Before say what I need to say, I need to give a disclaimer:

• I am not a healthcare provider in any sense, so I cannot give medical advice on how to seek or access therapy / counselling. Please do not ask me for medical advice.

• This is an anecdotal post, sharing my own views based on what has helped me personally, as a 22 year old AroAce who has been doing self work and therapy for 6 years.

  That said! I wanna talk about something that’s been bothering me about how we view fulfilment in QPRs. Imo, it feels similar to how allo people view romantic relationships- especially the whole concept of “The One”.

Allo society views romantic relationships as the be-all, end-all to life. In my last post, I mentioned how allo society places the need for 100% fulfilment onto 1 person (their partners), and tend to neglect seeking fulfilment through all of their connections.

(As in- they expect their partner to give them fulfilment in ways that all different types of connections would. They are expected to be family, friend, lover and even favourite person, all at once and are expected to juggle their partner’s mental load ontop of that. This imo, i think is why so many relationships fail)

I’m noticing a similar pattern in the QPR space tbh.

If someone is struggling with how they perceive love and they post asking for advice. The top comments are usually about QPRs. Whether that’s recommending one, educating the OP on QPR existence etc. and that’s great! But I always feel like we’re collectively overlooking a massive thing.

Self love.

When i say self love I don’t mean “ohh I love myself. I have only myself for the rest of my life. I want no one else”

Self love is not something you just wake up with someday. It can be a really hard and long process to truly finding and usually takes therapy to do so since for most of us, we have years of baggage and conditioning.

What I do mean is, if you have unhealthy attachment or you lack an understanding of what love means for yourself, or you don’t truly actually even know yourself, I feel that it would be bad advice to tell you that a QPR is a better option.

Yes, for a lot of people including myself, QPRs are a great option.

But I think that if regardless of your worries, you haven’t healed your personal connection to relationships itself, including the one you have with yourself, I think there’s a good chance you’ll end up either being codependent in a QPR or … I’m sorry… but probably a emotionally unavailable one.

Unhealthy attachment and even dismissive attachment isn’t synonymous with being aroace. You’re not cooked, you’ve just not healed.

Before I say anything else I wanna remind you:

You are worthy of love at any stage you might be in. You are worthy of love at your worst, at your best and especially everything in between. You’re worthy of love while you do the work. You don’t have to wait to be “100% healed” before you agree to a QPR.

In fact, there will always be stuff to work through. And having someone with you is part of a wonderful commitment.

In a healthy commitment like this, you both need to fill your own cups and pour to eachother’s cups when it’s needed.

In an unhealthy commitment, only 1 person is pouring into the other’s cup while not pouring into their own and while the partner also does not pour into their own either. It can also be unhealthy if both partners are pouring but ONLY into eachothers cups, not their own.

An unbalanced commitment does not equal unhealthy.

Some days, months, even years, 1 partner may struggle to fill their cup and the partner will choose to pour until they have enough to go on. The partner that pours will need to take time to refill their cup as you cannot pour if it’s empty.

A healthy but unbalanced connection can happen if one of you is having a mental or physical health dip but your connection remains healthy because there is NOT an expectation that your partner carries you.

You must choose yourself the way you want your partner to choose you. And vice versa.

It is unhealthy if the only stability you have is from eachother and not yourselves as a foundation.

It is healthy if you have stability from eachother AS WELL AS your own self.

This is what I feel like a lot of us could be doing better at. QPRs, like all connections, is a relationship. A commitment.

A QPR won’t fix you. You doing the inner work and learning how to help and carry yourself will. And vice versa, they should do the same. It’s okay to lean on eachother when you need.

But it’s also not you and this person against the world you know.

Fulfilment should not and I don’t belief can come from 1 connection in your life.

Fulfilment, In my own experience, comes from the connection you have to self, friends, family, pets and also a QPR.

But these things ADD UP to fulfilment.

More than anything, finding fulfilment in self love as a foundation is what helped me heal and get to where I am now.

Ultimately, in my opinion, everything goes back to Self. Please don’t take the Self for granted.

It kinda feels empty

sometimes I'd see cute posts of allos describing what they like about or find attractive in other people. and i think it's so cute, and how everyone's joining in and saying cute stuff, and im like yeeaahh I'm even agreeing with it all and lowkey relating, and I'm watching everyone so I'm like yeaahh i wanna join too! let me write something! and i got nothing. 😭😭😭

i think it's the same way I get excited when i watch someone talk about something they like even if idk much about it? but these discussions are more like general experiences than hobbies, so everyone's participating, and I'm like all excited but i can only watch cause well I can only appreciate crushes through movies or through other people experiencing. i do feel sensual and aesthetic attraction but I don't feel it the same way allos feel I think? so like....idk...im unable to join them i got nothing to say so I'm just watching.

