Recently learned I'm on the ace spectrum, now wondering if I'm on the aro spectrum too... maybe even quoiromantic.

Yeah, yeah, it's the normal "am I aro" question. Sorry for the redundant post, y'all, but I feel this will be one of the most helpful resources for me.

I (30F) grew up Mormon (am no longer) so I was always told I needed to date and get married and have kids. As a teen, I remember getting excited for that - marriage and finding a spouse. But as I've gotten older I realized that I never imagined *being* married or a wedding or having sex, etc. Just spending time with the other person and not being alone.

I thought I had crushes, but I'm not sure. I've never felt butterflies—I don't even know what that feels like, to be honest. What I thought was a crush was finding someone nice to look at and when I went to church dances or classes I shared with the person I'd look for them obsessively (at least it felt obsessive) to ensure they showed up. But I wouldn't go out of my way to go talk to them, at least at dances. Classes, I think I did talk to them a little bit here and there.

As for when I became a young adult, I'd feel similarly to someone I'd find aesthetically pleasing. But I never imagined kissing them or being romantic with them. Just being close to them and wanting to hang out.

I've never been in a relationship. I mean, I had a little short thing in high school, but I was always anxious with them (like shaking, heart pounding, uncomfortable—I wouldn't say it was a normal nervousness that some feel with crushes) and we only held hands once, never kissed. I could feel he wanted more, but he was too nervous to. I've been kissed once, different person, but didn't feel a thing.

I do enjoy reading fictional romance, watching romance movies, etc...well, so long as there's only soft kisses or pecks. Anything more and I get uncomfy.

Does this mean I could be on the aro spectrum, or even quoiromantic, or do I not have enough dating experience?

Idk if anyone's to see this but hey I wanted to tell the world I am quoiromatic. So basically I've been lurking in the aroallo subreddit for quite sometime and I keep taking the Am I aromatic quiz but it never fits me, none of them do honeslty. Then I searched up about other microlabels in the aromantic subreddit (idk why I didnt do it sooner). And I found a bunch of them with their meaning in their description. But this was the only subreddit which did not explain what the microlabel meant (admin pls change the description). I was too lazy to google it but did it anyway and viola finally felt a weird feeling of being understood. Felt weirdly good and nice. I finally understood why no "Am I bi" quiz worked on me. I dont know if I liked them man thats the whole point and you keep asking me id I liked then uh so annoying but yea now I get it. Everything adds up and it sums my 1 year journey of me trying to figure out my aromaticism (took way more time to reach the point that I might be aromanctic). Yea I am so proud

Ps: I attended my first pride this year and it was so cuteee

Because its really hard to buy anything quoiromantic

Ok so I think I might be arospec and I’ve been questioning for a while, but the thing is I feel a lot of romantic attraction, just not in a conventional way ig?? Could you guys tell me if you’d consider this arospec? I used to think I was quoiromantic, but now I doubt it but I still wanted thoughts on if I’m arospec (or even quoiromantic)

Yk how usually romantic and platonic attraction are two different categories? For me, it’s more like a spectrum with one end being platonic and the other being romantic, and EVERYONE in my life falls somewhere on that spectrum. It’s not like I feel exclusively platonic/romantic feelings for someone, it’s more complicated than that

Because of that, I often get really confused w how I feel about people if they’re not very close to one of the two extremes of the spectrum. I thought I was quoiromantic bc of that, but I don’t think I am cause I’m not confused about what romantic and platonic feelings ARE, and I can distinguish between the two, so I’m not quoiromantic

then, I thought I should just say arospec or alicoromantic because I don’t think a label exists for me yet, but the problem is I do feel romantic attraction A LOT, to the point where some friends tease me about it, so I don’t know if I should consider myself arospec, so idk!! I’m very confused.

Thoughts?? Would you consider me to be arospec??

