small-ass-mustelid:

Whenever there’s a character in media that doesn’t seem to desire friends, or at least doesn’t want the other main characters as friends, they’re painted as childish, selfish, standoffish, someone to be fixed, a tough shell to be cracked - and the soft person inside desperately needs friends, whether they know it or not. Sometimes the character does have a rancid personality, which is magically cured by friendship somehow, but other times they’re villainised simply for not reciprocating, for setting boundaries. Boundaries that are constantly overstepped by the other MCs who just want to be friends, who are just being nice, who are doing them a favour. And what a favour it is, going out of their way to befriend someone who doesn’t reciprocate, not relenting until they give in or until the plot conveniently forces them to bond. What an ungrateful asshole. Don’t they know that friendship is inherently good? It doesn’t matter if you aren’t ready, aren’t comfortable, aren’t compatible, or simply don’t want any(more) friendships at the time. Just accept it! It’s character growth.

bronftw:

I came across this article, and it got me thinking about neurodivergence and platonic relationships.

Aromanticism, Aplatonicism, Neurodivergence and Me

Originally, I was going to call this post “Accepting that I was aro was a lot harder than accepting that I was ace, but not for the reasons

Bring on the Pigeons

Like OP I’d heard of the term aplatonic, but I’d resisted applying the label to myself. It made me kind of uncomfortable, like a flickering light that I’d refused to look at or focus on. I’d think ‘that can’t be me, I want friends’ then move on before I could think about it too much. Because deep down this term struck a chord. One that felt too much like saying 'I’m a bad person who doesn’t like their friends’.

But I am bad at maintaining friendships. Not super great at making them either if I’m honest. Most of this can possible be explained by autism, and my struggle with friendships was the primary reason why I’d started suspecting that I might be autistic. (But am I really autistic though?)

I’d heard other autistics explaining how they kind of lack object permanence when it comes to people. Not that they literally don’t think that someone doesn’t exist when they don’t see them, but that they don’t think of them. This mirrors my own experience with friends. I don’t think of them that often. And if I do and realise that I haven’t spoken or seen them in a while, then actually contacting them for catch up takes a lot of energy and mental prep before hand. Phoning people makes me anxious, even for people I talk to all the time and know that I can talk to easily. It’s a huge mental effort to go ’I’m going to call Sally today’. Even then I’ll probably tidy my bedroom first, do the laundry, vacuum etc., then decide it’s too late and put off calling her for another week.

Recently I came across the term ’relationship degradation mechanics’ by twitter user Khoshtistic. They described it in terms of their ADHD, but it also describes my own experience perfectly. The term comes about from video games which have a friendship meter for NPCs which either fills up over time, or empties, depending on how often you interact with an NPC. I frequently forget about my friends (that faulty object permanence), I don’t message them, call, or organise meet ups. There have been times when I’ve decided to message someone and then realised that the last time I interacted with them was a year ago. In those instances I often feel so guilty about it that I decide against messaging them completely. Why draw attention to it? When I do happen to catch up with a friend, months or years after I last saw them, I’m often surprised that our friendship bar has degraded. I expect things to be the same as when we last met up, but they aren’t.

My partner is always messaging his friends. He is the polar opposite of me in many ways, but especially in this. If he hasn’t seen his friends for a while he gets sad and upset about it. When I ask him how long it’s been, he’ll tell me that it’s been ages. But how long is that? A couple weeks, he says. For him those couple of weeks span a millennia, for me that feels like yesterday.

This type of conversation is not uncommon for us:

Him: We haven’t seen Sally and John in ages

Me: But we just saw them. Remember? we played board games

Him: That was 2 weeks ago!

Me: Exactly. Only 2 weeks ago.

We both have a very different understanding of time.

His relationship with friendships is informed by his ADHD in a very different way to mine. He worries that if he doesn’t stay in contact with people constantly, then they’ll think he hates them and subsequently decide that they hate him too. Rejection Sensitivity Disorder (RSD) is a bitch. I’m glad I don’t have that, but sometimes I wish I cared a little more than I do.

He cares so much for his friends and what they think of him. Sometimes I feel like I’m not really friends with anyone, and that I’m only preforming friendship. Sometimes I feel like an unfeeling robot, and the ace/aro community often (unintentionally) amplifies that feeling. The uncaring aro or ace person is a common trope that the aspec community rails against, usually by saying that one can still have strong and intimate platonic relationships. However this is something that I don’t have either. I’m ace, aro, and at the very least bad at friends. So what does that make me?

