As valentine's is two weeks away, are we all in agreement that we'll make aromantic trending for a 3rd year in a row?

No hold on I'm gonna make an extra post about this:

I wouldn't choose to be alloromantic

If I were given the choice to either remain aro or become alloro again, I would choose aromanticism.

And I think a lot of people need to hear that.

fewer characters who are jaded and against romance until they find that one person who fixes them, and more aro characters who don’t need to be fixed

[ID: The text "This February, say NO to amatonormativity" in green, pink, and red letters. The background is a picture of red, pink, and white heart shaped sprinkles arranged to form a heart, with pink and glittery photo filters applied. End ID]

february is for the aros now

aro4aro relationships are so important, actually

(relationship being vaguely used here, input whatever term you want, all of them are important)

i love a-specs who experience sexual attraction or like sexual things

i love aroallos i love non-sam aros i love aromids i love allosexual apls i love sex-favorable aces i love gray aces i love aegos i love demisexuals i love orchidsexuals i love every a-spec who is interested in sexual things you are all so cool

I'm so excited to be going out to dinner with my partner on Valentines day, even the fact that outsiders will perceive our relationship as romantic doesn't bother me. I feel happy being able to indulge in ourselves this day and have a nice dinner and exchange gifts.

Fuck Valentines day still tho that shit sucks

I desperately need some irl aro friends if anyone knows how to do this I would love some advice

re: "qprs are just best friends"

this is an infuriating take but also at this point kinda funny for me tbh. yeah you're right i can't tell the difference between a qpr and a really good friendship that may or may not involve kissing and maybe fucking that person and maybe moving in with them at some point or not. yeah you're right it's entirely ~vibes based~. but really. tell me how that's different from your romantic relationship. that's also just a relationship with a person who is important to you who you might or might not want to have intimate physical interactions with and who you might maybe want to spend your life with. come on. tell me the difference.

(the secret is that i actually don't care and i can label any relationships i have ever as i and the other people involved want and we can do whatever we want forever.my relationships are mine. and actually i want my partners to be my friends first and anything else second. shut the fuck up and figure out what you actually want from life and stop pestering people who just live theirs)

Not aro as in "I'm still normal because I love my friends" but aro as in "I'm going to burn down the relationship hierarchy and the idea that 'love' or experiening any form of attraction is what makes us human". Aro as in "fuck you, I'm queer"

[Image description: The "I bring a sort of vibe" meme template, edited to say "I bring a sort of "I fuck nasty" vibe to the aspec community that aroallo erasure don't really like". End description]

I just realized that most ppl who know I'm aromantic... don't know that I used to be alloro. And then greyro.

No, I don't mean I identified that way until I figured out I was aro, I genuinely was alloromantic until like, summer or autumn 2015? Then I noticed that I was getting fewer "casual" crushes (y'know, not those full-blown ones, but the ones that are like a spark of interest that you know could turn into something stronger under the right circumstances?) and that they were generally getting weaker. I found myself fantasizing less and less abt romantic relationships. And y'know those fictional crushes where you'd imagine being romantically involved with a character? Yeah, I started imagining more platonic scenarios instead. The romantic ones just... became less appealing.

Basically, over a span of several months my interest in romance diminished until, sometime in early 2016, it was just. Gone.

And I've been aromantic ever since.

The cool thing about all this is that 1) I knew about the aro-spec before then, so I never thought I was broken or mentally ill or anything, I knew it was okay to be greyro and then later aro and 2) I never had to question whether I was really aro, I never had the "how do you prove a negative?" problem, because I knew what being alloro felt like, I could feel the difference

The weird thing is that to this day I've never heard of anything like this happening to anyone else. But I guess that's why I'm posting this, so if anyone stumbles upon this post who has experienced this as well, they'll know that they're not the only one.

Now, I know a lot of you may be wondering: If my romantic attraction just went away one day, does that mean it might at some point come back?

And, well, it might. I don't know, I didn't know it could go away until it did. I can't see the future, but yeah, maybe one day I'll feel romantic attraction again.

I hope not though.

“love” is not a catch all word for connection and it is not the word everyone feels and it is not a useful descriptor for everyone’s feelings and it’s a word loaded in specific ways, please respect that people might not want to use it

[ID: The words "I am whole without love" in green letters. The background is a matcha cupcake with light green icing topped with a small flower resembling a daisy. End ID]

There's nothing wrong with not feeling love! This applies to any and every kind of love. Don't let anyone tell you what feelings you "should" be feeling.

image source

Aromantic Census

Above is a link for a Google Form for a small Aromantic Census. As in the description within the form, this information is simply to gather some demographic questions about the aromantic community on Tumblr and Discord. It will be shared on this Tumblr, which may be spread to Discord, but the information will not be spread otherwise by the creator.

All questions are multiple choice with some multi-select, all with the ability to write in one's own answers. All questions are simple demographic questions and do not venture into typically triggering topics. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to use this Tumblr to communicate them.

i just introduced someone (who is not aro) to the concept of amatonormativity and they LISTENED and said they APPRECIATED ME TEACHING THEM ABOUT IT so remember that even if it feels like no one cares what you have to say there ARE people out there who will listen to and appreciate you

your perspective as an aro is important and worth listening to and there really are people who will recognize that, i promise