Aromantic Experiences in the Amatonormative World (Part 2)
Written by Rachel (AUREA Book Project team)
Words: 3182 words
Estimated reading time: approx. 15 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 negative side of amatonormative romance and love is particularly obvious to aromantic people, but is not always obvious to alloromantics. How does amatonormative romance and love make you feel when you see it depicted in media or from real life experiences?
“IRL, I have been in a string of long lasting relationships that only happened because friends said they had a crush on me and as their friend I wanted to make them happy and I cared about them too, so I figured a relationship would be good. It always fell apart after a couple years, when I felt I was in too deep and they cared more than I did and I would be frustrated and wracked with guilt.
In media it's very obvious to me even allos don't understand romance or good relationship building - I theorize that there are romance indicators used as shorthand to indicate romantic love or development when really there is none and there's no chemistry. They show characters holding hands, kissing, on a date, having sex, getting married, having a kid to show that they are moving along the amatonormative trajectory of an ideal romantic relationship, even as the characters have no chemistry or possibly even their characterization and dynamic and actions contradict the conclusion that they have romantic feelings, or sometimes even any positive friendly feelings. Writers use these because they don't understand what makes a relationship work, because they are so entrenched in amatonormativity (and often heteronormativity too). People IRL use these too - the same way I have imitated this in my own relationships, only to realize time and again that a real romantic relationship takes more than tokenistic milestones to make it work, and especially doesn't mean that the feeling of love is there and is mutual.” - Leah
“Hopeless romance and the typical “boy” meets “girl” where in the end they always end up together tropes, has become odd to me when I was well into my teens. I never related to it, didn’t get the butterflies or crushes like that. And I couldn’t always understand the intentions, I thought they were being nice to each other and suddenly they start kissing or “ripping each other’s clothes off”. I don’t understand flirting, don’t know when someone does it to me or when I’m flirting for that matter, because in my experience they’re being friendly and so am I. It always left me confused to see that in movies and my friends were “melting away” by seeing it. The big romantic gestures? They seem useless to me. Doesn’t make any sense and makes me feel uncomfortable.
With my family and friends I’m okay seeing them in relationships and being in love, but sometimes it’s hard, because I can’t relate on that level? And seeing my little cousins getting brainwashed with the same ideas makes me kinda sad. But the hopeless romanticism is a big nope from me and also kinda makes feel like I want to throw up…
It’s easier for me to see lgbtq+ couples than heterosexual couples being all cute in public, but even there I have a limit of how much I can handle. ” - Anonymous
I mean, bad, obviously. Sometimes it gives me this empty feeling -- like when I once returned to an old mmorpg I hadn't opened in two years and the familiar, to my memory my favourite one, said something alike "nothing is stronger than the power of love!" -- that sort of shuts down my brain as I think about the amatonormative bullshit I just saw and takes me out of the experience. Sometimes it's just disappointing, sometimes it makes me sad if I particularly cared about the media in question. But sometimes it makes me fucking angry. Sometimes it makes me fulfill the evil aro stereotype. Like in My Hero Academia, I was reading a side book that had details on every character the other day, and Mina Ashido had written "she's never fallen in love, but she wishes she could" on her page. Woah! A cupioromantic! IT WOULD BE SO WONDERFUL IF HER ENTIRE NARRATIVE PURPOSE WASN'T TEASING THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS WHO ARE FRIENDS ABOUT THEIR CRUSHES ON EACH OTHER AND REINFORCING AMATONORMATIVITY! (I still can't believe MHA gets representation points by allocishets, while its queer characters are literally the most offensive stereotypes of their identity...)
From real life experiences while my memory really isn't that great in that regard, I've always felt that kind of alienation from my peers. Whenever I see my parents do just normal people relationship things I feel so weird and grossed out, and I cannot imagine the kind of romantic attraction they have for each other. I had initially assumed this was because I was immature (woah, internalized arophobia), until a friend had flashbanged me with the fact that it's pretty well known and believed that children as young as 5 play 'house' and easily become comfortable with relationships like that because they engage with those things as a form of play. And then I realize I've never played 'house' in my entire life, and actively disliked kids that did.
This brings up the memory of when I was in daycare, and told the older brother of a girl I was friends with that "I loved her." He said it was weird. What? What part of it is weird? I loved my friend. So I told him that "I liked her", because I thought that he thought 'love' was too intense, and he still said it was weird. I'm still baffled by the interaction to this day, and the only thing I can tell about it is that it was amatonormative.
