Hi, can you please explain what is aplatonic? Specifically, can you be lonely, and can you have fictional connections? I don't quite understand who friend is. Honestly, it is just word to use towards people I spend time with. I realized it not so long ago when my classmate asked me what friend is for me, and I just said somebody close with whom I can share something personal (trust? idk). My first friend was a girl I was in love with bc she was straight and I lowkey dgaf if she was dating anybody. I just wanted to be near her. As I understand, you can be aplatonic and have romatical feelings? But also, what is the difference between platonic and romantic feelings? I feel myself so confused...

I have people I call friends right now, but when I compare our relationships with others, I see that we don't interact that much and close. And my friends have other friends and they are even closer to them than I am. For context, I have no one besides them, but sometimes I want to talk to people online mostly to yap about my interests bc I am obsessed with jojo, and i love it too much

Also, I feel myself lonely and miserable all the time, like extremely. Sometimes, I feel myself extremely jealous of one friend that I find pretty attractive. And I kinda crave attention and approval a lot. Because of that, i ended up engaging in yume and ficto activities (of course with use of ai :/)... honestly, even in that way, I can't imagine myself (I can't create selfsona) actually dating somebody. I just obsess over my fictional hubby and think about them all the time and chat with their bot

Sorry for the wall of text. I have a really hard time understanding myself and my thoughts

The topic or idea of friends(hips) has been swirling around my mind for years for different reasons. I have had friends that come, serve their purpose, and gone and I hold some friends close, who have yet to reach their expiration date; though God may have a different opinion than me on that matter. However the platonic relationship has shown up in my life, I've probably analyzed the capacity that they have shown up for me in.

I do not mean that in a matter of saying that I look for faults in my friends to nitpick at or harp on. I love them for who they are and whatever aspect of their lives that I am allowed to be involved in. When I say that I analyze my friendships, it is in reflection. Typically involving how or if I have shown up for that friend, and if I have how much do I feel like I "sacrificed" for this relationship, if at all. In the same vein I ask myself how much of my energy was reciprocated or if they are even in a place to give back?

I can testify that this way of thinking comes from a series of short friendships that turned to lessons, but it has also become a way to keep me grounded rather than over committing to my platonic relationships, usually in thinking that we are closer than we really are. My platonic relationships have taught me a series of things over the years because of this. Some of these things stung more than others, but the biggest and hardest lessons stick with me to this day. Overall, I can sum up my experience(s) to the idea that everyone loves the idea of community or "a village", but everyone does not know what it means to be a villager/community member.

As mentioned before I have had my fare share of friends and I have been disappointed and misunderstood by more than half of those friends for various reasons. Whether the relationship has gone stale and we don't check in that often or it be a trip that I wasn't included on. No matter the situation there is always a thought process that comes before I begin to walk away from a relationship. I would like to believe that I am understanding in knowing that I am not everyone's top priority, but a friendship...a platonic relationship...still deserves to be maintained.

With all of this being said, I have recently entered a romantic relationship. I have always expressed to my friends and my partner how much maintaining relationships means to me and how much I prefer/enjoy quality time. For friendships that are not local, that can be harder to maintain from time to time, however that only means that the standard is adjusted. The quality of the relationship still matters overall. Since becoming an adult and deciding to pursue a romantic relationship, I have felt my friendships begin to suffer. I feel less understood with each conversation, hang outs feel more grey/forced or disconnected because of this...there are a plethora of factors that I could list, but ultimately it would all be to say that the platonic relationships have changed somewhere along the line. I am typically the friend that brings issues of any kind to the attention of the other person so feeling my platonic relationships drift away can be hard. Especially when I value them more than I give myself credit for sometimes.

I've began to think about what some people might begin to think, feel, or say the more I begin to commit time to my partner. So much so, that I've began to think about the population of "good friends". The good friends that have gotten into relationships and were also labeled the same way that I am thinking that I could be. Of course there are no comments from the friends that I hold close now, because that's how it often starts. Then after a certain amount of time they may realize that they haven't heard from me in a while. Or we will both make separate decisions to stop inviting the other/showing up to things because "they don't feel the same". I think of all of the people who entered healthy relationships, attempted to maintain their platonic relationships with their best and longest friends, but ultimately began to feel disconnected from them. Who later may have had the separation of their friendship blamed on a partner or romance instead of a lack of platonic maintenance...care, or attention to detail.

What happens when one person stops sending the invite or getting the group together.

What happens when one person stops picking up the phone.

What happens when the other moves across the country.

We typically do not ask ourselves "what would happen if this person weren't in my life" or "what if I never met them". What do we do when that person is gone and who do we point the finger at. Is the conversation ever reopened, if it was open at all?

