i think im aro but im scared

[quinnzey]

hi. i think i might be aro but im scared. for my entire life all I've been told is that I'm only going to be happy if I'm with someone romantically and sexually. i recently (half a year ago) found out I was ace and it took like four years for me to get there. i didn't want to admit it because I was ashamed. now I'm proud of it, but I'm still worried.

i feel like I don't know anything about romantic relationships. i love romance novels and storylines and things like that because I love seeing people in love. i think having someone you trust so deeply is an intense and honestly beautiful experience, and I want that. but not in the...romantic sense? i don't know. i feel like I like romantic storylines because people are happy there. and obviously I want to be happy too. and they're happy with other people, and I feel happy with other people too? but not romantically. i don't . want to date someone? 

i don't know. i identify as a lesbian right now because I got with a guy and I never liked him from the start and the whole (eight months) of that relationship felt like I was heaving a tumor. months later I got with a girl. at first, when I first became her friend, I thought she was cool. i think I really liked how she dressed and wanted to dress like that. and she had a lot of friends, things like that. i told my friend I thought I liked her and it just...went off from there. everytime I talked to her I felt fluttery, and I was happy. then she asked me out, and I was laughing and nervous and I thought "this must be what it feels like to really like someone". idk. we got together and were together for three weeks. those weeks were the best and worst of my life. i think I liked telling people I had a stable relationship, it made me feel complete. but I hated talking to her. after we started romantically getting together it felt like it was just forcing myself. like a chore. i felt horrible and each time I talked to her or sawher I felt gross. i hated kissing her, hated texting her, hated speaking to her, hated thinking about her. i thought that maybe that was how all relationships were when they started. i don't know

when she broke up with me I wasn't sad about it. we had gotten intimate during our relationship which had helped me realize I was asexual (in a horrible, time consuming way) and I was sad that I couldn't express my newfound sexuality with her. for the next few months when I saw her I thought, how dare she! or things like how could she break it off! and I wrote sad depressed things in my diary and things like that. but I was happier. i think. i think I realized I liked not being in a relationship it gave me more time to focus on myself. and I loved myself, and I was happy loving myself? is that bad?

I'm sort of scared Im going to end up alone because of this. but then I think about how I could get a pet. or have a kid. that sort of thing, and it reminds me I'm okay. but I'm scared about the now. I'm scared that I cant live up to the "teen" expectations. what if I don't live my life to the fullest because of this? what if people hate me because of this? idk. I'm thinking about it

[Ekaterina]

You will be able to live your life to your fullest if you don't waste time and energy by deceiving yourself and forcing yourself to relationships/situations that aren't comfortable for you. Teen expectations may suck sometimes indeed, but they will be over once the school ends, and if your family and close circle in general is accepting of you the way you are, you won't have to deal with that much pressure. 

Also it feels like you are a partnering aroace (you seemed to genuinely enjoy your relationship with that girl until it went romantic), so you can have a platonic/queerplatonic partner if you like. Or if you don't want to, it's perfectly valid too. 

[techno]

hey there. having once been an aro teen myself, i know how scary it feels. especially because it can feel really isolating, rather than feeling like something you can celebrate with the people around you. it's cliche but it does get better--and, honestly, you'd be surprised how many other people your age also don't meet the sort of "teen expectations" you might see on tv!

it's been ten years now, and even though not all of those scared feelings are totally gone, i am far from alone. i live with two of my best friends and we're all happy. i even officiated their wedding a couple of months ago! i have a strong group of friends, i have a close relationship with my sibling, i have all sorts of connections and communities that keep me going. i don't have any sort of partner and don't really want to, but that's an option too! there are so many ways of living a fulfilled aro life. you get to decide what you want that to look like, which can be scary in its uncertainty, but it's also really freeing! expectations are total bs and hard to deal with, but you have plenty of time to figure out who you want to be. and i promise you will find people to surround yourself with who cherish and accept all parts of you, whatever that may look like.