I just looked through the oriented aroace tag, and it makes me so happy to see it so full.

A year ago, my feelings were strange and confusing to me. More strange and confusing than they’d ever been before. And I liked a girl. But it felt so weird, because I knew I didn’t like her romantically. The idea of being in a romantic relationship was almost nauseating. But at the same time it was not platonic.

I learned that there were words for what I was feeling, and they were called sensual and alterous attraction. Alterous, an emotional attraction that was neither romantic nor platonic. It was something else. Sensual, attraction based on non sexual physical closeness. And it felt so right. And I knew I was aroace. And I knew I was gay at the same time. And things weren’t confusing anymore.

Then came the hurting.

There was a time when I felt I could never been good enough. I was lucky, it was very brief, but still I felt that I could never love someone in the way they needed because I couldn’t feel romantically.

Bullshit.

Complete bullshit. I’m not alone, I’m not the only one that feels a different kind of attraction.

And we are not broken.

And we are not paradoxes.

We are oriented aroaces.