To me, love as a strong feeling of appreciation and affection for someone, stronger than liking. I personally find it impossible to love someone who has not shown some liking for me, simply because I need to know someone well enough to grow to love them, and I never love two different people in exactly the same way – the feeling is very closely tied to the person. For instance, although my parents are both people I love, I do not love my father and my mother the same way, simply because they have very different personalities and because I have different relationships with them, although I am close to them both.

Outside of my family, I can say that I love two people. Both were there for me when I needed help and support, are people I can talk to, who understand me and whom I understand, and have brought so much into my life that trying to envision a future without them is unbearably painful. I cannot recall a specific event that turned my liking into love; sometimes it seems that I felt something special about them the moment I met them, like the possibility of a connection, but I also know that I did not love them from the start, even though I do not know exactly how much time it took for my feelings for them to grow into love.

Note that I am using the word “love” in general terms – for me, there are no different kinds of love, only different kinds of people and different shared histories. If my love for my mother and my love for my father are more similar than my love for my mother and my love for either of my two very close friends, it is mostly because I have know both my parents for all my live, and because they have played similar roles in my life, while I have met my two friends much more recently and they influenced my life in other ways.

Love is difficult to discuss, as most people associate “love” with “romantic love” unless another “kind” of love is explicitely refered to. I wonder if this is because people only allow themselves to think of their romantic partners as people they love, or if they need to express their love for someone in the context of a romantic relationship, and thus stop loving someone if becoming romantically involved with them turns out to be impossible.

I do not believe in “romantic love” – meaning that I do not believe that there is a fundamentally distinct kind of love which only applies in some cases. I do not believe that what my married friend feels for her husband is all that different from what I feel for the close friend I refer to as my "non-romantic significant other"; the only differences are that my married friend and I are two different person, just like the people we love are very different people, and that we have different histories with the people we love (for a start, she has known her husband for much longer than I have known my non-romantic significant other, and she has been living with him for several years, while I have never even slept one night under the same roof as him). Thus, “not experiencing romantic love” cannot be a definition of aromanticism, since I do not believe there is such a thing as romantic love in the first place.

“Falling in love” and “being in love” are expressions usually associated with romantic love, but I think that “falling in love” and “being in love” could very well be associated with love in general. The way I understand it, one is “in love” when one’s feelings of love for a specific person are nearly constantly on one’s mind; “falling in love” represents the beginning of this. At least, when I experienced this and described it to some of my non-aromantic friends, they immediately said it was exactly what they felt when they were “in love” – the difference being that the people they were “in love” with were people they wanted to be romantically involved with, while the people I have been “in love” with were people I was happy being friends with.

So, if (according to my understanding of these things, anyway) there is no real difference between the feelings that my non-aromantic friends refer to as “romantic love” and what I experience for my two closest friends – what is it to be aromantic? Is it not to experience any kind of love at all? I doubt it. Is it to reject romantic relationships as the only way to express and nurture love, and prefer other ways?

What are romantic relationships, really? According to one of my female friends, who is now romantically involved with a guy who initially was a very close friend of hers, the only difference between the initial friendship and the current romantic relationship is physical expression of feelings, by touching, kissing, and having sex – “but,” she said, “these don’t have to be the only ways to express love.” From what I have observed, it seems to me that romantic relationships are composed of love and expressions of love, which can be verbal and/or physical.

(These are the only common points I can find - other typical features, such as living together, getting married, planning on having children, and so on do not apply to all people involved in romantic relationships.)

Verbal expressions of love are declarations such as “I love you”, use of terms of endearment (either common ones, such as “my love”, or personal ones, like private nicknames), and specific ways of refering to the other person and the relationship (for instance, using words such as “my boyfriend/girlfriend” or “my partner”, celebrating anniversaries and fondly reminiscing over important events in the history of the relationship, like the first meeting, the first kiss, and so on). Just as some people do not use some verbal expressions of affection (for instance, some people dislike the words “boyfriend/girlfriend”, or cannot stand some specific terms of endearment), others use them in different contexts (I have heard mothers calling their young child “my love” for instance). There are no rules set in stone for this, only common uses and social expectations.

Physical expressions of “romantic” love usually are kissing, holding hands, cuddling, and having sex, but does not have to include all or even – in my opinion – any of these elements (after all, two asexual people involved in a romantic relationship are more than unlikely to express their love by having sex, but may kiss or cuddle; in a similar way, some non-asexual people dislike cuddling and holding hands, and thus do not use those means to express affection). These physical expressions of love are socially and culturally codified: while, in most Western countries, kissing on the mouth is a way to express “romantic love” and is thus not socially acceptable between parent and child, for instance, there are places in the world where people traditionally do not kiss on the mouth to express “romantic love” (or only do so after being exposed to Western culture for some time). This means that, even though many people may never think about this, they can be defined by the people who wish to express their affection to each other. For instance, it is typical in France to kiss someone’s cheek in greeting (apparently, a real kiss is prefered for close family members, but an air kiss is required for everyone else), but like most physical forms of affection, this is not something I enjoy much. After being introduced to hugs in the United States, I suggested them to my parents as a way to express affection. This works particurly well with my father, who is not very good at expressing affection with words, but has no problem hugging me.

Therefore, if we imagine two close friends who love each other and have some way of expressing their affection to each other, by words or physical gestures of their choice, what exactly makes their relationship different from a romantic relationship – or, rather, what makes a romantic relationship different from theirs? Does kissing make two friends become romantically involved? Does not kissing make it impossible for a relationship to be romantic? Of course not. Those are only gestures, and what matters is not what people do, but why they do it, what it means to them.

The truth is, romantic relationships are only a label put on some relationships to show they are special - since it is what non-aromantic people think. I wonder if it is because non-aromantic people truly have no other close relationships than their romantic relationships (either because it simply does not happen, or because they do not allow it to happen, being too strongly socially conditioned to consider others as either family, friends, or lovers, entry into each category being determined by a set of culturally imposed criteria) or if they do and make up words to describe them, but this does not happen often enough that such relationships have entered our culture yet.

It seems to me, in the end, that the one thing that distinguishes aromantic people from others is that they do not need to or desire to follow the stereotypes of “romantic love” and “romantic relationships” – they prefer making their own rules and choosing how they want to express their feelings to the people they love. Deep inside, the feelings are the same – only the verbal and physical expressions of these feelings are different.

Basically, my fellow aromantics, we are either rebels or snobs - or, as some of us proudly say, freaks.