The Issue With Being Aroace...

...with a romance author for a mother.

CW: Rant blog ig

The issue with growing up Aroace with a mother who was completely obsessed with romance... it's one I really struggle to put into words. I've NEVER felt romantically inclined to anyone. I'd like to settle down and spend my life with a woman some day, but in a private, slow, calm, domestic way. Not in a lovers way. I've never had a weird heart patter, or wanted to marry someone. I really dont' care. I just want someone to exist around, who just exists around me. I don't care about romantic gestures. I don't care about romantic dates. I just want someone who I'm simply... close to. No constrictions of the "friend" or "romance" binary. They annoy me, honestly. The rules about what is and isn't okay for either. 

My mother is a romance author, and I've always felt like she wanted me to be a clean cut character in her books. Someone that SOMEBODY swoops in, fixes the problems of, speaks quietly to, kisses, and then drags me off into the sunset. I shutter at the thought. Genuinely. I feel like, sometimes, she can't understand the nuance of human interaction, or even the complexity of love as deep as the love I have to give. Vanilla, easy to love, no issues, just... a blank slate to plant kisses and wedding rings on.

My best friend and I are close, some might say TOO close, and she never stops asking if we're dating. We aren't. But we love each other, and would put down everything for each other. And sure, sometimes I want to crawl into his ribcage and never leave, and sometimes I wish he'd spend every second of every day with me. Not in a romantic way. In a loving way. 

WHY CAN'T LOVE BE NUANCED??? 

Why can't two people just care about each other? Why can't I just deeply connect with someone so intensely that I feel like we're one, and their pain hurts me, and their happiness makes me happy? Why does everything have to be a binary with this woman???

I'm aroace. She tells me to my face she wishes I didn't have to miss out on such a "beautiful part of life"??? When my dad shows support and tells me he hopes I never have to get married, or have kids, or have a partner, and my mom said "Don't wish that misfortune on our baby." 

??? Misfortune? 

When I came out as Lesbian, explaining I'm simply not interested in being close to men, and if I was ever to be queerplatonic with someone, it would be a woman, she got SO annoying about it. Now she wont stop getting me generic, vanilla, non-complex lesbian romance books. I've told her I hate romance books and movies. I hate easy to understand relationships. I hate black and white. Give me women who stare into each other's eyes and let that passion burn forever, never broken by a kiss, never broken by sex, just in love with each other in a completely platonic way that isn't friendly at all. 

I have characters who I love deeply, one male, one female, and she ships them without my permission, and gushes over how cute they are "together" as if they aren't just in love??? THE COMPHET ON THIS WOMAN MAKES ME INSANE. They are aroace, they are both aroace and queerplatonic. And she can't comprehend a man and a woman not being romantical. (But she's okay with a wlw queerplatonic or a mlm queerplatonic couple.... -_-)

....I hate being aroace with a romance author as a mother. I wish she read more than one article, or asked more questions, instead of being the type of "ally" that just reads a book and decides she knows everything about the experience.