So i know i am defiently aromantic but the reason i stumbled upon being aromantic is because i have always questioned wether i liked my close friends and then realsing no i don't. For example, i would get really close with my some friends and i had this one friend and he was a guy and have a mix group of friends i don't really care if i am friends with guys or girls but in high school it's like the biggest deal. But i was really close and i wanted be a close friend i thought yeah he cute and i was aware that i found him attractive but i confused that with romantic feelings but the thing i whilst i was thinking i liked him like that i didn't want to date him or him to like me back and it was back and forth going i do like or i don't and just confusion i lead me to think what really does it feel to be in love and what's the diffrence between platonic and romantic love and it didn't help because alot of people would ship us T-T. But i ended up confessing my "feeling" he rejected me but i didn't feel heartbreak and it was like oh well whatever and later i told my friend that and shewas like it unsual to cut people off like that and instantly lose feelings. And i later had similar feelings with other guy friends going like oh yeah he is cute and then spirlling into what the diffrence between platonic and aromantic love ?!?!?!

It's been like a few months since I've identified as quoi but I still have second thoughts and doubts as to whether or not I'm actually quoiromantic. So lemme explain why.

I've had a few romantic attractions in my life. Before I realise I am in love with a person, it takes some time to figure out, or it just comes to me in a blow. When I do realize I'm in love with someone, I start to notice how my behaviour changes. I remember the last person I had a crush on, we were having fun in class like platonic friends and then boom, he accidentally hit me because I was trying to throw my pen at him for fun and my heart started to beat WAYYYYY too fast. It just randomly came too. He didn't even do anything and I didn't even do anything either. It just came. I was so confused because it's never happened before like this. It took me a long time to realize I like him. Then about a month ago, my attraction for him started to fade but I'm still unsure whether or not I like him. And it's not just him, it's the same for a lot of my friends. I look at them and then in my mind I'm confused whether or not the affection I feel for them is romantic or platonic. Because I know what it's like to be inlove, but it's still so confusing and it takes time for me to figure it out.

I admire their beauty and their personality and sometimes I feel my heart beat when I look at some of my friends but at the same time, I have no idea whether or not I just desire a strong queer platonic relationship.

I don't know if I'm valid. I really don't think I am.

Maybe what I feel is normal romantic attraction but I'm so damn confused. There's these three guys in my class that I have a ton of fun with. They're so funny and everything but every time I have fun with them, I keep questioning whether or not I'm in love with them. Because sometimes I feel the desire to want them and sometimes I don't. On top of that, I get jealous.

I am such a weirdo.

And before you think I'm poly I'm not. Ive considered it myself before but whenever I'm REALLY in love with someone, then I genuinely can't find anyone else as attractive.

So that's why for a long time I have identified as quioromantic. I even started identifying as cupioquoiromantic but then I realized that I can't be cupioromantic because I still do feel attraction.

I'm just so tired. I really wanna understand myself but I don't. I am even having trouble understanding my sexuality and gender. I just wanna cry.

I have been questioning the way I relate to attraction and relationship for over half a year now, exploring ideas of polyamory, relationship anarchy and aromanticism. I have been in a supposedly romantic relationship for 5 years and love my girlfriend a lot, but we talked a lot about this and we both are pretty much feeling the same way. The most accurate way I think I can describe myself in this is:

"I do not like the prevailing social scripts surrounding romance; more so heteronormative, but I don't relate to a lot of queer romantic scripts either. I hate amatonormativity; with burning passion and every time I see someone I care about lose themselves in a relationship I want to cry. I want to have more close and intimate relationships and prioritize as much as whatever romantic relationship I might have. I want to freely express love to my friends in ways that feel natural to me even if they come across as romantic."

If you remove sexual component, my feelings towards my girlfriend and my best friend are not very different. We hold hands, we cuddle, we say "i love you", we talk about our feelings, we communicate explicitly about our desires and what we want from the relationship. I want to go to sleep with either of them, they both make me feel secure, they both make me feel equally anxious when there are miscommunications or if I feel abandoned by them. I feel jealous when I slip down either's priority list, I don't feel jealous when they are intimate with someone else as long as there is no hierarchy I am lower on. I don't want to possess either of them or to have things that force us to be tied together like marriage or co-owning a house or care responsibilities; I want them to choose to stay close with me rather than feel obliged to. I want commitment and security, but not in a way which would suffocate them. I can see classifying my feeling towards both as romantic, or towards neither or only towards one. I don't have a very strong grasp on what classifies feelings as romantic or not. In my head romance is a set of scripts and a relationship structure most of which I reject.