.

apothiplatonic:

i’ve been thinking about how many definitions of the word “aplatonic” rush to assure the reader that aplatonic people can still have friends…which is technically true, and entirely valid, but still rubs me the wrong way.

i’ve seen this in articles written by knowledgeable & insightful apl-spec authors, and i’ve done it myself when explaining aplatonicism to people. it’s like we’re anticipating criticism, preemptively watering down ourselves and our experiences. “we can still have friends, like you! please don’t treat us as inhuman!”

and yeah, “lol, you’re aplatonic? you don’t want friends?” is a common response to hearing about us, and i understand wanting to address that right away, but…i’m aplatonic and i don’t want friends. a lot of aplatonic people don’t want friends! just like how a lot of aromantic people don’t want romantic partners, and a lot of asexual people don’t want sexual partners.

it’s absolutely important to include that many apl-spec people have (or want) friends. “not wanting friends” isn’t the only aplatonic experience – but it isn’t something we need to obfuscate or apologize for, either.

(and although aplatonicism is the subject of this post, this isn’t just an apl problem. there are unfortunately still aromantic resources that focus on things like “unlike what the term suggests, they can still have romantic partners!!”, and “aromantic people still feel love!!”, which exclude aros who don’t want romantic partners and loveless aros, respectively.)

undercoverroach:

Ok as a aplatonic asocial person, I strongly dislike the cliche or trope that shows do, usually those that are focused in friendship, (*cough* totally not talking about mlp) when a character has no friends but then is happy and fulfilled when they get friends.

Like don’t get me wrong these shows usually say that it is okay if you don’t have a romantic relationship or have ties with family but like the fact the creators are putting having some kind of relationship over the character’s independence in question just doesn’t fit right with me. Like that character has to have friends to be happy. And I’m like “uh no they don’t have to have friends, they just need self love.” Double dislike of the show, when it happens multiple times. Maybe one time I can personally let it slide but multiple? I’ll just stop watching at that point.

Just please give me characters in shows that don’t want any type of relationship and they’re completely happy with that. Also don’t make them a villain who gets reformed through having any kind of relationship.

aromagni:

(I use italics in this post for stuff that is more my commentary/analysis/etc, as opposed to more “factual” summary)

Aplatonic Definitions & Overview:

“Aplatonic” was coined on AVEN in 2012 in a thread here by a homoromantic Ace who expressed being unable to apply the word “love” to their friendships.

The original coining doesn’t come with a particularly precise definition, and there’s been many discussions regarding differing definitions for it.  The following are two definitions which are often considered accurate for the term:

Definition 1: Aplatonic is an identity for people who experience little to no platonic attraction such that they rarely experience squishes, or desire to form a friendship with specific people.

Definition 2: Aplatonic is an identity for people who struggle to form platonic relationships of any kind, often due to neurodivergency and/or traumatic experiences.

Another definition which has been attributed with aplatonic, but also disputed as a definition, is this:

Definition 3: an identity for people who do not experience attraction such that they would want a queerplatonic relationship.

This third definition would be more accurate for the term “aqueerplatonic”, but was misattributed to the term aplatonic in the past.  However, while this is not an accurate definition for aplatonic, the lines between platonic and queerplatonic attraction can be extremely blurry such that this may be relevant to some aplatonic experiences.

Other notes on Aplatonicism:

• Aplatonicism also has an Aplatonic spectrum which includes identities such as demiplatonic and greyplatonic.
• Aplatonic is a term generally used by people who are a-spec(Ace or Aro) and/or neurodivergent.
• Aplatonic is NOT simply “not having/wanting friends” (it has historically been dismissed as such by exclusionists who mock the term, unfortunately).
• Aplatonic can be shortened to “apl”, and thus apples are considered an aplatonic symbol.

(More information and links regarding definitions of aplatonic are below under “Aplatonic Discussions”)

Aplatonic Pride Flags:

[Image Description: aplatonic flag with 4 horizontal stripes which are purple, blue, green, and light yellow/cream from top to bottom]

This was the original aplatonic flag, the oldest surviving link of it is found here, from 2015.

[Image Description: aplatonic flag with 4 horizontal stripes which are black, grey, white, and yellow from top to bottom]

This was an alternate aplatonic flag proposed in 2016 (link here).

(More information on these flags can be found at this link from lgbtq wiki)

Aplatonic Spectrum & Demiplatonic:

Aplatonic Spectrum, or apl-spec, is an umbrella term for people who experience little to no platonic attraction. (AUREA’s definition here)

Aplatonic Spectrum Flags: a masterpost with many aplatonic spectrum identities, their definitions, and their flags.

Demiplatonic Overview: a post I made about my involvement with the term demiplatonic and demiplatonic flags

Experiences Feeling Demiplatonic: a post I did for carnival of aros about why I feel demiplatonic

Aplatonic Discussions:

Over the years, there’s been a lot of misinformation and general lack of clear accurate information regarding this term, such that there’s been many discussions regarding the definition.  As someone who is somewhat younger to the community I probably also contributed to misinformation at times due to the sources I was looking at being themselves inaccurate.  

The above definitions are what I can best summarize from the posts I have seen discussing it but might be influenced by my own experiences and I don’t want to claim expertise and argue those as objective fact, considering how much differing discussion there has been.So, here’s links to various discussions regarding the definitions & misinformation around this term, such that you can assess other sources for yourself.

Links regarding aplatonic definitions & History:

Link 1: “Definitions of Aplatonic” thread on Arocalypse Forums 

Link 2: Tumblr thread refuting “not wanting qpr” definition, with many people adding to discussion.

Link 3: Tumblr thread refuting the “not wanting/having friends” definition that originated by exclusionists, and other misinformation on the term.

Link 4: an older Tumblr post with an infographic of aplatonic, with more recent comments by the OP about inaccuracies.

Link 5: another tumblr thread about the definition of aplatonic and ways people originally used it, and touches on why some people are uncomfortable with non a-spec people using it due to misuse by exclusionists.

Link 6: tumblr thread about aplatonic definitions and it’s usage relating to the a-spec community along with neurodivergency and traumatic experiences.

Link 7: tumblr post discussing who can “use” the term aplatonic and discusses history of how meaning has warped over time.

Link 8: Tumblr short masterpost regarding aplatonic as a descriptor term used by aro community.

Related Terminology:

There are various terms that have similar but different meanings to aplatonic (which also come up in the linked discussion posts.  The word being defined has hyperlink to a source.)

Nonamorous:  a lifestyle choice or relationship style that does not include intimate, long-term partnerships, whether romantic or platonic.

Nonpartnering: not wanting partnered relationships; this is similar to nonamorous but coined in response to some people being uncomfortable with the implied opposite of nonamorous because of romance repulsion.

Aqueerplatonic: not experiencing queerplatonic attraction.

Loveless (aro): a recent term for aros who do not use “love” to describe their experiences, often due to it’s associations with romance and enforcement of amatonormativity. (Sources don’t show a particularly precise definition for this one)

(Additional reading regarding these terms:

-This is one of posts linked before, but I had added onto it with distinctions I perceive between these words and aplatonic

-This is another post discussing nonamory and queerplatonic, and pressures within the community to feel certain ways)

Aplatonic Tags:

(the links are from searching tag & filtering for most recent)

#Aplatonic (general aplatonic tag)

#Actually Aplatonic (aplatonic tag that’s more specific to prevent random & troll posts, so is more of the good quality posts)

#aplatonic spectrum (more specific to aplatonic spectrum stuff)

#apl spec (alternate tag with more specific to aplatonic spectrum stuff though doesn’t have many posts)

#apl positivity (tag for aplatonic positivity stuff or other positivity that is relevant for aplatonic people, I encourage people to use this more)

#demiplatonic (tag for more specifically demiplatonic stuff…. I use this a lot on my blog.  Tag does have some more troll/mocking posts unfortunately though, so bewarned)

#nonamorous (not aplatonic specific but generally tends to have more positivity and other discussions of adjacent topics regarding not having platonic partnerships and stuff)

#loveless aro (another aplatonic-adjacent topic regarding kind of opting out of the concept of love as an obligation/universal human concept)

Aplatonic Blog recs:

These are a mix of blogs I see actively involved in discussions on aplatonic and who I’ve taken notice of from following the aplatonic tag.

@aplatonicsafespace​​ (aplatonic specific blog which answered asks a lot but seems currently inactive)

@aroarolibrary​ (Is a general aro blog which has talked about aplatonic for a long time and has more historical information on the term. I went through eir aplatonic tag and found many of the posts I linked under aplatonic discussions)

@apl-h​​ (aplatonic focused blog)

@aromagni​ (my aro blog, I am demiplatonic so I talk more about apl-spec stuff and have organized tags for things you can search)

@askanaroace​​ (an aroace ask blog ran by an aplatonic person who’s answered asks about aplatonic stuff before)

@kyanitedragon​ (is a general blog that has posted apl headcanons & aesthetics/pride stuff fairly often)

[Feel free to add on to this post with more aplatonic blog recs or other resources!]

And to what, then, do I owe the pleasure of your company?

What demand do you make?

Speak quickly now, so that I may deny it.