Well, I guess it gets personal under the cut
Lately, I've been trying not to run away from the thought that I might genuinely be happier alone than I've ever been in a relationship.
My few relationships have been wonderful and with amazing people, and they ended mostly because of logistics (long distance, work, study etc). Which is to say, I never felt like putting in the exhausting work that is required to get over those issues. That's on me, I'm well aware of that.
But as time passes I realise I go years between even just dates without feeling any sort of "missing" for the experience and that my first knee-jerk reaction when anyone expresses interest in me is cold fear that they'll ask me out. It's been making me struggle with figuring out whether I'm even attracted to men at all or just women, even knowing that at the end of the day my comfort zone is asexuality. I've been working on reconciling my logic (you can be happy alone) with my learnt fears (what if I'm not).
In the past year, I have become part of a kink group where the boundaries of relationships are all pretty lax. I have tried things out with many of them, men and women alike, some coupled and some poly and some single, without the added pressure of expectations and it's been making me relax into my body in a way that I rarely experience. It also made me realise that the happiest I am is when I'm meeting these people, many of them at once, a few times a month, and then going back to my home and writing and fixing my garden and doing my things, alone.
Because I've been so happy on my own, I tried to sit down with the fear I also have and figure out where it comes from, and most of the times what happens is that I'm not sad to be single, I'm uncomfortable with other people's reaction to it.
I've been at a family occasion, recently. I was worried because I was coming alone, unlike anybody else. It surprised me that no one made a fuss, that it was just assumed I would not bring someone along. One of the kids told me, very innocently, "you're always single" and, well, it's true. I only noticed I'd been embarrassed about it when it stopped.
At a work dinner, some recently broken-up colleague moaned about her past relationship and it opened up the floor to discussion about exes. Nobody really asked me. When a guy turned my way, he just laughed and went "Who has it better than you? You're happy as you are, uh?," and, well, it's true. I was starting to feel alienated from the topic, until he pointed out that I was the odd duck out and it voiced the unspoken and I relaxed.
My family never asks me if I'm seeing someone, never presses me to hurry up, never asks about children. I'm turning 30 this year.
I think people around me have been noticing it before I was even ready to put it into words myself. I'm still hesitant to, I still worry I might be taking the easy way out because I don't want to put in the work that a relationship requires. But, well, isn't that indicative enough? That the only perspective I have on choosing one person to share my life is that it sounds like a chore to me?
I think I might be aromantic. I'm trying not to let it scare me.
