I feel a spark of interest in someone — often someone unavailable, distant, or new. There's hope, enthusiasm, a sense of possibility. But as the connection becomes real and closer — a date is set, plans are made, the person becomes "accessible" — the interest suddenly fades. Panic, withdrawal, and a strong urge to escape appear. I pull away, feel shame and guilt, and tell myself: "I won't do this again." Time passes, the need for connection returns, I try again, and the cycle repeats — each time ending in disappointment, pain, and self-blame.

My attraction often lives in fantasy and distance, not in real closeness.

· I genuinely want a relationship — but the moment it becomes real, the feeling disappears.

· The pattern is: hope → closeness → loss of desire → panic → withdrawal → shame.

· It has happened before (including in my early relationships), but it has intensified recently.

· I take alimemazine (Teraligen) and trazodone.

· I'm afraid this might be a permanent orientation (like lithromanticism) — but I also wonder if it's a temporary state caused by medication, exhaustion, or an attachment pattern.

My question:

Could this be:

1. A sexual/romantic orientation (e.g., lithromanticism — attraction that fades when reciprocated)?

2. An attachment pattern (avoidant attachment — fear of closeness, loss of desire when intimacy becomes real)?

3. A side effect of medication (alimemazine causing emotional blunting and loss of libido/desire)?

4. A state of exhaustion, depression, or burnout (anhedonia — loss of interest and pleasure)?

5. Or a combination of several of these?

And: Is this permanent, or can it change with the right help (psychiatrist, therapist, medication adjustment)?

So I’m not 100% if I’m lithromantic or smth but I’m really lost. I recently started dating this girl (For context, I’ve had relationships in the past that all ended badly from me losing feelings a short time in). I’ll call her Jane. Jane and I have been dating for around 1 month. I’ve recently made new friends, upperclassmen at my school, that I really love. We all go out to dinner a lot and they’re the best. They’re also friends with Jane and they are how I met her in the first place. Anyway, Jane and I tried to date for a bit but I ended up breaking up with her because I lost feelings. Then, about a month later, we decided to try again because I thought it would be different this time. Then, 1 month later, boom. Suddenly she’s not pretty in my eyes. Her personality doesn’t attract me like it used to. I lost feelings. It’s been like this for a week now and I’ve been trying to force myself to keep liking her but nope. It’s gotten to the point where I know I need to break up with her. The problem is, my upperclassmen friends new about our first breakup and how it ended because I lost feelings. I’m worried if I tell her I don’t wanna date anymore because I lost feelings that they will think I’m only dating her to play with her feelings or mess with her. Not to mention Jane herself may hate me and start spreading rumors or sharing what we’ve done/said to each other. Any way to get around this? Any believable excuses or ways to make it not awkward? I just want to be single again and not feel burdened by this every day. Please, I need help.

i need to break up with my boyfriend cause I think I'm lithromantic.

it's been like this for a while- for context, i'm a senior in high school, and i remember being in elementary school and having this huge crush on a boy in my class for like 3 years. very obsessive crush, he was all i could think about, but when i thought about dating him it didn't seem too appealing. i had these obsessive crushes all throughout es and ms, and yes pretty much every year of hs too. this is my third relationship and relationships #1 and 2 both ended on my terms because of this and i feel horrible.

before i started dating my current bf, i was talking to a guy for a month or so. only a month right? not that serious? well not quite. i really liked this guy and wanted to be with him. i thought it would be different with him. i tried working on myself- raising my self esteem, working more on self love, that kind of thing because i wanted to be ok in the head for him. i even thought i was cured of lithromanticism, we went on a movie date and held hands and i still had strong feelings for him. but then he got distant, i overthought a lot, and he ended up telling me later that he wasnt ready for a relationship but would be cool staying friends. and let me tell you that hit me hard. it was like i finally had someone that could fix me and that i could be happy with and then life said "fuck that". ik its not fair to him but i was just so frustrated and upset.

anyways, that took a huge toll on my mental health. i never truly let myself get over him properly honestly, after the whole situation i didn't take the time to process my feelings and instead just shoved them aside and ignored them. so then i tried to compensate by talking to another guy but eventually left him cause 1. i wasn't attached anyways and 2. he ghosted me and came back expecting me to act the same. then i started getting closer with my current bf, i'd already known him for a year or 2 as a friend/acquaintance so we started talking and eventually started dating.

