Is Love Romantic? An Aromantic Perspective

I conducted this interview with an AU alumni who identifies as aromantic and wishes to remain anonymous. I came up with the following questions surrounding the topic of love in hopes of gaining insight from someone who doesn’t experience love the same way I do. The responses to these questions are paraphrased and approved by the individual. 

To start off, can you describe what being aromantic means to you?

It means that I don’t experience romantic attraction to other people. 

Can you describe what you think love is? Can you describe what you think romance is? Are they the same or different?

Love is an emotion. It looks different for different people. Personally, I only see it as an emotion as opposed to action, but that's a personal choice. I think there are too many ideas “under” the word of love. So, it makes more sense to be more specific when talking about people I care about. Like, I would prefer to just say “I am helping someone I care about” as opposed to expressing love as an action. 

Romance is also an emotion! It is similar to love in that it is different for each person. What people consider to be romantic differs from person to person. (This applies to anyone, not just aromantics) There are some allo people (allo: alloromantic or allosexual, people who do experience romantic or sexual attraction) and aromantic people who might describe their experience in the exact same way with the exact same words, but they think about it differently. They might describe it the same way, but an allo would say, “that's romance,” and an aromantic person would say, “no, it's not!” I see an overlap; love that comes from romance is romance-flavored and you can also have love that comes out of romance specifically. The same way you can have love that comes from family/friends specifically. Different relationships give way to love, and romance is one avenue to love. Romance does not need to have love. Romance is not always love. Love is not always romance. 

Given these Four Greek types of love—Eros (romantic), Storge (familial), Philia (platonic), and Agape (selfless)—which one, if any, describes the kind of love you most experience?

I would say for myself that the love I experience is exactly the same for all relationships. But the way I interact with that feeling and how I respond to that feeling depends on the context of the relationship. Because of that, I probably have agape love as my “baseline” love. But how I respond to that love will change (friend, family, partner, etc) in terms of what I do with that love. Storge and Philia love are outlets of agape love, just within the context of the type of relationship I am in. 

Can someone be happy if they are not in a romantic relationship? Should everyone aim to be in a romantic relationship at some point in their life?

Yes, you can be happy if you are not in a romantic relationship. Not everyone should strive for a romantic relationship… you don't need it. First of all, you should not be in a romantic relationship if you don't want it. A lot of people enter a romantic relationship because they feel like they should or that they need to for some reason (personal, society, family, friends). So if you are not ready, if you don't want to be, if you don't like the person who's offering it to you, don't do it. Don't force yourself to be in relationships you don't want to be in. Also, some people just don't ever want to be in that type of relationship (don't feel the attraction, have trauma, or don't like the actions that come with a relationship). There's no reason why you can't live like that. There's no reason you can't be happy not having a romantic relationship. Romance does not equal happiness. If you think about everything you can experience in the world, there is so much more to the world than just a romantic relationship. You don't need it to have a happy and fulfilled life. Romance does not give you happiness. It is a neutral form of relationship. It can be both a positive and negative thing. It does not guarantee anything other than a set of feelings that you may have. A lot of people assume that you have to have a romantic relationship to be happy. But it is simply a neutral category of emotions. 

What do you think about the verses found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? 

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7: 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This verse is a good example where the Bible talks about love as not a feeling. It's also not an emotion. The Bible describes love as what I see a good person is. So, I would say that trying to love people the way that the Bible tells you to love is a good thing. But you should not expect that when people in society talk about love, that this is what they're talking about. Because there are so many concepts around love, people often make assumptions about what they will get from it, so that can lead to relational conflicts. 

Does Christianity alone have the only source of love? 

I would say no. If you do believe in God and you believe God is love, then to that I would say that in creating humans in His image, the way we love is a reflection of God. Which means it's not constrained to only Christians. So, all humans would have that love. So if everyone has that then Christianity would not be the only people with it. You can see this clearly in stories from any culture/time period of people coming together to get through what they need to. I think that nature has some of the love that is talked about in the Bible. Maybe not to the same extent since nature doesn't have consciousness. In nature you have everyone eating each other, but also you have different animals helping each other out. So, obviously, there's a difference between humans and nature, but you can see love in nature. 

Is the love between humans different from the love between God and humanity?

I would say absolutely. If for no other reason than the fact that God is not human. Love between people who are the same, versus love between humans and an entity that you know very little about is very different. I think that God is so vast and unknowable. He is so much more than we can imagine, so what we consider to be love, He will be doing a million times more and different than what we think is happening. Within Adventism, the fact that we believe that God is in the midst of war with Satan changes things. Because it puts constraints on what God is allowed to do within His own system. Humans have their own rules, so we understand why people have reactions/emotions, but we have limited knowledge as to what God is doing and why. This limits our understanding of what God's version of love is based on the constraints He put there Himself. 

How do you view God's love? Is it romantic? 

It is not romantic. I think that if all love comes from God originally then romantic love has to be included inside of that somewhere. But you cannot define God's love as romantic. I would say that God's love is something that we fundamentally cannot understand (per the last question). His whole existence is so different from us, that even though there are enough similarities to make a relationship work, we still can't fathom how that shows up in real life, or what it really means. 

Is there anything else that you think is important to share or that you want to go back and discuss more? 

I would like to challenge the reader to really take some time and think about what love actually means to you. In the sense of relationship with others and the types of love that you enjoy the most (friends, romantic, family, God) and how you want to express that love. Society puts a lot of pressure on the specific ways it expects people to express love, which can leave it seemingly scripted. So, figuring out both what the emotions seem to you and how you bring them into your life in a practical way is important for everyone. Don't let society, parents, or Christianity tell you how you are supposed to do that. 

Also, aromantic awareness week is the week after Valentine's day! (February 18-25) This is the perfect time to spend quality time with yourself figuring out what love means to you.