#relational poverty

[magpie-trove]

“The use of force, violence and weapons reflects a relational poverty” ooohhhhh

[christian-ace-nerd]

Aro/Ace — liberation or limit?

It’s Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, and I’ve been feeling pretty negative about being aro/grayro. If you just need positivity posts right now, then you might want to skip this, because I’m going to be writing about some of the difficulties.

Now that I know I’m ace, sex-repulsed and grayro (grayromantic isn’t the most comfortably fitting label for me; I’m starting to consider [gray-]alterous attraction as a better descriptor, or possibly using both labels), it’s something I’m aware of just about ALL the time. While it’s true that being aro-ace is very liberating in a major sense, it can be very heavy when I face the reality that I am, in fact, NOT surrounded by other aro-ace people.

Specifically, two of my single lady friends have gotten into relationships recently. One of them is my roommate. After suffering a painful loss of my previous roommate (on her wedding night last spring, I came home to a totally silent house and wept with such grief I can still recall), I’m not exactly excited about my current roommate making her relationship “Facebook official.”

The other is a friend of mine who’s been single pretty much her whole life and has finally and magically, in her 30s, found a guy who seems just right for her. It’s hard for me to articulate how I feel, because on one hand I’m happy she’s happy, but on the other hand she’s not in my corner anymore, and that hurts.

As long as I have my single friends around me, I can more or less feel like I have my squad, my peeps, my crew who’s relatable. The gang in my corner. My homies. Fellowship and solidarity. But as soon as they “un-single” themselves, the illusion breaks. They were never really in my corner. Outwardly, they were, but the first decent chance they had to join the couples club, they snatched that ticket and by default made me their “insignificant other.” They’re not aro-ace like I am. They’re (usually) straight, and they express that as soon as they can.

I often find myself using socio-economic terms to describe my situation because it seems like most non-ace/non-aro people don’t comprehend my experience when I stick to describing my feelings. 

It’s like I live in the undesirable neighborhood of singleness, a place known for its relative relational poverty to the desirable neighborhood of partnership. I’m fairly happy in singleness as long as I have some good neighbors around me. We lean on each other; we have each other’s backs. We’re there for each other when the relational poverty feels heavy and the social marginalization stings. There’s a precious fellowship we have. 

Often, a neighbor finally gets her ticket out of the neighborhood, her passport to partnership. The first one isn’t so bad — we miss her, but we’re happy she’s happy, and the rest of us are still here. But then things change. She doesn’t stay in contact. She has a new social circle and newly acquired significance. We’re just her insignificant others now. She can’t be bothered to return a text message.

And this is where I realize I’m not like the rest of my neighbors. Because the rest of them just keep hoping and waiting for the day when they get their tickets to escape. They can be happy for our old friend because they have the hope of following in her steps. But I don’t have that hope. I’m not merely single — I am asexual, sex-repulsed and (mostly) aromantic. Even when I am bestowed the social privilege of brief visits to partnership, I feel discomfort and a lack of happiness, making me want to retreat to my poor old neighborhood. So I do.

But one by one, my old neighbors get their tickets out of dodge. Again and again and again I say good-bye, and it’s only a matter of time before whatever fellowship we once shared is nothing more than bittersweet history. Again and again and again I am deemed by default the insignificant other of friend after friend after friend who leaves me behind like yesterday’s fad. I’m not sure I have the words to describe how incredibly crushing and demoralizing this reality is. If there were one thing I wish I could make non-ace/non-aro people understand about being aro-ace, this would be it: Because I’m aro-ace and sex-repulsed, I don’t have the hope of playing at the higher level of the economy of significance. Statistically I’m limited to the lower class of social significance — and this would be OK with me IF I had an actual neighborhood to come home to!

Those friends were once my neighbors, but they were never my tribe. We had some commonality, but they had little love for our neighborhood and forsook it as soon as they reasonably could. The loss of that love, that forsaking of the fellowship — that falls on me. And it continues to fall on me every time because I cannot leave.

Eventually I realize I can’t live on a street of deserted buildings and unsavory characters, so I have to go in search of new neighbors. If I’m lucky, I’ll find another good group, but the cycle will just repeat. I can’t find aro-ace friends because there are too few of us. I just keep hunting for single straight women who keep breaking my heart. 

I don’t want sex. I don’t want romance. I DO want fellowship, solidarity and significance in uniquely aro-ace ways. In a future post I’ll write about the ideal relationship(s?) I would like to have.