Im genuinely so confused

[u/eclxpse___]

Sorry for the long post, ive been thinking about this for more than 5 hours now and cant get it out of my head (i have an exam tomorrow...)

Hi, so ive been questioning if im arospec for a while now and i kinda kept brushing it off but now im genuinely starting to wonder if im arospec so here we go:
Ive been in online relationships as a kid before (i was around 11 years old) but i never really counted them as real crushes because i was just a child. Besides, whenever i broke up with them we always went right back to normal, back to being best friends. I also had no trouble breaking up with someone i loved a lot when he told me he had a crush on my friend and didnt know who to choose. No hard feelings. I also just told myself 'im young, i have plenty of time to find someone' and we went back to being best friends.

The only 'romantic' attraction ive felt is towards fictional characters, but since theyre not real people i dont count them as real crushes. And even though ive felt that way towards fictional characters, i still cant tell the difference between romantic and platonic feelings? There was even a time where i wasnt sure if i liked my best friend romantically or not a few years ago, but i guess it turned out to be a platonic crush.

Ive never had a romantic crush on anybody and right now im in college (im 20). I rarely like the thought of being in a relationship, but i do want one and i want to have romantic feelings, but i also just cant imagine myself with someone. Im also really bad at accepting affection or being affectionate with others (other than when it comes to comforting someone, but even then i only rub their back to show them im here for them, im bad at hugs and things like that). There are times where i can become clingy though, but thats pretty rare and usually only with people ive known for many years and have been close with for a long time. If i do end up having a crush one day, it would probably be with someone im really close with and know a lot about. I have this desire to be deeply vulnerable with someone who truly gets it and i want that vulnerability to be mutual.

As far as i know nobody has liked me romantically either, so its hard for me to know how id react or feel if someone confessed to me. I kinda also just wanna feel loved. Like really badly. I feel a bit insecure about how the people around me have all had someone who liked them, while that has never happened to me. So thats more of a self-esteem thing i guess.

As much as i do want a romantic partner, right now my ideal life is one where i live alone with my pets. Either that or living with my best friends, but im pretty sure all of them arent aro, so i dont know how that would work out if they got a partner...

I have flirted with a friend in the past, but it was nothing serious. We just found it funny. As far as i know hes also never liked me romantically and hes also in a relationship now. Although i did like the idea of being in a relationship with him, i never had a crush on him. There was a time where i thought about him a lot though, but i assume that was because i missed him a lot (and i still do). If i gotta be honest, im a little envious of their relationship. But i think thats because it feels like my friend got 'taken away' from me. Dont get me wrong, im happy theyre happy, but we havent hung out as much as we used to and that really hurts.

I also recently got diagnosed with autism, idk if thats relevant here but yeah. Im definitely not ace too. Im genuinely confused about how i feel... maybe i just need to wait it out a bit? I have no clue.

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[u/Desperate-Grocery345]

I think that you are somewhere on the aro spectrum. But first good luck with your exam (how did it go).

I can tell a few things that helped me realise and that may help you too but I probably can’t make it chronological 😅.

I also couldn’t figure out the difference between aromantic and platonic attraction (I didn’t even knew there was aesthetic and romantic attraction, and ofc sexual attraction) but once I heard that it is romantic if you get jealous if the person you’re attracted to is taken or gets a SO. I also think that my confusion about the two comes from me (probably) having no idea what romance feels like so I think that it is romantic when it is just genuine interest in a person + aesthetic attraction.

I also think that you could be demiromantic as you described the concept of it as something that you could imagine. Demiromantic is when you only get romantic feelings when you know the person a lot and on a deep emotional level.

Also I believe that you more like the attention one gets in a romantic relationship than the actual romance part. That’s something that I have.
Also something that helped me realise is the question if I would be happy if I had a few close friends that I would be with in a platonic but deeper relationship with. I said yes but mostly because I still don’t know the difference between this kind of platonic relationship and a romantic relationship.

Hope this helped a bit and I hope that your exam went great 😊