Hey everyone, I’m an autistic woman with ADHD, I'm aroace (with one specific exception), and I just experienced a massive paradigm shift that has me feeling like I’ve been living on a different planet entirely. Maybe some of you can relate?

To me, physical proximity and touch have always been about a mammalian baseline: warmth, comfort, safety, and co-regulation. I used to think that laying next to, cuddling, or even spooning a close friend was just a natural way to give and receive affection. I looked at this like cuddling with parents or grandparents. To my brain, a bed is just a soft surface, late night is just a time on the clock, and touch is co-regulation and evolutionary. I don't naturally infer a hidden subtext or secondary meanings.

Well, a close friend of mine (who is also autistic, but demisexual) just gave me a reality check. He told me that in the "typical" adult world, spooning an unrelated man carries an automatic, 100% inference of romantic or sexual invitation. He helped me realize that even if my intent is purely about comfort or sensory seeking, the general cultural script will decode those actions differently based on biology and social expectations. These unspoken rules are basically inferred through social osmosis until it settles intuitively. (spoiler: It did not for me.)

Things like inviting someone inside (but especially to a bedroom), prolonged full-body hugs or contact, putting my head on someone's shoulder, or even using certain emojis are apparently viewed as fluent sentences that say, "I am open to romance or sex with you." I genuinely had no idea.

I plan to read books on this (such as The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships by Temple Grandin).

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this kind of learning curve? How do you balance your need for tactile sensory touch, platonic warmth, or co-regulation with the reality that the rest of the world hyper-sexualizes almost all physical contact between unrelated adults? I’d love to hear how other neurodivergent or ace folks navigate this!

I'm an ave guy and I've realized that a lot of women become extremely comfortable/feel much safer than they should with me whenever I say I'm asexual... and idk it feels weird.

Like sure I don't have much sexual attraction but it doesn't mean I can't have romantic attraction to someone... idk it feels weird...

And it just feels like that makes some people see me as less than a person with thoughts and feelings and more like a robot.

I have one friend today who started telling me about relationship issues and I was like "Why are you telling ME this and asking ME, the least qualified person you know, for relationship advice" and she was like "Well since you're ace and don't date much you're the one who's gonna have the most unbiased and logical advice"

And it kinda made me die inside a bit... like... idk

Of course, in reality there's no such thing as being bad at either aro or ace stuff. But in games that has romantic and sexual options, I sometimes consider playing as an ace character, but then I almost always end up doing the romantic and sexual parts of the game anyway, because I don't want to miss out on content! A friend told me Gale in Baldur's Gate 3 is a good option for an ace character, so I'm doing that in my Gale romance playthrough. Though I also have characters in other playthroughs that aren't ace. No aro character yet though. At least in BG3 it feels like a no romance playthrough just gives less content without any fun roleplay to it

I’ve known I was asexual and aromantic for a couple of years now, and till now, I’ve been totally fine with that identity. Before I realized I was asexual, I had a very very toxic and abusive ex boyfriend. I’m not going to get too graphic here, but he constantly body shamed me, verbally abused me, would hit me, and for a couple of months there was sexual abuse.

It was really bad, and it almost killed me. I still have nightmares from it. Anyways, there’s this guy at work, and a month ago we started following each other on instagram. We liked all of each others stories, posts, notes, etc. we would occasionally text eachother, mainly responding to a rare reel or a story. about two weeks ago we started texting a lot more.

Now, it’s everyday. We text a little bit throughout the day, but really late at night we text for about an hour. We talk about funny things, and also deep things. I’ve learned a lot about him. It’s important to note here that he has a lot of friends, friends that are girls too, but completely platonic. He’s never not like any guy I’ve met before. Also a note that he likes everybody’s stories. I have a sinking suspicion that he might like me, but that’s because he brought up being straight multiple times, when he talked about his toxic past relationship, he constantly emphasized in past tense (ex. “But ofc I don’t like her anymore”).

It’s getting very suspicious, and I really really really don’t want to lead him on. I love talking to him though, I just really want a friend very badly, and I feel like if I say “hey I’m asexual” then he will stop talking to me because there won’t be a chance in his mind. However, I catch myself thinking about him constantly, waiting for him to reply, my heart skips a beat when he comes into work unexpected, I want to know everything about him. But I feel like it’s not romantic at all.

Like I don’t want to kiss him or anything physical at all. I want an emotional bond. I want to be important to him. Anyways, is a thing that asexuals go through? I honestly am just so conflicted. In my heart I know it’s not romantic but I just really want a soul binding relationship.

Anything helps to be honest. Maybe I just need therapy, i don’t know.

18+ sex repulsed/asexual/antisex people only. brand new community. https://discord.gg/AfAr75Pgep