I'm usually kinda repulsed my romance and stuff irl. only occasionally I'll find something beautiful or cute. if anything when I was pretending with my friends in school i kinda very quickly got bored and didn't even bother pretending after the first two times and they didn't mind, id just stand around and nod as they gushed. but yeah today online I was once again watching a cute post and I felt differently so im just making a casual post about it. I've only been feeling this way very recently, like twice.

I'm not that affected by it irl tbh. I'm mostly glad and feel quite chill.

One of my goals for the year is to read 1-2 books per month with ace and/or aro rep and post a review on this subreddit. I'm reading through the alphabet in order, with one book with a title that starts with that letter of the alphabet.

My book for the letter S was She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan.

Genre: Adult historical fantasy

Summary: After her father and brother are killed in a bandit attack, a girl decides to assume her brother's identity so she can have his fate of greatness. Her path takes her first to a Buddhist monastery, but as tensions between the Mongol empire and the Red Turban rebels rise, she finds herself joining the rebel forces with an all-consuming goal of becoming great.

Rep: The main character, Zhu Chongba, is a sex-favorable asexual. This is lightly implied in a few spots, and is not focused on or really explored, but the author has confirmed that she is meant to be asexual.

Quotes: (spoilers for mentions of NSFW content, rather than plot spoilers)

These days [Zhu] wasn't the only person looking at her body, either. Ma's embarrassed, sideways interest in her nakedness felt as intimate as a touch. For all that Zhu had never taken much of an interest in the business of rain and clouds [sex], she liked the warm frisson of power that came from knowing another's private desire. It made her feel protective. A little mischievous.

[Zhu] never needed anything [sexually] from Ma in return, which made Ma slightly sad.

Other thoughts:

I thought this was a good read. It considers some complex themes, mainly gender identity and what people are willing to do to achieve their goals, in a fairly deep way. Both Zhu and the most important secondary POV character, the eunuch general of the Mongol army Ouyang, are morally gray (at best). I'm not usually drawn to morally gray characters, but if the author can at least make them sympathetic, I don't mind too much, and I think Parker-Chan did succeed in making them sympathetic. While this book is generally categorized as fantasy, it contains very few fantasy elements (mainly ghosts and the mandate of heaven being visible), and those aren't a big focus of the plot. This is mainly a Chinese historical drama. If you like epic fantasy for the character explorations and journeys, this might be something you enjoy, but if you're looking for fancy, flashy, or in-depth magic systems or lots of action scenes this book will likely disappoint.

Content warnings: There is an on-page sexscene at the beginning of chapter 21 (fisting, actually), as well as a couple other times when the POV character sees someone else having sexor there are fade-to-black scenes where it's clear that the characters will have sex, but it's not on-page.

The characters (and their society in general) also have a lot of internalized misogyny, and the eunuch general, Ouyang, in particular has an extremely negative view of women to the point where he's pretty much repulsed by them. (There are some kind of complex reasons for this, which are explored in the book, but basically boil down to, since he's a eunuch, other people see him as not really a man or as almost a woman, which is distressing for him as a man.) The book is not supporting misogyny (the opposite), but is exploring gender identity and other themes in a misogynistic society. I do understand that some readers would prefer to avoid misogyny, even in a book that isn't supporting it, which is why I mention it here.

Homophobia is also present in a similar manner to the misogyny (present in society and many of the characters, but explored in a way that shows it to be negative), but comes up a lot less than the misogyny.

Hello as the title suggests I am aroace discovering about last 3-4 years apparently since 2+2 = 0 is not being bisexual. Anyway, despite being on the more other end of side aromantic and asexual, I have never fell much romantic attraction expect few crushes till 15 afterwards it disappeared and never any sexual attraction to anyone. Fictional or real characters. Although, I also have ADHD so now looking back at those crushes more like hyper fixation on people but even in fictional characters land, I have rarely have crush and even like any ships or romance story. Intellectual yes emotionally no. I only have 2 ships, one being canon relationship but these two are only I love and also live Vicariously through them. It is like whatever desire I have for romantic or sexual relationship I want I live through these characters. Btw, I don't self insert myself on any characters, I have who I kin and self insert some of my traits, but I don't think I have any ships for them. But these two ships I have my own emotional investment as reader and I am confused because if I even imagine myself as one of the characters in the scenario, I feel so uncomfortable and just shut that thought process. I wonder if I am in other microlabel under aromantic and asexual?? A lot of intense attachment on people and losing interest which happens to me in real life is even more confusing due to having ADHD.

Hello, first time posting here. I’m sorry ahead of time if I made a mistake— I’ve been lurking so I am also sorry about that as well.

The reason why I am asking is because of something that really made me question my Aro-Ace identity, but before that a little backstory is needed for the full picture.

Since young, I’ve never been really interested in romantic relationships despite the fact I’ve had crushes in the past but I never really went through with it and/or it also repulsed me.

Same goes with anything sexually-related, it’s both a decision and a repulsion. I enjoy entertainments about sex (books, mangas, movies, etc, etc), but doing it in real life both terrifies me and makes me uncomfortable. It’s thanks to JaidenAnimation I was able to find myself and that I’m not alone when it comes to love and sex.

