what is the pink and green flag on the right side of your header?
That's the aroflux flag! Aroflux is a romantic orientation where one's ability to feel romantic attraction fluctuates. Usually, this means fluctuating from no romantic attraction to full romantic attraction (and gray areas in-between), but it's also used to describe someone who goes between different arospec labels depending on what fits best for their current situation/attraction level/sexuality.
Aro-Ace-Flux vibes of forgetting that you do actually occasionally feel attraction, but are perfectly HAPPY to NOT feel that attraction, and then when you do feel it you spend the rest of the day like oh for frack’s sake no. No. Not this.
Hello fellow aroflux. I recently found your post about definition and I totally agree with what you and other aroflux say about it.
I wanna ask you about how you deal with insecurities and ID crisis whenever you feel romantic attraction or when you flux. Cause I flux a lot, like daily and it gives me a complicated relationship with aromanticism and the label "aro". Cause not only I can feel romantic attraction some of time, I am also romance-favorable (as in I like romantic media and have romantic daydream). Therefore I constantly feel "fake" and dont want to talk about aro experience whenever I feel romantic feeling cause im not qualified??? Like am I faking being aro, am I not trying to enough feel attraction the right way? Wait dont allo people must feel this way too?
So from a aroflux to another, do you have any suggestions to deal with this problem?
Feeling fake is a common experience among those who are part of marginalized communities such as LGBT+ (and neurodivergency, but that's not important rn). It's been a while since I've worried I was faking being aro, so I can't exactly relate to what you're going through. However, here's some suggestions for you:
One: get involved with the aro community. Follow a positivity blog or two, reblog some aro art, or even make yourself an aro blog like I did. Participating in a community helps relieve a lot of your worries about whether or not you belong. The more you connect with others who are in a similar boat, the more you feel like you belong in that boat. (Something I noticed is that making positivity posts about the things you're worried about helps a lot! So, that's one way to get involved while combating your fears.)
Two: treat your labels as pins and not stone carvings. So many people take labels so seriously when they're just meant to be terms that help explain who you are and help you connect with others who share the same sorts of experiences. If you decide later down the line that you no longer vibe with the aroflux label, then that's okay! It doesn't mean you necessarily "faked" anything, just that there was a time you felt the term fit you and you no longer do so! Do you know how many labels I've given up over the years because they no longer fit me? A lot! But that didn't make my experiences as part of those communities any less real. A bit misguided at most, but still real. If you feel the term aroflux fits you, then it fits you and that's all there is to it. You don't have to use it forever. It's a pin on your jacket, not a carving in your life's stone.
Three: learn to say "So what?" about it. Seriously, it helped me a lot when I grew tired of discourse and decided to just say, "You don't like me? Well, so what? Doesn't mean I'm not going to keep on trucking through life." There may be people you come across who say you don't belong in whatever community; who claim you are "too alloro," "too aro," etc to be whatever you feel you are – your own brain may say these things. And to that I say, SO WHAT?? So what if a different term fits you better? So what if you end up changing labels? So what if you discover you're not aroflux? So what?? The world will not end. You will not have betrayed anyone by not considering yourself part of a community anymore. And more importantly, so what if sometimes you experience attraction? Doesn't mean you can't be aro. Many other people are in the same boat as you, feeling attraction sometimes or a lot of the time yet still identifying somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. You're alloromantic sometimes and feel like you don't belong? Say "So what if I feel attraction? I'm still part of this community if I feel I belong." It's true and it's like taking a sledgehammer to your fears. Cathartic and fun!
Four: remember how vast the aro experience is. There are plenty of aros who are romance favorable, like romance in media, like romance involving themselves in theory but not necessarily in practice, and any combination of these things to any degree. We've got aros who could not be more different when it comes to romance! We've got aros who have lots of matching experiences! We've got aros that identify only with "aromantic," and aros who like to use several different labels to describe themselves. If you feel alloromantic sometimes, enjoy romantic media, or want romance involving yourself to some degree, you'd be far from the first aro to be that way. Try seeking out other aros like yourself (the cupioromantic community may be a good place to start)!
Thank you for your patience in my response to this question – Tumblr decided it was going to mess with me and hide my drafted response to this. I hope that you feel more confident in your identity and can banish doubt in who you are from your mind.
hi! I've realised that i maybe aro-flux but im trying to find things and posts that are relatable to i can fully understand and maybe relate. do u have any blogs or masterposts about being aroflux? or any advice really? thanks a lot!!