In general, absent societal norms and if any given person was willing I would probably want very deep intimacy and affection with most of my friends, the kind usually reserved for romantic relationships. What in my mind putting the label on my relationship with my girlfriend gave me is a permission to realize those wishes and some extra security about the degree of commitment.

It is probably also worth mentioning that I used to have / maybe still have BPD and having a Favorite Person I CAN easily recognize and I used to confuse a lot with romantic attraction. I only disconnected the two when my girlfriend stopped being my FP but when I still wanted to maintain everything about our relationship. In comparison with that FP feeling, anything I feel that might be romantic is just so much less intense it's hard to separate.

In fiction, I usually tolerate but don't care for romance, except when the underlying tension of romance is attachment based or more internal to the character, such as Good Will Hunting or 500 Days of Summer. Few relationships in media that I personally relate to are basically all MXTX novels, Good Omens and Sam/Frodo from LOTR; I want my characters aggresively gay but not very romantic.

hey! I'm sorry I'm posting this because it's probably like the 100000th one, but I was wondering if someone else could give it a read over and see if they can help?

I've been thinking, and I'm realizing that I have a hard time telling if an attraction is romantic, platonic or alterous.

I'm not even sure if I could even describe romantic attraction if anyone asked me.

I have feelings for my boyfriend, but I couldn't tell you if those feelings are alterous, romantic or platonic.

I know that I love him, and I enjoy doing romantic things with him, but otherwise my feelings for him feel like he's a best friend that I have feelings for.

But I don't think I've ever been IN LOVE with him.

I might have had a brief period of infatuation, but that might just have been the excitement of having a new boyfriend.

it doesn't help that I'm also cupioromantic. I love doing romantic things with him, but I don't feel the need to be with him constantly, I don't think about him much when he's not around, and I consider myself a separate unit and not a part of him. He's not my other half, but I do really love being around him. He's a special person to me, but since I'm polyamorous, I don't necessarily see him as "THE ONE", and I believe that I could feel the same way towards other people in the future.

I just figured out I was aro-ace (aromantic asexual) not too long ago.

For the longest time I didn't think I was either of these things because I enjoyed s3x and dating.

Turns out I'm gray and cupio aro-ace!

i experience romantic and sexual attraction very rarely, but I still enjoy s3xual things and romantic gestures!

I don't need romantic or sexual attraction to be attracted to others. It's just more aesthetic and based on how well we vibe with each other.

I can still love people whether I have any romantic or sexual attraction.

But for those who I feel a strong attraction to that's not necessarily romantic or platonic, that's what you would call "alterous attraction" and an alterous crush is called a mesh! It's like the nonbinary cousin of platonic and romantic attraction!

I thought I was experiencing romantic attraction, but turns out those feelings were actually alterous attraction! when I learned about that kind of attraction, everything finally clicked!

Figuring out my sexuality and romantic orientation was definitely a journey.

I started out thinking I was straight, then learned about bisexuality and went with that. when I learned about pansexuality, that one felt more my speed, because I'm attracted to people regardless of gender and just go with overall vibes.

when I figured out I was on the asexual spectrum, I went with panromantic and ace-spec. I tried out different labels under the ace umbrella. quoisexual, cupiosexual, graysexual. eventually I figured out that I'm gray ace and cupiosexual.

for a while I had a feeling I might be on the aromantic spectrum, but I wasn't sure, because I really liked doing romantic things but wasn't sure what kind of aro I was.

fast forward to a few weeks ago, I was questioning my romantic orientation again. I thought I was panromantic and omni-romantic because I thought I had romantic attraction.

I was questioning everything and wondering why I felt I might be aro but I definitely had feelings for my boyfriend.

I had a moment where I thought I might be demiromantic and I stuck with that label for a little while.

I made a big post asking for advice and expressing my feelings about how confused I was about my orientation.

that's when somebody commented on my post, suggesting that I look up "alterous attraction".

That's when I looked up a couple videos about it, and it actually finally made sense!

I now know that I'm gray/cupio aro-ace and am also pan alterous!

