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How old were you when you first thought you might be "different?"


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I've always felt different to some extent, and I think my agenderedness, or at least my apathy towards masculinity was a big factor in that. I've also never had any desire for conformity, so thankfully I've never felt uncomfortably different (although I think I may have been keeping the tone of my close circle of friends to an asexual one). Despite having had a libido for most of my teen years, I've only started desiring to be in a relationship recently, and I assumed my lack of desire for sex was just due to having never experienced it (although this may be the case, I doubt it at this point), so I've only really started considering my sexuality in the past couple of years.

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I kind of clicked when I was about 14 that there was something about me different to everyone else. However, I never considered the idea that I was sexually attracted to no-one, because I didn't know that that was physically possible. It wasn't until after about a year of research on the internet that I came across the term, and I instantly knew that was me. Only once I knew I was ace did I really start noticing the major differences between how I viewed boys and how my friends viewed boys.

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I didn't find out I was asexual until I was about 19, although the signs were all there when I look back at my younger years. It started when I was having major relationship issues with my ex, even with simple things like kissing sessions. I guess it really comes down to being informed about what is normal. When I was a kid/young teenager I did not have many friends to compare myself too, so, there's that.

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Probably when I was 25 or 26, and when i identified my past relationship history kind clicked in perspective. It was just like, 'oh that's why my partners were always questioning my commitment in certain areas of the relationship.' Even though I don't hold onto the past, it is reassuring to know moving forward I can better work out that aspect of a relationship.

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I remember never "fancying" anyone at school, and my sister being obsessed with someone in a pop group and being totally baffled by how she could feel so strongly about someone so detached from her. I don't remember concretely realising I was different, I'm probably realising these things in hindsight. But I quite simply NEVER had a "crush" - EVER. And I do think I knew that was strange, though I didn't mind.

It was only when I got to university and I felt like I shouldn't be a virgin anymore that it began to bug me.. It was something I couldn't place. I couldn't rationalise why I couldn't see someone and feel an attraction (and similarly I didn't understand the concept of someone liking me for my looks).

I do remember as a mid to late teenager being really aware that I didn't judge people by their looks, and a friend of the family trying to convince me I did it at least subconsciously (I really just don't notice!). I can also remember being 18 and my uncle asking me which celebrity I found attractive (we were discussing perceptions I think) and I scrounged around in my head for an answer.. Not really understanding why I was expected to have an answer ready.

I also remember "friends" (I use the term loosely) in school questioning me on the fact I may be a lesbian. And being absolutely flummoxed by the suggestion. It actually led to me questioning and doubting myself for years, I felt like they knew something I didn't.

Really, there wasn't a time when I suddenly realised. It was a general build up to a realisation. In fact up until only a few months ago I had worked out that I didn't feel sexual attraction but didn't know the terms. (I'm now 24 btw).

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I knew I was different from other girls my age around 8 or 9. I have a distinct memory of playing pretend with a friend and her obsessing about picking out a husband for both of us from NSYNC, and me just wanting to play pretend tornado hunters.

But I didn't really realize that that was abnormal until middle school age, when ALL of my friends were crushing on celebrities and I wasn't. I didn't have a word for it until college though.

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Searching4Sunset

I knew something was up when I was 14, but I couldn't quite put a finger on it until I was about 16 or 17.

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twentyonepilots

I was around 13 or 14 and I had recently joined tumblr during a time where there were a lot of posts telling people about asexuality and I was like "hey maybe that's me" because I never really understood crushes (I claimed to have them but I think I just wanted to stop my friends from asking "who do you like") especially celebrity crushes. How could you look at someone you'd never met and decide you had a crush on them???

Also yay me for making my first post on any forum in my life!

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Around the time I started high school or was near the end of middle school (which are a year early in my city), so about 13.

