Demiromantic Ramblings

Transcript Transcribed by Laura M.

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney, I am here with my spouse, Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple. And, as many of you are already aware, the last full week after Valentine’s Day is known as Aromantic Spectrum Visibility Week, sometimes just shortened to Aro Week for the sake of simplicity when talking in our own community and we’re all on the same page. And so I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about, I guess, my updated thoughts on romantic orientation. I have floated demiromanticism from time to time, and what I think that would mean to me. So, I think, with the goal of getting there and trying to clarify and pinpoint some things in a way that hopefully might be helpful to any listeners out there, let’s just start with: what the heck is romance? Romance, romantic love.

Courtney: Because that’s a thing I think about a lot, and for me it’s a much more complicated question than sex and sexuality and sexual attraction. Because for me in my body that’s very clear. I know I have no sexual attraction. It is not there. I have no sexual desire, it is not there. But romance is a little more complicated. And I think I have recently had somewhat of a revelation for why I think it’s been more complicated for me to define. And this hasn’t really been helped by asking fully alloromantic people, whether or not they are asexual. Because if you ask someone who is so very confident that they know exactly what romantic attraction is and feels like, it’s still very difficult that you’re able to get, like, an answer from them that makes sense.

Royce: Yeah, any answer that isn’t a cliche or isn’t so vague that it doesn’t have any meaning.

Courtney: Yes, exactly. And in a lot of ways romance is almost talked about as, like, an aesthetic. It’s almost talked about in the lens of a romance film or a romance novel. It’s talked about in tropes. It’s talked about in, like, “You’ll know it when you feel it.” In ways that aren’t very helpful. But what I find, when asking alloromantic people, “What does romantic attraction feel like to you?” Two complex answers arise that don’t help me out at all. One that’s very common is that they’re an allosexual person and their answer is very non-split attraction model friendly.

Courtney: A lot of them will say the difference for me is my desire to be physically intimate with them. And so they’ll be like, “Yeah, I will like my friends, I’ll want to hang out with them, but I won’t want to kiss them, I won’t want to have sex with them.” And it’s like, that immediately is not going to help me out at all. Because I am never going to get to the, you know, a prerequisite has been met and now I want to engage in these physical activities, because that is not in me. So that’s not only not going to help me, but it’s probably not going to help most people who do have variances in their types of attraction.

Courtney: The other problem that arises is people will talk about non-sexual related activities that are associated with sort of the– the courtship of romance. You know, getting flowers, going on dates, going to nice dinners, long walks on the beach, sort of things. And that also doesn’t help me. Because I think of those activities, and at least the ones that do sound fun or enjoyable to me, I could still have fun and enjoy without someone who is a romantic prospect, and I don’t view them as inherently a romantic activity.

Royce: Yeah, it feels kind of odd to me to be asked, “What does it feel like when you’re romantically attracted to a person?” And their answer is activities.

Courtney: Yeah. Right? And so I’ve considered myself– Because when I think about my sexual attraction and my romantic attraction, there’s definitely a difference. My romantic attraction, or desire, or capabilities, or participation is not the absolute zero that the sexuality side of things is on. So I’ve been trying to figure out like, well, if it’s not completely zero, what–? What is the full story here? Because it’s different and it’s muddier and it’s more complicated. And I think it’s because romance is usually attempted to be defined as an attraction and that’s the way we understand it in these conversations of romantic orientation or aromanticism. It’s normally, you know, attraction, it’s about the attraction.

Courtney: But most people in our broader society do not talk about romance as an attraction unless it is inherently linked to sexual attraction as well. And that’s where you get things where people will, in broader allo society, they’ll say like, “You just need to bring back the romance,” when really they’re talking about have sex with your partner more often. Like people will use the word romance as a shorthand for sex a lot of the time. But when you really try to isolate it, people start talking about romance as an activity, as a set of behaviors, as a courtship sort of ritual. Which, yes, can look different from person to person. But I find an extreme disconnect when we’re trying to explain an attraction but people talk about it as an activity.

Courtney: And so I was starting to have these thoughts, these inner workings, and, as I often do, you get so deep down the nuances of definitions at a certain point and you engage in these like very specific, like, community conversations with other people who have been thinking about it just as long and hard as you have. And I often find sometimes it’s a little refreshing to just go back to like the dictionary definition after you’ve already gone down, like, the master’s thesis. I went to Wikipedia to see what Wikipedia thinks romance is.

Royce: That’s always a good first start. It’s at least a faster start on any topic than anything else is to just skim Wikipedia.

Courtney: Wikipedia kind of validated all the feelings I was having about, well, we say that romance is an attraction, but we talk about it as if it’s an activity. [reading] “Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction toward, another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.” So Wikipedia is with me here. Romance is not just the attraction. Romance is the attraction and how you act upon them. Which– I know there are some people on the aromantic spectrum who will not identify with this in the same way, but for me I think of those like courtship behaviors. I think of the act of courting someone, the act of being courted, and that’s always, like, theoretically what I like. Or I at least think I like, or I at least might like in concept.

