You can enjoy things in fiction without wanting it in real life. If you like romance or erotica in fiction it doesn’t mean you have to want actual romance or sex for yourself.
You know what? Shoutout to the aroaces who didn’t always know.
To the ones who always thought, yeah, of course I’m straight, how is what I feel out of the ordinary?
To the ones who maybe weren’t entirely sure what they felt, but they didn’t have the knowledge or the insight to realize they were aroace.
To the oriented aroaces who thought their other attractions were romantic/sexual, maybe because they didn’t understand the different kinds of attraction, maybe because they didn’t truly understand attraction at all.
To the sex/romance neutral/favorable aroaces who thought, well, I’m fine with these things, so I can’t be aroace.
To the ones who didn’t get that instant connection so many aro/ace positivity posts talk about when they found the aro/ace community, because they never really felt like something was missing.
To the ones who, looking back, might think they were blind for not seeing the truth, when really they were just doing their best with what they had.
You’re real. You’re here. You matter. Your experiences are important. You’ll figure yourself out one of these days, and you’ve already come so far.
It’s okay to return to identities! If you thought for a while you were ace or aro and changed for whatever reason(you thought you felt sexual/romantic attraction, you were scared, you didn’t think it was needed, discourse hurt you, you didn’t feel like you were ace/aro enough etc) but feel like that identity fits you again that’s fine! This goes for all other identities too. Just because you identified before doesn’t mean you can’t return, it’s a learning curve of finding yourself. You are welcome to return and I love you
