The Differences Between Us

[mesotablar]

This is my entry for Carnival of Aros November about limerence, using the prompt: If you identify as aro or arospec, do you think you are non-limerent? Does limerence factor into why you identify this way?


The Differences Between Us

This month’s topic is incredibly interesting. I discovered a label that very easily applies to me and my experiences, so here I am to introduce myself as a non-limerent.

I have not ever experienced limerence.

I remember a conversation just after I started identifying as aromantic, my friends and I were talking about the feeling of being in love. We were talking about limerence without knowing the term. The emotional highs. The profound romantic infatuation. The involuntary obsession. 

There were four of us, all 26 years old and no one admitted to having ever felt it, yet I was the only one that identified as aromantic.

I wondered what the real differences between us was. Limerence, that Hollywood ideal of love on the big screen seemed to have little to do with being alloromantic or being aromantic. 

But they admitted to having crushes. 

What is a crush but a form of limerence? The obsession, the emotional highs, the desire to collect all the merchandise….but they didn’t see such a crush as love, not real (limerence) true love anyway. Could a crush just be unrequited limerence?

Trying to straighten their logic, the difference between limerence and crushes, the difference between alloromatic and aromantic, is a monumental task. A task I have not succeeded in because I am mostly oblivious to it. They are frequencies I just can’t pick up. 

The only answer I managed to come up with was that I felt comfortable in aromantic spaces and identifying as aromantic, while they desperately rejected the possibility as they strived in their social lives to partner up. 

…personally though, I would say that is amatonormativity raising it’s ugly head again. 

Comments

[fred_mouse]

That's really interesting about your friends not having the limerence experience, but rejecting aromantic as a possible identity.

[mesotablar]

I thought it was really interesting too, but they didn't want to get into a conversation.
They all self-describe as having 'traditional values', though they are from wide ranging ethnic heritages, that seems to boil down to Life Goal: Monogamous (heterosexual) partnership with probable babies. I sort of loosely came from that and accepting aromanticism was scary, so I can imagine that even if it is a possibility they fit on the spectrum it would seem terrifying.

[fred_mouse]

Oh, very interesting. I'm finding it fascinating, because Youngest has a cluster of friends who are either or both of aromantic and asexual. At least two of them are from quite traditional religious backgrounds. One has got a really positive response from their family (along the lines of 'celibacy is an accepted way to show piety') and the other has got the opposite, the 'you will marry and have children'.

side note: I'm torn about using 'currently identify', 'identify', and 'are' as the appropriate terminology. These are 17-18 year olds, and for many of them their identities are still in flux, but I'd be really surprised if the aro/ace ones are that in flux. More and more I wish I'd been aware of these concepts as a young adult, because retroactively attempting to work out my identity is difficult.

[mesotablar]

Me and my friends are late twenties/early thirties now and everyone around us is getting engaged and married and having (or already have) kids. It is sort of a peer pressure vortex right now. So far, I'm invited to 4 weddings next year.

I only wish I knew about aromanticism in my teens IF it had the community it has now. Knowing the concept wouldn't have made me feel like I belong ~ and it did give me the space to become me without labels ~ even though teen me fell into a toxic relationship and romance ideals were weaponised against me.

As for the identity tense, I would stick with 'identify' and 'are' because they stay away from implying the potential for change. But if they are still experiencing change and shifts 'questioning' can always be added in. I was a questioning lithsexual for a good while..

[fred_mouse]

Oh, that would make quite a difference. Will be interesting to revisit this in a decade -- Youngest's friends are all either early uni, or starting uni this year as an age cohort.