Courtney: I did for a very long time consider myself to be a very romantic person, but when I really tried to isolate why did I think I was a very romantic person, a lot of those things came down to aesthetic, more than anything. And sometimes it was a solitary aesthetic. Sometimes it was a very, like: I’m alone in my home at night and I’m writing a letter with quill and ink by candlelight. And, like, to me, I was like, “Oh yes, the romance.” And it’s like– It’s– It’s an aesthetic, it is like a Victorian romance, like Gothic aesthetic. But that– That is really what it boils down to when I have, at times, like, genuinely felt like a romantic.

Courtney: And although those courtship behaviors theoretically– theoretically I might like those, if it’s, you know, with all these caveats, with the right person, do I already like the person? Is it the right set of things for us?

Courtney: Because I have absolutely dated people where that attraction, that romantic attraction or that romantic desire has not at all been there. And it’s kind of miserable. Which is very weird, because I think of those same, like, activities, those same dates, and it’s like if I was just with a friend and we knew we were friends, I would still be having a blast. But now I am with someone where there is this expectation of romance where it is not actually there, and that’s when it becomes uncomfortable. So it kind of actually seems like I theoretically like the act of romance, but after a romance has already been established, but we totally skipped the attraction phase somehow, I know we’ll elaborate on that more. What, what, what are your thoughts?

Royce: Well, framing romance as both the feeling and the action surrounded, is interesting because as I was trying to think about where I’m at on the sexuality side of thing, I did have a slight descent into micro labels here and there before pulling back. I kind of approached asexuality assuming I was more in the gray area, and then, as I learned more, figured, well, I think that I can drop that prefix. And then I kind of looked around for some other micro labels and didn’t see any of them that really felt right. And then just parked there. I haven’t really felt the need to dig into the romantic labels. But I do have to play this game where I understand that what I experience is different than what I hear most people express, and then I have to go, okay, is this an ace/allo difference or is this a neurodivergent/neurotypical difference?

Courtney: Ah.

Royce: And that makes a lot of sense when you bring in the processing of social norms, the expectations, the Hollywood examples, those kind of things that don’t resonate with me in the same way that they do a lot of people. And also just the things that I enjoy doing and the things that I’m comfortable doing. I mean, you’ve mentioned thinking about something like demiromantic before. And for me it’s kind of like– I guess I want to say almost the opposite. I’ve mentioned, like in the past, meeting someone new and just being, like, very immediately excited to be around them and that sort of thing. Quoiromantic is something that we’ve talked about a little bit in the past. But another way I could frame that is, well, it kind of just seems like a special interest or hyperfixation, like it’s–

Courtney: In a person?

Royce: In a person. It’s sort of the same thing.

Courtney: Yeah, and that’s interesting.

Royce: I mean, there is– there is emotion attached to that, but that’s sort of the intensity of it and the way that it has a tendency to drop off after a point of saturation parallels, I think, how special interests work for me.

Courtney: That’s very interesting. I think– I think a lot of people would relate to that if they hear it mentioned in such a way. Because that, like, really intense interest I get with new friends. And there is no– no hint of romantic attraction. No, any– no anything really different. But it’s still like, yeah, I’m really excited about this new person, I want to get to know them better, I want to know all of their secrets. Tell me your childhood trauma. And like, that can be difficult for some people, because there are some people that are like, “I don’t actually want to have that sort of, like, emotional intimacy with friends,” but I do. [chuckles]

Royce: That was a confusing wall I hit a couple of times because when I was meeting someone new, I just don’t have boundaries.

Courtney: [laughs] If I like you, I have no boundaries. Which– That, that is very interesting. And that that is kind of where, like qoui- comes in as well for quoiromanticism. Because I– I’ve thought about that and wondered myself. I’ve contemplated that one a lot. We– we have a couple very close friends who are quoi. And I relate to some aspects of it in the sense that I know the way I develop and foster friendships is usually outside of the current societal norm. And I think intimate friendships are the best. I love them. But a lot of people who identify as quoi will say that they really don’t experience much of a difference between those types of attractions, whether it’s a friendship attraction or a romantic attraction. It’s kind of all just– This is how they experience attraction, and it’s a little bit, you know, equal across the board in that sense. And I don’t think that’s necessarily exactly true for me.

Courtney: I do think I desire a heightened sense of intimacy within my friendships than the average person does, but I don’t think romance has jack all to do with it, absolutely nothing. And I mean, for that matter – I’ll just throw this out as an aside as I’ve been stewing on quoiromantic as an orientation – most people we know see that as a very aromantic spectrum thing. But I’ve had some conversations with people who are very allo, very, very romantic, very sexual, allo in all the senses that we know of, who have also explained to me that they and their orientation and the way they develop relationships with people could also kind of be defined the same way, but almost opposite. So I kind of feel like there are some people who could say they are quoiromantic in an alloromantic way. Does that make sense? I don’t want to say too much because some of these conversations are not mine to share publicly, but.

