Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 2019! I wrote this article to celebrate.
Disclaimer: This is the story of my personal experience and I am in no way claiming or expecting that it will be relevant to every aromantic and arospec experience. Our community is diverse in every way and this may not be relevant to you at all. But I hope it helps at least some people, and provides an insight to those who don’t relate.
So, today I was sorting through my old things, tidying up my bedroom, and I found an old notebook from when I was 10 years old. This, like every diary I have ever tried to start, is only a couple of pages long and consists of an introduction and whatever reason I had to start a diary in the first place. Some of them I’ve kept up for a month or two (sporadically) but this one is just two pages. The first page is the aforementioned introduction. The second page is this:
[Image description: A photograph of a torn off notebook page titled “Rosalie’s Love” with a heart drawn covering the whole page in blue biro. The heart is filled in with lots of smaller hearts and in the middle is written: “Rosalie loves” with a gap to be filled in underneath. Around the sides of the heart is written: “I will put the name of my boyfriend in the space when I get one!” and “can’t wait! (When I love him hehe!)” End description.]
This is… without a doubt the most embarrassing thing I have ever put on the internet. If I didn’t have a point to make I would destroy the thing and pretend it never happened, but Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week is coming up so here we are.
And here am I, a decade later to within a couple of months, writing this in between bouts of trying to tidy my room. The thing is, I do remember writing in this notebook and I was doing the same thing. Sorting through my messy room, daydreaming about the future. I took some time out, having discovered an empty notebook (just as I’m doing now) to write this diary entry. I remember being so excited by my childhood fantasies of romance that I felt the need to make a physical space which I could fill in when it finally happened to me in real life. That magical romance that I’d been promised by every movie and book I’d ever loved. It never happened. I never fell in love. I’ve never even had a crush. Because I am aromantic.
That little girl who wrote that. She was desperate to fall in love. Convinced it was the most important thing that could ever happen. That romantic love was the most important thing in life. She’d despair at the chase to the airport scene in rom-coms because how could they want to leave? What could possibly be more important than love? Now, it seems ridiculous to me that anyone could prioritise a fleeting romance over life long goals and a chance for happiness and stability. Now, I don’t identify as a girl anymore, and it’s a little ridiculous that I was so sure I was straight. My identity, my priorities, and my dreams have changed so much that on paper I seem like a completely different person. But the truth is I haven’t actually changed that much.
I’m still here, sorting through my mess and daydreaming about the future. But the future I’m dreaming about now doesn’t have a lover or partner. The future is just me, living my life exactly the way I want to. Indulging in my hobbies and finding emotional and financial stability. A little flat filled with houseplants and a pet or two. Writing articles for Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 2029, maybe. And it fills me with just as much childish excitement and happiness. An adults daydream, but just as fulfilling.
This blog post could have been about amatonormativity and heteronormativity and the way they create unnecessary pressure for little kids to conform to a specific ideal, and maybe I will write that article someday. But the message I want to give to baby aros who are only just discovering their arospec identity; to arospecs who wish they could fall in love; to arospecs who can’t get over internalised amatonormativity is this:
There was once a little girl who was obsessed with romance. Desperate to fall in love. There was once a confused teenager to whom the idea of being aromantic felt like the cruelest joke the universe could play on someone who wished only to love someone, anyone. I don’t feel that way anymore. Ever. I’m not just okay with being aromantic now. I love myself for my aromanticism and I’m excited to find out what the future will be like for me. It is possible to be aromantic, and permanently partnerless, and happy. It does get better. Give it time.
Aromantic Ruminations 