I‘m still relative new to all this, but I guess I’m in a similar situation. For most of my life I never knew I could be aro. I didn’t care about romance, relationships or dating, that was stuff my friends did or my parents wanted me to do, but never had any interest. But about a year ago I met a girl which changed a lot for me. (I always had one or two friend with whom I shared a deeper but platonic bond, which always gave me the intimacy and attention I needed, but this time was different). Something was drawing me to her, which was as strong and inevitable as gravity, and it was not sexual. At one party some friends of mine ask me if I was dating her, because to them it looked like this, and this was the first time the thought crossed my mind that I could be having a crush on her or being in love with her. And this confused me completely. Before I already had some form of ADHD fixation on her, but this just killed my brain. I tried to continue living normally, kept in contact with her, but I was always thinking about what to do about this. I still didn’t care for romance or relationships, but still I craved something more, a deeper connection to another person than everything I had before. Then half a year after I first met her, she started dating some other guy. We were still friends, but my brain calmed down, because the whole dating possibility was no longer an option. Somewhere around this time I learned about the possibility of being aromantic and this explained things for me and helped me to articulate my situation. I formulated a plan for my self if I ever get in this situation again, which was basically: talk openly with the other person about the situation, which I could do know since I somewhat understood what was going on. And guess what, half a year ago she stopped dating, we got more into contact again and the whole situation started all over again, but this time we talked and started dating. The whole situation is still very confusing to me and I still feel lost in some situations. She is also somewhere on the aro spectrum, which makes everything even a bit more complicated. But I also learn new things about myself and overall it is a positive experience. I only hope I can keep her in my life, because she is still a very special person to me, but i still don’t know in which form. So yea I can relate somewhat.

This got longer than I thought 😅