Royce: I think I need a little bit of elaboration on what you mean by opposite of. But with you picking and pulling for micro labels and me kind of saying the same thing about how sometimes micro labels make a little bit of sense depending on who writes them, do we actually need to go through all of our micro labels and break them down into nano labels?

Courtney: Yes, nano labels. Well, okay, maybe it’s not an opposite, maybe it’s– maybe it’s the same set of information coming in, but you came to two different conclusions. Or you have two different interests. Because now, like so, if we’re saying someone is aromantic, quoiromantic, they’re like, “I don’t really see a difference in the way I experience these types of attractions, these types of relationships.” And I see this as a very aromantic thing. And then I have a very allo friend over here who’s saying like, like, “Full on, yes, I am romantically and sexually attracted to lots of different types of people.” Throw in relationship anarchy, throw in polyamory, throw in, like, you know, all the things that we do champion, like, damn the system, set up a relationship structure that works for you. And they’re like, “Yeah, you know, I don’t actually know if there is a difference in the way I develop a friendship versus a partnership.” But they are very much willing and enjoying of the romantic and sexual relationships that do develop out of that.

Courtney: It’s almost like when we say the things like courtship or even, like, weddings – we’ve had this conversation with weddings – where you will look at that and be like, “That sounds like masking, that sounds like a performance that I don’t want to put on because that’s not naturally me.” And I’m like, “Exactly, it’s a performance, how fun. Let’s– let’s get extra, let’s do the pageantry.” So it’s like we both agree that things like this are a performance to an extent, but I like them and you don’t. So I almost think like there’s a– there’s kind of a similarity, I see in the way I hear people talk about quoi.

Royce: But in this instance the Ace community is saying– is basically taking this feeling and defaulting to, “Well, a lot of this I see as platonic.” And the allo person is seeing this and defaulting it to, “This feeling is inherently some form of sexual attraction.” Like that’s the– the opposite side.

Courtney: Yes, so kind of– kind of like opposite sides of the coin in that sense. Like it is not the same conclusion and I fully believe that it does feel differently in those people. But I found it interesting that so many people will say, like, quoiromantic is inherently an aromantic micro label. But I’ve heard some alloromantic people. It’s like you sound very quoi, but like the allo version of it. What’s up with that?

Courtney: Because to parallel demiromanticism with demisexuality as something I am not but we have discussed before, some folks will often conceptualize that as like, oh well, when it comes to sexual attraction there’s like a primary sexual attraction that a lot of allo people will feel, where you’ll look at someone, take in all this immediate information you can get upon a first interaction, and have that sexual attraction towards them. A lot of demisexual people will be like, “I don’t feel that primary sexual attraction. That’s not a thing I can feel.” But after you have maybe even gone through a romantic courtship, after you have spent some time, developed an emotional connection with that person, then sometimes that secondary sexual attraction can kick in. And when I try to think about that in romance terms, because like demiromantic was sort of labeled and defined to parallel demisexual, I haven’t been able to conceptualize that in the same way either. Because I have trouble grasping exactly what it would mean to have a primary romantic attraction to someone upon just, like, looking at them. Like seeing someone in a room and being like, “I’m romantically attracted to that person.”

Courtney: That’s something I struggle to comprehend what that would be like. And that’s interesting because one could argue, well, maybe you’re just more aromantic than you think you are. But I am very, very, very asexual and I, at least theoretically, understand when an allosexual person looks at someone and is like, “They are so hot, I am attracted to that person.” So at least in the sexual sense, I understand what other people are saying. When they’re like, “I’m immediately attracted to them.” Even though I have never felt it and never will. So that’s where romance gets grayer for me. Because I can’t consider it in exactly the same way, even though the languages of the Ace and Aro communities often parallel each other. And so if we take the demiromantic commonly thrown around definition at face value and try to apply it to me as well, it’s still not quite right. Because you could say, like, demiromantic describes people who do not experience romantic attraction until they have formed a deep emotional connection with someone.

Courtney: I form a lot of deep emotional connections with my friends that are never going to be romance. And, I don’t think, even have a possibility of becoming romance. It’s not as if, like, oh you know, with the right person it will turn into romance. I don’t think it is nearly that simple. But in terms of just all the relationships I have, I prefer deep emotional connections with people. So even though that may be partially true in my prerequisites to get to what I perceive as romantic feelings and/or actions, it’s not the whole story. And I think if I were to just give someone that definition alone, it probably wouldn’t provide a lot more clarity. I think in general people who don’t have these conversations a lot within our community, I think in general demiromantic is a little bit harder for people to grasp than demisexual. And demisexual is already pretty difficult for some people to grasp. You know we get those like, “Well, that’s just being a normal person,” like nonsense thrown around a lot. So there are definitely some people that just won’t understand the demi, regardless of what it’s tacked on to. But I do think demiromantic is difficult for the average person to conceptualize.

