Aro + Asian?

[ABC]

Although I won’t specify my specific kind of Asian, it’s nice that I’m not alone.

My parents would pressure me, from teen years to present (am a young adult - early 20s), to find an opposite-sex partner to enlarge the family unit and have more of those interdependent relationships, which I find pretty transactional and pretty exhausting (visiting uncles and aunties, both biological including extended families, and even non-biological when those terms are extended to platonic same-age groups, to exchange advice and small gifts). Of course, this is also coupled with “get good grades!” and “get a good job!” How am I supposed to juggle 2 or 3 opposing priorities? Naturally, my aro self found it easy to focus on studies without the distraction of crushes and whatnot.

They understand what LGBTQ is, but they’d probably dismiss the IA+ part as wanting even more special treatment, or as lying/making excuses, especially when they press on with shipping us with opposite-sex same-age peers, “[Name of opposite-sex peer] is so [insert list of positive qualities here], it’d be perfect if you two dated, married and have kids so the elders can have many grandchildren!” Honestly, I’ll never understand how it’s OK to ship 2 real life people to the point of pressuring them with mere comments, we aren’t fictional characters, but that’s a discussion for another time. This makes it difficult to come out as aro compared to coming out as LGBTQ, and I’m not even sure whether I’d ever come out to my parents. I’m tired of hearing their hopeful shipping comments, but bursting their bubble might lead to them getting confused and mad, and we know how much Asians prefer to keep the peace.

Other than the aro part but relevant to the Asian and other queer-adjacent parts, I enjoy being gender neutral, that’s why I put my gender as cis-apathetic here with any pronouns, it’s nice being able to be neutral here, but I don’t like how in real life the older generations are still pushing outdated gender expectations on us. Even if I can enjoy neutrality here, once I log out and go back to real life, everything will be gendered as in the sexist expectations they tell to both the main 2 genders they recognize. Different sexist expectations for different genders, but it all weighs heavily the same, even someone cis like me gets it that no matter which side you’re on, the expectations can be overwhelming. As if it’s not enough that we are our best as individuals because our collectivistic culture is more obsessed with giving grandparents, uncles and aunties companionship through progeny, we’re also boxed by sexist expectations. How tiresome.