@eldritchgriffin / eldritchgriffin.tumblr.com
How it feels to be in the fandom of a show about friendship :
[image description: a cartoon drawing of someone in the fetal position on the floor with the aromantic flag superimposed over them. surrounding them is text that reads "Friends wouldn't do that for each other!!" "They MUST have a crush on them" "There's no platonic explanation for this-" "Friends don't look at each other like that-"]
Happy aromantic awareness week fellas
Oh my god thank you I am so sick of this trope. Every single time a character (almost always female) does this it's not "I'm not interested in romance. I'm fine on my own," it really means "I'm not interested in this particular guy," or "I'm not interested in romance... UNLESS I meet a hot guy ;)"
It's not even just the lack of aro/ace characters; it's the way allo-normativity (is that a word?) is so deeply ingrained in their minds that they don't even consider the possibility that a character could actually not be interested in a romantic relationship. They write things like this but obviously they know that the audience knows that she doesn't really mean that; she just needs to meet the Hot Guy™️. It's so annoying I hate it so much
This one is arguably very personal because I have no idea if other aros feel the same – but I've seen too many stories about a character being rejected where the person doing the rejecting is (accidentally or not) implied to be some sort of "bad guy" or "the one who has it easier", so I guess I had an itch to show my side.
Aromantic people and alloromantic people have such different views on what "true love" is that it's not about one or the other being "in the wrong" – it's just one big compatibility issue. All I can say is – as an aromantic, being confessed to romantically IS what leaves me heartbroken, for such reasons. Hopefully there will be a broader understanding of this in the future.