Courtney: And so I don’t– I don’t love the definition as an explanation. If someone wanted an explanation of my thoughts on romantic attraction, I probably wouldn’t be like, “Demiromantic, here’s the definition.” Or “Demiromantic, look it up.” Because I don’t think that would provide clarity. I really don’t.

Courtney: I have said before because, in addition to just having intimate friendships, wanting to develop those really close bonds with my friends, as you put it, Royce, like not having boundaries, I obviously have my relationship to you, which is distinctly different from anything else I have ever experienced. But I have also talked about queerplatonic relationships. And, like, my QPR from before you, I don’t think was romantic, but it also wasn’t the same as my intimate friendships. And it’s really really hard to explain what is the difference between my close intimate friendships, my QPR, my marriage, because there are differences and pinpointing them is very hard.

Courtney: Because the average person inherently is going to have a very allocentric view of the world where, like, romantic-sexual relationship is the peak, the pinnacle, it’s all like the relationship escalator. You know. It’s– it’s friendship, then it’s– You know, there are steps you take to get to a relationship that is more glorified. And it’s difficult to talk about the differences between intimate relationships. Because, also, as soon as you say the word intimate, people are going to assign at least romance, if not sex, to it inherently. And that’s not how it works for me and I don’t think that’s how it should work for most people. But I have said before, and I still think that it is true, that in order for me to feel what I conceptualize as romance, I do think a prerequisite needs to be there, and for me I think it needs to be with an asexual partner. I really really do. Because if someone is sexually attracted to me I get uncomfortable. Especially in a world where most people will assign romantic and sexual attractions to any type of intimacy.

Courtney: Knowing that I enjoy fostering intimacy amongst my friends, if there is an unreciprocated, like, sexual attraction coming from the other party, that sucks and I don’t like it and I become very uncomfortable. And then there’s also that, you know, very aspec fear of, like, in getting close to this person you– we get, in this community, like “Oh, you’re just leading them on.” When that is not at all your intention. So there becomes sort of a fear of that. There is the inherent discomfort I feel when someone is sexually attracted to me, where I’m just never going to be fully relaxed in that relationship. I don’t think.

Courtney: But I do think with the proper conversations, with the proper respect, with the proper boundaries, an intimate friendship of mine does have the ability of entering into, you know, a queerplatonic kind of realm potentially with an allo person. But I don’t think there’s that added, what I conceptualize as romance that’s ever going to factor in there.

Courtney: And, truth be told, maybe the main difference between an intimate friendship and a queerplatonic relationship in my life is the sort of, you know, partnership. The kind of, “We’re in this together.” The kind of, “We may make major life decisions with the other person in mind,” kind of a thing. And it might not be to the full extent of, “Okay, we’re going to move in together, we’re going to, you know, share finances.” It may not be all of those things, but it may be a few things where it’s like we do not only intend this to be a lifelong relationship, because I fully enter into all of my friendships hoping that they will be lifelong friendships, and we know that that’s not a reality. That doesn’t happen with every friendship. But I never think of relationships I start as being temporary until proven otherwise. And so, yeah, I really think it’s the consideration of this person as an inherent part of your life when making major life decisions could be a factor.

Courtney: I think I’ve heard someone say that a queerplatonic relationship is when it’s not necessarily sexual or romantic, but it’s a deep, intimate relationship where you both allow yourselves to be changed by one another. And even though I do think that sounds very romantic, I think that’s just what intimacy is. And I think that that can be true for intimate friendships. I think you can change your friends and you can be changed by your friends. And to me, that sort of mutual growing together, or you know, adopting little mannerisms of one another, or you know collecting inside jokes, these things that start to shape you over time, I think that is the difference between an intimate friendship and a casual friendship, or versus an acquaintance that you just see regularly.

Courtney: But to go back to the attraction side of things, if I were to just set aside everything that’s sort of nagging at my brain, saying this is a little weirder, this is different, I shouldn’t conceptualize this in the same way I do sexuality, and just say, okay, someone out there has the ability to feel romantically attracted to someone. What does that look like? Well, usually, often, if you have an attraction to someone, there is often a desired action. If you’re sexually attracted to someone, usually there is a desired sexual action. If you’re romantically attracted to someone, there is likely to be a desired romantic ritual.

Royce: Romantic ritual is a good phrase because it makes it sound arcane and mysterious, and that’s fitting.

Courtney: What could argue that’s what we did? Because we didn’t exactly date. I don’t think we could say we were dating, so we simply performed a romantic ritual. [chuckles] But I think about that and even thinking about, like you know, these romantic rituals, these arcane and mysterious long walks on the beach, like those, those things that I always theoretically thought sounded good, I don’t think are inherently romantic and I could have fun doing it alone. I’m one of those weirdos who, pre-pandemic, would take myself out to a nice dinner and I would eat alone at a nice dinner. And I can enjoy that alone. I can enjoy that with friends. I can enjoy that with a partner. But I’ve never had something internally where I have looked at someone and been like, “Yes, I want to romance that person.”