I remember one time in grade 4, I had felt this weird pressure to pick someone I had a crush on. So I had picked a boy that had once vaguely told me he'd heard of a videogame I used to play, because my 9 year old aro brain thought that "similar interests = romance". In the next year I'd told everyone I used to have a crush on him -- because while I felt that I had to prove my "alloness" I still just couldn't admit I was currently feeling those things at the very least. It felt wrong. And then I was shamed and called weird by everybody because apprently love is supposed to be secretive and kept between two people...yeah right.
That may have strayed from the topic a bit, but overall every time I encounter amatonormativity it always just leaves me grossed out and gives me this weird anxious feeling.” - Anonymous
“Like I'm somehow missing out on an essential part of life even though logically I know I don't need it, it feels like everyone else has some allo club membership” - Bee
“I've noticed that I see it less so in video games than in any other form of media. Even with the romance culture in the fan communities, in-game there is notably a lot less amatonormative romance plots present in-game, which may be a solid reason why video games have always been more inviting, even unconsciously. For me, the focus becomes more about what the combat is like, or what unique mechanics are included, or what the story or philosophy of the game can communicate to players, and it seems a solid majority of game designers, producers and directors seem to put those at the front of their vision over amatonormative plots, even without realising.” - Samuel
“It makes me feel claustrophobic.” - Anonymous
“Alienated, angry and sad, although sometimes it is funny.” - Oscar
“It makes me feel sad that people think romance is the only option in life.” - Anonymous
“I normally don't care for it. But if it gets too much at the time, I get annoyed/repulsed. At worst, I feel like i'm behind in life.” - Anonymous
“It makes me feel uncomfortable. Especially when the people around me get married, I feel uncomfortable and confused. How can you decide to commit yourself to one person after knowing them for a year or two? And why just one person? What makes romantic relationships exclusive to only one person? And why is this marriage seen as the most important relationship in that persons life? What about their family and friends and other relationships? Why are other relationships inferior? The relationship hierarchy, exclusivity, and large commitment level scares me. Additionally, it reminds me that people expect me to marry one day, which is upsetting. It also makes me feel bad for not wanting what is seen as the ultimate goal in life: to get married and have kids. Since I don’t want marriage, society is telling me that I can’t live a complete and happy life.” - Anonymous
“Bored, grossed out, rebellious.” - Fedora
“I really don't feel much reaction about romance depicted in media...I mean, it's the character's journey and story not mine...if they fell in love and have a happily ever after ending then fine by me! However... it's very hard to find a some media in which the character(s) identifies as aromantic or asexual.” - Anonymous
“romantic love being depicted as the one true goal and those who dont aim for that being demonised e.g crazy cat lady or the rude female ceo etc, makes me feel like im doing it wrong” - Anonymous
“When people around me act like romantic love is all that matters, like the person described above, it makes me feel like there might not be a place for me in this society that is so obsessed with romance. I also don't always get why people think the norms that come with it are important. For example, I remember seeing recently in the movie Cha Cha Real Smooth, (spoiler alert) the female lead character actually does care for the male lead but says she can't be with him because she is also in love with another man, and it doesn't really make sense to me why people feel such a need to choose one person. This has also affected my ability to have friends as I was previously labeled as and am still often mistaken for a man, but I generally get along with and relate to women much better than men. The norm that a romantic relationship should always come before everything else leads to the norm that straight people should limit opposite-sex friendship so as not to put their relationship at risk (a practice multiple so-called "relationship experts" with PhDs have written in support of), and with cisgender people labeled as the same sex as me not being who I click with, that expectation basically only leaves people in the LGBTQ+ community for me to look for actually fulfilling friendships with.” - Davi McCrea
“Amatonormative/forced romance and love in media make me feel frustrated, disappointed and resigned. Not even media I use as an escape from the real world is always an escape for me.” - Blaine Denauer
“It makes me feel particularly invisible - “to love is to be human” just feels a bit exclusionary to aro people. Where this statement covers all sorts of queer identities, it manages to alienate those of us that don’t feel romantic love - because, let’s face it, that’s the kind of love they are referring to. Conversations about (romantic) relationships hold no interest for me, and it sometimes feels like that’s all other people talk about. I’m pretty good at surrounding myself with people who have similar interests to me (namely books), so we have that to talk about, but one of the people I work with is constantly talking about their significant other, and I just want to zone out. But I don’t want to seem rude and like I don’t care, but I just can’t empathise when I can’t feel know what it feels like to experience those feelings.” - Pippin
“I always feel angry because I know that people will always see romance/relationships/love to be super important and something that "everyone needs". It’s just ignorant and not inclusive at all. Also the way people like to say that aromantics can "still have friends" or "love" as a way to "validate" their existence as if that isn't enforcing amatonotmativity. I'm a loveless aplaroace and I generally don't value any type of relationships(if i do want to try something, it will be someone on the aspec spectrum[im a4a]). How come I cannot be valid enough to people and be the "broken one" whilst people can barely even hold their own relationships. 🤨” - Helga
“I enjoy romance in media and seeing two characters have a relationship together, but really get uncomfortable when thinking about or experiencing someone doing that to me.” - Jori
“I'm fairly romance-repulsed and always have been, so I've always avoided rom-coms and the very romance-heavy media. Still, nearly every piece of media will have some degree of romantic subplot regardless of genre.
