Here be aromantics

HI! I'm Jay, and this is my entry for the march 2019 carnival of aros prompt

Not gonna lie, when I first saw the prompt for this month I went “damn, this is perfect for me”.
Because luckily, being aro has been a largely positive thing for me- most of my negative feelings about it have been around questioning and other people's opinions, not the orientation itself.

I had a different discovery process than a lot of other aros, where I found out about aromanticism and asexuality at the same time, and was always more sure and passionate in my aromantic identity than my asexual identity.
I think that contributed a lot to my love of my sexuality, because I never saw it as a bad thing- my questioning was based on “but I'm too young to be aro!”, not “it's bad to be aro!” (which eventually turned into “fuck it I'm aro and yeah that might change but whatever”)

A big part of why I like being aro is because it gives me a reason for “why am I like this”. I wasn't “weird girl who doesn't get crushes”, I was aromantic! Being able label my feelings and finding out that there's a whole community of people like me felt amazing. This is definitely the first positive thing that jumped out to me when i first started identifying as aro(ace)

Another thing I like about being aro- well, about being in the aromantic community, is that it really opened my eyes to the concept of amatonormativity, and just how much of our romance-centered beliefs are bullshit. How soulmate aus and that concept of “the one” had always striked me oddly, and there's a reason for that! This is something I've realised more recently. (as a result of spending too much time on the arocalypse discord)

Lastly, aromanticism has made me feel freer. I (usually) don't feel the need to dress up for anyone other than myself - I'm not trying to get dates, I'm trying to be me. Ditto for gender expression and identity - I can and will throw any and all romance-related “rules” of being a woman out the window.

Obviously, being aro doesn't erase all that is bad from one's life. Aromanticism isn't a walk in the park, and even though I've had a much more painless experience than most, there have been times where I've felt left out and alienated for my aromanticism. But I'm just glad that I've been able to become so passionate about my sexuality, and that said sexuality has allowed me to become so passionate about dismantling society's views on romance and what constitutes “love”.

It's great to be aro.