I've been doing a lot of work on myself this year. And thinking about myself a lot means I finally get to answer the burning questions that have been in the back of my mind forever. There's a few questions that fall into that category, but the major two were my gender identity and my romantic orientation. Rather, it used to be my sexual orientation that was called into question... but I think I'm probably fine to call myself bisexual.
I won't get into the ins and outs of my discovery with my gender identity, best saved for a different post, but as for my romantic orientation that's been a journey. I initially labelled myself as aromantic for the sake of avoiding uncomfortable scenarios when I first started playing VRChat. But then I found myself identifying more and more with the label. Then, that led me to questioning what romance even was.
I've come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I don't know. Actions I previously considered to be romantic (cuddling, kissing, whatever else) are things I do on the regular with my closest friends. Three particular friends of mine are pretty sexual with one another on the regular and they're not even romantically involved. In addition to this, a long time ago I was friends with two people who would regularly fuck on the regular in VRChat but they weren't dating. So needless to say, what I purely considered to be for romantic relationships started to drift and change overtime.
A long time ago, I considered cuddling to be a purely romantic thing. At the very least, I reserved that sort of thing for romantic partners only. But as I started doing it more with close friends, I realized that it wasn't inherently romantic. It was just something people did with each other. Once I came to that conclusion, it opened the door for so many other thoughts. Because now that I've dissociated the romance aspect from these things...
I don't see ANYTHING as inherently romantic anymore. Quite literally nothing is purely romantic to me. I guess others can choose to label something as romantic, but I don't really get it. I don't really get why you would do that to yourself and stop yourself from getting your needs fulfilled. In my opinion, one doesn't really need a romantic partner to be happy. One simply needs to find an individual who will supply those needs. I guess to some that would be a romantic partner.
For me... I want to be close with multiple people. There are a lot of people in my life I want to hold close to me for a long time. I want to cuddle, kiss, and do whatever with them so long as they're comfortable with it. If they're not, that's fine too. There are some folks who I want to be closer to, like a sort of hyperfixation. So maybe being neurodivergent has sort of impacted my way of thinking in this regard.
Partners in the past that I've held I think I just had something of a hyperfixation on them. Crushes to me are sort of viewed under the lens of it being a mutual hyperfixation on one another. So therefore, the electrifying feeling of having those feelings "reciprocated" comes from the excitement of someone feeling the exact same way about me as I do about them - a mutual interest in one another, willing to invest time into getting to know one another and talking to one another. Getting happy at hearing from one another. Getting happy at spending time with one another.
That isn't inherently romantic to me. I think that's what I thought was a crush for the longest time though. Some of my friends have described a crush as "feeling sick" or a "butterflies in the stomach" sort of feeling but I deadass don't know what they're talking about. I think the closest I ever got to feeling like that was back when a girl I was spending a lot of time with in 2015 called me "babe". I started thinking about her a lot and drawing the two of us together. I don't know if that was a hyperfixation or not though.
Granted, that was a weird anomaly in my life. Because I would sometimes check up on her social media to see how she was doing. I wasn't really over her for a few years but I wonder if that was the regret of not pursuing the relationship to see how things would go if they went further. Cause I did ask her to be my girlfriend but she wanted to wait until we met in person. So I don't know. That wasn't going to happen for a long time. I probably should have waited. In another life, the two of us are probably together.
I haven't really had that same feeling again with anyone. I think that feeling alone was brought on by the missed opportunity factor though less than the romantic factor. I mean, I definitely wanted to kiss and snuggle with this girl, but this was also before I redefined what romance meant to me. And romance in this year of 2025 (almost 2026) has no definition for me. Apparently my hyper-specific microlabel is quoiromantic.
While trying to get to the bottom of my own emotions, I read on Reddit that people are supposed to feel torn up about breakups. That might make me sound cold and clinical. But I think I felt the most torn up about breakups because I lost the individual in question. If I didn't lose the individual, I didn't particularly care if we had broken up or not. For example, my first "breakup" was only traumatizing to me because I lost my ex and my primary friend group at the time. My second breakup was traumatizing to me because I lost my ex and he was my best friend at the time.
It was about losing the individuals rather than losing the relationship itself. I'll point to another person in my life who was not good to me. We dated then we broke up, I didn't really care about the fact that we had broken up because he wasn't giving me enough attention, and we were still friends and consistently hanging out. But then something happened that split us apart and I was depressed for multiple months afterwards because I missed when the two of us were friends. So I guess to me friendship breakups are the closest equivalent of what a romantic breakup would feel like.