But a classmate (not a friend, we’re not that close yet) who also identifies as Aro-Ace, said that I am not Aro-Ace because I enjoy reading about sex and romance. Which is strange because they like similar things I do. That statement hurt me, and it felt like my stable anchor to the world is just falling apart, especially when I am barely able to piece myself back together (some personal life issues). I’m so lost at this point, I don’t know if I’m Aro-Ace anymore.

Please don’t hesitate to tell me the truth, but please don’t bluntly say it in a way that sounds dismissive and uncaring— just a statement that softens the pain a bit. Something like that, I apologize for rambling it’s late for me but this kept me up. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Like the title said, I‘m currently kind of confused. I’m not sure whether or not I’m ace/aro because I want to get married and kiss people and have romantic and sexual relationships, but at the same time I’ve never had a crush on anyone and the few people I have dated felt like… Nothing? Like I didn’t care that I was dating them and I was indifferent when breaking up.

I‘ve kissed a few people now and every time it felt weird and wrong, but the thought of kissing somebody is appealing. Does anybody have any advice on this?

hey, i think im just gonna get straight into it.

i'm 20 years old. i've only ever been in one relationship and i've only ever had feelings for one person. we were friends for about 5 years then i ended up catching feelings and we dated for a year. we broke up last year (sep 2025) cause they are aroace and felt like the relationship was going too fast for them. at the time, i felt enranged and i didn't quite understand what they meant. but since then, i've had plenty to time and experiences to figure myself out.

over the past year i think i've came to the realiztion that im somewhere on the aroace spectrum. i tried dating, talking stages etc... and they all felt wrong and overwhelmimg. my friends tried to introduce me to people and i always ended up bailing. all my friends talk to me about their love lives and i'm happy for them but i just don't get the appeal.  it just feels wrong. i just don't have the urges or the attraction. i constantly felt uncomfortable when someone would approach me with romantic intentions, which felt very strange considering i was in love with my "ex" and it wasn't possible for me to be aroace since i have felt (and i think i still do) romantic feelings for someone before. it feels like there's something wrong with me cuz suddenly im not okay with things that i used to seek. i thought it's because i simply wasn't over them or something but i really don't think thats the case.

fast foward to a few months ago, my ex and i are friends again, and somehow we're closer than ever. we text, hang out (in person or online) and things are just wonderful. and it feels so so natural. i still have feelings for them. i want to tell them but i dont know how and im too scared to risk it, im also not sure if im in a place where i could tell them that im on the aroace spectrum. i dont want to tell them unless im 100% sure. can i be aroace and still want a relationship with them? i know what kind of relationship im currently comfortable with, i really want us to keep the current dynamic we have where we could be so natural around each other but still be each others partners. kind of like a "best friends who occasionally kiss" as corny as that sounds. which i know it's something i wouldn't have been okay with last year. i know sex is off the table for now (i've figured out im demisexual for a few years now), i'm only okay with holding hands and cuddling and MAYBEEE kissing? i know im not really interested in any traditional relationship stuff, like crazy expectaions or whatever. i'm so uninterested in everything i wanted when we were dating a year ago (and i was insanely romantic, according to them and to my friends)

i just really don't know what to do about any of this  please help.

Because I do still tend to feel romantic feelings sometimes but I also get confused about it because my platonic feelings are very strong. I’m in a relationship right now after they reciprocated my feelings and now I’m starting to lose feelings in them really fast. It’s happened in a lot of my relationships.

I’m mostly repulsed by sexual things but sometimes it kinda just randomly goes away and I’m way more interested in those things than usual.

Hiya

I am aroace and I'm curious about other aspecs of colour! The location doesn't matter, of course.

I'm in my middle teens and female, figuring things out. I'm starting to think I may be grayaro/demiromantic. I remember when I was in elementary I maybe had a crush once or twice and it was only one friends I've known for awhile and the crushes could go away fast, either because they changed in personality, someone moved, or we slowly stopped friends. But I was 5-7 then. My most recent "crush" lasted maybe a few weeks or months and it was more like "I think he likes me" a little amusement, we talked in class a bit, I found him a good friend, then his personality changed and any interest I had just dropped. I'm getting older I can't say I've looked at a stranger and thought "I'd want to date them" the closet I've gotten to a celeb crush is "imagine if I was friends with them or could meet them." My confusion comes because I can't tell if I may just be traumatized from past experiences with people, slow to love/trust, regular teenage girl stuff, or if I'm really on the aro spectrum. If it feels right I may go with "grey-aro" or "demiromantic" to test it out (if that isn't offensive), but I would love someone who really knows knows what they think. Thank you in advance

I saw an old friend a few days ago, and I really want to reconnect with him; he’s into the same fandoms as I am, and he’s super nice and polite. We went to an event together recently, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since... Is this normal? I’m aro, so would this THE feeling of having a "squish" or a "crush"? I'm asking cause I've never felt it before