a star

I started questioning if I was aromantic at the same time I started questioning if I was asexual around the time I started seeing some people talking about asexuality and how it was different to not-asexuality. At first I was like 'this maybe seems like it a little bit could be me, but I don't think so.' Just familiar enough to keep poking at it, not enough for anything else. At the time, I'd developed really strong feelings for someone I'd met in person after having been friends with them on livejournal for a couple of months, and I had no kind of real idea or conception that allosexual feelings could be different from alloromantic ones, so I was like 'this can't be me, because I had these feelings for this person', so I wasn't getting anywhere for a while. And then I found the concept of demisexuality. I had, in fact, developed feelings offline after meeting and talking to them in person, so that was it! yay! And then I figured out that I didn't, in fact, have sexual attraction. And then later decided that, because I had only experienced demiromantic attraction once and because I had found the experience overwhelming enough that I felt it negatively affected the actual relationship and didn't want to feel it again, I decided that I may as well id as aro. In hindsight part of the reason nothing seemed significantly off when I was in high school was that I was also an undiagnosed autistic, so Everything felt kind of off to the extent that it was perfectly normal for things to feel off - or things didn't feel off, because it was so normal for me to be somewhat out of step with others that being aroace may as well have been an extension of it. The other reason I didn't know what that I hadn't even heard about asexuality until I was in my mid or late twenties. I was so angry.

I've had this happen a couple of times - including a former classmate asking me out for coffee before I realised he'd intended it as a date, and another time when I was really scared that the guy was going to end up stalking me - and I hate it so much. Talking to random strangers is kind of fun, but they're only doing it because they want things from you and it makes me feel used. I hate lying, but next time it happens I'm probably going to say I'm gay. Or imply it.