Being Aro
Over the past few years, I鈥檝e been doing some self-exploration when it comes to the ways in which I identify. I鈥檝e been sorting out how I鈥檝e been raised within a social system rife with injustices based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, education, and class/economic status and how that intersects with the various ways in which I have large amounts of privilege. Frankly, as an old white cis-het woman, I can get away with a ton of shit! I鈥檓 trying to use that power for good not evil, and to be a supportive ally more often than a bossy fixer of other people鈥檚 problems. 鈥� but I still revert to bossy fixer more often than I鈥檇 like.
Part of my self-exploration has involved recognizing that the kinds of emotions I feel in relationships aren鈥檛 all that normative. For quite a few years, I鈥檝e been asking friends to tell me what they feel when they love someone, because I don鈥檛 feel the things society expects me to feel, and I wasn鈥檛 sure if all people assumed or pretended they felt what they were supposed to without examining that, or if people really did feel what is culturally defined as love. I鈥檝e come to the conclusion that most people really do love someone鈥攖heir parents and/or their children and/or their life partners鈥攁nd that I don鈥檛, at least not in their way. My friends describe feeling that they鈥檇 be willing to do anything for the other person, that being with them has a powerful effect on their emotional state, how devastated they鈥檇 feel if that person died. And I can鈥檛 say I鈥檝e experienced that. I feel friendship, I feel affection, I want to help others, but I don鈥檛 think I can say I鈥檝e ever loved a person or a pet in the ways people describe. I was sadder hearing that Jim Henson had died than I was at my father鈥檚 death. I鈥檓 sorry my father died age fifty-two, but I didn鈥檛 feel all the anger and sadness that people describe as grief.
For a while, I self-diagnosed dismissive-avoidant attachment behaviour, and thought that it was probably my being raised in a family in which nobody hugged or kissed or said 鈥淚 love you鈥� that had led to an inability to attach to others. But now I鈥檓 not so happy with that identification. For one thing, attachment theory implies that the essential state of human emotionality is attachment, and that those of us who don鈥檛 attach in the ways the society validates are repressing our 鈥渞eal鈥� feelings or redirecting them. But what if my emotional states and functions are in part inherited, and my parents, who had a strong sex life but didn鈥檛 display much if any romantic affection, didn鈥檛 鈥渘aturally鈥� attach to people, either? Why should I blame myself for failing at romantic and familial love, or blame my parents for not nurturing that in me? What if this is a kind of neurodiversity? I wouldn鈥檛 say I鈥檓 on the autistic spectrum, though probably someone in Psychology has explored this kind of emotionality.
It鈥檚 not that I don鈥檛 feel emotions: for sure, I do! I feel joy and sadness and fear and anxiety and anger. Books or performances often make me laugh or cry, can frustrate or bore me. People can make me laugh or cry, can frustrate or bore me. I find pleasure and fulfillment in friendship, fellowship, collegiality. I love most of my friends in the same way I love most of Tanya Huff鈥檚 novels鈥擨 think they鈥檙e great and enjoy spending time with them. I love the Creator God and believe that God loves me. I love lakeshores and mosses. I just don鈥檛 love people in the ways that most people mean when they say they love their parents or their children or their life partners. I probably come closest with the brother who is nearest to me in age.
I鈥檝e never wanted children of my own, though I respect children and teach children's lit. As a child in the 1960s, I assumed that I would marry a man, quit my job, have children, and be a stay-at-home mom, because that鈥檚 what society and adults around me told me would happen because I was a girl. As an adult, I said the only situation in which I鈥檇 consider being a mother was if I married someone who desperately wanted a child and was willing to do most of the child-rearing. Glad that didn鈥檛 happen, frankly. As a single childless woman (like , proud to be a spinster), I鈥檝e had a good career in academia, not affected by the systemic challenges that mothers face. In that way it鈥檚 another privilege to acknowledge, one that to some extent balances all the micro aggressions against single women, even from well-meaning coupled friends.
More recently, I鈥檝e been exploring what it would mean to identify as aromantic. This has some advantages, for example allowing me to say that there鈥檚 nothing inherently wrong or broken or inadequate about me because I鈥檝e never been in love and currently have no interest in being in love (when I was younger, I hoped I鈥檇 fall in love, but I never did much of anything to make that happen and rarely dated). Using the categories outlined in the LGBTQIA+ wiki, I would call myself 鈥溾��: 鈥渁n aro-spec attraction where one does not experience full-on romantic attraction. They may experience alterous attraction or other forms of attraction, but they do not experience complete romantic attraction. They may describe their attraction as 鈥榣iking someone, but not loving someone,鈥� which is the end of their attraction.鈥� And I like the way that aro as a category, like ace and bi and other ways to be under the queer umbrella, isn鈥檛 an automatic or essentialist binary. But I鈥檓 feeling a disadvantage as well, or perhaps I could say an inadequacy, with aro as an identification. Because there鈥檚 an implication that the label only holds for the ways in which I do not attach to others who are potential life partners, but doesn鈥檛 cover the way I don鈥檛 feel love for my mother.
I鈥檓 currently reading and appreciating Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown. I value her insights into what it means (and doesn鈥檛 mean) to be asexual, which is the A in GLBTIA2S+. Still looking for the equivalent book about refusing compulsory romanticism and familial love. I don鈥檛 think I鈥檓 able to write it, but I hope someone currently is. The culture I live in seems to me not only to be sex-obsessed, but also obsessed with the idea of (romantic) love. So, for now I鈥檓 saying I鈥檓 aromantic, part of a diverse group of people who are non-normative when it comes to emotional attachments, under an umbrella in some ways similar to the queer sexuality umbrella.