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Blank stares and “stop looking at me”, look away and mumble. Awkward, awkward, everything is so damn awkward. How do they not see it? Anyway, i love watching tv and talking to people that i have fun talking to and i love climbing things like rocks and trees and urban casual hangout spaces. But something about that word doesn’t carry over. It just stops. I love people in the way that i love characters from stories. I do not know anything different than that. I have fears that there is something wrong with me, after all, those around me feel love for their families, i think i’m supposed to love my family. But i wasn’t shown a love i could understand as anything more than what i now know. Or maybe i was and it never permeated. Its hard to know, because i do feel very disconnected from my family. Its strongest when i see my siblings acting very differently from myself, especially around my parents. I feel much more connected to my siblings (except for when they do this), but i’m uncertain if the feeling is “love” or something different? They snuggle up on them and call her “mama” and say “i love you”. I’m very sure this void feeling existed for me long before i identified as an issue for my parents. I feel vaguely about people in a way that i don’t feel about other things and i do worry that i’m broken. Why can’t i just live? When did living without thinking so hard about how i am compared to others become so difficult? Where, along the way, did how i (don’t) feel become an issue worth so much of my time and emotional energy?

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I didnt want to create art of aromanticism since that's not part of my identity but I loved the idea of the CTRL+F prompt. In doing a quick search of 'romantic' in my Google Drive, I found the follow and have rhetorical questions associated.

1. True Colors Personality Quiz: Blues are considered 'True Romantics'. What does that even mean and what about Blues (feeling types) who aren't romantic?

2. Neo-colonialism and volunteer tourism as a romantic ideal of the Global South (often feminization) development.
Why are do countries have a gender?
Why does the Global South need to be saved?
Why are damsels the only things that need to be saved?

3. Tarot workshop: Knight of Cups is described as romance and charm or if in the reverse is interpreted as unrealistic romantic expectations.
How would an aromantic tarot reader interpret this card?
How would this card be read for a client who is aromantic?

Thank you for the opportunity to reflect! Let's connect: @reneejelyse on IG

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“Failure is cool” - Ulysses

Writing and language are the establishment. So writing and language cannot be truly queered. There are no queer stories. So I can stop trying now.

And the absence of my story will accurately reflect the absense of my attractions.

Then again, I have blips of tertiary, third rank or below attractions.

So by this logic, I am permitted blips of genuine queer storytelling.

Shall I spend a blip now?

How do I genuinely express myself through story, when the stories I enjoy may not be in sync with a life I would enjoy?

How do I even begin to write queerness with the weight of inevitably offending a sect of my community, of explaining the basics to those who don’t know in an incredibly clear way yet also erasing no one, and also not taking so much time on the page that it swallows up the story or turns away my target audience by explaining concepts they are already privy to?

Is it not possible to be genuine? Is it not possible to sit and write and pour myself as I am onto the page, because I do not know who I am, do not know how I feel, and therefor cannot accurately enscribe that which I start out not knowing.

There is a quote, by whom I do not recall, perhaps einstein or someone of that caliber: something about writing to figure out what you think.

I think I am afraid to pour my aromanticism on to the age for observation by myself and others. Afraid that enscribing creates a permanence, a commitment that that is an accurate telling of who you are in this moment, that your perception of who you are, or simply who you are, will not be in flux tomorrow or next year. That you could come back to the enscription years hence and be confused by this present-moment you. The pain of confusing others would compound in on itself if your future self were to be confused and feel alien toward the ingenuine-genuine expression of yourself in this moment.

It is safest then, to keep all ponderings and daydreams in the ephemeral.

For if I do not commit to the screen or the page what my character says when offered a hug or a QPR or escape. Then I through my character have not commited to being the type of person who has clear opinions and desires in response to dating-adjacent stimuli. Then I, without my character, will not have explored what I may or may not or in this moment never again or ingenuously desire.

Or, worst of all, perhaps I desire nothing. Perhaps no form of intimacy or connection would boost my purpose and sustainable happiness.

Perhaps I am truly on my own to carve out why I am here and make being here sufficiently pleasant.

Perhaps that is not so terrible as I believe three sentences ago. Perhaps I am stronger in that skillset than I presume.

Perhaps the most genuine expression of my ingenuine unknown self, is for the character to choose no one. To reject partnering and commitment. To seek only fleeting connection and get their social fix from acquaintances of similar interest.

Perhaps I must accept a betrayal of the reader, who will have come to see connection, expect connection, and in having the character exploring connection and intimacy, the reader will expect a progression.

But my truth, genuine or dis- I know not, my current understanding of my truth, is that I must betray the reader to allow the me as I know myself in the moment to breathe.

And, as I myself share the expectation and desire of the reader, I betray myself.

Char.

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Simply put, I do not know. But I will give it a shot.

I am romance favorable. I desire to be close to people, and I love feeling loved by someone. However I struggle to feel romantic attraction. But when i do, i fall so hard for that person. I also don't have the desire to pursue anything because of the emotional and societal challenges that comes with dating. however, when i find that person I want, I work hard to pursue it.

In my life I have only dated two people.
The first guy, I definitely was in love with romantically.
The second guy, I loved him and i desired him. However i don't think i loved him romantically. It was definitely more than platonic though. I sum it up as alterous attraction.
There was a guy I did have a crush on, but we never dated. Once again, it wasn't romantic, but it wasn't platonic either.

In all the times I have had crushes, most of the time, it has never been romantic. But they were not platonic. Like I said earlier, alterous attraction might explain me. But then again, I don't know.

And that is on being romance favorable greyromantic.

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Wander through archives of thoughts checking for any trace of suspicion deception trickery scour the landscape for hints that have been hidden from all especially those you would not suspect attempt to pick apart the woven tapestry of truths and desires of reality and fiction an ongoing task that must never be completed for there is always more evidence always more to check always more to consider a battle that can never be won because victory would herald in the greatest of defeats
(A poem I wrote last year about imposter syndrome and living as an aromantic asexual person in a world of romance and sex)

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- aro mad libs
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(Presentation notes I forgot to glance at, lol)

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Write an (a)romantic comedy.

Make a list of aromantic stereotypes. Is it a long or short list? Why?

What things might you aromanticize on any given day?

Search through your computer/Google Drive for uses of terms like “love” and “romantic” (or use CTRL+F). How many times does a given term pop up in your search results? What adjectives are used to describe it? Put together into a found poem, what do the lines you’ve gathered say about attraction and lack of attraction? What assumptions do they make? What kinds of words come up alongside the terms you search for?

Compose a response to this presentation/workshop/space

Or: make whatever, LOL