alt text : a blacked out silhouette of a side profile with the negative space of multiple jagged teeth curling inwards towards their head, flora in the corner.
its so hard to hang out when you're being constantly bombarded by the anxiety that romantic nonplatonic feelings might arise in the other person. Keeping your interactions sanitized so that you don't accidentally lead anyone on, but at this point simply showing anyone any form of attention is "leading them on."
I love everyone, I want to be friends with everyone, I want to invite them to my home and watch movies and share meals together. Why must this indicate romance in the sense that this escalator ends in sex?
rhetorically, why is sex and romance such a big deal anyways? Both seekers and avoiders place an importance upon it that seems excessive. Its simply a thing that happens when your lives are compadable enough.
In the end I feel objectified more than ever, just a vehicle for people's sexual and romantic desires. Not seen as a real person who views their own life as romantic, and the meeting of people as romantic (but not in the nonplatonic sense.)
this message has been brought to you by the (demi) aroace collective.
Not to undermine your point (because it's perfectly true that a lot of people never get beyond "relationships lead to sex or they lead nowhere" in their psychosexual development), but you can and should defend your position directly and be straight up with people rather than "sanitizing" your interactions with them to passively (and maybe presumptuously) forestall the development of such feelings. It is socially correct and healthy to straightforwardly set and maintain boundaries with people and flatly deny further contact if they can't respect them. Leaving your feelings unsaid leaves the other person room to fill in their own narrative in the same way that their unclear position leaves you adjusting your behavior without a feedback mechanism.
For obvious safety reasons, it's a good idea to set these boundaries in public and try to avoid being alone with people you don't completely trust to respect them.
I'm not aro/ace, but I've had fulfilling relationships with no "romantic" content; where sex was physically/psychically impossible; and many of the grades between those and allosexual-alloromantic relationships.
Again, you're not wrong, but everybody involved is communicating in a pathological way.