Courtney: Every time, from my much, much younger existence, that I have actively, like, sought to date someone, it has been purely influenced by outside sources, by society, by family members, friends in my life. It never came from a genuine feeling inside. And I know I’ve shared a couple of these stories before, but like, elementary school, when everyone’s like, “Oh, do you have a boyfriend?” Like, “Oh, who do you like?” All these adults asking kids, like, “Who do you like?” And all the questions like “Oh, who, who’s your celebrity crush?” And not having an answer to that, but then people not believing you when you say you don’t have one. So then you learn that it becomes easier to just make one up and say, “Yeah, that one,” so you can participate in the conversation without immediately being, like, heavily scrutinized and pried into even further. I sort of did that. But like the real life version of that, and in elementary school I was like carefully calculating who should be my crush. Who is the answer when I am asked this question. And it’s like, “All right, pick the– pick the safest boy, the one who is the nicest. Maybe we have a couple things in common. I like talking to him.”

Courtney: I did not actually feel a crush. It was not literally like a schoolyard crush, but it was like, “I need to have a crush. I’m being told I need to have a crush. So I am now going to perform as Girl With Crush.” And performing as Girl With Crush means, like, writing his name in heart secretly in your notebook, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? That’s what they tell you to do. And, oh, asking him to borrow a pencil and then keeping the pencil forever in a secret shrine in your closet to him. Like, very, very overly dramatized version of what a crush looks like. Because, since the feeling wasn’t inherently there, I was looking at societal examples of crushes and often that was cartoons, that was movies. Those are all heavily dramatized versions of real things. So of course I was going to be as absurd as possible, because I am nothing if not a performer.

Courtney: And then come, like, middle school. Having this goofy, like, on and off three year thing was not because I inherently felt a crush on this person, it was because this was, like, long lost early childhood friend who we reconnected in middle school. And, like, both of our parents were, like, openly having conversations about, like, “Yeah, they’re gonna get married, isn’t that gonna be a great story?” Like young childhood friends and separated for years and got back together and then started dating. And I was like, “Yeah, that is a good story.” So I did it for the narrative. [laughs] But then, I think even to high school, and the way I accidentally found myself in a couple of relationships – I think I’ve told one of these stories before – because I absolutely shared the story of the Christian boy who broke up with me because of gnomes.

Courtney: That was me going on to Facebook when they had Hot Or Not. And that was me testing my internal allogorithm [chuckles] that I was trying to hone when everyone was like, “Look at that person. That person is so hot and sexy.” And I didn’t understand it at all. But I was taking in all the clues like, “What do the people have in common when people are like they are very sexy?” And making a mental map in my head about what people think is sexy. So then Facebook gave me this wonderful study tool called Hot Or Not. And I was like, “Yes, let’s sit down and see if I can get an A.” A for totally allo. And accidentally ended up matching with someone who was very, like, stereotypically attractive, like very tall, muscular. Everyone except me thought he was sexy. But that became Christian gnome boy relationship.

Courtney: And then after like a couple years of that, when that broke off, I found myself, you know, alone again and I was, like, getting all these comments from, like, my grandmother about, like, getting back out there and stuff like that. And so I was, this time, trying to again carefully curate my crush. But in high school trying to carefully curate my crush, I was doing it almost exclusively to appease my grandmother. In my mind I was like, who can I bring to my grandma’s house where she’s gonna go, “Yeah, he’s hot, you got a good one.” And like, part of that was aesthetics, but another part of it was my grandma would be thrilled if I brought home someone in the drumline [laughs] in marching band. Are you kidding me? I bring home a boy in the drumline, grandma’s gonna give me an A for sure. [laughs] I will pass the test. And I did, actually, at that time start making friends with someone in the drumline and he was truly just a friend of mine. I did not feel anything more than friendship toward this person. But I was like, yeah, let’s keep hanging out.

Courtney: Because in the back of my mind I was like, if this turns into more than a friendship, grandmother will be pleased with me. But then I accidentally fell into a relationship with his best friend because the three of us ended up hanging out a lot. So that’s how that worked. Grandma was less pleased with him. And that’s all we’re gonna say about him right now, because that is five episodes worth of drama.

Courtney: But I say all this because, very famously, at the time I met you, I was not looking for any kind of relationship. I had decided, like, every time I try to look for a relationship, it’s not because that’s what I sincerely want in my heart of hearts. And like I– I’m pretty sure when you die and make me a widow, I’m not going to want another relationship. I think I’m good. I think I’m– I think I am. I would be quite fine as a lifelong widow. So that’s my plan.

