what can you share about your experience being uniromantic? I'm questionong if I fit in this microlabel
i didnt feel romantic attraction for anyone in my entire life until i was 23 years old and it was to somebody i had already been dating for over 2 years. less than 6 months into the relationship i rediscovered my aromanticism (i had identified as aro on and off for years with my time not identifying as aro being largely trauma related with me trying to find intimate bonds with people and feeling like i needed to pay with my body and romantic availability) and told her, and my wife actually had an aromantic boyfriend before me so she was well aware of that deal. they asked me if we needed to change anything about the relationship and i said no its fine so we continued as it was
so over 2 years into the relationship i felt a brand new feeling to my wife specifically, my fiance at the time. up until then we functioned as a romantic-presenting couple but i didnt feel romantic attraction to them. it was a feeling i had never felt for anybody else except for her, and even then it was 2+ years into knowing her. a lot of aromantic people who discover that they can feel romantic attraction are a lot younger than me and feel it for someone that theyre not in a relationship with and/or dont know them as well as i know/knew my wife given the extensive history we have together. i have a hard time putting words to the feeling, it was just a very intense new kind of love. some time after that i discovered the term uniromantic. i still call myself aromantic, just with an exception. if we never met, i would probably still not experience romantic attraction and if i had unpacked my issues with romantic relationships i would probably be living a very different life than i do now
feeling romantic attraction for the first and only time in my life was a very overwhelming experience. like, feeling a brand new feeling, especially when youre not a child/teenager, is really overwhelming! i was violently uncomfortable for a little bit until i got used to it. then i told my wife i was romantically attracted to them and she didnt really care which is fine but it was kinda a big deal because it was a brand new feeling
i dont love my wife more than i did when i wasn't romantically attracted to them. and that's an important distinction to me as an aromantic person. its the same amount of love, theres just another layer. before i felt romantic love for them, what i felt was like "super ultra mega best friend" platonic love with special rituals is how i described it. now i feel "romantic partner" romantic love for them, but its not MORE love than i was feeling initially, its just different. and i think a lot of alloromantic people who hear this assume that i "unlocked another level" of love and i didnt, its just a different type of love. i also dont feel a desire for more "romantic" rituals because i dont view stuff like kissing, cuddling, and sex as inherently romantic and never have. im also demisexual if it matters, so i do actually feel sexual attraction for people im close to (usually my friends, so im actually sexually attracted to more people than ive ever been romantically attracted to anyone lol)
i still just call myself aromantic. i don't really use microlabels and the distinction isnt that important to me, im just aromantic with an exception. and i dont expect to ever feel romantic attraction again for anyone else in my life. maybe when im 46 lol. most of the reason ive considered myself monogamous up until this point is because "i can barely handle one romantic relationship, i cant imagine several at the same time," which is very aromantic of me but i do recognize the existence of polyamorous aromantic people. im mostly romance positive but sometimes im romance repulsed, but i think a lot of that is trauma related. for example, i dont like kissing (like deep kissing, pecks are ok) because of sexual trauma i experienced as a child, but idt that's really related to my aromanticism at all. i also recognize that i could totally be aromantic and demisexual due to trauma as well, in the same way that my trauma also exists alongside my bottom dysphoria, but theres no way for me to go back in time and not me traumatized, and im also several years into ptsd recovery anyway. im not going to worry too much about what of my identity is trauma related and what isnt because the distinction doesnt matter to me. traumatized people who are/might be some kinda queer/trans because of their trauma are just as valid in their sexuality/gender as people who either dont have trauma or their trauma has nothing to do with their sexuality/gender. if i ever decide that i feel romantic attraction for somebody else, ill reassess. the nice thing about labels is that you dont have to commit to them. if i ever decide that im not aromantic, i can simply not identify as aromantic. i think a lot of people hyperfocus on "what if you're wrong" and not enough on "you can change your identity as many times as your identity changes" because its not that serious and it's never that serious. i also consider myself alloaro/aroallo as opposed to aroace because i feel that my experiences with my sexuality, despite being on the asexual spectrum, aligns more with allosexual aromantics as opposed to asexual aromantics.