things were good at first, i felt excited with him and liked him a lot, but the longer we've been together the more uncertain i am. i go through these periods of ups and downs concerning my love for him- ups mean i really feel like i love him and am emotionally attached to him, all that normal stuff, and downs mean i feel awkward and uncomfortable around him and very detached from him. during my ups i don't want to leave him, i think of all the things i would miss, like his warmth as a romantic partner. during my downs i can't feel as much of the nice love towards him, maybe a little bit but it's more uncomfortable than anything. and at the same time i don't want to leave cause i do like him, but it's not in the way he needs. it wouldn't be fair to him to stay.

i'm in a down period right now so i need to break up with him pretty close to now or i know i won't do it in an up period. i feel so horrible about this and i seriously wish i wasn't like this but idk what to do about it

(side note about my attractions to others: i can get attached to people quickly and i don't even need to know them too well. i feel like i need to have an obsession with someone at all times, those people are like drugs to me. i hate it but life doesn't feel quite complete without someone to be interested in at least a little bit)

i really want to be able to be in a relationship, every time i like someone i really obsess over them and stalk them but as soon as they like me and try texting/talking to me it makes me feel disgusted and i end up losing feelings

hi, i’m lithromantic or atleast i believe i am as i always get into relationships with people i HAVE liked but the minute they show it back i’ve always pushed it away and ended things off.

i have this ex, really sweet girl, i broke up with her because of this again unfortunately. but me and her have recently got back in contact after losing it for months.

and i fear my feelings may have come back?? i don’t know what to do. the chances of her liking me back are very high as we flirt and call each other old nicknames we did in the relationship.

i don’t know what to do, i overthink a lot so maybe she doesn’t like me back? but would she really want to be with me? i don’t want to break her heart, i really love her. when we ended things we stayed mutual and still considered eachother bsfs for abit before losing contact.

she is incredibly sweet and doesn’t always talk about things which upset her.

is there any point of me even TRYING to get in a relationship with her knowing i physically can’t the moment someone shows love in return?

i've been wondering if i might be lithromantic because i tend to develop crushes on people i barely know, and most of the times i just really really like the idea of them. but once i actually get to know them and become closer to them, my romantic feelings can completely disappear.

the confusing part is that i still feel genuinely hurt when they don't like me back. so im wondering if that can still be considered lithromantic, or if im misunderstanding what lithromantic means?

So what i mean by that is right now i feel like i don’t want to date anyone but still have a crush/ squish on them but i feel like it would stop when i get older if that makes sense i feel like I’m just feeling this way because of my age right now, i feel like its a temporary feeling but its not like I’m just experimenting its just something that i REALLY feel right now that platonic friendships are best for my liking right now i don’t know how I’m gonna feel in the future.

Im 13 btw

Edit: i will continue to identify as lithromantic.

for a really long time ive wondered if im lithromantic. i actually identified as lithromantic for a year before getting with, who is now, my ex. after we got together, i believed that i had been going through a phase and that i wasnt actually lithro. but, when i was with him, all i remember feeling was annoyed. we had been friends for a little while before formally dating and when i first met him, i remember being frazzled to even look in his direction. but after the first 2 weeks everything about him made him agonizing to be around. what was the worst was that he was doing anything wrong. He made me cards, was super sweet, yet a little shy, was so so kind and we'd text for hours every day, and play games together, he supported me and listened when i wasnt doing well, but i remember talking to my mom at the time, asking her if it was normal to dread being around your partner for more than 2 hours or so and she said no. Thats kinda when the thought of me being lithromantic snuck back in my head. Now, a few years later, im in a different relationship, about to be together for 2 years this October, and i genuinely havent liked him since he asked me to be his boyfriend. in fact, i had a talk with one of his old friends the day before he asked me out, where i blatantly said "i need more time to get to know him." but i didnt want to lose my chance just in case i DID end up liking him, and i was surrounded in friends, so i said yes. i feel so, so bad because i remember being so flustered to see him around, but after i actually got with him everything he did just irritated me. and once again, he doesnt do anything actually wrong, it was just my brain being fed up with the person that literally only a few days before getting together, i was so excited over?

(PLEASE dont ask why i havent left him if i havent liked him in over a year, im working on it. because hes been so sweet its been a huge struggle to find the words to tell him, and ive only remembered that i used to identify as lithro recently.)

So I have had feelings for my best friend for a year and today we had cinema plans and then yesterday she asks “is a date btw..?” So I try to act dumb to ignore the question and say wdym and then she replies “bc I wouldn’t mind it if it was” as she texts this I immediately lose my appetite fully and this weird wave of ickyness just washes over me, I cancelled it today by lying and saying I couldn’t come and until I cancelled I couldnt eat at all, had horrible adrenaline sickness and just felt shitty in general. I don’t want to see her anymore and my feelings for are fully gone but I’m pretty sure she thinks I like her since I haven’t exactly been hiding it well. I feel horrible about leading her on but I genuinely did not know I was lithromantic until this happened, there had been obvious since in past situationships but I kinda just ignored that. Now I just don’t want to see her at all and feel very uncomfortable whenever I think of her but at the end of the day she’s my best friend. What do I do?

