I honestly can’t understand the concept of having romantic feelings for someone you don’t truly know. What’s the basis for it? Sexual attraction? Sure. You can see someone is attractive by just a glance, though for me, personality takes that attraction way, way further. But I can see a superficial, I-don’t-know-this-person-but-damn-they-give-me-tinglies-down-there. Love and romance however have to be based on a foundation of actually knowing someone, feeling a connection, and that connection becoming more.

I think it really boils down to not being able to define the milieu in which demiromaticism differentiates itself. You can say homosexuality vs. bisexuality vs. heterosexuality. Or cis vs. trans vs. enby, etc. and you understand the different natures of those identities. But what would alloromanticism? look like? What defines it?

For me, it’s not crushes. Love at first sight? Eh. That just seems like fascination/infatuation/crushing that one is conflating with something more. To me, crushes are an indicator that you’ve seen something in someone that’s jumped out at you and makes you want to either create a connection with them, or that you want to deepen an existing connection.

So what defines non-demiromaticism?

N.B. This isn’t a denial or rejection of one’s identity or of this label as a whole. I’m genuinely having a hard time with this.