Hey allonon, you came to the right place c: I’ll also link you to other blogs you can check out to look more into this stuff if you want to, but that’ll be at the end.
Some people say that even though aromantics don’t experience romantic attraction, they can still love someone romantically. Since he specifically said he doesn’t love you in a romantic fashion, then my next guess is he loves you in a platonic fashion. This might not fit, though, because he may feel something that isn’t platonic or romantic.
Personally, I believe there’s a love that is different from platonic love but isn’t necessarily romantic love either. There’s kind of a restriction when it comes to how we talk about love. Love is very difficult to define because it’s present in so many ways and there are so many types of love. There tends to be the three examples “how you love your family, how you love your friends, and how you love your romantic partner” but that isn’t all there is either. There’s a spectrum of love, just like gender and orientation. You can love one friend a certain way and then love another friend a different way, but you still love them equally.
Take a look at this:
[ Image description: an green equilateral triangle with the each point labeled respectively “Liking - Intimacy”, “Infatuation - Passion”, “Empty Love - Commitment” and the sides labeled respectively “Romantic Love - Passion + Intimacy”, “Companionate - Intimacy + Commitment”, and “Fatuous Love - Passion + Commitment”, as well as the middle of the triangle labeled “Consummate Love - Intimacy + Passion + Commitment” ]
This is based off of Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, from this article. You’re free to read the article itself but it can come off as super amatonormative so read with caution (esp aro followers who are reading this).
For the most part I’ll talk about what the article says here, but hopefully in a way that isn’t as amatonormative.
There are three main components of love, which are…
- Intimacy – The feelings of attachment, closeness, connectedness, trust, and bondedness
- Passion – The excitement of the relationship, which is often connected to limerence (infatuation), attraction, and arousal
- Commitment – The decision to stay with this person and continue investing in the relationship by sharing decisions, experiences, and adjustments
These are the points of the triangle in the picture above. Depending on which components are included in your love for someone, it can be called different things. The article I linked above contains a list of labels for the different combinations, but I would say it’s up to debate what they should be named. These names are the labels on the triangle sides and middle.
Your partner may love you in a fashion that does not possess the arousal or limerence of the passion component of love, but does contain the commitment and intimacy components. This is still extremely valid and as much of love as any other combination is, unlike how the article makes it sound.
For less “technical” ways of talking about this: consider the type of love felt toward a best friend. While there is no romantic or sexual attraction to them, you still are pulled toward them in affectionate and emotional ways. You may express your feelings in different ways, some even traditionally romantic-coded ways such as cuddles and hugs or loving tones and consideration for them.
Now imagine wanting to step up and commit to being with that best friend and making it a special relationship that you do not share with others. You may have at first felt platonic attraction toward them, but now that you’re already this close it’s replaced by this warm emotion that reads as love. You are not romantic, you are not just platonic either. You love each other, in a way that you don’t love other friends.
I’m not saying you do not have a romantic relationship with your partner, but this is my best way around explaining it to you and avoiding romantic attraction.
For more resources, here are some other places to check out:
- Queerplatonic Relationship “Word of the day” post
- Handy words for people questioning if they’re aromantic
- You might be aromantic if…
- Aromanticism powerpoint
And more blogs:
- qpadvice
- anagnori < Hiatus but plenty of resources
- ace-aro-pirates
- aromanticaardvark
- aromanticadvice
- artemis-the-aro-ace-goddess
This is about as much as I can do to help you understand, allonon. I’m really glad you came to us to ask this, and I hope I’ve helped at all. If not, you can always keep asking us about this on or off anon, or you can contact one of the above blogs for more information as well.
~ Tabs
