Gender & Sexuality dictionary
autoromantic
[aw-toh-roh-man-tik]
șÚÁÏÍű does autoromantic mean?
Autoromantic is a term for the experience of romantic attraction to oneself. Its sexual counterpart is autosexual.
Where does autoromantic come from?
In sexuality and relationship discussions, terms featuring -romantic are used to distinguish romantic attractions from sexual ones. For instance, an aromantic person experiences no romantic attraction to others, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re asexual (i.e., they don’t experience sexual attraction).
The term auto-romantic (with a hyphen) was first found in 1971, used then simply as a playful term for a car enthusiast. The term appeared again on an internet Usenet group in 2003, that time as a bit of poetic wordplay.
Autoromantic â for someone who has a romantic relationship with oneself or prefers romantic feelings towards oneself more so than with others â appeared on a forum on the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) in 2007.
In April 2017, writer Ghia Vitale published a piece on Medium describing her sexual and romantic orientation as autosexual and autoromantic, experiencing a relationship with herself and preferring it over any others. Her piece was discussed in some popular publications, such as Refinery29, greatly increasing autoromantic’s visibility.
Ghia Vitale, an autosexual and autoromantic who got engaged to herself in March 2017, is all set to tie the knot soon.
— News18 (@CNNnews18)
Examples of autoromantic
Who uses autoromantic?
Some people identify their romantic orientation as autoromantic, while others more playfully use the term for self-love, especially when they’re feeling jaded by relationships.
Additionally, you’ll see the terms autosexual or autoromantic used by people who criticize the concepts as forms of narcissism.
I was trying to figure out if there was such thing as being autoromantic and then I, a self-obsessed psychology major, remembered the word "narcissism".
— Nathan Green đ (@HappierKindaSad)
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of autoromantic like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of autoromantic that will help our users expand their word mastery.