![]() At least now I understand it’s the amatonormativity getting to me.” Slide 5: She shrugs now, “But in all seriousness, I’m not going to pretend I have any good answer for this - because I don’t, I’m still figuring things out. Slide 4: “As you can see … it’s a dilemma” She says while making the stereotypically anime-esque streaming tears face. She thinks “Or I can try toning it down … but WAIT what if I don’t seem happy enough when I see them? Will they think I’m too reserved? WHAT IF THEY THINK I’M BORING AND THEY DON’T WANT TO HANG OUT AND-” An arrow labelled “A very platonically appropriate distance” is between them. On the other side, Figure B shows her standing with a much calmer if somewhat blank expression. ![]() She has a whole puppy dog eye thing going on, and in the background she thinks: “should I be as excited as I actually am to see them? What if I seem toooooo friendly? OH NO what if they think I’m flirting? What should I do? Help -” On one side, Figure A shows her being very excited to see her friend. “I’m always second guessing how I should behave” Slide 3: She stares down at an illustrated board of her thought process. Slide 2: She continues “Even for people I’m not necessarily platonically attracted to, just people I genuinely enjoy being around and want to express my apprecation for -” “Something I’ve struggled with my whole life - and still am now, to a lesser extent - is showing affection platonically in a way that’s authentic to how I’m actually feeling.” Slide 1: Celia sits in front of some plants, holding a blue watering can. Is this a part of your experience as an aro too? ![]() If this doesn’t apply to you, that’s totally okay! Actually I’m really glad if you haven’t had to experience this flavour of inner turmoil haha □ Either way, I’m always interested to hear about your perspective on all of this. I hope it will eventually lead me to communicating these feelings more openly in my relationships in the future too □□Īs usual, I want to emphasize not every aro goes through the same things. I think my next steps are going to be more honest about my feelings with myself, since I learned to ignore a lot of them with amatonormative pressures. I’ve been reflecting a lot on this topic so I’ve got a lot of (still forming) thoughts, but the gist of it is this: I know now I don’t need to feel bad for being confused and conflicted about how I relate to and express my feelings for others - and even though I don’t know what I really want when showing affection, being aware of why I feel this conflict is a much healtheir place to start from. If it’s of any comfort or positivity, like I mentioned in the comic I am working past what I now know is the effect of amatonormativity on me. □ … and yeah, I realize that was a bit of a downer. It hurts to feel like your feelings aren’t reciprocated! And after a while this led me to reconsider how I communicate and express myself, if at all. I know it’s not the end of the world, but … this impacted my relationship with friendship as a whole. People thought I was being weird, or misread my intentions and would give (extremely unwanted) romantic advances. I don’t know if my struggles with social skills affected this, but trying to show affection didn’t end well most of the time. When I was a kid, I really wanted and tried to express affection in a way that feels … authentic? And genuine? To how I relate to/experience platonic feelings for others. I’ve touched on this before, but a lot of this stems from my experiences growing up. Platonic, 1/1 - The Original Arospec struggle □ … okay, I’m (half) joking, but quite genuinely this has been a big challenge for me navigating this world as an Aro! I know platonic affection is something people struggle with, aro or not, but I personally believe the aro flavour has its own unique layer of anxieties.
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