[empty paragraph in case tumblr eats it]
hi! sorry this is so late in reply, but I unfortunately don't really have suggestions or anything. I personally am not aroflux and don't know any aroflux ppl irl to ask. If anyone following me does know any good aroflux blogs/masterposts/etc, please feel free to respond!
Hey there! I've written a post explaining the term and listing some common experiences (with contribution from another aroflux aro) here, if you're interested in taking a look! I also have some aroflux content here and there on my blog, since I myself am aroflux!
I was having trouble finding active aroflux blogs and yours popped up, which made my day. On top of that, I recently figured out that I'm aroflux, but I have a pretty 50/50 with wanting and not wanting romantic relationships and I was feeling pretty bad and second guessing myself about my identity. seeing that theres others like me really helps and I wanted to say thank you ~
You're welcome! I'm glad to have made you happy. Aroflux people are real, part of the community, and not going anywhere anytime soon!
Hey! Uh, sorry to bother you but I figured I should ask someone who probably knows about it, about the flag, because I’ve seen two flags for aro flux and I was wondering which one is better? Or is it just whichever the person thinks is better?
Neither one is inherently better. The gradient one is the older flag, and the revamped flag (which I call the apple pie flag) was made so we'd have a less eye-strainy flag that could be closer in style to most other pride flags.
Hi! (This may be long so no pressure to respond!!) I realized I was ace a few months ago (but I’ve been ace my whole life I just never realized it lol), and for most of my life I’ve felt romantic attraction. For the last couple years I’ve had a huge crush on my friend, but one day my romantic attraction to him just completely switched off, like for good. And it feels like my ability to experience romantic attraction in general and my desire to ever be in a romantic relationship has completely switched off as well. So I did some research and explored myself and what labels fit what I’ve been feeling and experiencing, and I settled on calling myself aro. And for a couple weeks/months (honestly idk what even is the concept of time lmao), the label of aro fit me. I didn’t feel like I experienced romantic attraction, and I felt perfectly complete living my life without a romantic partner, and I just felt grand as my aro self. But recently my romantic feelings for my crush have begun to come back, which is annoying me bc he’s honestly kind of an asshole and I don’t want to have a crush on him. But the fact is, as much as I don’t want to, I have been feeling romantic attraction to him, so I just don’t know if the label of aro fits me anymore. I know I’m arospec though, and I’ve known this even before I identified as aro. The thing is, I can’t find an identity/label on the arospec that feels right. I can’t find a label that feels like it describes my experience, because I feel like my experience changes and is fluid. I also feel like my romantic orientation doesn’t just fluctuate, but it also often feels like I’m experiencing multiple contradictory identities at the same time. Idk how to really put it into words. Describing my romantic orientation feels like trying to capture a 3-dimensional object in a 2-dimensional frame. To put it simply, it’s complicated. Lol. But ig my question was, since my romantic orientation feels fluid and changes from time to time, could aroflux be the label that suits me? I know you can’t figure out my identity for me, but I was wondering if you had any insight on romantic orientations based on what I’ve described, and I was wondering if you could help me figure out if aroflux is maybe a label that matches my experience, since it’s the label I’ve been leaning towards trying out lately. Again, I know this is a lot, so you absolutely don’t have to answer this. If you cant/don’t want to answer this, that’s totally ok, and it was nice to just have a space to vent. Thank you!!!
Aroflux could fit you. After all, it does often come with a "sometimes attraction is flipped on, sometimes it's flipped off" feeling and lots of confusion. Really, I'd recommend trying out many labels to see what fits.
I'd also recommend looking at quoiflux, a little-known label defined as (I'm paraphrasing here) "feeling like one fluctuates somewhere on either the ace or aro spectrum, but being unable to tell for sure." I can't remember the exact definition, so probably best for you to look it up yourself and see if you want to try out the label.
And hey, if all else fails, "aro" and "arospec" are perfectly fine labels to have without specifying any further. If you feel your experiences may be defined better by calling yourself aromantic/arospec, then that's all you need as a reason.
Might mess around and start headcanoning any character with a green/pale yellow/red color scheme as aroflux.
Chara from Undertale, with that green and yellow sweater and implied red eyes and soul? Aroflux.
Kris from Deltarune, with a similar sweater to Chara and confirmed red eyes? Aroflux.
Every single Appletun, Kecleon, Applin, Dreepy, Breloom, and Caterpie? Aroflux.
They're all aroflux.
breakup songs are Not It. a friend recommended a song to me and it was a breakup song and i could not listen to it all the way through i thought if i listened to one more second i would combust. not sure if that’s an aro thing or a confict-averse thing or both.
- confused anon
Hm, could be both! I myself don't mind breakup songs as long as they're done well and are about more than just "I love you but you're blatantly unhealthy for me."
