SoH Mercy

arowitharrows:

Talking about aromanticism to other people sometimes feels like taking their understanding of romance, love, relationships, marriage and life in general and dumping it all onto the floor to create an absolute mess, then walking away to sit quietly and watch how they react.

By this I mean that a lot of people go through life without ever having to confront or question these topics. You try to explain to them that relationships don’t have to be hierarchical in nature, that one does not have inherently more value than another. You take their neat understanding of romantic vs platonic relationships and destroy it by introducing relationships that don’t fit into either category.

You try to explain that what makes something romantic is the intention behind it and not the action itself. Yes this includes going on dates, kissing, and holding hands. It includes living together.

You try to explain that living alone is something you actually enjoy while also mentioning the isolation caused by societies structure and priorities, about amatonormativity and how it effects everyone. You explain about the way society views unmarried people, about the assumed instability and perceived failure, the financial disadvantages and the costs of living alone. About how you wish the offered solution to these problems was something other than ‘find a partner’.

You try to explain about the definition of love and how it varies from person to person, about how some people don’t feel like they relate to it at all, about how love isn’t a reflection of morality and how not feeling love isn’t synonymous with being evil or inhumane. You try to explain your own complex view of love, how it has been used against you, why you might feel uncomfortable with the way society uses the term, why it’s not exempt of criticism.

But like, you can’t dump all this on someone all at once so you do it gradually and after each step you back off and wait to see how they react and if it goes well and they accept the mess you just made of seemingly simple topics you wait until they come to you and you repeat the process. It takes years sometimes. But it took me years to get here too so. I’m thankful for every person I can still have these conversations with and I’m thankful for every time they actually listen to my point of view and say ‘I never thought of it that way’. And then I just hope that they’ll continue thinking about it.

(via butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway)

polyamsuggestion:

Loving more than one person at once is normal and natural. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

(via queeramorous)

sleepbby:

be sure to understand ur s/o’s way of showing affection and make them aware of yours.. some ppl show affection by buying u things and some ppl will say I love u a million times and some will make u breakfast some will leave u the last ice cream, but it’s really important to know about these things bc u could not notice them and feel unloved while your s/o feels taken for granted and it’s just all a big misunderstanding so please talk about these things

(via butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway)

thegestianpoet:

here’s the thing, right, about “love is love”: not all people who are victimized for being members of the lgbt community are in love, concerned with being love, or have the option to be in love. “love” is a marketable, palatable concept. there are folks whose gender or the way they present themselves prevent them from ever even having a conversation about “love” before straight people turn on them, there are LGBT folks who aren’t concerned with love and want sex or community or companionship or radical activism and all of those things are much less attractive to straight people than “love.” i am so supportive when people who are actually members of the LGBT community talk about love but i’m sick of straight people trying to trim off the parts of our community which they feel are messy and ugly and difficult to grasp

(via pronounnotfound)