Aromantic Experiences in the Amatonormative World (Part 1)
Written by Rachel (AUREA book project team)
Word count: 2680 words
Estimated reading time: approx. 13 minutes
Being aromantic can sometimes be challenging and it is important to increase awareness around difficulties aromantics may face living in an amatonormative society. The AUREA Book Project Team asked the aromantic community two questions in order to learn about your experiences with arophobia or aromantic-related discrimination as well as your feelings around amatonormative romance and love. This post documents the personal narratives that were submitted.
The 2020 Aromantic Census found that the majority of people who identify with being on the aromantic spectrum have felt discriminated against or experienced microaggressions because of their aromantic identity. What experiences related to arophobia or aromantic-related discrimination have you experienced?
“Not too often, but when I finally stopped running from my grey-aromanticism because I knew I couldn't escape it any longer, I broke up with my partner at the time. I'd mentioned before that I felt I was aro-spec, and recently that I would be thinking about it more and I couldn't promise that I was alloro. They said they'd support me no matter what and would always be my friend, and that they were completely okay with being friends if I said I was aro. When I told them the answer, that I was aro and always had been, they freaked out about it, guilt tripped me, and then disappeared from my life.” - Leah
“People, mostly friends, not believing that I’m not “in love” even though I like someone. Or that we’re not dating. Me and this person are both on the aromantic spectrum and LGBTQ+, we don’t date but we are kind of together even though we haven’t fully defined it yet. When we do cute stuff together or hold hands in public, it’s immediately considered romantic. Our experiences get totally dismissed by having to “fit in” amatonormativity and to be understandable for our alloromo friends. In general daily life getting the questions if I don’t want a relationship or get married, when I expect to finally settle down etc. because you don’t want to become that “forever single” person. “You will find someone too!” “Just wait until you’re 30, you’ll see it differently.” And the hierarchy system in amatonormative world where romantic relationships are the ultimate goal and are above all other relationships. Plus the fact that it’s okay to have a relationship without sex, but a relationship with sex and no romance can not exist and will be done off as “just friends with benefits” even when there is a whole emotional component to it. And thus the relationship being totally dismissed, even more so because we’re both LGTBTQ+, because somehow it’s more acceptable when heterosexual people do it, but also there is discrimination. Sorry if this is a bit of an rambling mess!!” - Anonymous
“I've heard many a people telling me it was a phase, that I'll probably grow out of it, even a "I hope you do" sprinkled in there once. Someone once boiled down my aroaceness to just "asexual", and denying tertiary attractions and oriented aroaces can exist. I was told to my face that I'm not ace, I'm just an incel - once again they watered my identity down to ace... My mother does not understand "why I'm so bitchy" on Valentine's day. I've been told "that's just having friends" when talking about qpps (jokes on them, I'm aplatonic too!). One time when I had brung up my identity to a group of friends they were all quick to dogpile on about how one of them used to think they were ace (*again* with the watering down of my identity) and then realized they're just a lesbian, that it might just be a phase, "of course you're repulsed by sex at your age", "you learn as you grow it's a part of growing up" etc etc. Overall, it seems like the arophobia I've experienced can be summed up to blatantly disregarding the fact that I'm aromantic in the first place (erasure) and then using classic done to death acephobia on me as if any of it would even apply if they hadn't erased my aro identity. Or just completely ignoring my issues after they erased them in their mind.” - Anonymous
“Told I'd change my feeling when I'm older and end up wanting to get married, told that if you don't feel love you are heartless/evil/broken” - Bee
“I've not had too many experiences of arophobia from others, but the ones I have had were from individuals that had forgotten that I'm aromantic in addition to being homosexual and this pushed the age-old questions such as "are you seeing someone?"; Each time it's not been out of malicious intent when this happens, but it has becoming irritating to think that my aromantic portion of my orientation just slips out of people minds, and it makes me question whether to repetitively come out to the same person or not.” - Samuel
“I've been told by my own parents that I'd die alone and have no friends or anyone who would be there for me if I didn't eventually get married.” - Anonymous
“I don't feel as if I've been discriminated against, but I've come to know a feeling that's equally as awful. I feel like I can't be understood. My friends and family simply don't understand my viewpoint of love. I can hardly talk long about my feelings on romance, due to the person I'm engaging in conversation with not knowing how to respond. Almost nothing I say resonate with them, and I've come to grow used to that feeling.” - rxendaku
