I don’t think I ever realized how kind of socially isolated being aro/ace made me (before I knew I was) like so many games in childhood are about relationships. Who’s your crush, how many children will you have, do you have a list of your future kids names? School dances and celebrity crushes and my parents always asking when I was going to start dating. Me always saying I was focusing on school. Sleepovers and really wanting to gossip except it was always about boys (and girls, once friends came out) and I never had anything to add. “We’re too young to be dating seriously,” something I said from ages 12-21, when I realized. Celebrating marriage equality and realizing that I didn’t fit into the “now I’ll be able to get married” group either. My roommate telling me “once you’re in love, you’ll understand” when I told her that her boyfriend being over 24/7 was annoying. Trying to get into the bachelor/bachelorette but it never sticks. Every teen based tv show is about romance. Every adult show is about affairs. I’ve never seen one 20-something character say they didn’t want to date and have it not be treated like they’re emotionally unavailable or just stubborn. The age of women reclaiming their sexuality, my friends talking freely about how they had sex the other night and me in the corner going “yay you! Also gross” but not really because I want to support them but I never want it for myself. Realizing it’s going to be hard to buy a house on one salary. Realizing some of my questions about the future might stem from being aro/ace and some might be from mental illness. Hearing single female figures I look up to in my life being called uptight and “maybe if she’d just get some, she would loosen up”. Wondering if anyone’s ever said that about me. Wondering if my personality will be condensed into my romantic history. Thinking about how in high school, a gay guy offered to give me my first kiss because it wouldn’t mean anything and I said I wanted my first kiss to mean something and now I don’t want a first kiss at all. How every day at work, I see families and parents and kids and how I know I don’t want that, but they all seem so happy. There’s not anyone I know who’s older and single and happy with it, and I don’t know how to get there myself
was going through the tags as I occasionally do and... yeah. yeah.
there are all these experiences that I know I don't want but at the same time – this is the stuff people write stories about. It's not just tabloid headlines and hallmark movies – there are kids sitting in the back of class, making pinterest boards and writing horrible love poems that they'll roll their eyes at later. My friends scroll through dating apps and compare bad pickup lines over lunch, my cousin brings a new girlfriend to our family holiday, a coworker asks if the person I'm staying with is a friend or a friend.
it's the knowledge that for the rest of my life, when someone asks if I have a partner and I say no, they will respond with sympathy. it's being called repressed when I gush about someone I truly admire. it's seeing everyone I know pair off or go through the process of trying while I look out the window and watch the kids next door grow up.
and most of all it's feeling that all of these emotions are so juvenile. just deal with it. everyone feels alone sometimes. you don't need to be whiny about it, we all have problems. but it is so fucking all-encompassing – I am eight and googling “am I gay quiz” and it says I’m bi every time because I can’t tell if I like girls or boys more. I am ten and we sit on the swings and talk about the boy with the sandy hair, I am twelve and he asks me if I want to get ice cream after school and I misinterpret the way my heart sinks for another three years. I am thirteen and every book I read has a love triangle. I am fifteen and my conservative parents ask me if I'm gay and I don’t even know if I’m lying when I say no, I am sixteen and confused. I am eighteen and slow dancing with someone's friend in the school gym and my face is pressed against his rented suit jacket and I am telling myself I like it, I am nineteen and the internet tells me it's all internalized homophobia. I am twenty and help three friends through breakups, I am twenty-one and I look up white and black rings on etsy. my friends move in with their partners. my cousin gets married to the girlfriend, we scatter to our new cities and the best tip any site gives for meeting new people is to go on dates. I am twenty-three and we are sitting on the kitchen floor and they ask if I'm interested in dating anyone, ever, and the air doesn't move around my lungs for a full minute.
I am twenty-four and everything is a reminder - the wedding invites, the shows where the two friends end up together. Someone asks if I'm looking for love and I say no and watch as they tag my disinterest as temporary. Most of the people I meet don't automatically assume I'm straight – there's no pressure to come out in that way – but they assume I am looking for someone. I can deal with, and I’ve dealt with, not wanting love and sex. But everything is a reminder and I am tired