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Very young. 7 years old I believe. There was a boy in my class who was nice, and I was sitting next to him in class. And someone asked me, 'so, you love him'. And I said, 'yeah, of course, he's nice'. Everyone started laughing, saying I was in love with him, for a few days. I was a bit embarrassed, but I was also just so confused, because I didn't understand the difference, and yeah. That's my experience. I only started identifying as ace at the age of 18 or 19 though :)

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I actually felt I was relatively normal. I'd had a couple of what I thought "crushes" on people. Then, when I was 10 or 11, I helped two of my friends get together and realised that a crush was a bit more than wanting to be best friends with the opposite sex. From there on everyone just became more relationship and sex crazy and it sort of hit me that, whatever this stuff was, I wasn't feeling it and didn't really want to either. Took me another 4 years to find the terms for it though ^.^

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I don't think there's one moment for me when I felt different. I know in middle school people started getting boyfriends and getting excited about first kisses while I just didn't care at all. But I didn't necessarily think I was aromantic then, I just didn't get why relationships had to happen right then. I figured it's something I'd want once I got older and/or found boys that weren't immature middle schoolers.

I also remember thinking in freshmen year of high school that maybe I should be a nun so that I wouldn't have to have sex or start a family. But that wasn't the first time I had thought about how much sex repulsed me. I had know for a while that I didn't want to have sex, I guess it was just being forced into sex ed in a Catholic school that brought about those thoughts. And even then, I tried to convince myself that I was just a late bloomer, and that I'd be excited for sex once I found the right person.

I guess I've always been different, just unwilling to admit it...

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Wallflowerbaby13
I only learned about asexuality last year or so (age 25), but I first felt really "different" in middle or high school. I always had a lot of crushes, so a lack thereof didn't clue me into being different from the others. It was more about the fact that I never wanted to act on the crushes...I never had an interest in dating. I never wanted to actually be with the people I found nice or cute...and heavens, the thought of kissing and going further? Sex? Nope! Never a part of the equation. Never. :P So yeah...it was only last year when I was like, "Wait, there are others like me!" And that my lack of desire for sex was something real, not just my asocial tendencies.[/quote

Wow! This is exactly how I feel! It's as if we are almost twins! I definitely had crushes growing up, but I never wanted a relationship or anything out of it. I just turned 24 a few months ago, and only after that is when I found out about Asexuality and that I might be part of this community! I think I have aesthetic attraction and I've always enjoyed a good romance in fictional settings (books,movies,kdramas) so I always assumed I'm just too asocial and shy and that I haven't met the right person yet. But now I'm questioning. What is sexual attraction? I definitely know when I find someone good looking and have a preference in the gender spectrum so I've been really confused. Is That sexual attraction? But it seems like it is not. That there is supposed to be something else there. Anyway I completely identify with you!

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catnipQuintessence

I'm so glad you're writing a YA book with an ace character! I really could have done with more (any) of those.

When I was a pre-teen/teenager, there was more than one conversation where a friend would ask me if I liked a guy, I'd say no, and she'd say, "Then stop flirting with him!" I hadn't thought I'd been flirting; we were friends, right? OOPS. This was followed by more than one "You know so-and-so has a crush on you, right?" and me feeling deeply uncomfortable. Why did every guy I happened to be friends with have to go and ruin it?

Finally one friend came up with, "You know how I see you in the future? Speeding down the highway in a convertible with your ten cats, cackling madly." And I was like, That sounds amazing, finally someone gets me.

Even in college if the conversation turned sexual, my friends got used to me just clamming up and tolerantly waiting for them to get to something else. They'd poke fun at me a little but in an affectionate way, kind of like "she's too pure for this" and then move on. The one time someone actually honestly, desperately asked me for sexual relationship advice in the middle of the night it was. A. Disaster. And never repeated. (I tried to help! I don't know what she was thinking! She should have talked to literally anyone but me! --hints that maybe I might be different, haha)

I didn't learn about asexuality until I was something like 24 and it was like, aha! that is me. (Though, I'm also non-libidoist, so. There's that.)

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El-not-so-ace

At least by when I was 13. :P I didn't know that I was an ace (or that any term like that existed), but I would always feel so much anxiety because anyone that showed me attention made me think that they'd want to potentially sleep with me. And that, I'd really rather avoid. >-> That's all I knew for so many years, wondering if I should just become a nun for practicality and combine what I thought as celibacy with my religious beliefs.

