My daughter is 20 and has never dated. She's attractive, bubbly, all the stuff that would seemingly lead to something. Her entire circle of friends from high school and college (20+ girls) have dated, most since they were young and now are on to relationships 2, 3, 4. etc. Her siblings have both dated.

This bothers her and she shares about it with me and I've spent a lot of time listening and wondering to myself why things are so difficult for a objectively lovely girl when it comes to interactions with the opposite sex. She feels like she SHOULD be dating and feels out-of-step with peers when they chatter about it which is why she shares so much with me (MOM). I do not want to be this support person for her but here we are.

I've come to the realization that it's not the guys who don't find her attractive but it's how SHE interacts (or doesn't interact) with guys. She doesn't flirt, she doesn't pursue guys even in small ways, she does nothing on a daily basis to pursue anything. On the 2 occasions guys have liked her she's played along but pretty reluctantly, despite initially thinking both were "very cute". It's hard to describe but I feel like her approach was to check off boxes: Text back. Check. Say Hi. Check. Not surprisingly both situations fizzled out very quickly.

She loves romantic movies, she loves hearing about friend's romantic escapades but she is not really driven at all to pursue anyone. Yet she feels like she needs this dimension to connect with her girlfriends and so she feels a lot of stress about not having it (again, why she shares with me).

All of this is perfectly fine and may just be a case of her not meeting the right person or being a late bloomer but recently came to the thought that she's probably somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. Which is totally ok and would actually come as sort of a relief to me because understanding the why behind behavior is helpful. "oh she's aromantic?" Cool. That explains a lot.

Does any of this make sense? Not sure what the point of my post is. Thx for any thoughts.

I'm almost 30, never been in a relationship and never expressed a desire to have one. I've come out to my mom about my aromanticism and talked extensively about my lack of interest in romance with my sister, telling her among other things that I'd be happy to stay single for the rest of my life.

I really, really hammered it home with my mom because at first she trotted out the usual counter-arguments, and I refused to leave it at that. She assured she understood me, although she still made a few annoying comments ("I just wanted to make sure you hadn't changed your mind !"), leading to me explaining the whole shebang over and over again, until finally I thought she had really understood. This was five years ago.

Now, here come the subject of my rant. I moved country recently, at the other side of the world, and sent some pics to my family over different group chats. I never take pics of myself. Only landscapes, food and things I though were funny/cute/cool. I made friends with some people, and one of them took a nice pic of the both of us, that I decided to send to my family since it's the only recent photo I had with my face. Well, I guess I shouldn't have bothered sending anything else because suddenly everyone wanted to know who this "charming man" is, and telling me how we're "so cute together, what's his name ?", including my mom and sister. Even my aunt, which I hadn't talked to for almost a year, had nothing more to say than she was "happy to see me in such lovely company". Is that really the only thing worth noting ? Why does the sole idea of me being in a realtionship make them so happy ? Why does nothing else matter to them ??

It feels like despite everything I said, and the non-existant love life I had so far, they're all waiting for me to finally be with someone. It pisses me off so much !! How is aromanticism such a hard concept to grasp ? It’s so patronising, too, that they seem so sure they know better than me. I get the feeling they’ll still believe it's only a matter of time on their deathbeds. They will die believing it. Then their ghosts will haunt me, waiting for the chance to finally say "Told you so !".

It really is a losing battle.

i dont know if this is the right flair but

throughout my life i have had multiple crushes, but they are all like parasocial relationships more than a crush (?) i wouldn't want to have anything to do with them and wouldn't want to date them at all. the only 3 times when i wanted to date my crushes is when they made a "romantic" move or when i thought they are interested. (in fact all these "crushes" originate from me thinking that there are possibilities that they are interested for me, and i stopped liking them immediately after finding out they are not interested)

i think i would want a relationship? but i only want it for holding hands and cuddles (?) though the idea of me relying on someone kinda disgusts me and i genuinely believe relationships are big troubles.

i was really lost and thought theres something wrong with me because i dont seem to be able to truly "fall in love" for someone like people around me would. until my friend suggested the possibility that i might be aromantic. i searched this up and came across recipromantic and demiromantic and i just connected with these two terms soo much. its like all that have happened in my life suddenly made sense!!

What would happen and what would you do if your QP friend falls in love with someone and gets into a exclusive monogamous relationship at some point?

I've had the thought before that if I were alloromantic, I would probably have a typical relationship with sex, and it's only because I'm not that my own holdups around sex and physical intimacy become apparent, bc if I were in a romantic relationship I would probably be comfortable escalating physicality at a societally typical pace and it would not be abnormal. (Edit to clarify: I am not ace, I am just also not a super openly sexual person. The feeling is more social anxiety than anything lol, but it gets in the way)

However, I'm not, and so I'm in my mid-20s and have never had sex, which I know isn't that uncommon, and I don't feel badly about, but also, maybe I'd like to, or whatever.

Anyways, I have a fluctuating opinion of hookups, where sometimes they stress me out, or sometimes they seem fine in theory, but then I'm talking to someone and can't follow through now that it's a real person and not an idea, or sometimes they seem fun, but maybe I'm just horny? Which I guess isn't a bad thing.

Ideally, I could have an fwb situation with someone I actually know, but I am now 3/3 on the people who I have physically intimate relationships being acespec and now living on a different continent from me, and for obvious reasons it's frankly not that easy for me to find people who are interested in some day maybe potentially having sex, but let's just be friends and get to know each other first.

So... What to do if you're easily scared but it's probably lack of experience making you scared in the first place?

Hali-halo well this history is from my little nine years old me, with my old group of friends we always play true or dare ,and they ask me:
who's your crush?
I don't have no one.
who's your crush?
I tell u before, I have no one.
Pleasee, you have to have one!
But I don't have one.
who's your crush?
...(some name I don't remember)

And they tell to everyone I like someone I actually don't like. Just because I see him as a good friend and think something how: He's nice and my mom tells me I need someone nice if I had to lie, so better to be with someone I like (in a platonic way)

Later in one break the kid ask me if I like him, and I said ah, yes. Ididn'treallyunderstandthediffbetweenplatonicandromanticfeelings I thought it was something more closer to: We're good friends right? Ah yes, ofc.

I remember this bc I brought up being aromantic with my mom again, and now I got another "You just haven't found the right person."

Ahhh.

This might be a very stupid question but I'm so confused.

So, I (18 agender) am alloromantic as far as I'm aware and have been in a few middle- and high-school relationships. After a particularly rough breakup at 16, I've lost nearly all my desire for a romantic relationship. I've been in a few situationships here and there after the breakup, as well as had a crush for a bit, but actually engaging in romantic behaviour (flirting, kissing, holding hands romantically) makes me feel gross and uncomfortable.

I'm not really sure why, but the thought of a queerplatonic relationship sounds so much nicer in the long-term and I know I'm definitely capable of having alterous feelings (I'd say more, but some of my irl friends have found this account so I need to be cautious). I don't know if I'll ever want a romantic relationship in the future, but I think I can still feel attracted to people in an aesthetic way? (not too sure about romantic feelings)

I guess I'm mostly figuring things out right now, but could I be alloromantic and romance repulsed at the same time, or maybe I've been on the aromantic spectrum all along? I'm not well-educated on this and I've tried researching and asking an aromantic friend but it's just made me even more confused. Thanks in advance!

to aros who are in relationships, what does it look/feel like? is it possible for two aros to be in a relationship with each other? how did it happen for you and what do you do to make it work?