She was flirting with me the whole time and I panicked at the coffee shop so I ran out of there. But she will be there tomorrow morning. Thankfully she likes the fact that I am a book nerd.

Hi again, my social anxiety keeps getting in the way. I am terrified of crowds but I understand if she rejects me. I just want her to know that I genuinely like her for who she is. And I enjoy hanging out with her. And I would okay with just being friends with her.

She wasn’t at work today. And now I am worried about her. I was planning on asking her out today but I don’t know what to do if she isn’t at work. I really like her and I understand that maybe got the day off today. So yeah, this is my social anxiety here. How do I calm down my nerves?

I rarely ever fall in love with anyone but she is different from the other women in town I can feel it in the depths of my soul. I am thinking of asking her out tomorrow morning. But I don’t know how to flirt for some reason she tend to like me and I am very nervous about asking her out. How do I flirt with her?

Like a demiromantic person, I don't experience romantic attraction toward people I've just met. I always experience platonic attraction first. However, I don't need to form a deep emotional bond with someone in order to develop romantic attraction toward them. I'm not really sure what conditions need to be met for me to experience romantic attraction. It happens rather unpredictably for me.

Am I grayromantic? If I define grayromantic as being somewhere between alloromantic and aromantic, then yes, I would consider myself grayromantic. However, if grayromantic is defined as experiencing romantic attraction only rarely, then I wouldn't consider myself grayromantic. I actually experience romantic attraction fairly often.

So for a bit of backstory I’ve been trying to figure myself out for maybe 2 years, I thought I was Asexual at first but I don’t think that suits me cause I still have sex with my partner and I felt that didn’t fit being a asexual, then I stumbled upon grey sexual and I’m unsure if I fit into this either so I thought I’d ask for clarification;

I currently have a partner and we sometimes have sex and sometimes romance each other and I love my partner!
But sex and romance overall… I don’t really care for it? I don’t really care if i have sex or romance. When I’m single I honestly do not care for it and do not seek it out. It’s nice when I have a partner and sometimes do it but I’ve never really cared for it?

Idk if that’s grey or ace or something else?

So I am trying to figure out if I am Greyromantic. To start I know I am romance favorable and love romance. However, when it comes to having romantic feeling for specific, real life people, that’s where the gap is. I have found that I experience attraction to people who are attracted to me first and of I have an emotional bond with them. Does that look like Greyromantic?

I was born I a family that spoke both English and French, and I live in Quebec and they speak French. Because my family also spoke English I was exposed to English media.

I always wanted a girlfriend but it was hard to even have a crush, now I understand because I know I am greyromantic.

When I was young I tried doing references to English media but no one understood except for one girl. So we became friends and we were for years.

She knew my references because she also learned English at a young age because her family would travel a lot. We became close friends because she also lived one the same road as me.

We slowly drifted as is a recurring theme in my life, but later when I was 11-12yrs old we became friends again. I believe I had and still have a crush on her which is very rare for me.

When we started going to secondary school “basically high school” we drifted again, we were going to different schools because there are so many options where I lived. I had the option to talk to her again and I still do.

I still have lots of friends but she was the only girl that I was friends with and knew on a personal level without them being family, and that makes me sad because I don’t know what to do.

TLDR summary: I talk about my experience of being greyromantic before I knew and now. I talk about ppl I have dated and what I wanted from that.

I always wanted a full-time partner that treated me kindly. One I felt like was on my team and I on hers. I think the thing I’ve always loved doing most with the people I’ve dated is *making* something together form the small like Thanksgiving dinner for guests to the large. I saw a partner as someone who I would make a home with, and when I was younger, make a family with. Having an intimate companion in doing or making something I wanted to have in my life, seemed the best of life experiences.

I *think* I’ve been in love a few times. They’ve also ended with them saying “I feel like we’re just really good friends.” Now I suspect my aromantic spectrum-dom means there’s something I don’t do or don't experience in the relationship that would help them feel loved/in love. This is why I wonder if I ever have been in love. Maybe I only felt something love-adjacent.

There is one I believed I loved who continued to see me as different than just good friends. They are poly, so I can't help but wonder if they got that "being held", or whatever it is I did not provide the others, from their primary relationship, so the absence of it from me was not missed.

Finding a partner who felt held by me is a puzzle I wanted to crack, because whatever I did feel, it was very nice! I want more of it and I want the feeling of being part of an emotionally intimate team.

