What is Aromantic Autistic Love?

This week’s episode is all about whether or not you’re aromantic! What does it mean and how do you define love? Join us to explore! We’re talking about why autistic folks are a little more likely to be aromantic, as well as what to do if you’re aging and can’t find love. We’re looking at how to connect with ourselves and others- both romantically and non-romantically. Oh, and special shout out to Esther Perel and Nicole Byer (and Lou Wilson!)

To ask us questions, fill out the form at www.neurokink.org/auys

Find more content on Patreon (18+): www.patreon.com/AcesUpYourSleevePodcast

Sabrina at www.radicalingingishtsconsulting.com or @radicalinsightsconsulting on social media (FB, IG)

Kade at www.cryptidlearns.com or @cryptidlearns on social media (FB, IG)

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

This is the Aces Up Your Sleeve podcast, and we're the Ace is up your sleeve in relationships from romantic to workplace, parental to platonic, your relationship with yourself and everything in between. Let us, two autistic acepect kinky therapists, be your secret weapon in neurodivergent life.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

This is your disclaimer. This is not therapy or therapeutic advice, and we are not on the clock. This is for entertainment purposes only. This is not a replacement for therapy. What you'll hear are our thoughts on different topics, what we might do in the situation, and how we've supported others through similar things.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

So hopefully our brains are ready to answer some questions for you. We were enjoying the comedy stylings of Lou Wilson. Alright, we will jump into these questions. Our first one says, Okay, I wonder what it means to be aromantic. I am autistic and don't feel many emotions. And when my family friends or best friends say they love me, I can't describe what I feel back. Is it because I'm autistic? How do I know if I love someone? I worry about dating and what it will mean if I never feel. And kind of like asexuality, there's a whole spectrum of being a romantic. It's not uh you either do have a romantic love for someone or you do not, or you can have romantic love for someone or you cannot. There's a whole wide array. You know, some people really need to get to know the person before they can feel truly deeply in love. Some people only feel love for someone if that love is already felt for them. Some people only feel love. Yeah, or if it's like, um, I think it's auto-romantic where you feel that intense romantic love for yourself only. So there are so many different ways to be aromantic. And Sabrina's right, it doesn't usually encompass feelings towards family, friends, or best friends unless that is that specific, like, I can only fall in love with my best friend.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Because then you're just friends, just it feels like roommates or whatever. And that's also not true.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

People are allowed to have layered feelings.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

When you're saying when someone says they love me, I can't describe what I feel back. That is, we know, a little more common for autistic folks to struggle with parsing out what type of feeling it is, or even to recognize that feeling, but it's not exclusive to autistic people, and it's certainly not all autistic people. I think it's a like prescribed definition. Um I think our society, American society, really makes a big deal out of like you're gonna feel butterflies, your heart's gonna race, your palms are gonna get sweaty, you're gonna feel like you're gonna faint. Whatever it is that that's out there in like romance novels or movies, or when people say their vows and really sometimes exaggerate some of those little feelings, you know, to make it sound more romantic. That's not the only way to feel love for someone. And in fact, that is a very specific experience of love when it comes to those physical sensations that not everybody has. Truly, because love is what you make it, you know. There are people out there who will say that love has to be, you know, this fireworks thing, or there's gotta be a lot of push-pull, and like love is a fight that you just gotta keep on fighting for, and love is heartbreak and heartache. I don't know that I've ever those are not things that I I would not describe love that way, and I don't think lots of folks would describe it that way. I think there's so much variety in how you feel and express love. To me, it is much more of you know, that some folks will say it's a a verb, you're choosing to continue this action of love and loving. And that one resonates a little more with me, where it's like, I'm choosing to continue a commitment and through the stuff that's a little bit harder, but I'm gonna be honest, no one that I've ever been in a romantic relationship with and I have ever like knock down drag out fights and then make up the next day.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

That's just never been my experience of love.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

So many people feel like passion has to be showing up after you've been rejected with a boombox and singing to them outside. And to me, that's not passion, that is bordering on like stalking, you probably shouldn't do that. And instead, passion for me would be the thoughtfulness of, oh, I picked up your favorite things because I was thinking of you. But that never gets called passionate. That's like, oh, you just consider it. Well, think about how intimately you've got to know someone to be able to do those things and to know if it'll be appreciated or not.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Just words.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Yeah, absolutely. You know, they are starting in high schools to do a lot of social emotional learning curriculum stuff, but there's no way that that's covering romantic love.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

That's covering friendship, maybe at best.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

And I bet it's covering some of those toxic cycles in friendship, which maybe you could extrapolate and use in a romantic context, but I think it's hard to know if you love someone by someone else's definition and you almost have to come up with your own definition. Oh, my definition is probably not one of the mainstream ones, which also has its place on the aromantic spectrum. You know, I consider myself on that, even though I say I love my partner, because my definition is so much commitment and choice based. On the flip side, the like alloromantic expectation is that it's this feeling that you have, and then all the descriptors that come with. And they're like, I just can't stop loving that person. I really feel like I cannot give up on this and what we have. And for some of them, eventually they do have to move on, and it's heartbreaking because they felt so deeply for that person. If you're listening and you're going, well, it's not a choice. You're saying like romance and sexuality are choices.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

I don't think that's necessarily true for everyone either.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

It would just be hard. Yeah. I don't know if that's helpful. I think what it will mean if you never feel love is that you'll find other ways to connect with people if you want to be dating, and that it'll still be okay. You'll find people who get it. Our next one. I'm a 53-year-old male, and I wanted to write in to ask what I'm supposed to do if I can't find love. I have a few close friends and my family that live nearby, but I feel lonely most days. Everyone has lives of their own. My friends and extended adult family are all partnered, so it leaves me as the odd man out. I've had a few dates over the years, but nothing lasting, and I don't know that I felt love. What should I be doing with my love life?

SPEAKER_03 16:59

I don't want to be eighty and alone.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

But sometimes I think that that change might only be a conversation away. You know, reaching out to some of those folks that you're closer to and saying, maybe being very vulnerable and saying, I've been struggling to find somebody to date, and I really enjoy our time together, but I noticed that lately you're only doing stuff with your partner, or that lately we haven't been doing as many things together, or I haven't been getting an invite. Are there more things we could do? Could we schedule something a little more regularly? And they always say, when you're not looking for it, that's when it finds you. So maybe there's something to that, maybe there's not, but I do find that there is a certain energy that some folks give off when they are desperately looking for love that actually other people pick up on and are not so enthused to be around that because they almost feel like you just want anybody, and it doesn't have to specifically be them, and it makes the whole thing feel less special or less uh intentional. So looking at your friends, looking at who else is in your community, it may not lead you to romantic love with someone, but it also might, you know, perhaps you're 80 and you join the local billiards club and then you stumble upon somebody who is just a great match for you, and then you don't have to be alone while you're 80 in that romantic way. But I think yeah, finding ways to appease whatever parts of you feel lonely. So if that is, oh, I want something romantic, can you find like a pin pal? Can you join a role-playing community and do some written romantic storylines? Can you become a romantic author? The romanticy books are very popular right now. You know, are there other ways to get that need met and express that side of yourself in the meantime? I like that reframe too because it's not quite the same as treat others how you want to be treated. You're not saying that you should date me because I'm the perfect partner for myself. You're just saying I would find myself enjoyable to be with, and I've put some effort into being a decent partner by most standards. I also like it a little better than the one that goes around the queer community all the time. RuPaul's, how in the hell are you gonna love someone else if you can't even love yourself type of thing?

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah. Good timing, yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

I think there's a lot of nuance with all of it that gets lost when you're trying to make a snappy little quote, which I understand. It's why a lot of our quote posts are either very short or would be very long, and so we can't use them because there's too much nuance to just clip it and send it on. Very tough to squeeze that into 10 to 20 seconds. Finding other ways to meet those needs that don't require one single other romantic human, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:54

And then hopefully, if that's your goal, one day you will find that right person or people to fill that need.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Yeah, because then you can also ask yourself, why is it so important that it be one person? Why is it so important that it look a certain way? And if you're the type of person to hold very tightly to that, that's worth exploring too. You know, what what messages are causing you to hold so tightly to that, or what values are under that? And is that truly the only way to express those values? I think a lot of people don't get that far in the self-examination process. Or sadly, what's wrong with all these other people that they don't find me lovable? And then there's a whole nother path, those types of folks tend to go down.

unknown 28:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Alright, well, hopefully that is useful starting places for you. Um we're gonna go over to Upping the Ante, which is our exclusive bonus content, where we've got two more listener questions. One is about what to do if you're already married but there aren't any butterflies. And then another one is uh somebody asked us if someone's standards are too high or if they're actually a romantic. And somebody's quote unquote tried dating autistic people and it didn't work, and so now they want better advice than that.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

So we'll see what we can do.