Internalized Arophobia: Be Nice

For Carnival of Aros October 2020

Disclaimer: arophobia, specifically internalized arophobia I have felt.

June 2020

On yet another walk, "it is better to have loved and lost" popped into my head and struck me as strictly untrue.

While there were pleasantries to being in a committed pairing, such social conveniences did not make up for the lurking awareness of the hollowness of my automated reciprocation of romance and the hurt of rejection when they became aware of the disconnect.

It dawned on me that defaulting to theoretically panromantic was yet another lie. I stumbled into quoiromantic and then inched myself into the deep end of plain old aro. I begrudgingly let go of the assumption that eventually I would find my person, something would click, and all the happy romantic entrapments story after story promised me would be mine.  

October 2020

I learned the Carnival of Aro's prompt was "priorities". The host asked "how important is aromanticism to you?". I knew my first instinct of "it's not" would make for a terrible blog post, so I started mind mapping.

Why don't I prioritize my aromanticism? Do I plan to prioritize aromanticism in the future? Why were some parts of my identity easier to accept? What actions helped me process other identities I struggled with? What's my perception of aromanticism?

Here's what I learned about myself: 

• I perceived aromanticism as "not nice." I wanted to perceive myself as "nice." Both being aromantic and knowing I had unfair negative views toward aromanticism made it hard to perceive myself as "nice." 
• I felt I was "owed" the structured path to lifelong happiness that the romantic path promised.

Here's what helped me get over internalized discrimination in the past:

• Comfort Newbies - people are often kinder to others than they are to themselves
• Learn the Nuances - you don't know what you don't know until you know it 
• Discover the Joy - jokes and comradery can help you see the positive
• Read Fiction - seeing characters overcoming and thriving shows that you can too
• Journal - you may not realize your thoughts until you slow them down and dig through them

    What happened next?

I realized prioritizing aromanticism (and becoming happier by shaking off my internalized arophobia) was something I wanted to do - but not yet. Self-growth isn't a race. There isn't a cut off date. And I knew I had a lot on my plate coming up, both time-wise and introspection-wise.

I decided to wait for January 2021. That'd be just in time for AroWriMo and Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week in February. Plus I liked the symmetry of it, since I'd first explored asexuality in January 2020.

But then I threw symmetry and work-balance to the wind and poked around on Arocalypse. The beauty of it is, sometimes all it takes is a few positive interactions and a journaling exercise to shift your mindset from "I shouldn't believe this stereotype and logically I know it isn't true" to "this stereotype isn't true."

Already I feel happier. I still want to throw an aro brouhaha for myself in January though 💚.

Call to Action

Is there an aspect of yourself you aren't a fan of? Do you think becoming more comfortable with this aspect of yourself would bring you greater joy?

Take a baby step: join a community, read a single article, have a random conversation with someone who shares that trait with you, or look up memes.