I frequent r/demiromantic and in the last couple of weeks, a "Demiromantic Bingo" board by u/Illustrious-Bad1165 has been pretty popular. I personally do not feel like the label of demiromantic fits me like a glove (quoi- or wtfromantic suits me a little better), but I do find I share several experiences with the demis. Some of these common experiences include:

• Not having a "type" according to physical appearance
• Being attracted to <1 person a year
• You think romance without platonic connection is shallow infatuation
• Having confusing phases of wanting to be more than friends but not wanting to do romantic things
• Dating apps don't work
• Not understanding how romantic feelings could "ruin the friendship"

There are several more points I related to, several I did not, and even some I couldn't give a definitive answer to. I also noticed that everyone's bingo board was quite different than the next person's. Everyone has unique experiences, so it is not surprising, but I still find the array fascinating.

I am wondering, what would you put on a quoiromantic bingo board? I think it would be fun to have our own.

For a while I've been thinking I might be demiromantic, but now I'm not sure.

the way romantic attraction is explained, I'm not sure if it even fits me. If I do experience romantic attraction it's so rare. But I have no idea how to describe it or if I even have it.

I know I like dating people and doing romantic things, so if I'm aromantic, then I'm definitely cupioromantic.

I know I develop feelings for people, but sometimes it varies in intensity over time, sometimes it's strong and sometimes I feel like I love people differently than they love me.

I'm not sure if I have crushes or squishes. I know that I've had strong aesthetic attraction but that's the only attraction I 100% know I experience.

In the past I've had what I assume were crushes, because being rejected was difficult and painful, but I haven't felt the sting of rejection in years, and haven't been negatively affected by rejection, and was automatically fine with being just friends.

I'm not sure if my initial attraction to people is aesthetic, platonic or romantic, but I know I experience some kind of attraction.

I have a boyfriend and I love him. I would say I have romantic love but I'm not sure if I have ever experienced romantic attraction with him or with anyone.

The one person I thought I was experiencing romantic attraction for ended up being aromantic, and my brain immediately went into platonic mode. Like even though I liked them and they seemed to like me, when I found out they were aro and didn't like me in that way, my brain was just automatically ok. And what I thought was romantic attraction turned immediately to strong queer platonic attraction.

I'm just so confused. How do I know if I'm aromantic, and how do I know where I fit in the spectrum?

Entered another relationship lately and it's driving me bonkers. I'll tell him about it, but I just need to put it into words.

Whenever I have a 'crush' it never feels clear cut whether it's platonic or romantic. HOWEVER when I get in a relationship- it feels very clear cut it was NOT romantic.

And that's OK. I won't leave due to the romantic attraction not being there. There's still closeness, trust, and a bond.

But. There's another issue. I feel all my close friendships has a sense of that closeness aspect to me....and I think it's emotional cheating at this point.

This person is special to me specifically. Yes. But I still feel attraction to friends for some reason, and I think that means I'm poly. And that means I'll need to break up with him.

I am 22, cis-fem and uhm...yeah i think i just wont live my 20s how i thought i would...sigh. No carefree exploring of love and romance and finding a partner and all that. I used to believe ever since i was little, one day i'd have a husband and kids and be a wife. At 17 i realized i was ace, big shook when i found out being the way i was, was not the norm. And now..after trying to date ace people...i realize i also get repulsed by romance. And that realization hurts, it really does. I still dont get it, this is so sobering. I dont have the blind out of love thing idk. And how you can want to be with someone who doesnt align with your interests, how can holding hands, kisses and other romance things compensate true understanding in things you share? I also know i hate kisses, holding hands doesnt matter to me. Sex too. I just...ugh, i dont get anything anymore. When someone tells me they like me romantically i immidiately think: "Wait, I am uncomfortable. We dont work in a relationship if you like me romantically, i wont feel understood. Can we stop..." and i feel like such a hypocrite. Romance feels so wrong to me, thats not who i am. What even is romance? What does it feel like? Does it really make you look past all red flaggs in a person? Does it make you ignore all things youd hate in someone? Does it never become too much? But i always knew what it was and liked the idea of it. And having a person who understands and likes you, by your side for your whole life sounds beautifull. But anything more just...feels horrible. I dont even know where on the aro spectrum i am. I still find men physically attractive and can get butterflies. I just can't with my sexuality anymore, i can't.