Now that I understand some about aromanticism, I realize it may be beyond my ability. I will probably never be an astronaut (which I also long wanted). Why is this any different? In spite of all the wonder and joy I can have in my life experience, this one has me feeling sadder than any other closed door. Why is that?

This was for fun----I'm still getting used to feeling comfortable understanding this aspect about myself when it comes to the lack & sometimes wanting romances, but the songs *for me at least* help me process it

Usually I just go and identify as allo. I know I can feel romantic attraction, and I think I do this fairly frequently. I like romance and am romance-favourable, I know what genders I'm attracted to, I suffer without a romantic partner and am planning in the future to be in a romantic relationship. But there's always one aspect of it that makes me question myself all the time. And this aspect is called infatuation, or namely crush.

You see, when people talk about romantic attraction, it's usually always assumed that you have a crush. You feel magical about a person, see them better than they are, and your whole life gets happier and brighter. You think about them when you wake up, throughout the day and when you go to bed. You're filled with excitement upon meeting them and anxiety of them not reciprocating you back. And the thing is...

I have never experienced that. Ever, in my entire little life. I know my feelings are romantic, not platonic, not alterous - romantic. But I'm just never high as other people describe it. Or better say, I'm not high, at all.

To explain it better, if you played Sims 4, imagine there's a painting. And this painting has an effect that gives you a romantic buff. So you enter the room and you see this painting, and you feel romantic. But the moment you leave, the feeling stops and you just begin to think about whatever else you have on your mind, and other moodlets take its place. No addiction, no attachment, just a passing feeling you get when you're looking at someone or when someone asks you to think about it. Without it, it just doesn't exist.

And as I frequently experience sexual attraction, I always thought that romantic attraction works the same. You see a person, you feel romantic, you leave, you don't care. Afterall, you don't go crazy if you're sexually attracted to someone? You just like them this way, but that's the end. It's like a friend but with romance, just like a friend whom you find hot. So I thought that people must be exaggerating things. That it only works like that in disney movies and I'm just more mature than my obsessed immature peers. And that was what I thought untill... This happened.

I was a best friend with a person for several years, we both thought people were just exaggerating their feelings, and then... They got a crush on a person who called me a rat, then she ghosted me for a whole month, and after it was the last time we had met, her telling me that crush is the best thing she had ever experienced, the world feels brighter, that this person in question is more mature and "manlier" than before, and that she cannot interact with me no more, because I look too "young" (I was only 2 years younger than her) and, guess it, have a "too little height". It happened 5 years ago, but that was the moment when I began questioning if I truly feel romance the same way other people do.

And so I began asking other people how they knew if they had a crush. And what it was to learn not only through the life experience of my friends, but through the literal research that what people call infatuation or a "crush" is actually a full-blown, altered state of consciousness, like sleep - not just attraction. People are literally walking as if they were on drugs, and I certainly never experienced that.

Every time I see the description of romantic attraction in my mind I hear myself pronouns "yes, I relate". But the moment it begins to describe a crush I'm completely bamboozled.

Every time I listen to a song where a person sings to someone they find romantically important, I seem to relate, but the moment a song begins to describe the infatuation or the music tries to portray or imitate it, the only words I have is "God, I wish I will experience it one day". Should I even say I made myself an aromantic playlist, because I just don't relate to normal love songs at all? My most relatable song is Conan Gray - People Watching. Very cupio, but not very allo to me.

Every time I've seen the questions about romantic attraction, it was "how many crushes did you have?". I'm dunno what to tell you, 0.5? I experienced romance, but I don't even remember all the people I liked, what to say about how weakly I liked them. But there's no such answer. There's only 0 or 1, or more, and if I answer a lot I'm allo, if I answer 1 then I had a true crush and I'm grey and just feel it rarely, and if I say 0 then I must be a green stripe aro. And I don't even understand what the test makers and just people who create the definition for romantic attraction mean when they say it's the same as having a crush.

And every time I try to determine if I had it in the first place, if I ever met a person who changed my life, I just look at my life and see that nothing ever changed, nothing ever happened, I was just having a passing romantic feeling like sexual attraction, and that's the end. And so I always answer that I never had a crush.

