness as before. The person said that he was afraid of physical close contact with me, because he thought that he might begin to feel romantic or sexual attraction to me and that he needed time to get used to this new information. A few weeks have passed, and there is still some strange awkward physical distance between us. We still hug when we meet and say goodbye and give each other a high five, but it's not always clear to me how and when I can touch him and he seems to be trying not to touch me by accident. Now I think that I shouldn't have talked so openly about my attraction and that I scared the person away and made everything awkward? Should I bring up the topic of physical intimacy again or just let the relationship develop as it is? I would really like to know how aroace folks discuss physical attraction with their allo squishes/partners/close friends. Thank you in advance for the answer ★

I'm absolutely the wrong person to be answering this unfortunately, I've never been in this situation, the closest comparable thing for me was before I realised I was ace and one of my friends told my """crush""" that I liked him (heavy quotation marks bc it was not a crush, I just didn't know that at the time). He was also one of my best friends but didn't feel the same way (in fact he liked me as a friend, but I didn't really understand what I was feeling), and the whole thing set our friendship back several months. He was always a complete gentleman about it, and although (for unrelated reasons) we rarely see eachother these days, he's still one of my favourite people. I can't say I handled it particularly well, essentially we never really spoke about it again, and I just pined for a couple of years and then went. hey isn't it weird I never had a crush after that? (cue aro panic). But it did turn out okay, we're fine now!

It's probably a little awkward now if he doesn't feel the same way, or didn't fully understand and maybe felt like you were coming onto him, but it sounds like you guys are pretty close so I expect whatever you do it'll be okay in the end. You could talk to him to make sure he's okay in case he felt uncomfortable, but it's not your fault, you shouldn't feel guilty, these things just happen sometimes. You could just say something like "hey, I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I really care about you, so I hope we're okay" and go from there (if it were me I'd probably make a light self-depricating joke about being a dickhead but again, I don't really do Talking). Feelings are weird and awkward sometimes so I hope it works out for you (or at least it works better than my Never Talk About This At All Costs approach, which has successfully avoided some awkward conversations but is otherwise not very helpful).

If anyone else has some better advice than whatever this is, please (please) go ahead, I am just an emotionally constipated nerd that someone gave access to this blog.

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