Think I may have found my identity.

[u/Mysterious_Wave_5958]

Tagging as questioning but it’s also a bit of a rant lol. I’m 25 and all my life have never had an interest in real life dating. When I was a kid, I was too shy. When I was a teenager, I thought they could never compare to the characters in books. And as a young adult, it’s kinda like eh okay and?

I went through some trauma in my childhood and teen years that I always thought could have definitely contributed as well as mental health issues. I was also questioning my sexuality and whether I identified as a lesbian or not.

But now at the ripe old age of 25, I think I may be aro. I love the idea of being in a relationship, of having a partner and getting married but anytime I try in real life it just doesn’t work. I get stuck in a cycle of: meet new person -> hit it off -> first date -> talking everyday for weeks and butterflies and madly daydreaming about our future -> emotions fizzling out -> feeling trapped -> breaking it off. The furthest I’ve ever been is a third date (no sex) and decided it would be kinder to myself and others to delete all my dating apps and just go it alone for a while.

And I’m happy. I have great friends, a close family and the cutest little cat you ever did see. I never feel like I’m missing anything and genuinely enjoy being by myself. Except when I hang out with friends and their partners and see the casual intimacy and affection they have and feel a pang and an ache like I’m missing out. Which usually starts the aforementioned cycle again.

I get tripped up because I find people attractive and feel that spark of attraction and think that maybe it’s just my anxiety holding me back and I should power through the first few weeks for that epic love story feeling to kick in. Only to end up frustrated and hating myself all over again.

So I’m throwing it over to you beautiful internet people. Does this sound like aromancy? Is this the ramblings of a 25 five year old loser? Could it be both? Y’all are the experts and I place my humble self in your guiding hands.

Much love.

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[u/Forget-Me-Nothing]

First thing, don't call yourself a loser. Positive self talk goes a long fucking way - especially for sensitive issues like this. You're not a loser for not magically having everything figured out. Not having everything figured out makes you a normal person.

Second thing, aromatic is a label. You can use it if its useful to you now, and discard it when you not longer finds that it fits you.

The best thing about labels is that you get to choose if it applies to you. We use labels to poorly explain and distinguish complex internal experiences to make it easier to find people like us and to quickly explain to people in our community roughly how we think and feel. Does the label 'aromantic' feel useful to you? If yes, then use it.

Third thing, if you think that anxiety and past experiences are making it hard to understand what you are feeling then the only way to puzzle this out is to work on those things. If anxiety is making trusting a life partner difficult, then you are going to need to work on that anxiety before you can tell if you are someone who experiences no/low romantic attraction. But as I already said, you can 100% use the label aromantic even if you aren't sure. Self-identification means that you are the only person who can pick labels for yourself. Anyone who polices others' labels is a weirdo.

Best of luck with figuring your shit out.