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Quite recently actually, at 22 I was offered a "friends with benefits" relationship and my reaction was "jesus, why? why would i want to have sex with you, you are my friend". Which led to a discussion about relationships where I realized that I've actually never in my life felt a sexual attraction to anyone. And I thought "oh, something is probably off about me" and made me to investigate further aaaaaaaand I'm here.

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Crealityisabeast

For me it was when I was in high school that I kind of gave myself the first clue. My brother has recently come out as gay and my mom, I forget the circumstance, asked me if I thought I was gay, and my answer was "I don't know". That was probably the first clue. The rest of figuring out I was different came with wondering what the big deal about sex was, because clearly I was missing something. ( I didn't realize what asexuality was until I was in college. I would just say I wasn't interested in dating, or that I was too busy with school.)

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When I was in first grade and all the other girls would talk about having crushes on celebrities and I thought they were insane. Boys were my friends, not for romance stuff. I just started making up crushes on people to fit in. By the time everybody hit puberty and boys wouldn't be my friends anymore I got super confused because I never had any feelings toward them or anyone else.

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Oh god, for as long as I can remember. When was I was younger I desperately wanted my sex to be male and I'm just an oddball in a lot of ways, not related to my sexuality and gender. Then as I got older I realized I wasn't interested in sex as much as everyone else was.

Everyone I know still calls me weird lmao

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New Strawberry 8

I could tell I was different before I was even in high school. People would talk about certain things that just sounded gross to me, but I often got told I would understand once I got older and experienced it. Because of people telling me this, I didn't know I was asexual until I actually had been having sex for almost a year. When I did figure it out I was 18, but I had been in denial about it for a lot longer.

Oh, and when I was younger at one point I thought men had sexual feelings but women didn't, just because of media and my personal lack of interest in anything sexual. It's hard to figure yourself out when you are different but everyone keeps telling you you're "normal."

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I'd say...probably sometime around 8 or 9. I didn't understand what was different but I could tell there was a difference. The differences are a bit hard to explain but - one big one was that I don't get crushes. I CHOSE someone to 'have a crush on' so I'd have an answer to all my friends asking "who do you like?". I wasn't trying to lie to them, I just honestly thought that was how I had crushes.

I also found it strange that my friends would be interested in the opposite gender when we were all so young, I thought that was only part of being an adult.

Later on, as a teen, it became quite clear that my view of sex lives is not the same as most peoples - I have no issue with the idea of abstinence but apperently that would be a huge problem for most people. Who knew...

Another big one - I found out through watching movies with the family that sex scenes are actually a turn off to me. The more detailed scenes I saw, the less I wanted anything to do with sex. So that's different.

And as an older teen I heard it was normal for people to fantasize so I decided to TRY it (who has to choose to fantasize?). I was happy to think about kissing but the moment I tried to think about moving past that I was repulsed and could only think of pushing the imaginary person away, rather violently.

After that revilation I began a huge inner struggle between 'I don't want to have sex' and 'I'll have to, that's just normal.' I grappled with it for quite a while before I finally realized that my decision on the matter is not dictated by what the world wants. I was free to be myself, and that was extremely comforting. That realization was the same one that led me to eventually find my orientation.

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Duplicate post.

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I don't remember when I realized that my lack of sexual attraction, or even having what I considered a real crush, wasn't just me being a late bloomer, but it was probably in middle school. I do remember, in 1st grade I think, my best friend had a crush on a boy. I was pretty confused and assumed we were too young to be liking people. I don't know if I understood what a crush was either, I just remember associating crushes with wanting to stare at the person a lot.

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I wrote a long thing with a lot of detail about many of my early sexual encounters, but it got a bit "TMI" and I don't wanna trigger some of you who are grossed out by graphic sex talk

Basically, I never pursued sex but because I was a tall, good looking kid in my early 20s (boy did that fade into looking like a creepy ethnic cab driver by my 30s), I kept having girls initiate romance and eventually sex to my bland disinterest. I was able to perform physically, but so absolutely meh about the whole thing.

