“Miss you, bro.”

“How are things going for you? Miss you, bro.”

Text message that one of my cis-het male climbing buddies sent me yesterday. 

It is messages like this one — messages and calls and visits from friends; walks&talks, lunch or coffee/tea, and movie nights with friends; all the gestures of affection and care, all the quality time together — that are finally allowing me to feel happy and warm and profoundly content with my relational life in a way that I hadn’t been able to feel since grad school. 

From the standpoint of relationships, I want nothing more. Or hardly anything — I still wish there were more opportunities for me to go on “adventures” with my buddies. Other than that, though, my relational needs are met: I don’t need, or want, romance (honestly, I don’t even understand it). And it’s such a liberation to finally realize and be able to say, “I’m not interested in romance” not because I’m still trying to get over a heartbreak or because I’m too busy or have other, all-absorbing goals in my life right now. 

No, I’m not interested in romance, as I never was, because I’m aro. And because as long as I can have — give & receive — enough love, affection, commitment, and quality time with my platonic friends, my relational needs are truly met.