Did learning the word aro feel like a whole world was opening up. Like, like all your life you felt like the weird one and finally you had a name for it?
Honestly, I knew about aromanticism for a while before I figured out that I was aromantic. I think the fact that I’m allosexual made that a less clear distinction for me. I knew I had attraction that wasn’t platonic, and I was definitely more aware of the aroace identity than alloaro initially, which made it more difficult for me to figure out that I was aro despite being aware of aromanticism’s existence.
I’ve always been pretty connected with the aspec community through online groups (they were not aspec specific groups but had a large proportion of aspec members) before I had figured out anything about my orientation meaning I knew a fair amount about aspec terms, but it wasn’t that easy for me to tell whether a particular term fit me well. I thought I was bi for a long time, then a lesbian, then aroace, then alloace, and lots of periods where I switched back and forth between them before I knew.
Sometimes it takes time to figure yourself out regardless of whether or not you have the terms already, it really just depends on your personal situation! When I did finally find out I was aromantic, it was very freeing though! I had always felt some pressure that I would need to find a partner in order to be happy but being aromantic made me realise that I could be without that kind of relationship and still be happy and content. -Mod Uso
When I first heard the word aromantic, I at the time identified as a panromantic asexual. I thought that because I had no preference as to who I dated, that I was pan.
Later on I found out about demiromantic and greyromantic. This was when I dipped my toes in the water. I thought I might be demiromantic. It wasn’t until months later things clicked and I realized my impartiality was my aromanticism.
While I didn’t feel that special connection the first time, when I accepted my aromanticism and came out to my friends, I felt amazing. I was so happy and proud of myself, my identity.
No term has brought me the same amount of joy as aromantic has. -Mod Romeo