An Aromantic Romantic

So in my daily life I am decidedly aromantic. Basically, any time that I have ever given in to the pressure to date, for any length of time let alone any type of serious, committed relationship has cause literal physical sickness. Like the kind where I am in bed with a trash can I’m throwing up so hard. Even though I tell the person that I know that it’s not going to work out and proceed to state the very specific reason, some people never quite get it.

I think that the longest an agreement to date ever lasted was about 16 hours. And pretty much the only reason it was even that long was because I was berating myself for having possibly (not really though) led this person on. I had let this person know on numerous occasions that I just have no interest in dating. Add to that fact that they were an extremely sexual person. I was friends with most of the ex-girlfriends and knew the high sex drive he had. I also knew that I just felt nothing more than friendship, and sometimes not even that. But I decided to put aside all of my doubts and worries and just go for it. After all, dating is considered to be normal by the general population and at 21 I figured I should go with the flow of things.

Cue the next days’ events where, after not sleeping at all the night before, I’m begging to renege on the whole thing. Oh, he thought that he was being helpful by telling me that he would wait for us to have sex until I was ready, not really bothering to listen to my saying that I was not going to be ready. Needless to say, the parting of ways was less than amicable.

About the only good thing that came of the whole ordeal was that I knew that dating and relationships other than family and friends was not for me. I had never even heard of the words asexual or aromantic at this point in time so I didn’t have anything to really describe how I was feeling.

Now that that’s all done, we’ll get to the business of things. Even though I am both asexual and aromantic in all of my personal dealings, I still love and always have loved romance movies. Especially the Hallmark Romance movies that come on. I watch all of the Christmas and Valentine’s Day movies and any others that come on. For some reason everything is good after watching one. And even though I know how they’re all going to end and even the middle stays mostly the same, it’s a love that I still cling to.

The shipping of characters in T.V. shows is another thing that I fully and wholeheartedly participate in. Riverdale, Bones, Skins, etc; whatever it is, if it’s got a couple to ship I will do it.

It may seem a little weird to some people, but I don’t know. I mean, actual, real-life relationships are the thing that squicks me out. PDA or relationship talk, it’s not really something that I’m into being party to. When any of that happens I just excuse myself and walk away. I know that other people are not like me so I don’t think that they should have to change their behavior just because I’m aro. But anyways, back to the topic at hand. So maybe it’s because I know that none of it (pertaining to the Hallmark Romance movies) is actually real that I’m fine with it.

I’m a romantic in everything but my actual life. Strange. But I’m used to it. At this point anything else would be the strange thing.

#relationships #asexuality #aromanticism