disclaimer: kind of a vent. this might be a bit heavy for this blog, feel free to delete if so.
aphobia is dating someone for almost 3 years because you wanted to be in a qpr but she wanted a romantic relationship, and when you told her you didnt think you were into her romantically, she said "no dont worry, you are, i can tell". and you believed her bc you didnt have anyone to tell you otherwise, and so you didnt figure out that youre actually fully aro until after the breakup.
also aphobia is telling people about this and them not believing you and thinking youre just salty about the breakup and "pretending" you were never into her. despite how incredibly difficult it was to come to that conclusion and accept it. :')
This is aphobia and arophobia. It is very hard to understand what you are feeling when amatonormativity is always pushing you to say it is romance if it is about your connection to someone, specially if it brings you joy. And it sucks when it is not only social expectations, but actually someone who assecures you must be feeling romance to them. It sucks twice when people do not believe your experiences with it. I hope that in the future more people are aware about aromanticism, and that brings the possibility of more people to struggle less to figure out what they are (not) feeling. -Minesweeper