Courtney: And so I guess all this to say, like, my desire to enter into a romantic relationship isn’t a complete net zero, but it’s highly, highly conditional. It is very, very rare. It is hyper specific. And I don’t think it’s something I would actively seek if I was without it. And even though I do think that is a very, very important part of how I develop relationships, and just how I see the world, I do still kind of see aromanticism as somewhat of a secondary identity to asexuality for me.

Courtney: And for a while I thought that it was because asexuality is so… so very zero, so very nothing, such an outright refusal that that is like– that’s the big prominent one, that is the biggest way in which I don’t conform to societal norms. Whereas, I am now monogamously married.

Courtney: So, even though the underlying internal feelings are not the same, necessarily, I guess the– the steps that were taken, the act of consolidating your life with someone in this way, can still look from the outside like what people would expect from a romantic relationship, what people would expect from a marriage. And like, people still really, really scratch their heads at the, like, asexual and married thing. We have so many weird comments from people about it. So, even within the context of our relationship, the weirdest part to most people is the asexuality. And I don’t want to say I feel less aromantic. Because I can do and have and am currently in a romantic relationship, because that’s not how orientations work, and I know that’s not how orientations work, and that’s not quite the right verbiage. But it is not as stark of a deviation from the norm to me.

Courtney: And at least to me, and I know this isn’t going to be the case for all people in all places, because it is still baffling for some people to look at someone who is single for their entire life or wants to be single for their entire life as an example, but to me that wouldn’t even be nearly as much of a deviation from the norm as refusing sexuality is. Because I– Like my grandmother, even though I was getting these things from her, and even though she’d point out, like, all the people she was sexually attracted to and make little comments about how hot they were and stuff, she was single for my entire life. And she wanted it that way. She is like, “I would never, ever move in with a man again.” She’s like, “I do not want to be married again, I do not want to share my house with anybody.” Like, “Yes, I find men very sexy, but absolutely not. I will not be in a relationship with one, I will not marry one. My house is mine. This is my sanctuary. It is finally the way I like it. Why would I invite anyone else into it?”

Courtney: And you know, my mom was a single mother as well. My parents divorced immediately when I was born. So it was not weird to me for people to be single for a vast majority of their adult life. I was surrounded by a lot of very strong women who did not have or need relationships. So that’s also in my life. Where I come from would not even be much of a deviation from societal expectations, at least not as prominently in my circles and my bubbles and regions as the sexuality side of things.

Courtney: So there’s also the matter of flags. I do think my aromanticism is heavily informed by my asexuality, and that is not the case for everybody. But when I think asexuality has a vital factor in whether or not I can or will develop a romantic relationship, it’s really hard to ignore that. So when I do call myself asexual, that is sort of an all encompassing term, sort of of its own.

Courtney: I don’t always necessarily feel the need to identify as aroace because my aroness is sort of inherently tied up in my aceness. But in a weird way that they are still different. My asexuality and my aromanticism are still pointed in different directions and have different saturations, I guess. So there’s still a split in them. They are not one and the same. And I just love the asexual flag so much. But the aromantic flag is my second favorite flag. Those are both very good flags. We got very lucky with those flags. Because there are so many other flags out there that I do not like. I don’t have a robust color palette in my personal life, but purple has always been like the color, along with grays, blacks and whites. And I also like green.

Courtney: So flag wise, I don’t like the aroace flag. I don’t do the blues and yellows for myself. So that’s not anything I’m gonna be, like, waving at Pride.

Courtney: We have an Asexual Pride flag, and even though we don’t have an Aromantic Pride flag, I have gotten some like aro stickers, like, in those color palettes and stuff off the MarketplACE especially. Because I do like that color palette. But I will also say, even though on average and throughout my life, I think, asexuality has affected me and been a further deviation from the norm more so than aromanticism, there are times where I do occasionally feel so very aromantic. And sometimes– Well, I just had this recently, where I was like, “I feel so aromantic right now.” And I was– I was frustrated and trying to talk it out with you. Because it was once again in like fandom conversations and what people perceive as, like, visual cues of romance.

Royce: Oh right, artistic interpretation of things, yeah.

Courtney: Yes! Because we were talking about Victor in Arcane, and the Victor and Jayce relationship, which, while I was watching it, did not interpret as romantic at all. I did see it as an intimate friendship. That’s what I saw. And that was– That was what we saw viewing it the first time, before even the announcement of co-creator says Victor is asexual, even before we stumbled into the fact that there’s an entire fanbase of shippers out there who want Jayce and Victor in a relationship. But more so than wanting it. Because it’s like, okay, you could see this and want it in a piece of media. It was the people trying to provide evidence being like, “Here is evidence from the show that this is romantic.” I was looking at these pieces of evidence that were being presented and I was like, “In what world is this evidence of romance inherently?!”

Royce: Yeah, you say – quote – evidence, but what they were looking to was an inherently subjective interpretation of art, which is going to vary drastically based off of the person.