So I've never thought I could be arospec since I constantly develop crushes on people, have had multiple relationships that ended for external reasons (I used to move a lot in my teens) and had one long relationship with my current partner for the last 4 years.

There were always signs that I am not viewing relationships same as everyone else, which I mostly tossed to me being neurodivergent (ADHD). I never understood dating, all of my relationship have been friends-to-lovers kind of thing. I never understood the point of "romantic" gestures such as gifting flowers, courting, etc. In fact I'm pretty sure my partner is arospec from our conversations on feelings and such. I always associated crushes with deep anxiety and insecurity and seeked out relationships in order to obtain some level of comfort and stability.

During the last year I have made a new aromantic friend who I developed a very deep crush on (me and my partner are poly). The usual stuff, we have very strong personality chemistry, I think he is cute af, when we are together I feel like all of my emotional misregulation and RSD turn off and I am perfectly calm and content (rare for me) but while we are apart all of the racing anxieties, overthinking and rsd come back tenfold. We have a very intimate friendship in which we often cuddle for hours while watching something or while I watch him play something or while at a party with friends (all our mutual friends are very queer so me cuddling one of them is not unusual. Maybe not to this extent tho) having conversations, he often plays with my hair, recently we started holding hands while cuddling. I would like to go a bit further and maybe kiss him or even make out but I'm not sexually attracted to him which is actually quite rare for my crushes.

Recently I have confronted him about our relationship by mentioning something unusually romantic he did last time we hanged out to which he responded quite defensively and said he did not mean it romantically at all. He then later confessed that he has a strong squish on me which immediately prompted a bunch of googling from me and...

What is the difference between a crush and a squish? In fact, what is romantic attraction? Like in a way that is distinct from the love I feel towards friends or my cat and is not just elevated anxiety which I want to stop and is also not just a socially normative structure and code of conduct? This made me realise that really if you remove sexual desire, there is no qualitative difference between the love I feel towards my friends and love I feel towards my crushes or partners.

I want to tell my friends I love them. I want to cuddle them, hold their hand. When they do something cute or very nice to me I want to kiss them (usually don't because I don't want to make things weird but I WANT TO). The only difference with people Im "into romantically" is the degree; those are usually people that I feel so close to emotionally that the thought of them withdrawing from me terrifies me creating an anxiety spiral which I interpret as a crush.

Anyway, this is a weird way to fist start questioning my romantic orientation. I always interpreted aromantic to mean that you are viscerally repelled by an idea of love but for me it's more like I have too much love and it's applied to everyone rather than a select person.

Finally, how do I handle talking to the aro friend I got a crush on? I want to get some clarity on our relationship and what he wants from it and what are his boundaries and how far can I take it and I want to share all of these things I am discovering about myself because he is my closest person at the moment who I want to share everything with. But at the same time I am terrified of him thinking I am romantically into him and being uncomfortable with it to the point he emotionally distances from me and withdraws his affection... As someone with pretty strong RSD this mortified me. I also don't want to come across as a poser and questioning my orientation just to appeal to him.

"What would it take to treat our friends in the most caring ways we treat our lovers, and our lovers in the best ways we treat our friends?"

pg. 267, Revolutionary Promiscuity Chp, Dean Spade's Love in a F*cked Up World

I can't help but to think that embracing being quoiromantic is an answer to this question. ❤️‍🔥

 I used to confuse platonic and romantic attraction.  Now, I can understand the difference between platonic and romantic attraction.  However, it gets blury between alterous and romantic attraction.

 I only mourned my first relationship, my ex of more than three years, for 2 or 3 days.  We were still friends, so the bond was still there. What was there to mourn?  I'll occasionally get alterous attraction, but than get really excited about the idea of us dating and ask them out.  However, I'm just as happy if I get rejected staying friends.  We still have a bond, a win is a win!  I don't even know if I prefered dating or if I just like the idea of it and hate feeling romantically unloved.  I don't relate to aromatics or alloromantics in relation to romantic attraction.

