Finding Lola
By Emily Rothwell
“You have the opportunity to lose friends over it, just by existing” says Lola, a 20-year-old student from Plymouth. You care about your friends a lot so want to like them back, but you just can’t. The thought of losing friends over something you can’t really understand can be scary.
You might expect Lola to have no interest in relationships or to think it’s all cringy, but it is actually the opposite. She says: “I was a big romance reader, big fanfic reader – 70% of the books I would read had romance in them”. There was always an expectation that it would come later in life.
“I always just thought that I would date eventually and will like someone, all these people are a load of rubbish because I don’t like them,” she says.
Initially you try and blame not liking anyone on the people around you and never think the “problem” is you, because who would jump to the conclusion that you don’t feel love?
We did a poll asking how many people have been on dating apps and 61% of people have been or currently are on a dating app. Romance is in books, TV shows and adverts. You might even be in a relationship yourself. But what is it like being aro-ace in a world which seems to run off romance?
I ask Lola what being aro-ace means to her: “it’s not having an interest in any form of relationship. It’s not that you don’t want them, but you don’t have the capacity.”
Discovering yourself can be a longwinded process when you go against the social norm – all previous preconceptions get turned on their head. Lola only figured out she was aromantic two years ago but discovered a few years before that she was asexual.
Lola said “I discovered the ace thing and had a big struggle with it initially because I was like who will date me? There is a big thing about how relationships have to be a balance of romance and sex.” There is a worry of who is going to want to stay when you can only provide half of what a relationship “should” be.
After a long period of denial Lola came to terms with the fact that she is aro-ace: “it was worse when I suddenly started to admit the aro thing to myself.” There is a huge sense of loss when you see your life in one way but just realise that isn’t on the cards for you.
“I like the idea of dating but there is no feeling behind it which is the difference. I can want to date someone theoretically but not in reality,” says Lola.
The issue is, despite not feeling love you still want companionship – so how do you overcome this?
There is a reliance on friends to fulfil the emotional connection and companionship that relationships would usually fill. When meeting people, Lola will sometimes feel a deep emotional connection with them: “I really want to be close friends with you”.
People will always think this is all just a phase because you haven’t met the right person.
Lola says: “I will have aunts; parents insinuate me meeting people and settling down. Like you will meet someone settle down and buy a house. It just makes you feel more like you are disappointing people as well because people have an expectation of you.”
People don’t do this to be dismissive or hurtful, it’s because they want you to have companionship once they are gone. They associate companionship with relationships. They struggle to see a world without it based on their own experiences. But the fear of letting people down because of these expectations is a very real thing.
When everyone tells you how your life is supposed to go but you don’t see your life going that way, it’s easy to question how you fit into everything. Especially when you don’t want to be alone and it’s just your reality.
Lola states that it can be even hard to feel part of the LGBT community: “obviously are a part of LGBT, but you also aren’t because everyone else has some form of partner. It’s just who you are attracted to that is different rather than the attraction itself. But in my case, there is just no attraction. So yes, technically we are LGBT, but even in the LGBT community we are the alienated, forgotten ones because you can’t relate to them.”
Being aro-ace can make you feel incomplete at times. As if when you were being made, they misplaced romance and forgot to add it. Having shared experiences with crushes and past relationship horror stories is something we have all used to bond, but if you don’t have a grasp on the emotions and experiences behind it, you can’t help but feel lost and “other.”
However, there can be some liberating things about being aro-ace: a lot of the social pressures that come with trying to attract a partner are taken away, Lola says.
“I care generally of how you present yourself if you are meeting new friends or that sort of thing, but friends should support you anyway no matter of what you are wearing”.
Overall coming to this realisation has been liberating because you realise that everything isn’t as deep as everyone says it is.
Lola says that you have to come to terms with your situation since you can’t change yourself. You can either resent the fact you can’t experience these things, or you can accept it.
“‘You kind of need to have a really good relationship with yourself because you have no choice because you are on your own whether you like it or not.”
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this piece by the author are their own – they do not and are not intended to represent the beliefs and opinions of Plymouth University, University of Plymouth Student Union or the Plymouth Gazette.
Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons