I wish every closeted aro/ace person, who is constantly being pressured by family to finally get into a relationship, the same experience upon coming out that I've had with my mother:
Since the moment I entered the age where you are supposed to become interested (in my case) in boys, my mother had been a real bloodhound about it. Every boy that crossed my path was a potential boyfriend.
The older I got, the worse it got.
Some man asks me if I want to take turns on the equipment in the gym with him? "Ohhh, he was totally flirting with you! Go talk to him!"
A waiter is nice to me? "Did you see how he looked at you? Wasn't he awfully nice to you? I think he likes you!"
It never went farther than comments, but those were quickly becoming very annoying, especially since I had known for quite some time by then who I am.
One day, some years ago, we are watching TV and there is a lot of talk about sexuality and stuff and suddenly I'm like 'Fuck it' and turn to her and ask: "Do you know what asexuality is?"
So I explain it to her. How I don't feel any sexual attraction. How, for the longest time, I didn't even know what sexual attraction was supposed to be like, that I thought it was a fabrication of the media.
"I'm not interested in sex. Actually, I'm not interested in a relationship at all. That's arosexual. I have no desire for a partner. Having kids would be the worst thing that could happen to me. I'm happy alone and I want to stay alone."
And she sits there and listens to me and I don't even know what I expect. She is a loving and open minded mother, but for years her only goal seemed to have been getting me into a relationship.
So I watch and talk and she sits and listens and at the end of it she is like:
"Yeah, I get it. I mean I always wanted family and kids. But that's me. I can totally understand not wanting any of that."
And while I'm still sitting there, not exactly shocked, but definitely pleasantly surprised by her easy acceptance, she goes on and on.
"Kids are hard work and they completely change your life and they are expensive. If you don't want any, you definitely shouldn't have any."
"I can see every day how happy you are with your life the way it is, and I'm really glad. There is nothing worse than wanting a relationship and not finding the right one. But there is also nothing worse than forcing yourself into a relationship just because you don't know how to be alone."
"Everyone should live the life they want. Isn't it great that you young people can do that now? Not even 50 years ago you had to be married, you couldn't even open a banking account without a husband! But today women don't need a man for anything!"
And the conversation just slowly peters off and it is finally done. From then on, I am known and understood.
And wouldn't you know it? The matchmaking completely stops. Not one more comment. Not a single one!
Going from a mother who couldn't ignore even the most vague interaction between me and a man without making a comment, to a mother who never brings anything like that up again, was quite jarring, to say the least.
Some weeks ago we once again (as we sometimes do) get to talking about this and I'm like "I was actually kinda surprised how well you took it. I expected more of a pushback."
"What? Why would you think that???"
And I'm incredulous, because "You spent YEARS throwing every man who so much as looked a little too long at me my way, insisting that every smile and glance meant that they were flirting with me. And you ask me why I thought you would take my complete disinterest in a relationship badly?"
And my mother sits up straight and grows very serious and says with conviction:
"I only did that because I couldn't understand how you never noticed the attention you were getting!"
"Boys and men would flirt with you and you never noticed! Never! And I thought, how can she not notice? It's so obvious! It was driving me crazy!"
"Let's ignore the part where I still don't think smiling and being nice equals flirting… You're telling me that you were only constantly pointing these things out to me, because you thought I was being an oblivious idiot and you needed to… help me?"
"Pretty much, yeah." She doesn't even sound sorry. "How was I supposed to know that you actually weren't interested at all? I just thought you were being dumb and not picking up on some veeeeery obvious signs. Of course I had to help my little dummy."
So, to make my long story short: Her comments were never meant to pressure me into a relationship because she thought that's the only way to live your life. She simply thought her daughter was an oblivious idiot.
I wish you all parents like my mother. Whose weird matchmaking is just an expression of their belief that you are hopelessly unaware of social and romantic cues and that you idiot need all the help you can get, but who, upon learning the truth, will accept you for who you are and will be proud of the person you are.
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