brilliantsnafu convinced me to do an aplatonic series for book and movie characters I picture as aplatonic. So I think I’m going to start that up as during my flight home today.
If anyone has any suggestions on characters they see as aplatonic and would like to see on the list send them my way!
I wish we’d stop associating having no friends with being an unlikeable person. It’s really not that different from being seen as pathetic for being single or a virgin.
Sometimes people just don’t care for these things and can live happily without them. Even if being “unlikeable” is true as in your friend group is small or nonexistent because you struggle to get along with others, it’s insensitive to use that as a demonizing insult.
I wouldn’t hit people with all this for every “friendless behavior” joke but it’s very telling of how ingrained it is in people to associate friendlessness with being a bad or annoying person.
To me, being aplatonic means that I often feel alienated whenever my friends start talking about their emotions, relating to our friendship (same for family members). They use sentences like: “What would I do without you?”, “You are my everything”, “I love you”, etc… And I’m like “?????”. To me, our relationship just naturally exist ???
Did i miss something? Was it really supposed to be that deep? We aren’t just enjoying each other company? We aren’t just caring for each other? Feelings must be included???
Damn, I didn’t even know until recently that some people feel the urge to befriend specific people. Like they feel attracted to them ??? I’m so confused.
“Bellusromantic is a micro-label on the aromantic spectrum defined as having interest in traditionally romantic things, such as kissing or cuddling, but not feeling romantic attraction, and not wanting a romantic relationship. A bellusromantic person may enjoy or desire these activities in non-romantic contexts, but does not enjoy them in the context of a romantic relationship.”
I decided to redesign the bellusromantic flag since the term resonated with me, but I wasn’t quite a fan of the flag.
Lavender - Traditionally romantic behaviors; like kissing, cuddling, holding hands, etc. Dusty Pink - The link between traditionally romantic behaviors and being aromantic; removing actions like kissing, cuddling, holding hands, etc from a romantic context. Rose Pink - The core identity of being aromantic; not experiencing romantic attraction, as well as identifying as bellusromantic. Peach Pink - The link between being aromantic and not desiring a romantic relationship. May also include being romance-repulsed if that applies to the user. Peach - Not desiring and/or rejecting romantic relationships. Could also include favoring other types of relationships (alterous, (queer-)platonic, etc.).
I decided to still include the rose as I thought it was a unique addition and helps the flag stand out. Above features one complex and one simple version depending on the users tastes; as well as a blank version if the user prefers it without a symbol.
Below on the left, is the current bellusromantic flag I’ve found. On the right is the original, and I mostly based my redesign off of it. I wanted to add a unique stripe construction instead of the basic fade-into-white that many other flags already have ^~^
Hello everyone! Check out my first post on my new blog! I’m going to post mogai stuff over there from now on, feel free to drop a follow. Please keep in mind school is coming up for me and I’m not the best at staying motivated / consistent but I hope to produce a lot of good content for you all!
Looks like I was wrong about an old post on aplatonic. At the time of writing, I was seeing the term used to mean “an aro who doesn’t experience queerplatonic attraction”. There may have been other uses at the time I was unaware of, and I have recently got a few replies to the post saying aplatonic really means “not experiencing platonic attraction” and the term I was looking for was “aqueerplatonic”.
Oddly, interspersed throughout were replies from people who liked the post because they identified as aplatonic in the sense I had described: “an aro who doesn’t experience queerplatonic attraction”.
My best guess at what happened here is that two communities of people use/used the term to mean different things and I accidentally reached both of them, causing confusion and annoyance. Sorry about that.
Is aplatonic still used in the sense I described or has that community changed the terminology they use? - Mod Kricketot
I’ve been thinking a lot about friendships and morality. I don’t know if it’s a universal experience, but for much of my life, how good of a friend I could be felt directly tied to how good of a person I am. And I’ve always felt that I fell short no matter how much I sacrificed myself for my friendships.
Aromantic communities do a lot in debunking amatonormativity, in challenging the norm and asking, “Why? Why do people have to be monogamous? Why do partners have to have sex? Why do people have to have partners?” And I think these conversations have opened a wonderful side dialogue on friendships and whether or not love is what makes someone “human” or “good.” As someone both neurodivergent and on the aroace spectrum, I’ve always occupied the unique intersection of being particularly affected by that message that perpetrates everything in media: “To be good is to be human, and to be human is to love.”
Lately, I’ve been unlearning this thinking. And reading about aplatonic experiences and applying arguments against amatonormativity to my perspective on friendships has helped me so much. I’ve always limited myself to a model for friendships that I perceived as the “good” one. I never trust my own instincts for what I want because I’m half convinced that, as a neurodivergent person, I’m broken. I don’t understand real friendship, I can only hope to imitate it by paying careful attention to how neurotypical people describe the ideal friendship. And I thought it was okay to feel so off kilter all of the time because this was my punishment for being an inherently bad person who didn’t enjoy or desire my “good” friendships.
And I’m realizing that this absolute thinking is incredibly unhealthy. Just like in every other part of life, how good or bad of a person you are is entirely subjective. How good or bad of a friend you are is also subjective. And if you and your friend desire different friendships, that isn’t a sign that you are bad friends who are bad people failing to make it work. You’re just incompatible. Even more than that, you’re just seeking entirely different things.
We use the word “friend” to describe so many things. It captures a breadth of relationships. That’s beautiful, but it also leads to this confusion and breakdown in communication. You wouldn’t expect someone who wants a romantic relationship to stay friends with someone who wants a platonic one. In that same vein, you shouldn’t force yourself to fit your desires from a friendship to someone else’s. You have to recognize the gap, and then you have to compromise or walk away.
I’m trying to teach myself the following: There isn’t morality in friendship. There isn’t a good or bad way to have friends. There’s just the kind of relationship you want with someone and the kind of relationship they want with you and what you make of it together. And that’s not necessarily going to look like friendship to someone else, but it will be yours.
aplgenderoraplatonicgender is when a person feels like ones gender is connected or heacily influenced by being an aplatonic / on the apl-spectrum. this label can be used with multiple terms like example aplgender genderfluid
id: a flag with colors in this order, top to bottom: dark grey, soft grey, light grey, dark purple, dull blue, dull yellow-green, light grey, soft grey, dark grey. end id.
a server for aplatonic people! we have reaction roles, pluralkit, dedicated channels for neurodivergent people and people of color, and are friendly to neopronouns, xenogenders, and any aspec identity!
i made an aplatonic server! yes, the icon is a non-platonic solid. i’m so funny
I’m thinking about making this a series about being a loveless, aplatonic aro ace. Would y’all be interested in that? I’d like for people to be more aware of how disintegrating and isolating it can be when people use the concept of love to determine a persons worth and humanity.
honestly peoples arguments against aplatonicism and lovelessness are the exact same things once said about aromanticism which is the same thing said about asexuality which is the same thing said about being queer, and so on. its all just recycled. we have all been told “thats just trauma / youre mentally ill / etc”. its nothing new. people have just added new targets. and i cant be the only one who’s noticing this trend.