Courtney: Yeah. Well, people were saying like, “Yeah, well, maybe the co-creator said they aren’t in a relationship, but the animators were absolutely saying they were in a relationship. Look at the animation and you, you can’t ignore the animation cues.” It’’s like the entire show is very aesthetic, it’s got a very specific look about it. But what about this screams, “Has to be romance, no other possible interpretation except romance.”?

Royce: Yeah, some of those conversations made me think of the common argument in any sort of like ace erasure of: there’s no platonic explanation for this. And it’s like I can think of three off the top of my head.

Courtney: “It screams–”

Royce: Probably more, if you give me a little time.

Courtney: It screams there’s no platonic explanation for this! [chuckles] But that’s the thing too, it’s the intimacy. Where people see intimacy and inherently assign romance and or sex to it. And that is the thing I refuse. In my own life. In media. In all things, I do not think one has to equal the other. And one is not inherently better than any other. And so, like, media wise– Because I also had this thought recently, because I’ve said like, theoretically I love romance, and it occurred to me like, well, there have been times in my life where I have been romanced by someone and not actually liked it. So maybe I’m, like, maybe, maybe this is just a theoretical. I theoretically like the concept of it. Which would still be different from my sexuality, because I do not theoretically like the idea of sex. I do not! But– but, you know, romance it’s like, yeah, maybe there’s something there, maybe that’s interesting. And I was like, maybe I only like it in media.

Courtney: But then I got to thinking, I don’t like it in media all that much. Most of the time. Sometimes it’s fine, but sometimes I’m just groaning and rolling my eyes. And I think about some of my favorite types of media and I was thinking about this a lot as a result of the Arcane conversations as well that had me feeling very confused and frazzled. A lot of my favorite pieces of media are about intimate friendships. Where, like, that is the relationship of the show. And that kind of crosses genres for me and crosses types of media. I can think of books, shows, you know, where the– And often they’re fully allo people. Sometimes they’re fully straight, like allosexual, alloromantic people, but like their friendship is the relationship of their life, it’s the most important thing to them. And they still do have romantic and or sexual relationships with other people, but their friendship is the focus of the show.

Courtney: And a lot of those end up being my favorite. I mean we talked about Kevin Can F**k Himself being one that I really liked. Those are two people– both had various types of relationships with other people, but like their friendship, that was the thing. That was– that was the end goal, that was the final scene. I read it as very, very queerplatonic.

Courtney: It is a show now, I read the book first, Firefly Lane, about a lifelong friendship between two women. The show wasn’t bad, but I definitely had a better time reading the book than I did watching the show, but, like, that’s another one. They both had various types of relationships on the side, but the show, the book, is about their lifelong friendship. I love that as the focus, more so than focusing on, you know, her marriage or her, you know, on and off fling with this guy. You know?

Courtney: I think about even comedy and sitcoms like Golden Girls. They all had different relationships with different people, but the point of the show was they’re the Golden Girls. They are family, they live together, they share their lives together. They’re the ones eating cheesecake with each other in the middle of the night when they need someone. Recently we watched Grace and Frankie. That was another one, Grace and Frankie. The point of the show is their relationship with each other, even though they also dated other guys. They were each other’s people. And I think of some of those, and I love that being the focus. I appreciate that so much more in media like nine times out of ten, than depicting a romantic relationship.

Courtney: And so, media wise, I actually do often feel very aromantic when looking at media, because I prefer it when romance is not the focus.

Courtney: But that was another thing that– that bothered me about the Arcane conversation. Because I think about all those types of media and I could probably rattle off a half dozen more right now, but nearly all of them, if not all of them, those types of media that I prefer, where the point is the intimate friendship, almost exclusively women. All those examples I just gave – Kevin Can F**k Himself, Golden Girls, Grace and Frankie, Firefly Lane – all women. I can’t personally think – and if anyone out there knows one that hasn’t come on my radar yet, please tell me because I’m starved for it – I don’t think I have seen a piece of media where the point of the show is this intimate friendship between men. Or even a man and a woman. Because, let’s be real, anytime there’s intimacy between a man and a woman, what are they going to do in media? They’re gonna– They’re gonna make it romantic, they’re gonna make it sexual.

Courtney: So– Like, when– when I said like, yeah, we should let men have friends in media, it’s not a refusal to let a character be gay, it’s a: I can name more gay relationships, I can name more pieces of media that depict romantic and sexual relationships between two men, I can name more of those than I can name intimate friendships between men that are not romantic and sexual. And I think that’s a problem. I think that is a problem with patriarchy. I think that that will benefit a lot of people. And honestly it’ll– It’ll benefit straight men, maybe more so. I think– I think it’ll benefit any– anyone who doesn’t have a traditional relationship structure, right? Like I– I see valuing intimate friendships as something that people in ace and aro communities talk about a lot more than the general public, for one. So I think it will benefit all of us to see a wider variety of relationships like that depicted. It will help just men of all types, but–

