I don’t know how much this has actually been discussed in online spaces, but when I talk to other aros irl it’s pretty widely agreed apon that being aromantic is both an orientation and a political identity. By which I mean that being aromantic requires a massive shift in world view, including the dismantling of amatonormativity, the deconstruction of what the word ‘love’ even means, and the realization that you have control over what your important relationships look like.
All of those things can have a major impact on your political outlooks, social outlooks, and simply the way you view the world. I’ve said before that even if I did experience romantic attraction some day I would still identify as aro because being aromantic has shifted my view of what relationships even are to such a degree that like… romantic relationships barely make sense as a category to apply to myself anymore.
Everyone I know who identified as aro or questioned if they were aro before experiencing attraction and identifying as allo has ended up poly for what I suspect is this exact reason. Polyamory is one of the only relationship models out there currently that allows for romantic relationships outside of the typical amatonormative model and once you’ve done some work dismantling how society views relationships slotting right back into traditional monogamy doesn’t have a lot of appeal.
So anyways op, I know a lot of folks in the notes are taking this to simply mean 'not wanting to date’ (which is fine, that is still a radical notion in our society that I’m glad the aro community can make space for) but I think your tags are absolutely right about pushing amatonormativity out of our spaces as an aro value that people can (and should!) believe in and benefit from even if they’re not aro.
