Imagining an Aromantic Winter
Introducing our newest member of the team: Akweley Mazarae! He has written with us previously as a contributor and is now a permanent member of the news team. Enjoy xe’s piece on what winter could like for us aromantics.
@akidcalledmaz Word count: 900 words
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
I realized winter was upon us when I began seeing “Mr & Mrs Claus” merchandise in stores and memes about “cuffing season” on my Facebook timeline shortly after Halloween. Apparently there’s just “something” about the promise of snow and forced family gatherings that exponentially increases the level of amatonormativity in the air. It’s like seasonal allergies but worse, because there isn’t any medicine one can take to escape from all the love-centered media constantly being thrown in our faces.
Love in and of itself is a neutral concept. lt exists, in multiple forms—familial love, platonic love, romantic love, etc. While many people have the capacity to feel different types of love, not all people do, and that is a very valid lived experience. Unfortunately, we live in societies that assert “love is what makes us human,” which is erasure of and damaging to loveless aros, aplatonic people, and others whose lived experience is not defined by love. A loveless aromantic, according to LGBTA Wiki, is a person that is “ in some way disconnected from the concept of love, does not feel love, may doubt that they feel love, or rejects the idea of experiencing love.” Loveless folx reject the idea that love is “necessary” for humanity, happiness, fulfillment, or anything else. Aplatonic (abbreviated apl pronounced “apple!”) is used to refer to someone who does not experience platonic attraction or does not relate to the concept of platonic love. Aplatonic people may or may not be connected to people in other ways that aren’t platonic.
As one can imagine, being a person who disidentifies with love can be really challenging during the winter, as there are a number of holidays, activities, and media that bombard everyone about the necessity of love. This is further complicated when people you are in community with also impose amatonormativity on you. I used to contribute to “the unhelpful broadening of love” (a concept that originates in the loveless community) as an aromantic person who experiences tertiary attraction. I would justify my lack of/fluctuating romantic attraction to friends and chosen fam by explaining my capacity for platonic love and sensual and aesthetic attraction. In an effort to gain validity in an amatonormative world, I was harming fellow community members by projecting amatonormativity from within. Through research (an essay on lovelessness, LGBTA Wiki pages on loveless aromantics and aplatonic) and actively listening when loveless and APL community members shared, I began to unlearn the notion that “love is necessary.”
Though I myself am not loveless or aplatonic, I’d like to share snippets of what I imagine an aromantic winter could look like. One that is not focused on midnight proposals on New Year’s Eve, Hallmark movies, or overpriced chocolate and bouquets for Valentine’s Day. I also invite others to imagine their aromantic winters and share in the comments. As you'll see none of these are “explicitly” aromantic, but what I’m hoping to get across is that an aromantic winter could just be de-centering romantic/love centered winter stuff like kissing under mistletoe or that certain activities can only be done with family, or that thoughtful gifts are always given out of love.
Scene 1:
You’re in your studio apartment, painting and vibing to Moses Sumney’s Aromanticism album. You enjoy painting and you enjoy gift giving, and winter is the perfect season to do both! For every month of winter, a different gift is given. In December, one of your colleagues gifted you Cooking for Dummies so that you could learn how to cook yourself something more nutritional than just plain pasta with a sprinkle of pesto. In January, you and your best friend share Netflix and HBO passwords, so you both could have more options for watching bad TV. But now it’s February, the shortest and your favorite winter month. Every day, after your morning cup of tea, you pick a random swatch of green and just start painting. When you’re finished, it’ll be a 6ft tall portrait of your neighbor and their dog. You know she’ll be amazed by it.
Scene 2:
It’s a brisk winter evening, and you’re quickly walking home from your poetry group’s last meeting of the year. Suddenly, a light snow begins to fall, the first snow of the season, and you do the obligatory “close your eyes, stick out your tongue, and make a wish” tradition that your Nana taught you when you were five years old. You wish that your annoyingly loud neighbor’s house is covered by a parasitic plant because you refuse to enter another year where their pets lay waste on your lawn without retribution. When you look out your window the next morning, their house has been swallowed up by mistletoe.
Scene 3:
You’re 8 years old and building a snow castle with your cousins. Your favorite activity is to build the super duper tallest snow castle there has ever been, and then do a running leap right on top of it, smashing it into pieces.
You’re 18 years old. You and your best friends are building a snow castle. Once the castle is as tall as you, you stand back 3 meters and do a running jump right on top of it. This gives you joy.
You’re 48 years old, and building a snow castle with your sibling’s kids. You teach them how to run and jump, destroying the castle. They squeal.
You’re 88 years old. You can’t stand the cold like you used to, but you supervise from your porch as the neighborhood kids build a snow castle in front of your house. You see one of them stand back several yards, then begin running. You know they’re going to jump on top of the snow castle and when they do, your heart is at peace.