“I stumbled over all the different words I could have said for a moment, and finally spit out only one:
@too-spicy-and-too-queer, on the aromantic experience of intimacy.
‘isolating.’”
There’s a unique disappointment found in a dislike for something you’ve been told you would enjoy. Watching a show that your friends had been raving about and instead finding it lacklustre. Starting a meal that looks beautiful, only to realise that the taste is far less appetising. Reading a critically acclaimed novel and coming out mystified as to what all the fuss was about. These are short-term irritations, easily remedied by a more enjoyable activity, but there are other, society-wide expectations of events that are supposed to bring people joy.
According to Sara Ahmed’s theory, such experiences are “happy objects”—things which are so strongly and consistently associated with happiness that they’ve been constructed as a fundamental cause of the feeling, rather than unique events which may or may not bring an individual pleasure. In addition, we conflate happiness with moral goodness, and in so doing, add a level of judgement to a person’s engagement (or lack thereof) with the target of our satisfaction. In many societies, the state of being in a romantic relationship has been solidified as a happy object, creating the phenomenon of amatonormativity. This is a term coined by Elizabeth Brake and refers to the widespread assumption that the correct or most fulfilling way of being is in an exclusive, long-term romantic, and sexual relationship.
“Friends will disappear after they fall in love / Fall in love and get married / Isn’t that shit like, crazy?”
Jeff Rosenstock, We Begged 2 Explode.
Romantic relationships are often positioned as the ultimate end goal. They’re built up as something beautiful and monumental; shy looks and coy giggles all culminating in a sudden understanding of what it truly means to be happy. You’re in love! You’ve found your other half! At last, you’re complete! Okay, then why is it so goddamn disappointing? All the procedures have been followed, all the boxes have been checked. Everything’s saying that this is it. Those lovey-dovey, saccharine feelings you’ve heard so much about should be flooding in. But they just… aren’t. Everyone else seems to be having, well, maybe not a nice time, but certainly a complicated and exciting one.
By contrast, your primary emotions are boredom and embarrassment, which is considerably less Netflix original series worthy. It’s like you’ve woken up in an alternate reality; all the social rules have changed, but everyone around you seems to get it. You’re alone in your misunderstanding, trying to maintain cover and act natural while all your friends have the chaotic, messy time of their lives. “It’ll calm down soon,” you think. “This is the hormones talking.” Give them a few months; they’ll get it out of their systems, and then we can get back to normal. You settle in, take notes, and search for anyone else like you. There has to be another weirdo out here somewhere. Isn’t there?
The more you look, the more you aren’t so sure. You start noticing that the strangeness isn’t restricted to horny twenty-somethings: everyone talks like that. They’ve stabilised a bit, to be sure, but it’s the same distinctive and inexplicable attraction. You stop looking for someone who understands, stop expecting people to get over it, stop waiting for your friends to come back. Instead, you stand back and marvel at this incomprehensible cycle of heartbreak and euphoria. That’s just what this bizarre new universe is like.
You start to wonder why you’re even here. You obviously don’t belong; it seems like every other minute someone’s breaking up, or making up, or making out, and you can’t muster up a desire for any of it. How? This is the greatest source of joy in existence, and you don’t get it? That’s freakish. Obscene. You’re choosing to forgo the happiness and fulfilment that everybody else is experiencing. Without it, you’ll never be complete. Their lives will have meaning because they’ve known the true core of human nature. Love. Superior, transcendent, romantic love. You have the audacity to refuse this divine gift, and then get upset when other people don’t understand you? Of course they don’t! You’re broken. Someday, everyone you care about is going to go out and find their forever, and you’re going to be alone.
“If I just can’t feel the heat / Is there something wrong with me?”
Sofya Wang, No Fire.
But that doesn’t seem right. You aren’t bereft of romance, you’re just not that interested. It doesn’t feel wrong or incomplete; it’s who you are. It’s how you’ve always been. Why is that broken?
In truth, it isn’t. You aren’t missing a fundamental component of human existence, and you aren’t doomed to a life apart. Loneliness isn’t an inherent state of your existence: it’s a function of the society we’ve built. We have elevated romance to an unnatural degree, and from the day we’re born, a romance-centric vision of our life is mapped out. We’ll have crushes, dates, kisses, love, commitment, and finally, inevitably, a marriage. Deviation from this norm is a tragedy, one to be avoided at all costs. Platonic relationships are treated with no such reverence. They’re seen to be replaceable, one friend group easily supplanted by another; all of it nothing in comparison to the true, holy connection of romantic love.
But that isn’t how life works. Romance isn’t the key to unlocking endless satisfaction. There are no soulmates; your perfect partner isn’t going to come waltzing into your life, already understanding and accepting you. It takes work. All connection takes effort and intention, but the presiding cultural idea of platonic relationships is that they aren’t worth it. Tying so much of our intimacy to romantic relationships limits our ability to connect with one another in different ways, restricting us to an unnaturally narrow way of life.
Interdependence is integral to the way we exist, but an amatonormative world has instead isolated us in prioritisation of the nuclear family. Anyone who doesn’t end up in one of these units, for any reason, is cast aside. The message is clear: if you don’t fit the correct way of being, you are disposable and deserve the pain that is cast upon you. We have to move away from this worldview and choose to make an open, accepting society. No one has the right to look at someone else’s life and decide whether or not they can be happy with it. That’s not our judgement to make. Maybe, next time you see someone living in a way you don’t understand, ask them about it. Don’t assume you know them better than they know themself.
“I want to insist that our being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?”
Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.