I love romance; I love the rags-to-riches, knight in shining armor, one-in-a-million, "your true love has always been right there", good guy wins, and "I fell for you" stories of the pursuit of love. I love watching couples slow-dance, seeing elder couples holding hands, passing a family in the prime of life. I love the concept of Valentine's Day, anniversaries, and date nights. I love the intricacy of details, glamour, and personality of weddings. I love the sound of little feet pitter-pattering and children's laughter, but I don't want it. I don't want any of it.

Unlike most women my age, I don't close my eyes and dream of my tall, dark, and handsome love with green eyes, our three mini-me's and golden retriever running around our yard with a white picket fence. You ask me where I see myself in 10 years? Easy: cooking dinner and relaxing with close friends and family; maintaining a steady, yet progressive, successful career; living in a small house that I made my own; traveling the country and world; being the coolest darn aunt that any kid could ask for. Happy. That's where I'll be.

Now, I can't predict the future, but here's why I choose that life: I'm aromantic. No, not a romantic, but aromantic. Although, I do revere chivalry and love. Aromanticism is a form of sexuality that is relatively disregarded because it goes so easily undetected, but here is what aromanticism is and what it feels like. To be aromantic is to feel fulfilled intimately solely through friends and family; to be comfortable, neigh, happy, without a "significant other". This is entirely different from asexual. An asexual individual lacks sexual needs and drives. An aromantic, therefore, lacks romantic needs and drives. I understand that, in a typical human-person, there is this need, this desire, this insatiable craving for another human, sexually and spiritually. To be honest, I don't know what that feels like, to crave someone like that. No, I live in a world where I crave human connection in a strictly intellectual sense. Not to say that aromantic beings aren't sexual; believe me, they are. They just aren't driven to dive beyond the consideration of friendship or family.

Aromanticism isn't a choice. It's chemical: it's how you're made. You are made to cherish and appreciate the relationships you have with your family and friends. You crave human attention as much as the next person, but there are particular intimacy boundaries that are vastly different from a non-aromantic. Put simply, the more I like you, the more intimate I will be with you, physically and emotionally. But, perhaps even more important in setting these boundaries is the way I perceive your feelings about me. I tend to reflect the level of intimacy that you desire or require from me. Because, in all reality, I don't like being touched. However, I want to be approachable and have two-way relationships. For instance, I won't hug you until it is made clear to me that you want a hug. Through body language, I determine how people feel about my presence and tailor my physical response to each person individually. That being said, just because I hug, doesn't mean I like you. It's not rude or two-faced; it is manners. If I suspect your regard for me greater than my own for you, I act in a way that rises to your level of personal regard in order to either avoid offending you or to cater to you. This act often results in an escalation of relationships.

Aromantics do not tend to engage in romantic relationships. However, it is possible, even likely, that they take part in and enjoy romantic relationships. Although, these relationships more closely resemble close friendships rather than monogamous couples. These relationships tend to take place based on the internal want/need to take care of and reciprocate those who fulfill our intimacy quota, like close friends do, meaning that the aromantic acts with the comfort of a close friendship and the non-aromantic acts with the comfort of a romantic relationship. For an aromantic, the initiation of a closer friendship, or even potential relationship, occurs with the close cousin of a crush, called a “squish”. This is the non-romantic version of "crush"; it feels like the strong desire to get to know someone. For me, personally, it's a strong urge to make them my best friend. Once I have gotten to know someone and feel close to them, that craving to get to know them subsides (similar to my understanding of a crush). In general, I appreciate others and want to make them feel loved, so I do whatever makes them feel loved; the more regard I have for someone, the further I will push my boundaries.

Being aromantic is strange. There are many feelings and practices that don’t make sense to me, like the instinctual need to find a life-partner, or “clingy-girlfriend syndrome”. Instead, I feel absolutely fulfilled by maintaining positive relationships with friends and family which, in general, allows me to be happier with less. It took me years to identify myself as aromantic, to understand why intimacy made me uncomfortable, why I never wanted a significant other and why I didn’t understand the world of romantic relationships. I spent weeks researching aromanticism after hearing about it, and I am convinced that I belong under that label.

That is my point: I was, and am, different from the vast majority of the human race. But, I didn’t even know there was a name for how I felt or the way it affected me. Instead, I was a seamless part of society without a label, which makes me part of a minority. We are all different, we each have unique qualities that make us us. These qualities are sometimes apparent (skin color, eye color, down syndrome) but, more often than not, they are unclear or are hidden traits (sexual orientation, depression, ethnicity, autism, agoraphobia, aromanticism). The differences are what bring beauty and individuality to the human race, so why are we scared of them? Why do we hesitate to accept others or ourselves? Why does society focus on the differences that make the human race so incredible? These qualities, latent or otherwise, are truly a part of who we are; and the first step in loving yourself, despite difficult or unknown qualities, is to accept others. I am lucky to have a quality that allows me to feel fulfilled with less, but others aren’t so lucky. Love others, because I sure love you.