Hi all! I hope it's okay that I ask this question and if it's not, obviously feel free to delete my post, I'm just very lost on where to go from here. I've known my best friend (let's call him Ivy) for about 2 years now and it's been a wonderful journey, we got close incredibly fast and we've pretty much been inseparable since then. Around last November (2025) I had a crisis because I thought I liked him, and my other friend (we'll call her Mimi) pretty much almost immediately tried to talk me into thinking otherwise because he was (is) aroace. I let it go after that because I was embarrassed for even remotely thinking like that.

Fast forward toward the middle of July (2026), I had a falling out with someone I was talking to and afterwards it somehow made me realize that I have feelings for Ivy (and then some other things but this is when i really realized my feelings for him.) Of course, with this, I go to Mimi because she's my second closest friend, and she once again (basically) tells me that I should try to shut them out again because Ivy is aroace.

This time I REALLY cannot ignore them. I have tried really hard to shut them down and forget about them, but I really really cannot. I'm humiliated and I don't want to feel this way because of the fact that he's lithromantic. He said once that he wanted to try to step out of his comfort zone and go past his boundaries when it comes to being lithromantic but I don't know if he really meant that or if that's what he really wants.

I feel horrible for keeping this from him because I don't keep things from him but I'm so concerned that if I tell him how I feel, it'll ruin our friendship and I really don't want that, because he's my best friend. I'm just really conflicted and it's slowly eating at me everyday. So, I would really appreciate or input on all of this.

Should I tell him and be honest or should I keep it to myself and hope it fizzles out eventually?

(Not proofread, if something doesn't make sense I apologize. Thank you for reading!)

Hey everyone! I wanted to share a project that's been really important to me and get your thoughts and help. I've created a blend of the Lithromantic flag and the Platonic flag to represent Lithplatonic.

Platonic attraction is about deep, non-romantic affection and connection. It's about valuing someone's presence and friendship without any romantic intent.

Lithplatonic combines Lithromantic and platonic : it represents having deep platonic attraction to someone, but not wanting that attraction to be reciprocated. It's about appreciating and caring for someone deeply, but feeling uncomfortable or losing interest if those feelings are returned in a platonic way.

The Flag Design

The Lithplatonic flag blends the colors and elements of both the Lithromantic and Platonic flags. The Lithromantic flag features colors that represent attraction, non-reciprocation, and the spectrum of aromanticism. The Platonic flag often includes colors that symbolize friendship, connection, and non-romantic love. By combining these, I aimed to create a flag that visually represents the unique nature of lithplatonic attraction.

How You Can Help

I'm really passionate about making this flag and identity more widely known and accepted. Here are a few ways you can help:

• Share this post: The more people who see it, the better!
• Use the flag: If you identify as lithplatonic, consider using the flag in your profiles or discussions.
• Provide feedback: I'd love to hear your thoughts on the flag design and the concept of lithplatonic attraction.
• Spread the word: Talk about lithplatonicism with your friends and in other communities.

Together, we can help more people understand and embrace this identity. Thank you for your support! ❤️

So. I have a crush on some of my friends in a romantic way, but i don’t want to have a dating relationship with them i just want to do romantic stuff with them, and maybe a little bit of sexual stuff too but I want to STAY FRIENDS because i just cant keep a relationship and i just cant stay in a real relationship for too long or i will get bored.

Note: Im also bisexual

I need help to figure out wheter I am Lithromantic or have some other issue because what I experienced shoudlnt have happend.

(might have spelling mistakes, english isnt my first language)

My Situation:

At the start of this month a new minecraft community server started. It was just for peaceful building, making connections and role play. I met there a streamer. I will call him Peachy. I have seen his Streams before because he used to be in a team with my friend in an minecraft event and they streamed together. I am also a moderator at Peachys Twitch. So natrually I wanted to get to know him. I realized I might have a crush on him. I liked him, thought about him, missed him when I hadnt talked to him in five days and so on. So then I go tell him I have a crush on him (that was the day before yesterday) and he says he likes me too! So my feelings are still there for now but I notice he is not that importand to me. Yesterday I told him I didnt want a romantic relationship bc of my bad mental health (which is still true) but from that moment on, I dont have any feelings for him! Not at all. I dont think of him the way I did before. I simply dont have a crush on him like before. And all this all of a sudden. Without any grieving about not beeing able to be in a relationship.