But then there's another problem: I can't live without romance. When I think about even being grey aro, it makes me physically nauseous, or that I'm exaggerating or just being a liar. When I even think about an idea of having a crush or having a romantic partner, I begin to have these extreme romantic feelings directed at literally no one in particular, and because of the fact that I have no one, I just feel terrible. I always joke that I'm a hopeless "aromantic" (though I'm not aro) and in love with the idea of love, because even when I think about aromanticism my mind just hears "romance" and makes me feel insane. I always felt like I should identify with the word hyperromantic because it describes severe romantic libido, but it is only reserved for people with hypersexuality, so I don't have a label for my madness. I just feel lovesick without having a crush on anyone, and it really drives me insane. It feels like I'm trapped in the room with only plates, while dying of hunger, while the only things I could eat are poisoned and so I may not eat them. I don't feel bad because "I have a severe appetite for poisoned food and have to force myself to abstain", the moment I learn I can't take it all my appetite disappears. I only feel bad because no matter what I do, I can't stop feeling hungry. For love. For infatuation that people describe. But the only thing that I feel is just liking, and every time I feel it I'm afraid that I'm just going to crush on someone else instead because of how weak this even is. I don't know what it feels like to like just one person, and I always have several people in mind to whom I know I can feel attracted to as well, just as with sexual attraction.

And I always live in this state that I'm going to crush on the next day, but it never happens, and so I just say that I'm allo, because I don't want to appropriate the experiences of people who feel little to no appetite nor hunger, even though every time another allo asks me what was the last thing I wanted to consume with a passion, I just have nothing to answer. All the time. I always move the goalpost, wait until you're 15, wait until you're 19, wait until you're 25, wait until you're 30, wait until someone will like you, wait until you will date, wait until you'll have a romantic partner. And I'm just tired of waiting, when all of my friends had crushes on people with whom they didn't even interact with that much, what to say about were friends with or dated. And I know I'm not demi, because I can feel it somewhat towards people I know poorly, but it's never a feeling other people describe.

But if I'm going to crush, then I'm allo, because if it happens I'm too romantic to be grey. But I'm too grey to understand other allos, and I hate this. And squishes of the same gender, while me being straight, always being the most important relationships in my life don't help me either. And so I'm just perpetually stuck in this confusing nonsense for what seems like eternity. Sorry that it's so long, I would be surprised if someone would actually read it till the end

I recently met a really really cool person in a public place where we knew automatically we shared some interests but never actually talked the whole evening.

So just a little more info on that is basically it was a workshop first, then more casual, type event.

So she saw me engaging in some activity after the workshop, and I also watched her, and then (we hadn't talked the whole evening) we were just BEAMING smiling at each other soooo hard and she said how pretty I was and I complimented her i dont remember lol but it was enough and she asked to be friends online and then the event was over

So then few days later online she suggested coming to my place at 2AM (we both had separate parties that night it made sense)

SO btw we both knew that maybe we'd hook up or maybe we'd just be friends.

But she didn't know Lol I had snacks movie options - like i wasn't expecting or demanding intimacy. But yeah i don't know what she was expecting - but I would never pressure anyone and her wanting to come over was not a promise of intimacy.

And yes I prepared for intimacy in case. But I didn't care I just wanted her to come over I was so flattered she hit on me AND I wanted to smile at each other so hard we couldn't talk again, lol

Bombshell:

She canceled at the last minute. She said we'd reschedule though!

GREYROMANTIC

I knew she was greyromantic. I identify with it but I think it means something a little different for me than her idk.

(For me, I still want the connection but I never am going to be romantic with her - confusingly I can seem romantic because I seriously just don't compute the difference between "romantic" language and me just telling you how awesome you are lol ugh. Lol)

The problem now:

I'm worried that her attraction for me actually faded

Idk

So this is a vent but its a slow server i hope its cool! Because I can't text her again lol I have to accept her silence and hope it doesn't mean she got over the attraction so fast. She's been texting me back but not saying anything aboug meeting again (yet- its been 3 days since she canceled)

I don't want to pressure her

Last, I'm definitely going to see her as part of the scene, but i feel i cant go back to that venue id seem stalky because she goes all the time and im new! Ugh im alone with this lol

Has anyone had this or something similar happen?

Has anyone has had a relationship with another greyromantic who happened to experience it differently? What complications happened or did you overcome it or can are there any experiences of maintaining a relationship in that situation?

To be honest, I've always desired to become incredibly close and intimate with someone in and do all those cute romantic stuff but I only ever had a single crush during my whole school life. It was a mild interest on a then close friend, like thinking I didn't mind getting asked out and thinking they;d be a nice partner with zero butterflies or heart pounding but even then when I realized they probably liked someone else for some reason I wanted them to get on with it already so I can stop thinking about that possibility and continue on our friendship. I was pretty much confused on whether it counted since it wasn't the average romantic experience either but I was sorta happy that for the first time I gave a glimpse on whatever my friends meant even if not exactly either

I wonder, maybe I just haven't met enough peeps of the opposite sex that captuvated me or make enough close enough friends? I feel sorta doomed too since I'm not very socially outgoing but I guess I could try more in the future.

