this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
40 points (91.7% liked)
Asklemmy
50565 readers
537 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
im gonna sound like a fuckin boomer here but why date someone if you are “aromantic”? just get a ps5 and leave other people out of it.
I mean, I'm aromantic and have a partner. It's not like I don't love them, I do, intensely. I simply don't understand what the difference is between romantic and platonic love.
Like, what's different about the love you have for a romantic partner than the love you have for a friend? Is it simply the addition of being sexually attracted to someone? So romantic love is friendship plus sexual attraction? What happens when the sexual attraction fades? Do you stop romantically loving your partner? Do you then break up because you're no longer sexually attracted to them? I just don't get it, frankly.
Sexual attraction for me is so, so fickle, it comes and goes and never stays. If I tried to build partner relationships on sexual attraction, well, I'd never stick with one partner for long, I'd be breaking up with people constantly, and that sounds like a miserable way to live. Especially since I've found a person I get along great with, we have similar long-term goals, senses of humor that mesh great, they're everything I want in a life partner. I really don't think it's unreasonable for me to be married to this person, we've built our life together, why would I throw that away just because I don't really "get" romantic love?
I've had many many conversions where I've tried to get people to define what romance means, and so far nobody has a satisfying answer. It seems like everyone thinks it should just be obvious what is meant by that word, and can't or won't pin it down in a way that describes what's unique about that kind of love compared to other kinds of love.
The dictionary definitions are also highly circular. It's like, romance is "the desire to be in romantic relationships", and romantic relationships are "oriented towards expressions of romance" and so on.
I've started to suspect that the very fact that I'm unable to determine what romance even means is a hint that I'm probably aromantic. It's a very strange thing though.. how can I call myself a word that means "not romantic" when I don't even know what it is that I'm not?
ive been with my partner for a couple decades and am still sexually attracted to them. i dont know what to tell you. im just saying from my perspective if i were to be dating i would not want to be involved with someone who is "aromantic" because it would be pointless. maybe i just dont understand the kids these days.
Yeah, it's sex + love. "Romantic" as a descriptor was always a euphemism. Sexual desire waxes and wanes, and varies between people and over time. Always has been. But it would be a very weird kind of categorization if you had to redefine your feelings constantly based on the present moment.
Not everyone values the same things in relationships. Just because someone doesn't want romance doesn't mean they don't deserve or desire intimacy and connection with others.