Aromantic Dating Rant #2: A New Nope
Alice Scarlet Death
I made a rant about aromantic dating before but it was constipated and I wasn’t being honest with myself. So here’s a new and improved rant about how people no romantic attraction can sit at a table for dinner with a girl and it somehow is not aromantic!
I am an aromantic who likes to date. This is hard for some people to grasp. While I may not feel romantic attraction I definitely can react to stimuli. There are social, mental, and financial benefits to consider. Side note that I’ve been in some pretty codependent relationships while I was younger. I’ve always been disabled and had issues supporting myself on my own, but I was never alone. Lived with my parents til 2005. Had any girlfriend and future ex wife living in my dorm (roommate technically lived there but did not stay there)
Our relationship ended when I was 25 in 2011. After that I gradually began to realize I was terrible at meeting my needs on my own never had to ask for help, it was usually a given. She was too nice to me considering the way I treated her. Eh.
The point here is that while I may not feel arousal when thinking of someone nor do I feel what is widely consider to be romantic attraction as I understand romance from romance comedies and other media.
I hate to keep bringing up autism but having a brain that functions in a fundamentally different way is an important nuance to understanding my motives.
I like consistency. I like having someone to be excited about coming home and is excited to see me. I enjoyed binging on tv shows together and having someone that was open minded and would watch or listen to all the weird and obscure stuff I had from private torrent sites. She helped pay for hotels at conventions. Our relationship status meant we got to share a bed as well. Southern hospitality I suppose.
If someone said those things were romantic I’d believe them. But I’d argue that I don’t experience them romantically. My needs in a relationship are the same needs any human would have regardless of attraction. If we’re talking Maslow’s hierarchy having a partner having a partner and support checks most of the sections on his model. I didn’t have to worry about food.
For example: physiological needs. Able to pay bills and not have to worry about having services shut down.
Safety: emotional safety because you know they care about your well being. Less risk of being homeless. Strength in numbers.
Love/belonging: friendship, family. Some of these also include sex but thankfully they’ve begun to phase that out.
Esteem: building off of everything beyond that because your other needs are met and you have some stability confidence happens. And the mutual respect goes a long way.
Then there is self actualization. A place I haven’t been anywhere near in a very long time. Because things were steady I had the confidence to be creative. We were in a band together. We were constantly learning from each other having intellectually stimulating discourse.
All of these things you can do with a friend. I don’t have to buy roses or have any non platonic motivations to maintain. However society says romance is needed for a healthy relationship when it’s more like an amalgamation of respect, safety, exploring, and being able to be your best self around that person.
I had never heard the word aromantic, non-binary, or asexual until this decade. But looking back now it’s obvious I didn’t feel these sorts of attraction. But that didn’t stop me from being insecure and trying to play the part while erroneously thinking it was necessary.
I know a gay man and a woman who are married under similar auspices. Meeting them you’d definitely understand what I’m going for here.
It was until 2014 when. I started saying I was demisexual and not until I joined Asexuality and Aromantic Spectrum Discord server that I learned about romantic attraction. It was a huge sigh of relief when I found these labels that helped how I felt. However my methodology would often result in a lot of questions and cliches from allosexuals, people who do experience typical sexual attraction, trying to grasp these concepts.
You can’t be poly and aro. You can’t date and be aro. That’s what I was told. I didn’t care. I realize I wrote a lot but in my head it just feels natural to me. I don’t have to think about it, I would be getting my needs met and wouldn’t need romance to do so.