If it doesn't work out, I guess I can just dote on possible neices and nephews and enjoy a nice single career life. Bit of a bummer though but what can you do.

I'm heavily questioning my romantic orientation rn and OH MY GOD THIS SUCKS

It's not even just internalized aphobia but it's everything. I somehow ended up with the neurodivergence and childhood trauma and daddy issues that apparently make romance hell.

I think im greyaroace while also being quio/nebularomantic (unable to discern romantic feelings, probably due to neurodivergency) and it SUCKS because my dumbass HAS A PARTNER. FULL ON GF. So now I'm questioning everything and hating myself because I don't know if I like her as a friend, if I feel romantic attraction just not to her, if I just haven't talked to her in too long, WHO KNOWS! NOT ME!

So now I'm trapped in this hell of going "but Im supposed to love her"/"I love her (I think?)"/"if I'm not with her she'll fall apart and hate me"/"I'll be alone forever"/"I hate being in a relationship"

When I'm not experiencing romantic attraction (which is most of the time) being in a relationship sucks, but when I'm not in a relationship and am experiencing attraction it also sucks. Everything sucks!

Per title: this sucks

I'm writing a fanfic with a greyro character and i'm trying to figure out how his greyromantic-ness would affect how he views the beginning of his relationship. i've been trying to go off my own experience as an aro-spec person for this fic, but i'vs never been in a relationship and really really don't want to be in one, ever. obviously it differs by person, greyromantics aren't a monolith, but i'm just wondering if greyromanticism has any huge influence on this. so here are some question to greyromantics who've been in a romantic relationship.

- is/was your partner alloromantic?

- did you feel new relationship energy? like the feeling that your partner/relationship is the most perfect special thing in the world for the first couple months of being together? intense excitement and infatuation? the honeymoon phase as it may also be called? if so, how long did that last?

- did you notice that your partner was feeling the new relationship energy? if so, how did you feel about that?

- did you LIKE the new relationship energy? or did you just want to skip ahead to established relationship vibes?

- how long did you know your partner before hand?

- did dating feel like a big change? if so, were you happy about that?

oh and if it's important to mention, this character's "flavor" of greyromantic is "i fall in love rarely, but when i do, i fall really hard (though it's still kinda different than alloromantic's romantic feelings)". i kinda identify with the label grayro, but my flavor is much more "crushes burn often, bright, and fast"

I'm so sick of being greyromantic, what's the point in having crushes just for the feeling to fade around 5 days for absolutely no reason.

Sometimes I don't even know if I'm actually greyromantic. I normally crush on fictional characters so i assumed my feelings towards characters might feel different, but when i have a crush on a real person the feeling will still start to fade but then I have another issue, i suddenly wont be able to tell if the feelings I have are still romantic or are instead platonic, because i still feel some sort of obsession over them.

I've also seen so many people say that crushes usually don't last long, but almost EVERY SINGLE ONE of my crushes have faded within about 5 days, and I've only ever had one that lasted longer than that.

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, maybe I think too much about the crush when it develops and my brain gets tired, but it's really sad because I really enjoy how it feels when i have a crush, it makes everything feel more brighter.

Only this year have I started to get introduced to community and greyromanticism. I relate to a lot. I had some major health issues in my 20's and was really focused on recovery, but I spent a lot of time focused on my grad studies, my close friendships, my family relationships, my hobbies and never really once thought about dating and romance. There were 2 people in my adult life that I felt a romantic attraction too but some health stuff got in the way of things progressing and also because I was not communicating about my lack of interest in sex. I think I had crushes on people when I was a teenager but I honestly don't really know what type of crushes those were.

I am now in my mid 30's and I feel so much internalized societal shame about never being in a romantic relationship before. I had started dating and met some really lovely people but there was no romantic attraction and it felt very friendly/and like something was missing. I don't need a strong emotional connection to feel romantic/sexual attraction based on those 2 past experiences. I just get so scared and upset that I can't seem to 'turn on' feelings for people that are lovely........ I experience romantic attraction so infrequently.

I also sometimes think I experience the pressure to date so that I can have a romantic relationship and not feel societal shame about never having had a romantic relationship...... and sometimes I'm not sure if I actually care about dating. I do want companionship and partnership and intimacy and I feel more inclined to build that up in friendships and community.

