Living a Lovely Loveless Life
Word count: 1500 words
Estimated reading time: approx. 8 minutes
Written by Alex Crook
AUREA’s Secretary
I am a creature of contradictions.
I love swimming at the beach but I am terrified of open water. I adore the smell of rain and I am drawn to storms, but I am petrified of flashing lightning and crashing thunder. I love cold weather, because that is when it is easiest to get warm.
I am aromantic, and yet I am in love.
I never expected to fall in love. Nothing against the concept, I just didn’t think I was capable of it. Still don’t, actually. But I’m also pretty sure I’m in love.
If that sounds confusing to you, imagine how I feel!
To be fair, I’m used to being confused. I’ve been confused for most of my life. I always seemed to feel things differently to other people, a kind of disconnect that would take me 21 years to put a name to.
Aromantic.
Finding a word to describe my experiences made me feel whole. Finding a community of others who shared those experiences felt like coming home. Unfortunately, some of my experiences were more shared than others.
The aromantic community is simultaneously both very anti-romance and very pro-love. As contradictory as that sounds, it makes sense. We reject the romantic expectations amatonormativity forces on us, but romance is only one kind of love. Aromantics aren’t heartless or cold, and we can love just as intensely and deeply as anyone else.
Well, other aromantics can. Me? Not so much.
I honestly believe that I have never felt an emotion I can comfortably point to and call love, of any kind. I care for people, often deeply, but I’m not sure I love them. Most people seem to think that’s sad but I don’t know any different.
No, what makes me sad is seeing how much the aromantic community likes to focus on love. They reject romance, sure, but that doesn’t stop them placing other kinds of love on a pretty high pedestal. Queerplatonic relationships especially are a big thing in the aromantic community. They’re treated as the pinnacle of aromantic relationships, the thing to strive for. It’s very common to see an aromantic say things like “love doesn’t mean romance”, “aromantics still love their friends and family”, or even “saying aromantics can’t feel love is a harmful stereotype.”
These statements aren’t wrong. On their own, they are very important things to point out because the ‘heartless cold aromantic’ trope is a harmful stereotype we need to fight against. However, all too often it comes at the expense of ‘loveless’ aromantics like myself. It feels very similar to the old “asexuals can still feel romance” slogan. As a stand alone statement it’s not wrong, but it’s usually coupled with the harmful undertones of “see, we’re just like normal people, there’s nothing wrong with us”.
Let’s circle back to the aromantic rejection of romance for a second. Even those that don’t outright despise romance don’t tend to view it in a positive light. It’s understandable, because amatonormativity and the pedestal it places romance on is a problem. Society’s expectations and views of romance as the be all and end all of existence is damaging, and the main reason I thought I was broken for so long. However, you can reject toxic romantic ideals without rejecting romance altogether, something it doesn’t always seem like the aromantic community understands.
I don’t feel romance, but I don’t hate it. It’s the opposite actually, because I like romance. I enjoy dating people, as long as they are aware of and respect my identity. I like romantically coded actions, and I seek out emotional intimacy. I’m completely comfortable with people feeling romantically about me. Strangely, I had more romantic partners after coming out as aromantic than I did before, and most lasted for at least a year or more. I was even engaged to be married last year, and I’m hoping to be engaged again in the near future.
In fact, my planned future follows some fairly traditional romantic goals. My partner and I plan on getting married, having some kids, and settling down to live our lives together, although not necessarily in that order. It’s the kind of life I thought I wouldn’t be able to have after I realised I was aromantic. I convinced myself it wasn’t what I wanted. Not only did I think that it wouldn’t be possible for me, I thought that because I was aromantic I should be smashing through amatonormative expectations, a shining beacon of why traditional romance and its expected goals are harmful.
My partner changed everything for me.
We met through our online Dungeons and Dragons game. A friend of mine invited me after I complained that I hadn’t played in years, and about my very poor social life. Turns out it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
At the time most people in my life (myself included) thought it was a risky one, for a multitude of reasons. I had previously had bad experiences with long distance relationships and he lived halfway across the country. I was already engaged and although I was polyamourous he had no experience with those kinds of relationships. His name started with J, and I already had (at least) 7 evil exes all starting with the same letter, two of which even shared his name. I was skirting close to 30, he was barely 21, and my previous (traumatic) long distance relationship had also been with a much younger partner.
Each of those reasons alone should have been enough to give me pause. Combined, it very much felt like the odds were stacked against us.
Yet, we’re still together over a year later. Our relationship survived him moving here just three months into it, the first time we met in person. It survived the fact that he arrived just before the state borders closed and lockdown started properly, so we spent a lot of time unable to leave the house and stuck with each other’s company. It survived the breakdown (and breakup) of my engagement to my fiance, and the rocky transition as we learned to live as exes and housemates rather than partners. It survived the late nights, larger workload and increased stress when I got promoted to a higher position at work.
It survived, and more than that, it grew. It grew into something different than anything I have ever felt before, because in the middle of it all, I fell in love with him.
It wasn’t a sudden thing. There wasn’t one particular moment when it hit me, because I couldn’t even make sense of what I felt at first. I just knew I felt very strongly, and that it was a different feeling than I had ever had before.
Oftentimes when I ask alloromantic people what love feels like, the answer I get the most is “you just know”. Not the most helpful answer, but I don’t really blame them for it. Love is difficult to describe in a singular way. The truth is I could ask five people to describe love and get at least ten different answers. Everyone has a different view on love, and it changes with each person you love. How you love them, why you love them, it changes from day to day. How could you ever properly describe the shifting nature of something that never stands still? Something that grows and changes with each action, each word and look and touch.
I don’t feel love, but I’m beginning to understand it. I sit on a very unique intersection of aromanticism and love, an experience not often seen and very seldom shared. I don’t feel love, but I’m also not romance repulsed. I don’t hate romance, or reject it. I participate in it, seek it out, even crave it. Now, I think I experience it.
Does my love feel the same as the love an alloromantic person would feel? I don’t know, and quite honestly, I don’t care. Love isn’t something that can be compared between people, because no one else can feel love the way I do, just as I can’t feel love the way someone else does. My love is as unique as I am, as unique as the person I love is. The love I feel right now will never be replicated, whether I never love again or I love a hundred thousand times.
What I do know is falling in love let me make peace with myself, and all my contradictions. I don’t have to feel love to surround myself with it, to give and receive care and affection and intimacy. I can hate amatonormativity and fight against it while also wanting traditional romantic goals for myself, because this time I chose them. I can feel at home in a community while simultaneously being an outsider, because sharing a label doesn’t mean we share all the same views, opinions and experiences. I learned about myself because of what we shared, but I also learned because of what we didn’t.
I am aromantic and I don’t feel love. I am aromantic and I am in love. Both statements are true at the same time, because humans are messy and confusing and full of contradictions. I embrace mine as part of who I am, part of what makes me, well, me. And there’s no one I’d rather be, than me.