“Being told that I'm probably just gay, people thinking I was joking, being told I'll probably change my mind, being told I'm too young to know” - Oscar
“Being called a sociopath and autistic cause im aromantic even though I'm not either.” - Anonymous
"How do you know if you haven't seen anyone?" - Anonymous
“Almost everyone in my family has asked me when or if I am in a relationship. When I tell them I’m not looking for one and won’t be in one, they tell me I’m wrong and that I will change my mind.” - Anonymous
“I have told hardly anyone to avoid problems. Friends of the opposite sex get annoyed and decrease hanging out when they realize I am not attracted to them or going to date them. Also, people show little priority to platonic relationships.” - Fedora
“As the only person in my family who hasn't been in a relationship or have not wed yet, the uneasy feeling of being told why I haven't found anyone or others suggesting to hook me up can be very difficult. Especially as a AAPI person with first generation parents who don't understand much English or the subject of aromanticism at all...it's very complicating in trying to translate such topics to them.” - Anonymous
“being called a freak after explaining aromanticism and how it applied to me” - Anonymous
“My biggest experience is with one of the people who seemed among the friendliest of anyone I had ever met, and I thought I was developing an actual connection with her. She always seemed up for having friendly conversations with whoever was around and I thought I was getting closer to her by helping her with work. The first thing I remember that seemed like a microinvalidation was her posting in a class discussion that she thought there was a soulmate for everyone, not acknowledging that others might not believe in the concept of soulmates. More recently, she started acting like my trying to be friends with her was too much, and basically explained that as she doesn't do actual friendship other than her romantic relationship, and while she said since that she does consider me a friend, she really hasn't been acting like it and it seems to me like she subscribes to amatonormativity like it's a religion that forbids having any close platonic friendships.” - Davi McCrea
“I've had friends ignore my boundaries and my desires and try to forcefully set me up on dates because it made them sad I was "alone".
My father has made snide and passive-aggressive comments about how sad he is that he has no one to carry on his name (also a misogynistic remark), comments about but what if he wants grandchildren, how I "had fun" dating [ex he doesn't know is abusive] and so why wouldn't I want to do that again?
I have had queer friends invalidate my queerness because I'm not "gay enough" for them because I don't date. I have been told that I might even count as a "negative gay", which is extremely dehumanizing.
I have had dance class instructors try to pair me up with men because I'm not married, so I shouldn't be pairing up with women (I was nonbinary closted as a woman) when there were single men available (heteronormative as well as amatonormative).
I have had my grandmother cry on the phone with me and make me promise that I wouldn't get married without telling her because it had to be that I was hiding a boyfriend from her rather than that I wasn't dating. This is also the same woman who told me when I was 12 that if I had the audacity to marry a black man, she'd disown me.
This is just a small sampling of the aro discrimination I have faced.” - Blaine Denauer
“General confusion and “you haven’t met the right person”. Not directly discriminatory, but as an aroace that has no interest in sharing my life with any kind of significant other, I feel it will be impossible to comfortably live alone, financially. When looking for places to buy or even rent, the price of a one bedroom seems to assume there will be two people in that one bedroom. House/ flat hunting on a single pay check is incredibly difficult.” - Pippin
“I definitely had someone tell me that "isn't it sad" whilst joking about "not needing b!tches" (I'm a highschooler, we were talking about the meme) also had one of the people in my family just randomly saying "[you’re] almost 18, soon you will be married" in the call. I expect more of those as I grow up :/.” - Helga
“The biggest discrimination would be when trying to find a house for me and my 2 partners, we had multiple estate agents just immediately turn us down for being "sharers" even though a HMO license needed for multiple occupants who aren't a family (even though we are a family and would be under one shared contract the entire time) is for 5 or more, so we'd covered if we wanted to rent there as just 3-person household. And yet we literally had one estate agent say to our faces, "the landlord will only rent to a Mr & Mrs with kids." Alongside that, it's just the way that people don't understand that not-feeling-romance is something that's possible. I had a guy say he didn't understand how I could consider myself aromantic if I'd allowed myself to be in a situation where I was abused by someone in a romantic relationship, as if communication and other feelings towards people don't exist, you know?” - Jori
“I've had more of these experiences than I can count; though I think most of them stem from ignorance rather than hatred. It's a consequence of living in a society that equates love and romance to goodness and idealises it to a toxic extent.