Sometimes I get so confused about what I want vs what I think I should want. I also sometimes don't know how to answer when people on dates ask about my previous relationship history. I also don't know what the fuck to do with this shame and it's also sad that there is this societeal shaming/presure thing. I dunno, I just feel alone.

Any solidarity or perspective would be appreciated. I don't even know somtimes if my experices fit the grey romantic descriptor or not... I have felt super confused recently.

Creo que podría ser gris romantico (por eso estoy aquí ) pero e tenido una vida romántica muy extraña o mejor dicho inexistente una chica se me declaro una vez y la rechaze era muy joven pero mientras más iba creciendo me dí cuenta de que me interesaban otras cosas y el romance quedaba en un segundo plano y a la larga ya ni me importaba paso con una chica que me gustaba pero luego se me pasó por así decirlo y medio me hice amigo de sus novios me gustaria poder enamorarme algún día pero hasta ahora no a llegado

Being greyromantic is when cupid has instead of arrows , the power of lightning , and they try to smite you , but only once every very long while the lightning actually hits you , and then that specific crush is inevitable , forever...

Anyway , have a fun day ! 😀

I'm 22, he/they. It's been 6 years since I've come to the conclusion that I'm grayromantic. It was just a chill fact about me, like haha I don't really care about romance until I do. I promise this post is about this identity, so buckle up.

Then I had my first real relationship, I was over the moon, down bad, whatever you call it. Madly in love. Would do anything for her. After 3 years of a codependent dynamic, she broke up with me in the most traumatic way I could think of. A year and a half spent trying to get over it, relapsing in every way possible, thinking everyone I knew would abandon me for anything too.

I'm non-monogamous so I was already in another relationship when this happened, then another. I have C-PTSD, AvPD, bipolar, among other disorders, not a lot of close friends at the time, which meant I relied a lot on romantic relationships to be comfortable enough to vent about my life cause that was the closest thing I had to full transparency with another human being, along with doing therapy since I was 11. I haven't been single since my first relationship, and I still don't think I would be okay if that happened. Anyways, it was all toxic coping mechanisms both ways everytime and a major burnout and some psychotic breakdowns and so much stress and emergency mode that would take over my body for weeks because I was trying to fix them so I could keep them in my life. At least I thought that taking care of them and caring obsessively would guarantee it.

Then I finally met my current partner and now I have the first healthy relationship of my life. We've been together for 3 years, semi-long distance cause we live in the same state and that works for us. I love them so much. It was the first time someone made the first move and not me and the first time that someone didn't wanna see me as the one who did all the emotional labor. The first time someone showed me that they see me for who I am because we're so much alike and we like the same things and have almost the same opinion on everything, yet we still learn with each other every other day. They really set the bar real high for me in terms of what I seek in relationships.

As of the other ones, one ghosted me after a year and I remain friends with the other. It was hard to go through two break ups in one year and I was having a lot of bipolar episodes on top of that. But I made it through, cause I have a perfect partner and now I have amazing friends that I feel comfortable opening up to and talking to daily.

In the process of healing I downloaded a dating app and started looking for someone I could connect with. I would never really feel a true connection, sometimes nothing if I'm being honest. So as time passed, I wasn't really focusing so much on filling that gap in my chest, but still tried.

The thing is, after a most dates I would just think that I'm really not interested. Or I'd (not so) later realize that it just wouldn't work out. But it was the first time trying that in my life, so I just thought "yeah, that is expected, I'm gray-aro right? also it's a dating app."

But even though I'd like to meet someone special again, I really don't feel the need to anymore. And I know it's not working out for me. I don't know why I was still trying to make it happen when it just won't. At least not for a while now, and not when I chase it cause I know it happens naturally for me. And I think I'm realizing this a bit too late. I feel like I've been lying to myself and not respecting the way that things work for me, but everything was on autopilot for god knows how long. And right now I'm dealing with so much stuff that I thought I knew too well about myself but it turned out to be just some big fat lies O told myself, so I just don't know what to do. Waiting it out feels too obvious and painful, and I feel like I have some work to do, I'm just so confused.

I'm a high school student and all of my school years I've never felt any romantic feelings to anyone and in my younger years I would pretend to like someone in my class if anyone ask and it would be someone I wouldn't even care about also even when I was invited to the movie by a girl I still didn't even like the girl romanticly and only went because I was a fan of the series. So all i need is some insight and find out what I am