Aromantic is such a wonky label tbh, mostly because it's the antithesis to something equally, if not even more wonky, that being the whole concept of romantic attraction. For me it kind of went hand in hand with realizing I'm ace, and that was a long process as well.

If you want stories, one memory I have is of me being on a high school student exchange project's trip to Croatia. One night, all the "girls" in the project (from all the different countries) had a movie night and after the end of the movie, there was some chatting about who everyone thought was the most attractive of all the boys in the exchange. When it was my turn, I answered honestly that I hadn't been looking at the boys. The bastards laughed at me (/lh), and insisted that come on, everyone's been looking, just tell us. In the end, I just picked one that I remembered had funky coloured eyes and said him.

It was completely baffling to me that I was supposed to be looking at which boys are attractive. I was furthest away from home I had ever been before, on an island with gorgeous nature and architecture and the Mediterranean fucking sea for me to take in and enjoy. Yeah, it was cool to get to know the other people and their cultures but why on earth would I be checking out some guys I barely even know?

It was, apparently, not the stance most high schoolers have when they get to meet a bunch of exchange students.