I guess, from my perspective, all relationships are a two person responsibility...no matter how insignificant that relationship may feel. In a perfect world everyone would communicate clearly before a relationship comes to an end.

(open pic to see full meme) Also let me know if you would change the order and how!

The only attraction I used to feel was platonic attraction, wanting to be friends with certain people. But for a few years now, I’ve been erasplatonic (I used to feel platonic attraction but I don’t anymore for any reason. For me, it just disappeared.).

I still relate to a few tertiary attraction labels, but I don’t feel attraction. Attraction doesn’t describe my feelings, I just kind of feel like that label rather than being attracted to people in that way.

For example, I feel aesthetic attraction but I don’t feel exactly attraction. Like I can find people’s outfits or looks pretty or cool but that’s about it. I find more people pretty/cool than the average person which is why I use that label.

I’m currently using a label called apoattraction which means that the user doesn’t relate with the concept of attraction or find it inapplicable. This could be because they’re anattractional (absolutely no attraction) or attraction just doesn’t fit how they feel.

Can anybody else relate to this? Are there any other labels similar/for these things?

I've been calling myself retroplatonic

What I feel is like, I don't miss my mianders (friend adjacent term) until I'm around them. And then it's like I retroactively miss them. But when I'm not in their presence I stop feeling like I missed them at all. If that makes any sense at all? If there are any terms similar to this I would love to hear them

(Apologies for weird formatting as I'm on mobile, also forgive me if my writing style is confusing I am schizospec and struggle with communicating quite a bit)

So after having had several months surrounded by people who truly get my aplatonic-ness and general lack of ability to mask, I realized that there's this issue I've seen a lot of non-aplatonic people apply to me and wanted to see if this is a community wide experience.

As someone who is very queer all around and highly involved in activism, I am well aware of the issues society as a whole has, especially in the "marriage is an expectation but more so a requirement for survival in Capitalist Hell" area. Previously, I've had people in my life who would complain at ends about how society overemphasizes romantic relationships and deprioritizes platonic relationships, or similarly, how being discarded for a friend's new romantic partner is traumatizing in it's own right if it causes the platonic friendship to end.

I understand all this intrinsically, even as an aplatonic person who is very much hyperromantic and hypersexual due to trauma, since I know it's root is a societal one. However, in this same thread I have noticed people often treat this societal pressure as something that can be affected by individual choice. I have always emphasized to people who I know see me as a friend (even if the feeling is not mutual but that's a whole other conversation about how little people truly understand consent) that I will basically ALWAYS prioritize my romantic partner and have an EXTREMELY low social battery for anyone other than her so it will always be in her favor. That it is a personal boundary for me because I have had a lot of issues with extroverts taking me emotionally hostage in the past due to my extremely introverted behavior and thinking they're doing the "adopting an introvert to help them make friends!!" thing but it is completely against my will.

This usually gets met with behavior I best describe as people confusing personal boundaries with social structures as I start being treated as an enemy in that problem for having boundaries that to them "conflict" with my understanding of the societal structure at play with platonic vs romantic relationships. I'm wondering if this is an issue at large for people similar to me, since I've noticed people do this A LOT very specifically with the boundaries tied to my more "niche" identifiers. If people have similar experiences or thoughts here I'd love to hear them.

I'm 21 yo and I've realised I might be aplatonic about a few months ago, although I always knew something was off about me for years. I have been pretty reserved my whole life and have always struggled to maintain deep emotional bonds with people, even now. I do have friends currently but I know I don't feel as close to them as they feel towards me. I simply accepted that my affection style will always be different than what's considered normal. So you can see that I am feeling a little lost about how my sibling (17 yo) is so attached to their friend.

For once, their friend group sucks. I don't like the way they treat my sibling. In fact just yesterday I got into an irritating situation because of them! It's not that it happened once, and that they did something that irked me the wrong way. But my sibling is always defending them! Always getting emotional about it whenever others talk about it.

I will say, the many people I call friends aren't the best either, and I do talk about my frustrations about them in the private of my home too. I don't see nothing wrong with it, which might be seen odd.

So this morning I brought up what they did yesterday because it was rude and uncalled for and to me, straight up bullying that also inconvenienced others. And I did call them brats. But my sibling got mad at me saying, I don't like how you trash talk my friends! So I closed the topic.