I'm always struck by how unrealistically romance is depicted. In real life, from watching my friends get in and out of relationships, romance is quite ugly, filled with misunderstandings, and the people involved are usually blinded by their feelings to the point where they won't see their partner's faults. I've had friends who I know are feminists get crushes on men who say extremely sexist things, and when I point it out to them they will make excuses for them. It's like talking to a wall.
Romantic feelings seem to usually be obsessive to a point where I think it's quite toxic. I had a friend who every couple weeks was crying and coming to me for advice because of fights she was having with her boyfriend. To me, it seemed like they both had different priorities and expectations from the relationship, and that it never really would work out, and I told her as much every time she came to me. However, they always ended up forgiving each other without working out whatever they were fighting about, and the cycle would start again. When the relationship ended she was shattered, and kept saying "we just need to try again, I can't believe he won't even try", completely unable to acknowledge that things hadn't been working for a long time. She said she believed he was "the one", that she had begun saving money to buy a house with him. I felt like I was talking with someone who was delusional.
I think the way romance is portrayed in media plays a role in how alloromantics obsess about and idealise romance, but it's also the way all of society is constructed, with two parents who are in love and their children being the normal family unit, with moving in with your partner being an "upgrade" from living alone or with housemates, the way houses have a "master bedroom", or the way free tickets to events are always given in twos.
I hate that when I go to watch a movie, the main character starts off single, and by the end they have a partner, like it's an essential part of the "happy ending". It makes me very sad that I'm the only one who notices this among my friends; to them this is normal.
In films, the person who says "love is bad" always ends up in a relationship, because of course they were just bitter, and the all-important power of love has saved them. The complete lack of nuance in the portrayal of romance contributes to the common arophobic beliefs in society, like never having a relationship means you will die alone, or getting into a relationship means that you will be happier. I often have the feeling that allos expect their relationship to "fix" them, solve their problems and make them truly happy. I have never known anyone to whom this actually happened. These beliefs mean that allos will put a lot more effort into pursuing romance than pursuing platonic relationships, which is a shame for me as an aro, because it makes me feel like my allo friends will never prioritise me.
What also hurts a lot is other members of the queer community being just as clueless about amatonormativity or about aromanticism as cishet people. Half the arophobic comments said to me have been by queer people. I've even had an asexual person tell me that love is "the whole point of being human", which hurt a lot as I would think the ace community is the most aro-aware one.
In conclusion, the way our society views and portrays romance is very distressing to me. It's isolating, and sometimes feels like a kick in the stomach. Several times I've stopped reading a book, or watching a film or series because it suggests people who are single are living a sad and empty life. I have an aroace friend who avoids mainstream media altogether because it's too painful. When my allo friends make jokes about how being single is so sad, or how much they wish they were in a relationship, I feel like I'm separated from them by a screen, like we live in different worlds.” - Melina
“I'm a romance positive/favourable greyromantic so it usually doesn't bother me, but I find it annoying by how prevalent it is in media the way 2 characters (usually 2 of the opposite sex) are almost always made into a couple by the end of a film/show, or are expected to become a couple, or are read as secretly being together even if it's not canonically shown. And I get even more frustrated when alloromantics always assume that because 2 historical figures were close and lived together, that they "must have" been a secret homosexual/romantic couple. I get even more irritated whenever alloromantics assume that my platonic relationships with the opposite sex are secretly romantic or we have secret feelings for each other, and I also get annoyed if they assume that of the relationship of 2 other people of the opposite sex.” - Carla
“I'm in the grey area of romance depiction in media; often teetering on the fence of feeling plagued by it or enjoying it. Romance in real life feels more complicated for me though. I'm not opposed to people dating or being romantic around me (most of the time) nor by my friends talking about crushes/romantic interests - but when people talk about romantic love or relationships being inevitable, that is when the feeling that my voice doesn't matter at all, is apparent. In a way, I feel... slighted, when people both older and younger state that even though I may not want to date or get married while young, I will eventually when I'm older. It makes me both not want to start any relationship out of defiance, but also feel shameful, or fraudulent when I fantasize or yearn for specific relationships.” - Memphis
The first part of this collection can be found here.