Aroace thoughts/rants

Right next to you but my hearts a million miles away

I'm gonna write a short story :)

All my friends keep telling me that Cole, a boy from our friend group, has a crush on me and it's painfully obvious. The more I think about it the more nervous it makes me. I don't know if I want him to like me like that.

I mean, we're best friends. I've known him since freshman year but it feels like I've known him my whole life. We always make each other laugh. He's a great guy, but I don't think I want him to like me like that.

Do I like him like that? Do I want to like him like that? Thinking about not just feels weird. I'm not really into dating, I'm aroace but then when people tell me someone likes me it freaks me out and my brain starts to think if I like them too. Do I like Cole? Do I wanna like Cole? What is going on?!

I mean hypothetically if I were to date someone Cole seems like the perfect option. He's smart, he's funny, and we've been friends for a while so we already have an emotional connection.

"Hey." A voice takes me by surprise and snaps me out of my thoughts.

"Huh, what? Oh, hey Cole!" I smile. Cole. Why did he have to come at a time like this? My brain isn't even functioning. Is it because I have a crush on him or is it just because I'm a nervous person? How does anyone ever know if they have a crush on someone or if their brain is just tricking them that they do?

"So um I wanted to ask you a question." He says nervously holding a poster turned away from me. I didn't notice the poster before. Why is he nervous? Does he have a crush on me. No, that's insane. There's no way. Right?

He turns the poster around. "Do you wanna go to the dance with me?"

I stare at the poster in shock as his dance proposal was a reference to my all time favorite song. It kinda makes me feel happy and...seen, that he knows my favorite song and used one of the lyrics to ask me out. It makes me feel like he truly knows me, like he gets me. And that's why he's my very best friend. He understands me like no one else.

So...is what we have friendship, or is there romance somewhere in there? And why do I feel like if there is, it would be a step down?

"Izzy?"

"Oh! Right, you need an answer." I push my hair back behind my ears. My stomach is doing flips. I don't want to hurt his feelings, but I don't even know my own feelings. "I um....I want to say yes. I mean, I don't know it's complicated."

"That doesn't sound good." Cole says with a slight disappointment in his voice. I didn't mean to let him down.

"It's not you, I like you. I like you a lot." I quickly say. "It's just...our friendship means the world to me. It's fat more important than what anything else could be. I love spending time with you, and. I wanna go to the dance with you, but I don't wanna give you the wrong idea."

I haven't told Cole I'm aroace because honestly it never felt that important to my identity. It didn't feel like it was real or like it mattered. I didn't feel like I needed to make it a big deal and come out because it's not like he would be seeing me date a girl or something. It was just the lack of dating anyone at all. I didn't think it needed to be announced.

But, it's just as important as any other identity. Just because I "lack" a romantic partner doesn't really mean I'm lacking something. I just have something different, something that's more important to me. And it's probably best I tell Cole who I am, because it's a part of who I am.

"Cole, I'm aroace. I don't have romantic feelings. And I would feel really bad leading you on, so I'd love to go to the dance as friends. And you know, it not that I see you as less than what a boyfriend would be, I actually see you as a lot more and-"

"Izz, it's good I totally get it." Cole says. "You know, I love just spending time with you. I don't care what we call it. And I'd never want you to do something you're not comfortable with."

"So...you don't mind I can't love you as much as-"

"Izz, come on. Just because what we have isn't romantic doesn't mean it's less than romance. You said yourself it was more to you. And all I know is you mean the most to me out of anyone. So I'm willing to be your best friend if that's what it takes to spend time with you."

Honestly that's all I've ever really wanted in any kind of relationship. Just someone who enjoys my company. Where a label doesn't really matter and we could just be ourselves with each other, enjoying each others company and laughing at our win jokes like the weirdos we are.

"Thank you for being so cool about this."

"Of course. No need to thank me." Cole says. "Do you still wanna go to the dance? Because i know they aren't really your favorite thing, so we can totally do something else like have a Disney movie marathon or something."

"I like the way you think." I smile.

And I don't know how to end this so the end I guess. I hope you enjoyed this one shot, I wanted to try something new on here. thank you for reading!

I still might write a thing about those songs I mentioned last time, I'm not sure yet but it might happen. If you liked this I might do more stories with aro/ace a-spec characters. Might do new characters, I could bring back Izzy and Cole because I wanna show boy girl platonic friendship more. I'm open to suggestions if you want me to talk about a certain aroace, aspec character or head canon of an aro/ace aspec character or aro coded songs. If you have suggestions definitely feel free to leave a comment.

I hope you all have the most beautiful day or night, remember to take care of yourselves.

Until next time 💚💜