they are not your enemy: a letter to the aromantic community
so. i’ve seen a few romance-repulsed aros making posts against spreading the idea that some aros are romance-favorable, can date non-aros, etc. and i just…its really disheartening to see. are we aros so fucking desperate for acknowledgement that we’re gonna sink as low as to turn on each other for scraps? i understand that the situation is dire, but please believe me when i say that romance-favorable aros are not your enemy. and neither are the people supporting them.
i get it. i know what it looks like. you may think that we’re more palatable for non-aros. that they’re pushing you to the side in favor of us, because we’re easier for them to understand. that non-aros are essentially telling themselves this: “i mean, that romance-favorable lot is basically just doing the whole dating and marriage thing but with slightly different emotions. they can even get with us! they blend in so well, unlike those inhumane romance-repulsed hermits over there, babbling on about romance not being the pinnacle of human emotion and all that crap. i know, let’s push em’ to the side and acknowledge the easier version of aros instead”.
well, you may be surprised to hear. to me, and to other romance-favorable aros i’m sure, it’s the exact opposite. you’re the more palatable ones for non-aros. for us, non-aros sound like this: “romance-repulsed aros won’t date non-aros. they want you to respect that. that’s all there is to it. finally someone who will let us live in fucking peace. not like those romance-favorable pricks who have the nerve to act like they’d make suitable life partners for us, and force us to hear their babbling about romance not being the pinnacle of human emotions/commitment up close and personal. loveless bastards tryna manipulate normal people into loveless marriages. as if their love could ever be worth just as much as ours. i know, let’s push em’ to the side and acknowledge the easier version of aros instead.”
we’re both getting royally screwed over here. and we’re both too busy thinking Those Other Aros™ aren’t getting screwed over as much as Our Group™ to bother getting pissed at what’s screwing us both over: the notion that we’re not worth as much as non-aros, no matter what we do. don’t date? hermit, inhumane, people aren’t islands. try to date? abuser, doomed to failure, how dare you. loveless either way.
us turning against each other? trying to push one another to the margins of our community? wrongly considering our siblings threats, agents of the enemy, out for Our Group’s™ skins? is the best goddamn gift we could give our enemies. listen. the lot of us— you, me, whatever kind of aromantic there is— deserve enough respect and acknowledgement and support to fucking drown in. we shouldn’t have to create a hierarchy of most to least deserving of those essential needs and try to ration our posts based on that. we shouldn’t be playing oppression olympics. we shouldn’t be considering each other enemies when we could be allies, when we are allies. we of all communities should know better than to behave like this.
now let’s go ahead and do better, together.
Yes, absolutely. This mentality of “we have it worse and non-aros hate us more than another kind of aro” is bad for the whole community, regardless of who it’s coming from. We need to come together and celebrate all of the incredible ways to be aro and not fight with each other. Thank you for this post, OP!