I could also be affectionate, but a couple times a girl would kiss me out of nowhere at a club and it really felt like kissing my aunt. I also had deep talks with my gay friends and they usually would say "you don't like sex enough to be gay." And I was at least physically attracted to women, but men were as attractive to me as a shoe or coffee mug.

Then I discovered asexuality and it took a while to understand that just because I was able to perform didn't mean I wasn't asexual. I figured impotence was part of the deal... but now it's obvious, there is like a disconnect between the body and the brain for me when it comes to sex. And sexual attraction is in the brain.

I think by 31 I was able to identify as asexual. I came out to everyone I know to their ridicule (it figures) by the end of August, just before my 34th birthday.

Now to figure out how to stop falling in love with women and the IDEA of romance so I stop losing friendships with nice girls over a crush

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I felt different around middle school. I remember expressing to my friends that I didn't really get the whole boyfriend thing, but I was never sure they really believed me. Once I got to college I made some friends that were very socially aware. I first heard the term from them. I have struggled with trying to understand exactly what asexuality entails. I was actually tempted to do a "Am I ace" post like so many before me, but reading through the ones that were there was enough. Their experiences were so similar to mine that I knew I'd found my people. ^_^

So, if you're asking about when I felt different it would definitely be about sixth grade. If you're asking about when I knew I was asexual, the answer would probably be like five minutes ago. I'm having all sorts of crazy jubilations over here. It's nice that this finally makes sense for me, and even nicer that there are other people like me.

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When I was like 9 or 10 my mum gave me an illustrated book about sex, and I was so disgusted after reading it that from that time on, my life became a bit miserable (sexually speaking). I couldn't stand to see or hear anything related to sex, and I ended up thinking that I had some kind of mental problem, or that maybe I just needed to mature. I grew up pretty confused. To make a long story short, at some point during my teens I wasn't sickened by the idea of sex anymore but became a bit curious and tried it, only to find out that I didn't enjoy it. I wasn't until after a few more experiences that I realized I was asexual.

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I always felt a bit odd (since about age 10) but just copied all the other girls in regards to who they said they fancied and why, so they didn't think I was 'wierd'

I then spent 9/10 years making every excuse for generally feeling repulsed by sexual contact.

I tried therapy, different meds then stopped completely, I gained tons of self confidence, etc & no change. Constantly trying to "fix myself"

Thought maybe I just wasn't sexually attracted to men so 'i must be a lesbian'. Tried sex with women, same problem

Was only recently (I'm almost 23) that I started realising that certain things were kind of alien to me.

Conversations about aesthetically vs sexually attractive, and then about what "turned me on" and sexual desire just confused the hell out of me, they tried to explain but 😕😐😕

Found out about asexualilty and everything just 'clicked' and made sense

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Schattenschatz

I think I was about fifteen. My family moved around a lot and I was homeschooled until university, and on top of that, I was not very inclined to be social, so I didn't have a lot of friends my own age to compare myself to. The few friends I did have tended to come from rather conservative families (though my family wasn't conservative) so, for different reasons, they weren't too interested in things like relationships, and I was under the impression that all of the people obsessed with dating at twelve were the unusual ones, not me.

When I was fifteen, we moved again, and there happened to be a lot of people my age living near me, so I started spending time with them. They were more 'normal' dating/attraction wise than my previous friends, and I was getting to the age where I was being told by my parents that I could date if I wanted to, so I couldn't really use the 'I'm too young' excuse anymore. I remember around that age having 'sort of' crushes that I tend to think were more about wanting validation, because whenever one of the people showed any interest back I realized I didn't actually want to 'be' with them, and that I never really had, I just liked being noticed. I did date a little, but whenever it got around to the guy asking me if we could actually be exclusive, I was always hesitant and ended up saying no. Though I didn't exactly think there was anything wrong with that, it did make me feel different since most of the people I knew couldn't wait to get into relationships.

I went through a short period of thinking maybe I was a lesbian; never actually went so far as to date a girl before I dismissed that idea (funnily enough years later I realized I was panromantic). So for awhile I just assumed I was a fairly non-interested heterosexual.

Eventually, though I don't remember how, I found out about asexuality online. I think I was about seventeen/eighteen when that happened.

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