/u/gamerpisces on What is aplatonic?

Aplatonic means you don't experience platonic attraction or squishes. It has nothing to do with "not wanting (close) friends" or "being friendless".

I am not aplatonic myself, so I can't say anything from personal experience or such, I can only go on what I have read and understood about it.

The aro community tends to focus a lot on "We still love platonically! We still have squishes! QPRs ftw!" just like the ace community tends to focus a lot on "We can still love romantically! We still have crushes! Romance without sex ftw!" and both of these can really alienate people on the spectrum who don't experience those types of attraction.

I'm aromantic for example, so I can't really relate to posts made in ace forums/environments about having crushes and how to deal with crushes without a sexual component and such. Being used to mostly hanging out in aroace environments online it's quite a weird feeling to be in an asexual space and not being able to relate to others on the ace spectrum.

I do however experience squishes (platonic crushes if you will) and when I talk about how that feels and manifests for me aplatonic people supposedly cannot relate to me and just kind of go "sounds fake, but okay". Doesn't mean they can't form close friendships or don't want close friendships, just like how being aromantic doesn't mean you can't date/be in a romantic relationship or don't want to date/be in a romantic relationship and being asexual doesn't mean you can't have sex or don't want to have sex.

April 25, 2019 at 06:43AM