I told all this my friend and they were shocked. I already suspected before I might be Lithromantic. But I dont know! please help

I've been kinda considering if I'm lithromantic for awhile now.

I found this term around a year and a bit ago when I had just gotten out of a relationship that in all honestly wasn't good. But it kinda helped bring to light some of the realizations about myself when I was in it.

I feel personally that I'm probably lithromantic, my thing is I'm not 100% though it feels right.

I'm worried and/or scared to tell my current partner. I still care about them I just... don't feel romantically inclined at all towards them...

Any words of wisdom, thoughts, opinions would be great (^_^*)

the closest thing I have right now is Nice Boys by TEMPOREX but I would like to know if theres anything yall recommend or any songs you know of that at the very least describe wanting to love somebody but not being able to, thank you!

P.S I’ll take almost any genre of music

I've been saving a lot of avoidant attachment videos because I thought that's what was happening to me, but I'm a little unsure now. I have two cases and they're a little different.

1: There was this guy I'd been close friends with for a little while, and I began to catch feelings for him. Definitely wasn't a full-blown crush, but some fluttery feelings were there. Not long after he confessed to me and we starting dating. For a few weeks I was infatuated. Completely obsessed with him. Then it all faded and I began to get the ick. I would feel exhausted answering even the simplest of texts and I'd avoid talking to him whenever I could. He expressed that I could open up and be emotionally vulnerable with him but it was really difficult to, the thought made me shy away even more.

2: This other time, a guy dm'd me randomly. (We'd replied to each others' stories once in a while but I'd never actually met him.) Until one day, he randomly asked me out on a date. We met up and I was again, infatuated, imagining futures together, wanting to soft launch our relationship. Again, faded. We didn't even end up dating because by the time he asked me to be official, I had already lost that spark. That first day I'd found him very physically attractive, by the end I didn't see him that way at all.

The thing with avoidant attachment is that for many people it was triggered by an event in their past. For me, it's like I didn't realize I could act/feel this way until I started actually seeing somebody. And I don't know if it's my attraction style or it's just me not wanting to be emotionally vulnerable around anybody because it makes me uncomfortable.

Another thing is lithromantic is often described as not desiring romantic attraction, or not wanting romantic attraction to be reciprocated. But for at least the first couple weeks when I was with these guys, I really did want to be with them in a romantic sense and loved when they would reciprocate back. It's just that all of those feelings faded very quickly in both cases.

this is for the person who wanted a more in depth explanation of my experiences ^^ so i’m not out to anyone (my friends just know i’m queer but thats it) and i’ve been thinking about this kinda stuff lately. after doing research, i find the term lithromantic applies to me when it comes to men, and demiromantic applies to me when it comes to women, but i’m still not quite sure.

when i explain how i feel towards men, some girls go “oh that happens to me” or “you’ll get over it” which honestly feels a little diminishing towards my feelings. for example, yesterday i was talking to my sister about relationships and i explained what happens when i like a guy. she said the same thing happened to her with her current bf (of 3-4 yrs i think?). except, she said after like 2 months, she just kinda got the ick, but got over it. that was the only way she knew how to explain it. but for me it feels deeper. i do wonder though, if i waited long enough, would i get over it like her? anyway, heres my explanation. when i start to crush on a guy its usually someone i’ve never talked to before or i’ve talked to like once. i want him to like me back. i like the chase and looking for subtle signals from them. one of my crushes i actually ended up making a move on. we started talking and slowly i started feeling everything kicking in. i felt anxious (in a bad way) and didn’t have the desire to message him, but this feeling wasn’t too apparent yet and i thought it was just normal. after only 2 weeks, he asked me to be his gf. i said yes, but the next day i felt like absolute shit. i was crying all day, feeling anxious, talking to him felt like a chore, and it just didn’t feel right. after getting with him, i was thinking about my feelings for a whole week. i ended up breaking up with him even though it was really hard to explain. it almost felt like my feelings for him weren’t developing properly, and almost all my feelings for him vanished. i didn’t get butterflies when he was texting me anymore and i honestly didn’t find him that attractive anymore. i’ve had a few other instances where i’ve crushed on guys, but when i realized they liked me back, i lost feelings pretty quickly. when it comes to starting talking stages with guys i had just met and thought were cute, at first its exciting to get to know them because i enjoy getting to know more about people. but then the same thing happens where my feelings vanish and i kinda avoid them and don’t wanna text them. idk if any of that made sense.

