Last week was “Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week,” apparently. The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ organization, sent out an email blast and directed attention toward its blog post that states “aromanticism is a romantic orientation that describes people who do not experience romantic attraction.” However, do not confuse aromanticism with asexuality, the latter being “a sexual orientation that describes people who do not experience sexual attraction.” It is important to recognize that the circles representing either “aromantic” or “asexual” people are not concentric: “Asexual people can experience romantic attraction and can have romantic relationships, while aromantic people can have sexual attraction and have sexual relationships.”

What is it like to be aromantic? The Trevor Project offers this description: “Some aromantic people might not experience romantic attraction at all, while others might experience it very rarely. Some aromantic people might be content with platonic relationships, while others might seek out romantic relationships with little or no attraction. Aromantic folks can also be in romantic relationships, while not experiencing what others might understand to be romantic attraction.”

To paraphrase: You are aromantic if you only sometimes feel romance. The only people who are categorically excluded from the “aromantic” definition are those who unceasingly feel that butterfly sensation — and those people don’t exist.

Plenty of people have identified that the LGBTQ+ cohort has internal contradictions. The “T” doesn’t belong because supplanting sex with gender undermines same-sex attraction; “LGB” coupled with the “T” creates an incoherent alliance by associating sexual attraction with self-perception. With the addition of the “aromantic” subcategory, the rainbow coalition has further expanded to allow members who don’t always feel charmed by an admirer or significant other — a criterion that everyone meets. The reality is that a “romantic orientation” isn’t an “orientation” at all. Instead, it’s vague label about the frequency at which a person experiences a euphoric state resulting from a preferred set of interpersonal gestures, entirely divorced from the identity of the person performing them.