Sexual and romantic orientations

Hello again. Some time ago I had a conversation in which it became obvious that the person had no idea romantic orientation exists and that it is something different than sexual orientation. I mean... it's pretty common. Whenever we hear about heterosexuals, homosexuals etc. we associate their sexuality with who they are romantically attracted to. In many cases it is true, but in some other it's not. So, what does a romantic orientation mean? Is it even real? Can you be sexually attracted to someone, but want a relationship with someone else? Come, read, and see for yourself.
Oh, and if you need a reminder of what are the sexual orientations, it's Here.


First of all - is it real?
Absolutely. I have Here a very nice picture quickly and clearly explaining that the sexual attraction and sexual orientation is absolutely not the only thing we, humans, experience. There are attractions on purely aesthetic level, and there are those when we actually fall in love. It is also displayed in This picture, although it aims more at explaining asexuality at the same time.

What is it?
There is an actual Wikipedia page which shows five main romantic orientations, which I will reiterate a bit as Wikipedia's definitions are a little unclear in my opinion.

• Aromantic: Lack of any romantic attraction towards anyone and anything.

• Heteroromantic: Romantic attraction towards a different (one) gender (for examples men feeling attraction to women)

• Homoromantic: Romantic attraction towards the same gender (for example men feeling attraction to other men)

• Biromantic: Romantic attraction towards two genders (for example women feeling attraction to men and women).

• Panromantic: Romantic attraction to persons of any gender (men, women, trans, non-binary etc.).

If you're heterosexual there is like 99% chance that you're also heteroromantic so what's the point of making such a long name like "heteroromantic heterosexual"? However, assuming you're a woman, let's say you want to have sex only with men, but at the same time you can see yourself falling in love both with a woman and a man (just no sex with the woman you love, because you feel homosexual sex is gross). In this case you would actually be heterosexual biromantic.
We are all Most of us are romantically attracted to someone. It's nothing bad, it's nothing good. We just are. We like to hold hands, talk, hug, cuddle, be with someone, trust someone. We want to love someone and be happy. It is natural. Sometimes though, our sexual orientation might be different from romantic attraction, and there are (for example) biromantics out there. That's why sometimes we really need this label. 

At the same time it's not something easy to understand for some people. We live in a world in which we are taught ever since our childhood that sexual orientation is the only orientation we should ever be concerned about. We are all by default heterosexual and we are all by default raised to be heterosexual. In the internet and TV we hear about anti-gay speeches, articles, laws, marches, and just general hatred. How many of you have ever heard about anti-biromantic movement or some kind of action to stop heterosexual homoromantics? Romantic orientation is unfortunately left to be forgotten.

The only problem with us forgetting about it is that romantic orientation is the only way to actually understand asexual people. They don't feel sexual attraction, they don't want to have sex. And yet they want to be in a relationship, they too want to love! (Although not everyone. Let's not forget about aromantics). So how do you understand them? Well, you have asexual aromantics, asexual homoromantics, asexual demiromantics (those who start feeling romantic attraction to someone else only after a very deep emotional bond, which in other words means very rarely), asexual panromantics etc...

And here is just a picture to nicely close this article: Pic