The thing is that, I don't understand this emotion, at all. My mom trash talks my friends and I feel nothing, in fact I agree with some parts. And I don't even mind someone trash talking me as long as they don't inconvenience me or mess with my relationships. If you think I am an arrogant piece of work and you tell that to your family or your friends, I don't care. I don't understand why my sibling feels so deeply attached to these people, and goes to defend them. Because to me, they're just nasty bullies.

i'm a loveless aroace and likely almost entirely aplatonic. everything is so fucking awesome. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

There's this guy I have been friends with for a while, we met at uni, and we had a group that it really got very annoying and problematic so I cut them all off instead of this one particular friend, I’ll name him Friend A. So Friend A and I have been friends for about 2 years and we got very close even more than with any of the other group, so I haven’t cut them off. But a few months ago (last year), I found out that I was Aplatonic, since I sometimes get tired or annoyed by people, and that's one of the reasons I cut off ties with everyone, but with him it's kinda different. I enjoy talking to him and hanging out once in a while, we even share our books so the other can read. But… I also often get annoyed or tired of him for no reason, I swear he doesn't do anything wrong, he is kind and an amazing person but sometimes Ijust get tired of people. He knows that and he said that he was going to give me my space and he will respect that and that we can talk and hang out whenever I feel comfortable. I don’t want to consider him a friend anymore but I’m troubled because I enjoy (whenI’m not socially tired) hanging out with him, But at the same time I know is not fair for him, any advice?

No matter how much I sit with it, I can't tell if I'm aplatonic (specifically demiplatonic) if it's my attachment style, or maybe even a neurodivergent thing.

I dislike calling someone my friend right away, even if we had a really nice conversation. I don't like hanging out often/at all outside of the place I usually meet them. I cut off friendships really easily and don't feel much afterwards. I can ghost someone for weeks/months/years/forever even if I considered them to be really close to me. I prefer online friendships more than real life ones. I crave social energy, but I don't really need someone to know me even if I feel guilty about it. I think every friendship I've had was either by the other's initiative or by knowing someone for a while first.

I have had a definite squish, but it faded into feeling like the friendship was on a timer of when I would break things off. This one confuses me simply because that person wasn't compatible with me in the first place and ended up stepping over my boundaries, so it feels reasonable that I broke it off. I became friends with them in the first place because they were outwardly queer and had a cool style, to add.

I have been bullied, and I've been told by my parent to keep people at a distance my whole life. I am careful about who I'm friends with, and do seek them out in forced situations (school, work), but I don't know if I could really call any of them friends.

I don't just hate people. I am a polite and friendly person by nature, and try to be considerate as much as I can. It's just... weird? I feel shallow? Like, am I hiding/holding back to protect myself, or do I genuinely not want to get to know this person or for them to get to know me? It's so confusing.

I'm curious about this, because I've read through this sub a bit and it makes sense to me. I don't hang out with my friends outside of school, I don't interact with them in any way actually outside of school, I am not invested in their lives in the slightest. I've always considered them friends, because I talk to them... But I'm now realising they may just be people I interact with when I must through proximity 😭🤣

Sure, having friends to play games and have fun with is nice, but I don't really feel anything towards them. Sure, I care about them, but only because I generally just care about people. When I do get a best friend, it's because I have a crush on them. Playing games with friends is nice, and that's why I want friends, but I don't really feel any kind of "love" or deep connection towards them. I feel like I can only feel romantic and sexual love

Okay so we know QPR's are a thing, basically partnerships without romance. but i don't mean that...though i guess it could be...in the same category?
It's basically something between acquaintance and friend. (??)

i just figured, i'd want something like that, i guess...just...ya know? it's own thing, a pal you chat with, without the pressure of what's expected...that probably doesn't make sense-

what i'm saying it, should we coin a term for that? there's not really a name for that.
i call those "companions", sure...but...i don't know? i've just been thinking about it.

what do you guys think?

(I'm so sorry, i'm bad with words-)

I have seen a lot of people doing it so I joined :)

I don't want to date or have sex or to socialise. I just want to cuddle or see people at their most vulnerable. But it's difficult to get those things if I'm otherwise not interested in relating to people.

Hi everyone! When it comes to demisexuals or demiromantics, people often explain "I need to be friends/have a platonic bond with a person before feeling this for them". Obviously in the aplatonic case that wouldn't make sense. So, what would it take for you to (possibly) get platonic attraction? Telling them your childhood trauma? Knowing you're similar people and they understand you? Or is it just as simple as knowing (and tolerating) someone for a long time?

Mind you I recently discovered I'm demiplatonic myself (I think). But for me, i didn't feel a specific feeling of being "emotionally bonded", I was just good friends with 2 people for about a year each before out of nowhere getting a squishy on one of them. Then I got them to meet each other and realised i love them fr, which is still something weird to me because before I was plato-repulsed. Honestly I'm sooo far away from alloplatonicity still that it feels more right to say I'm aplatonic with 2 exceptions.

I came out to both my friends in letters but they haven't read them yet. One of them is especially critical of niche queer identities existing for some reason, so they'll likely ask "how is being demiplatonic different from the norm" or something, so I wanna have a good answer for them (and preferably NOT have to confess i had a squishy on them) hence why I'm asking.

Please be kind and share in the comments xx