Walking near any storefront in the month of February oftentimes leads to an ambush of reds and pinks, hearts and cupids as people around the world celebrate Valentine’s Day. A lesser-known holiday, however, follows this day of romance. Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (ASAW), which generally starts the following full week after Valentine’s Day, is a week that celebrates and brings notice to all aromantic identities under the umbrella.
Aromantic and aromanticism are classified as a queer identity that explains a disconnect or difference in how someone may experience romance. While aromanticism is often classified as anyone who does not feel romantic attraction, this does not mean that they do not participate in or have a strong distaste towards romance. In fact, some aromantic people are in relationships, though these may look quite different from “typical” relationships in society.
One way this may appear is through queerplatonic relationships, which defy typical societal norms and are defined by the people in the relationship. This does not mean that aromantic people will not engage with typical romantic relationships or that all aromantic people desire a queerplatonic relationship.
Queerplatonic is not the first word that the aromantic community has created to help classify their place in society. Words such as romance adverse, romance positive, and romance neutral are all used to describe how someone may feel engaging with romance in the world.
There are also many sub-labels involved with aromanticism, such as demiromantic, greyromantic, aroflux and many more. All these labels help people classify their experience, if they wish, and find others who may be experiencing the world in a similar way.
With all this, however, some wonder why an aromantic awareness week exists. ASAW exists simply to raise awareness of the aromantic community and its experiences. In a world with a very centralistic perspective on romance and romantic love, the idea that someone can live without and flourish despite romantic relationships is often unheard of. Aromantic people are often thought to be “missing” something from life or are thought to be more likely to end up alone. This is not true.
The belief that this is true often stems from something the aromantic community calls amatonormativity, something generally known as the stereotype or belief that romantic relationships are needed in life and should be prioritized. This widespread belief affects many aspects of one’s life, including their view of their future and how they interact with relationships throughout their life. Because of that disconnect, the way aromantic people may live and experience life is often different than someone who is not aromantic.
Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week was created to spread awareness and a sense of community for anyone on the aromantic spectrum because of their individual hardships within an amatonormative world. By spreading awareness, more aromantic people can see that they are not alone, and others who are questioning can find identities out there that help explain their experiences.
Making sure aromantic people are heard and supported—both due to the label being more obscure or misunderstood and because of the centralization of amatonormativity—becomes even more important during the month of Valentine’s Day. So, remember, even at the time when Valentine’s Day ends, another celebration is right around the corner.
