Later this month, Shenandoah University will uplift enrollees not keen on cozy coupling. It’s part of the Winchester school’s commitment to diversity. Via SU.edu, the Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Table is advertised as follows:

Learn about Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (ASAW) by visiting the Mosaic Center for Diversity’s table on Tuesday, Feb. 25th, from 11 a.m. [to] 2 p.m. in the Brandt Student Center. ASAW spreads awareness and acceptance of aromantic spectrum identities while celebrating experiences within the community. The week, held annually after Valentine’s Day, provides space for the aromantic community to reflect on and embrace their unique perspectives.

Enlightened society says our labels determine our worth. That edict even applies to absence: Aside from all you are, revel in what you are not. For some cutting-edge college students, a dearth of amore is apparently life-defining.  

And ASAW extends amply beyond school; the world at large will soon laud a lack of feeling lovey-dovey. As indicated by AroSpecWeek.org, Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week is an “international event.”

The yearly observance began in 2014 as an assemblage for those “who had difficulty finding space” amid the “universally romanticized” delights of Valentine’s Day. Starting Sunday the 16th, consider their trauma trounced.

Here’s more on frigid females and fellas:

Aromanticism…describes people whose experience of romance is disconnected from normative societal expectations…sometimes (due to) feeling repulsed by romance or being uninterested in romantic relationships. 

Many aromantic people [have] trouble relating to the experience of “falling in love” or…having romantic “crushes.” Many may pursue non-traditional forms of intimate relationships, or choose not to have formal “relationships” at all.

Ours is indeed an era of non-traditional intimate relationships:

Madly-in-Love Man Marries a Hologram, but Their Tale Turns Terminal as the Service Provider Pulls the Plug

From the International Journal of Social Robotics: Sex Robots Should be Programmed to Reject Their Owners in Order to Fight Rape Culture

Throuples Are so 2021: Welcome to the Five-Member World of a Sexual ‘Polycule’

New Yorker Sues in Order to Marry Their Own Child

Man’s Penis Falls Off, Doctor Adds One to His Arm

TransLash.org reports aromantics “make up about one percent of the total population but comprise as high as four percent of those ages 18-24.” The site fingers two famous community members: scientist Nikola Tesla, who “found all the stimulation he needed in his work;” and fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft. 

About the author:

[I]n his personal life, he was fairly ambivalent about sex and romance. His wife Sonia Lovecraft was known to complain of his lack of interest in her, and reported that while he did his duty…it required “much encouragement” and he was never the one to initiate.

Are you yourself aromantic? If so, there’s lingo to learn. Snuggle up to a sampling from TransLash:

Demiromantic Imagine needing a deep, emotional bond before even beginning to feel romantic attraction. Demiromantics wait for that special connection, much like waiting for your favorite band to finally go on tour.

Greyromantic These folks occasionally feel the stirrings of romantic attraction, but it’s as rare as finding a four-leaf clover.

Lithromantic One might feel romantic attraction but prefer it unreturned, like sending a message in a bottle out to sea without waiting for a reply.

Sex-Repulsed Sex-Repulsed means that an individual is not open to experiencing sexual activity. They may feel distress at the thought or mention of [it] with others or themselves.

Another aromantic orientation, per an online educational video: “WTFRomantic.”