Someone who’s struggling to keep their romantic escapades fixed to one gender can be panromantic. The gender of their potential romantic partner becomes irrelevant for them to develop romantic feelings.
Want to know more? Be with us till the end, as we cover:
- Panromantic Meaning
- The Different Types Of Attraction
- The Difference Between Pansexual And Panromantic
- Signs You Are Panromantic
One’s romantic self-expression is their true identity, and sometimes that doesn’t collaborate with mainstream popular culture. Before going deeper into the matter, let’s get the basics straight, shall we?
What Is Panromantic?
The term “Pan” in panromantic means “all” or “involving all”. So, those who tend to develop romantic interests, attractions, or deep emotional longing for people of ALL genders, are panromantic.
So, what does it mean to be panromantic? It means the individual can get romantically attracted to others regardless of their gender role or gender identity. However, it doesn’t mean every panromantic necessarily feels attracted to multiple people over the gender spectrum, at the same time.
Whether someone is monogamous or not depends on their personal conviction and not on their panromantic identity. Furthermore, such a person can belong to any gender and get romantically drawn to people who are:
- Straight
- Homosexual
- Bisexual
- Transgender
- Cis-Gender
- Gender Fluid
- Nonbinary
- Queer
Another important thing to keep in mind here is that pansexual is a categorically different concept. The fundamental difference between the two terms is:
- Panromantic denotes romantic attraction to all
- Pansexual denotes sexual attraction to all
According to the Split Attraction Model, there are several types of attraction, including romantic and sexual.
When we get physically attracted to an individual and our motivation to be with that person purely is to satisfy our carnal desires, we are experiencing sexual attraction.
On the other hand, romantic feelings are much more complex to understand. When we develop romantic feelings toward someone, we idolize them, we get sentimental, and our emotional well-being becomes very much attached to our person of interest.
Read: Difference Between Need And Want In Love
Not all romantic connections lead to a sexual union and not all sexual relationships are based on romantic feelings. Also, remember that:
- An asexual panromantic can find themselves romantically attracted to others and yet not develop any sexual interest in them.
- Those who are panromantic and not pansexual can experience romantic attraction for people regardless of their gender or orientation, but may or may not feel sexually attracted to all of them.
- A panromantic demisexual person can feel romantic attraction irrespective of gender but will feel physically attracted only to those with whom they can strongly connect emotionally.
To celebrate the demarcation and commonality of the panromantic and asexual communities, the panromantic asexual flag is designed by combining the panromantic flag and the asexual flag.
Read: Asexual Person Signs
5 Signs You Are Panromantic
If you’re wondering by now “Am I panromantic?”, then the following signs will surely put your mind at ease.
1. When It Comes To Romance, You’re Open To Possibilities
You are open to getting emotionally involved with someone irrespective of their gender identity. You do not find your romantic interests restricted to one or two gender roles. In fact, when choosing a romantic partner, their gender doesn’t matter to you at all!
2. You Feel Confused About Your Feelings
Your romantic identity can be very confusing, especially if you never had any exposure to gender-nonconforming people. Growing up as a binary, it might come as a shock when you start feeling romantic emotions toward people of all genders and orientations.
You can end up questioning your identity and even feel scared by people of varying genders. You can get out of your fear and confused state of mind by:
- Recognizing your feelings
- Understanding that these feelings are valid
- Knowing more about gender terms, types of attraction, and gender labels
- Exploring your romantic desires
- Opening up to experiences
- Seeing people beyond their gender identity
3. Long-Term Relationships Are Only About Mutual Feelings
You can visualize yourself settling down and starting a family with a person of any gender. When you are perfectly fine committing to a life-long association with a partner irrespective of their gender, it means you are comfortable with your romantic identity and value trust, mutual respect, and love over gender labels.
4. You Catch Yourself Fantasizing About Multiple Romantic Partners
As mentioned earlier, this doesn’t ascribe to all individuals of this specific romantic orientation. However, it is not uncommon for panromantic folks to date people from different genders at the same time, to explore and express their identity better. Also, there is a good number of panromantic people who prefer a monogamous relationship and it doesn’t mean they are not really panromantic.
5. You Struggle To Belong
You have always struggled to fit in a gender-defined group but could never identify with homosexual or bisexual, or any other labels. This is because you belong to the list of relatively more obscure sexualities.
If you have given some thought to your relationship possibilities and have introspected your romantic inclinations, you might have found all other sexual identities to be limiting. And now after reading the signs, you feel you can finally belong somewhere.
Navigating Life
You need to be clear on your innermost desires. Explore your romantic and sexual orientation freely. Once you identify your needs and boundaries, you can choose a label that fits you best. The next step would be to claim your identity and be comfortable with it.
Discovering your romantic identity and differentiating it from other sexualities will take some time and effort on your part. But it will be totally worth it, not only because you will figure out your authentic identity, but also because it will enable you to relate to others who are in a similar situation.
So, if you want to enjoy your dating life, educate yourself more on sexual identities, be open to experiences, and communicate clearly to your partner about your wants and needs. This will help you to have an empowered sense of self and make your life easier.
We hope by now you are clear on the panromantic definition and signs of being panromantic. So, what does panromantic mean to you? Let us know your take by commenting down below.
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