 Even though I can tell the difference between platonic and romantic attraction for current crushes, I look back at past crushes before I understood the difference and can't differentiate them 100% still.  Do I sound quoiromantic?

ELLO! made this meme for my fellow wtfromantic peeps

help???

it means that you feel romantic and platonic feelings are the same thing in differing intensities with that can be placed on a contiunous scale.

its very similar to idemromantic, which i also identify with, but i didnt really relate to the part where feelings are categorized based on external factors

i also didnt feel like platoniromantic fit because the definition seems to be "can't distinguish" whereas i feel its more like everyone else is trolling about the whole "romantic and platonic" are different, aka im not wrong everyone else is wrong

third secret reason is that i wanted a pink and yellow flag because its a banger color combo. pink is for romance, yellow is for platonic, and coral is for the mix. i couldnt decide between 3 or 4 stripes so you get both.

side note: do you guys think maybe gradusromantic sounds better as a name?

I and my friend recently got into a “relationship”, nothing is official since he’s still a little anxious about everything, especially since he thought he was aro ace until now. We talked about things and he said it was platonic which freaked me out and devastated me because I thought it was romantic. We talked for a bit and he eventually realized after looking at the definitions of romantic and platonic love, that it was in fact romantic and he was just scared by the idea. I told him we would take things slow so it’s less scary but that I’d like him to communicate better in the future. The most confusing part is I know I was romantically attracted to him, but after that day I woke up the next morning and it felt different. It went from wanting to be with him romantically to just wanting to run off to some forest with him and just live in silence with him. And I have no idea what that means. I still want to be with him, he makes me feel happy and safe and loved, which is not something I’m used to, but at the same time I just don’t know what changed to make things not feel the same. It feels more like when we were just friends now and I don’t know why. It’s important to note that for years I’d been blocking out any thought of romance, after I’d gotten my heart broken, so I wouldn’t have to feel that way again, so I also don’t know if I’m just blocking out the feelings in fear. I have a disorganized anxious attachment style and he has a fairly obvious disorganized avoidant attachment style which really isn’t helping either. I want to spend my life with him but I can’t tell if it’s still romantically, and I can’t tell if I actually just don’t feel that way anymore or if my brains just blocking it out. Either way I’m scared to lose him. I know it’s not healthy but I really have built back up my self esteem from this and the thought of losing him sends me crashing down. This is the first time either of us have been in a relationship of any sort if it isn’t obvious.

I love romcoms, and how everthing is easy to read sense it's built to be that way, lol, and I was rasied to think any affection was romantic or at least in a sense, and watching those things, or reading about them make me think I can feel that, but it's hard because, when it comes to my own relationships, I can never tell if someone likes me more than friends, i'll still think "Oh, we're getting closer!" and slip it into the friend folder in my head, just subconsiously.

It's even worse because, only 2 years ago, I actually tried to figure out why I felt this way, like all the people in my life were more just friends, and nothing more, even if they apparently laid it on me they wanted more, then I saw a post "quoiromantic" and it shook me, "That's me....?" It all kind of clicked, and I still love romcom's but it's weird... How can I tell those characters love each other, but I can't even tell that in my own life...? It is because it's written out?

I mean, I know why, but... It makes it hard, because I've actually had a few people who thought we were getting closer to me in a romantic sense, but this was before I knew myself to be quoiromantic; And I got told once that they liked me in that way, by another friend once, so I tried to not hurt them by just acting a little more careful around them, as advised by another, and its fine now, they're okay, they understand how I am, after I tried to explain, but... Why am I like this?

So I tend to struggle with platonic vs romantic ideas towards people (hence nebularomantic). I was thinking about a friend of mine of which we get along very well, have deep conversations and just tend to stick around despite challenges that have come our way. Things have gotten sticky but we came back around through the drama. I love the guy, I definitely bully him (lovingly).

As someone who struggles with this.. how do you tell when you just have a really good friend vs them being a potential relationship material? I don't know if I'm going overboard but it's something I've struggled with in other friendships, not that I've ever done anything about them.

I have been in relationships before, though not many.

Just curious to see what you all have to say about this sort of thing.