Courtney: Someone told me that saying, like, let men have friends is actually harmful to gay men to say. And I disagree. Because I don’t know what gay men you know in your life, but aside from my ace and aro friends, there is no one who does friendship better than the gay men in my life. Like, gay men know how to have friends. Gay men have so many close friendships. At least the ones I know. And when I was performing at my local Hamburger Mary’s, like, every week, I would see these people physically in person multiple times a week for practices, for rehearsals, for just hanging out and going to karaoke on the night where we’re relaxing. And then like the amount of time we spent on the phone with each other. We would just call and talk to each other for hours, knowing we were going to see each other that very night. As soon as the pandemic hit, we all made a point to have prolonged Zoom conversations with people in lieu of actually getting into the dressing room. We just sat there to paint our faces and gab for hours. And so I don’t know what this whole– Like, I don’t know, I don’t know. So, yeah, I don’t know.

Courtney: I kind of put myself in the position of a creator, because I know how easy it is for someone to view intimacy and assign other things to it. I know that that’s a thing society does and that’s a thing I reject. So I was like, well, theoretically, if I was creating a piece of media where I wanted to depict an intimate friendship and other people read other things into it that weren’t meant to be there, I would be frustrated that it was misinterpreted. Because I would write that as I’m trying to say something, I’m trying to do something here. And there are absolutely arguments that could be made of like, well, you missed the mark here, ways that could have been done better. And I so wish that that was all the conversation was. I really wanted that conversation to just be, like, the mark was missed a little bit here’s how it could have gotten better. But you know, fans took that conversation and evolved it into so many other things that had, to me, not only implications to the show but broader societal implications that I want to challenge. So then it became a much bigger scope than I wanted it to be. But that’s– that’s kind of true for everything.

Courtney: So I would say that, in my own life, to bring it back around, I think my asexuality and aromanticism inform one another in very profound ways. I think asexual is still my overall preferred label. I do think demiromantic works for me, but it has to be a type of demiromanticism that’s informed by asexuality and not the broader definition. And like, even though I kind of say I don’t think my aromanticism has affected my life or societal perceptions as much as asexuality has, I’m still very, like, politically aromantic. I still think we need to be rejecting the fact that in this country, you know, monogamous marriage is the only way to access over 1000 rights and benefits. That we have made it so that financial stability is infinitely more accessible if you form this type of relationship. I think those are problems that do need to be challenged. And I think they’re problems that affect both the Ace and Aro community and all the overlap that can be between them.

Courtney: I have more thoughts and we’ll put a pin in this and save it for a future episode, because I think it’s a lengthy conversation in and of itself, but I do want to talk a little more about the benefits and pitfalls to various definitions we tend to use in this community. Because I feel like there’s some overlap here in my feelings that were corroborated by Wikipedia, that romance is not only a feeling but also a behavior. As evidenced by the way alloromantic people tend to try to describe romance. But I think there’s some overlap in some of the shortcomings, I think, the common definitions of asexuality have. Namely being the like, “It’s about attraction, not action,” being a thing that is often thrown around when I say, like, “Oh, I don’t have any desire to have sex because I’m asexual.” And then someone chimes in to, like, push up the glasses and be like, “Um actually, asexuality doesn’t have anything to do with desire?” I think sometimes it can.

Courtney: I think in splitting the attractions, in splitting romantic attraction and sexual attraction or aesthetic attraction, and splitting all those things, I think we have also subdivided, like, libido, desire, attraction, all those things in a way that is sometimes helpful to some people, but we have started to use them as more of a prescriptive, like, “No, this is the definition. If you aren’t using the definition, then it’s not really asexuality, or it’s not really aromanticism,” in a way that has become harmful to some others. And so I want to, in the future, elaborate on the parallels I’m starting to establish of the orientation and the attraction, and the action. And when they are and when they are not the same. Yeah, we’ll talk about that more.

Courtney: But for today, I would love to introduce you to today’s featured MarketplACE vendor. Since we’re talking about demiromanticism, I absolutely wanted to find a demiromantic artist on here, and today that is Kat Human Art. You can find a range of commission options offered on Ko-fi and there is also a Redbubble for Kat Human Art. Kat Human is a demisexual and demiromantic artist, and she has some really cute things. And this actually might be really timely for a very specific group of people. Royce, you said Monster Hunter is coming out soon, right?

Royce: That is correct, yes.

Courtney: Well, Kat Human Art over on the Redbubble has so much Monster Hunter fan art. It’s beautiful. I ordered some. And that’s not even the only fandom. There is some Sailor Moon art on here. There’s some more general Pride things on here. I just scrolled past an ace unicorn, which I don’t think I saw before when I was ordering Monster Hunter things. That’s a really cute ace unicorn. There’s some great stuff on here, so I’m going to, as always, put the links in the show notes on our website and in the description on YouTube so you can find Kat Human Art and support a demiromantic and demisexual artist. That is all we have for today, so I’m wishing you all a very happy Aro Week and we will talk to you all next time.