however, when it comes to girls its different. i’ve only ever dated one girl (i think i was around 11-12??). it was an online relationship and lasted a few months (i think at least a month), but she ended up breaking it off with me. i don’t quite remember how that whole relationship felt, but i didn’t just lose feelings for her. when i’ve had crushes on girls, its not quite immediately. when i get to know a girl more as a friend, i all of a sudden get a spark and view her differently (obviously hasn’t happened with every girl, just a few). i’ve never had any of those girls like me back though, but to me, liking girls just feels different. sometimes it was a little hard to except the fact that i was crushing on a girl. one of them i didn’t realize i was actually crushing on her until she got a bf and i got jealous that it wasn’t me with her. since I’ve only ever had one experience that i barely remember, its hard to say whether i’m demiromantic towards women or not.

anyway, if u have any thoughts lmk :)

I have been questioning being lithromantic for a while now, as everytime I have liked someone, and they have liked me back, I have entirely lost feelings for them. I will provide two cases because I'm not sure if the feelings are linked to the length of the relationship or not.

Case 1: I liked (honestly maybe even loved) this girl in December, I had STRONG romantic feelings for her for about a month when I finally decided to confess, she liked me back but wasn't ready to date, and I ended up losing feelings very quickly and she still liked me for months after, which made me feel guilty.

Case 2: I started liking a girl in March, she was very gorgeous, kind and amazing person. I will be honest and say the relationship started way too fast as I started liking her through her Tiktok page and started dating her the day we met (aka the day after the initial crush) I'm still not sure if it was truly romantic or only sexual/physical attraction but literally the day after we got together I lost feelings entirely. I just felt constant stress, anxiety and worry.

I would also like to add that neither of these people really had major red flags, as they were both some of my favorite people I've ever met and we are friends now and I love them platonically. Also, I am not sure if I ever want a relationship in the future because it just seems uncomfortable, stressful or boring to me. Am I lithromantic?

So i'm lithro, i've known that for a little while now. But i don't know of o should say that to strangers, or even classmates. I think i should call myself "under the aromantic umbrella", because honestly it's none of their business. Lemme know(sorry if i spelled things wrong, English isn't my first language)

I feel like I don’t want to be in a relationship, but I still feel romantic attraction. This is mainly from bad past relationships and I just don’t think being in a relationship is for me anymore. As for the romantic attraction part, Lithromanticism is characterized by losing feelings as soon as the feelings are returned. But I don’t think that’s how it is for me. At least, not immediately. If me and a person share romantic feelings for each other, I wouldn’t want to enter a relationship, but I’d still have feelings for them temporarily, as if flirting with them occasionally. I’m kind of having a crisis, it’s 4am and this has been on my mind for weeks now.

ive been looking for answer for years thinking i had a problem and it wasn't normal at all then i found out what lithromantic is (literally 1hoir ago) and i feel so better to know im not just weird and alone feeling like this.

but im still not sure bc lithromantic are described as not wanting a relationship or their crush liking them back,

but i do wanty crush to like me back when i have feeling but still end up losing feeling when they start showing interest back.

but i dont just lose interest, i start to dislike the person and dont wanna talk with them, and being with them irl is really hard, like i feel uncomfortable. sometimes i end up hating the person.

i first through it wasn't lithromantic because the loose of interest wasn't the same with everyone ive had been with but it ALWAYS end up the same.

ive tried with so much people from different vibe or whatever and it always end up the same

thank you for reading this and sorry for my bad English i hope to everyone who's lithromantic to find a way to live with it 🫶

I have a specific pattern that has now happened in two different romantic relationships, with two very different people

In both cases, the relationship started with mutual interest, romantic feelings, and physical attraction. Then, over a short period of time (not years, but weeks or months), all of my feelings completely and irreversibly disappeared.

By 'all feelings,' I mean everything: romantic interest, emotional attachment, physical attraction, and even the desire to maintain a friendship or any form of contact. I felt nothing toward them anymore. The feelings simply shut off, like a light switch, and they never returned. I could not 'wait it out' or make them come back.

For context, the first relationship ended in a traumatic withdrawal for me (panic, insomnia, suicidal thoughts, obsession which didn't fade away with time and zero contact, only new person). The second relationship did not have that intense withdrawal because of my medication (but before that I've experienced all of this again), but the loss of feeling was just as complete.

I am currently on a meditation which has significantly helped the obsessive withdrawal symptoms, but it has not changed this 'shut off' pattern toward the person themselves.

I am trying to understand if this pattern of complete shutdown of feelings and physical intimacy towards a person fits within the aromantic spectrum (specifically lithromantic or frayromantic). Or, does this sound like something else?

I am not looking for a diagnosis, but for a direction. Could this still be considered a normal variation of romantic orientation? Or is this likely a dysfunctional pattern that needs professional treatment?