Actually, that reminds me, and I hope you don't mind if I digress, but can we agree that that whole concept needs some reworking? Like, the idea of "this character in a romantic relationship struggles with doing what is better and healthier for them" is a good concept! And these kinds of stories could help those in bad relationships! But they always fall flat, usually because "the power of love saves the day" or whatever. Idk, maybe it's just me, but I feel like these stories could be really helpful if people would just... Stop being amatonormative about how to solve the problem
Hello, if it isn't too rude of me to ask, how did you come to identify as aroflux? I heard this term tonight for the first time ever and have been questioning myself since. I've never been more confused about my romantic orientation than I am right now as I've always struggled to stay in love on some days and yet on others, what I feel for my lover is almost overwhelming. At one point I thought that maybe I'm only capable of being in a relationship where I'm manipulated to stay.
For a while in my romantic relationships, I noticed my love would fluctuate, but I didn't use that term. I fell back on advice I'd heard about relationships, which is that "You won't always feel in love with them." Which, looking back, was probably meant more about regular couple issues like fights, miscommunication, etc rather than literally not feeling romantically towards them sometimes.
Let your feelings come and go without hating them. It's okay to not always feel romantically towards who you're dating. You don't even have to date if you have worries about it. You might want to look into the term "wavership," which might help you even if you don't end up identifying as aroflux. Best of luck to you!
Hi! I have been ID as aroflux for a few months, and right now I am struggling with the feeling of guilt a lot. When there are days that I feel some romantic attraction, I feel like an intruder in the community, so I sometimes try to suppress my feelings. I am romance favorable, sometimes indifferent, but on those days I just feel extremely romantic, I daydream about romance (like the ideal and concept of it), and I yearn for love a lot. When that happened, i just felt so guilty and hate myself. Do you have any advice to deal with it?
This is something I struggle with too, sometimes. Remind yourself aro is an umbrella term for all those who fit the arospec, and that being aro isn't defined by rejecting romance. Perhaps try searching out some cupioromantic positivity? Cupioromantic is being aro while wanting a romantic relationship, so seeing support for people like you (even if you don't use the label) can help boost your confidence. You have a right to be yourself in this community, and that includes when you experience romantic attraction.
i am now in the stage where i’ve realized what i am and how i feel about it changes every hour. one minute im like ima die alone why am i this way and the next im like heck yea f romance
- confused anon
*sympathetic pats* life is like that sometimes. Don't beat yourself up for being arospec; I know myself how scary it can be, to suddenly realize you're a bit lost on what life looks for you and what you want out of life, but don't hate your aro-ness because of some fear you'll die alone. Ask yourself what you want out of life and you'll figure it out over time.
Hi ! I hope you're doing well. I'm a questioning aroflux, I mean, I think I'm aroflux but I just need a bit of clarification. When aroflux people fluctuate, does it happen frequently or very slow? I think in middle school I had a bit of crushes that fell under recipromantic, lithromantic, or demiromantic but now that I'm in my 4th year of high school and looking back on the two "crushes" I had in the past 4 years and I'm realizing that they fell under either Platonic, Sensual,or Lithromantic attraction. I'm not too sure. I don't see myself getting a romantic crush in the future, maybe a sensual crush or even a squish. Would this fall under Aroflux?
You can fluctuate at any rate between any aro ID and still be aroflux, the same way a genderfluid person can change between any gender at any speed and still be genderfluid. You don't even have to experience romantic attraction to be aroflux due to aroflux also being defined as changing between different aro labels. If the label aroflux feels right to you, your experience would fit it.
i am now identifying as aroflux! just in my brain but it’s a step :) i kind of realized as long as i’m arospec i can just choose a label i feel fits me because at the end of the day being comfy’s all that matters
- (less) confused anon
That's great! Yep, all that matters is what you feel fits. Welcome to the aroflux community!
there’s not enough aroflux awareness out there and as an aspiring writer i feel the need to contribute
- confused anon
Hell yeah! If you feel like including some aroflux awareness in your writing, that's awesome! The aro community at large could stand to do with more representation tbh
i just remembered i have technically dated one person. it lasted maybe two weeks and the whole time i was agonizing over whether i actually “like liked” him or not, and sometimes the things he said were sweet but sometimes they made me uncomfortable and i Did Not Like It and i’m just now realizing that’s probably an indicator.
- confused anon
Yeah, most likely! A lot of aroflux people have complicated relationships with romance and whether they like traditionally romantic actions or not.
This blog sure is busy today, huh? Is today Aroflux Day or something? /j