Parting ways with someone in a romantic relationship also means that the individual will be less available to you in the future. They probably won't really want to talk to you as much anymore. They'll have less time for you because they're moving on with their lives. Entering a romantic relationship with someone unlocks a door to their time that you wouldn't previously have access to. You enter their realm of existence. But like... to me, I guess that just feels like an upgrade to Ultra Super Close Individuals.
So the thing that kind of bothers me about this is that a lot of my writing is romance based in nature. I've developed a good amount of characters to be romantic partners for other canon characters. With this new view on romance that I have, I don't understand how I'm meant to write romance if I don't understand it. I guess that's why I also sucked at writing my partners having romantic interest. I sort of just chose who my characters had crushes on and the writing afterwards was a tad clunky.
So, I used to roleplay a long time ago. My characters would not develop feelings for another character unless they spent a good amount of time with another's character. It was only after getting to know them on a personal level that they would start to develop that romantic attraction. That's how I wrote romance. From a demiromantic point of view. It made things a bit tricky for other roleplayers, but that's the way I wanted to do things. I need buildup before getting to the point of things.
In my writing, romance just feels like a natural course of events. Do two personalities mix well together? Do they spend a lot of time together? Have they been vulnerable around each other? Then they like each other. So I think maybe I understand what romance is supposed to be in theory. I can see this logic applied in the real world...
Alright, another thing: I don't understand dating apps. Hypothetically speaking, if I was to develop feelings for someone, I would want it to be for someone I'm already familiar with. I guess in theory I could understand romantic feelings developing overtime but going on an app for the explicit purpose of finding someone just feels... weird. It feels like an unnecessary amount of heartache waiting to happen. Because what if that initial spark doesn't happen? But I guess also what if it does... because that's how my cousin found his wife...
Right, another thing. I'm capable of developing fictional "crushes" on characters. The thing is though is that these "crushes" primarily develop over the character's personality or their voice. If they have a nice voice then I'm probably already creating an original character to ship them with. (cough cough Velvette, cough cough Zilch Alexander, cough cough) But if they don't have a voice, let's say for something like Bug Fables where I absolutely adore Kabbu, then it's primarily personality based. So I don't think these are "crushes" but rather fascinations...? I suppose I'm attracted to them in other ways.
I guess we'll use an example. Kabbu for instance. Do I want to kiss and cuddle Kabbu? Not really? But I still adore Kabbu. I want Kabbu to kiss and cuddle my Bug Fables OC. The same sort of goes for Zilch Alexander and Velvette. I like them, I think their voices are nice, but I more so like them interacting with my OC than me. Maybe because I can project certain aspects of myself onto my OCs... so then it's not just me who they're interacting with...? I don't really see my OCs as an extension of myself but I understand on a fundamental level you put a little bit of yourself into every character...
It's kinda complicated. There's a very specific Pokemon character I like but I do not ship him with anyone else other than one specific character. But I ADORE this Pokemon character and don't like to see him shipped with other characters. The only way I would ever really "ship" myself with this Pokemon character is if I was in the role of the other character who he was being shipped with.
If I have an interest in a character, I'll make an OC to ship with them.
I know I developed "crushes" when I was younger, but I think this was only based on the individual's voice and aesthetic appearance. When you have such a limited understanding of what romance is at that age, you don't really think about the deeper implications of that. Like I was thinking to myself "I want to marry this person" (as you do when you're eight years old and stupid) but not because I genuinely wanted to. I just liked the way they looked or the way their voice sounded.
I think I have to identify as aromantic because nothing people would generally consider to be "romantic" is romantic to me. I guess to me, romance is a choice and not an emotion. Because as I've mentioned here, I'm married. I chose to be with my husband because I never want to lose him! He means the world to me! He's helped me through so much and I love him a lot! Just because I don't understand what romantic love is supposed to feel like doesn't mean I don't love him.
All the same though, that doesn't mean I don't want to cozy up to my closest friends and spend the rest of my life with them too... being able to see them every day in the way I see my husband every day sounds really nice... but I guess I do get that, just in the sense of it being a virtual space. Still, just hanging out together even in silence sounds really nice...