Comments that have been said directly to me are usually that I will change my mind, or that I haven't met the right person yet. Again, these don't come from hatred, but from a lack of awareness, but they're still absolutely infuriating. A friend jokingly called me a "psycho" after I told him I don't have crushes. Someone told me that I "just need to get really drunk and make out with someone". My sister, who I am not out to, asked me if I had any passion for life at all because I don't talk about romance or people I'm interested in. Shortly after coming out to my friend she told me the story of an uncle of hers, who prioritised his career by dumping his high school sweetheart, and now lives a sad life regretting not marrying her. I don’t know if this uncle truly lives the sad life my friend claims, but the fact that she told me about him after I came out to her as aro made me feel like she was saying "if you don't put some effort into finding a partner you will end up like him".
However, most of the arophobia and amatonormativity I experience isn't directed towards me specifically; it's present in the way people talk about dating and romance, in nearly every film, series or book, in the advertisements that play in the cinema, in music, in the way housing is organised, in what is considered mature.
It's exhausting living among people who view being in a relationship like some kind of achievement, and I hate the idea that being single is only the next-best option to them. At parties, when I am asked if I have a partner and I say no, people say "don't worry, you will soon". Sitting in the car with some friends (who I wasn't out to), one of them says "I'm scared that at age forty I will never have had any marriage opportunities, that would be so sad". When I told a friend about a person who confessed to me, she acted like it was something to be happy about, like it gave me status that someone was in love with me. I thought I had made it clear to her that the whole situation was extremely uncomfortable to me, but still she had to act like it was something exciting.
It's suffocating having to constantly hear these things, and even worse is that I am the only one noticing them; to other people saying those things are normal. This makes me feel like I can never bring it up or people will think I am very sensitive. It also makes me feel very alone, even when I'm surrounded by friends..” - Melina
“Being called "too picky", being told I need to just "give them a chance" whenever I've turned people down, etc. Being accused of being "naïve" or something similar whenever I try to say that 2 people may not be in a romantic relationship after all (if it's assumed that they are), or if I defend myself by saying that a person of the opposite sex and I are just friends. Defending the concept that cis-gendered men and women can in fact be "just friends" without romantic feelings getting involved, and alloromantics arguing with me that that's "impossible" and I often get accused of being naïve then too. Alloromantic cis men trying to "befriend" me when what they really want is to date me, then dropping me as a friend when I insist I'm only interested in being friends (genuinely). Being accused of "friendzoning" when I tell people I only have an interest in their friendship and losing "friends" who were clearly not interested in platonic friendships. I feel that people who do that are fake, and the dishonesty of pretending to be friends when they don't want an actual friendship is one of my biggest social pet peeves. The fact that too many allos don't see anything wrong with this pretend friending practice is irritating.” - Carla
“I very recently discovered I'm aro/aro-spec and have been identifying as such for maybe up to 2, nearly 3 years, and despite that, I have found that me being more deliberate about not dating or getting married has led to microaggressive statements from people I know. I'm not out to everyone in my life, mainly just friends and my brother, and even those few people often look at me with disbelief, whenever I say that I "don't ever want to get married." The people I haven't come out to often state passively aggressively, or with soft scrutiny, things along the lines of, "Well I see myself getting married."” - Memphis
The second part of this collection can be found here.