How Did You Come Out?

[mm626]

Curious to hear people's stories. How did you come out, if you have already? Or if you haven't, do you plan to?

And what advice would you give to someone who hasn't come out yet?

(Sorry, there's probably been a topic about this already, but I figured we'd start new.)

[ace carder]

i haven't yet but i mite when i am older my parents really want grandkids sooooo...........

[Wonderment]

I told my mum that I was asexual while waiting for our food in the KFC DriveThru XD

[Nymra]

I told my mom I won't have kids so she can already get used to that idea xD

But I haven't come out officially since I'm afraid she says something like "It's just a phase" or "you haven't met the right person yet." And such phrases pisses me off to hell and back. I do plan to come out to her soon though. Also I may consider coming out to my closest friends too. So they know what's up with me... Although I think they may get confused since I'm the one making always dirty jokes ._.

[Confusion 0]

Unlike what seems like most people, I never thought I was broken, I just thought everyone around me was sex-crazy. I've always known I felt this way since puberty, I just didn't realise there was a technical term for it back then. I think most of my immediate family knows by now anyway.

[Akira Jumps]

I said it flat out and was greeted with a barrage of the oh-so-often-used 'That's not real' 'You just haven't found someone' 'Were you sexually abused as a child?'

My suggestion would be, be completely comfortable with yourself before hand. If you don't want to tell them, don't.

[Perissodactyla]

I might as well confess to being ahuman or extra-terrestrial.

No one really believes me when I've hinted, although they may feign acceptance and humor me with their amusement.

Since I'm XNFP and a surrealist, I don't worry about self-construction or self-identification all too much, since my 'life-world' is largely imagined, fluid and fantasized/theoretical without so many constraints or crystalization.

I work at being pretty open to unexpected surprises and discovery... quite different from what I can conceptualize in this moment or put into words for others. I find that a bit boring anyway. :)

And on top of that, I'm apathetic and ambivalent, too. lol :D

I guess I'm more likely to come out as claiming extra-terrestriality first, eventually. The asexuality would be a small pill for people to swallow, I trust, in comparison :D lol

I hope the above text was weird enough to widen the scope of the assumption-making on this topic. :D lol

[mm626]

i haven't yet but i mite when i am older my parents really want grandkids sooooo...........

I have this same problem. My mom especially is very gay-tolerant, but I feel like she'd be pretty upset.

I want to adopt though, if that's gonna help at all.

[mm626]

Unlike what seems like most people, my asexuality doesn't mean very much to me. I've always known I felt this way since puberty, I just didn't realise there was a technical term for it. I think most of my immediate family knows by now anyway.

I definitely hear you. I wouldn't think it should mean much of anything to someone who's heteromantic or aromantic.

[Scammer]

Cesarean

[amzinai]

I was just in a group chat on kik with a group of my friends, and they all were avid tumblr users and were talking about asexuality. I just said "would now be a bad time to say I'm asexual" and they all said no and continued with tumblr discussions. But they are very open minded people, I haven't even thought about telling ny parents.

Make sure you're comfortable with you, before you make sure others are. But coming out can be a positive experience, don't be haunted by the thought.

Best wishes!

[whocaresthough]

I haven't yet, and I'm glad for this post to be up, because I hope I can find some advice for coming out to a parent..

[whocaresthough]

I told my mum that I was asexual while waiting for our food in the KFC DriveThru XD

That is so badass. How did she act? XD "No chicken for you!"

[Wonderment]

I told my mum that I was asexual while waiting for our food in the KFC DriveThru XD

That is so badass. How did she act? XD "No chicken for you!"

That is exactly why I just decided to tell her at KFC, because of the whole slang regarding "chicken", and it was a really random place to "come out", not that I feel it's that important to tell people. I just wanted my mother to be clear on how I felt about people. She didn't make much of a big deal about it, really.

[Nadia Hope]

I haven't come out as an asexual to my parents, but I came out to all of my friends and parents as a lesbian. Since I first realised I was attracted to girls and later realised that I was asexual. I had a lot of long and frustrating conversation with all of them, so they could understand that I am not just going through a phase or pretending to be someone I am not. Coming out as a lesbian was very hard for me.

As far as asexuality goes, I feel that for me it is important to come out to people who it's going to affect the most. Right now, only a handful of people know about it. The person who I am dating knows about my asexuality and we also had a lot of conversations about how our relationship is going to move forward.

I feel that for me, coming out as asexual will be easier. I calmly told some of my friends that I am asexual and I didn't really care what they would really think. I think for me it's more important that people know that I like girls. And what I do in bed with them or I don't do, is definitely not their business.

The only advise that I can give about coming out is do it when you feel safe and when you are ready. If you feel that coming out can put you in some kind of danger, don't come out. Always think about your safety.

[The_Verse]

I just started sharing Ace Pride post on Facebook really :)

[nerdperson777]

I first told my mom almost three years ago and she was fine with it. Then she forgot about it since it wasn't important and started rambling last year about me finding someone because I was so stressed with myself with my gender and mental issues. None of it was taken seriously. I first came out to my mom for gender in a shopping center in Las Vegas since I kept looking at male clothing. I gradually told her about mental issues sometime before but she didn't think it was anything major.

Ever since all this made me start to do badly in school, my parents have been sitting me down for serious talks, which I don't like. So that's when I seriously came out about everything and they started believing me. I didn't exactly say I was asexual, as I did that once already, just that I didn't like anyone. And since gender was in there, they were trying to convert me to a lesbian instead of trans. That was ugly. "I NEVER SAID I LIKED ANYONE."

[Anthracite_Impreza]

Erm, straight to the point really, on all occasions. I've never had a designated "coming out", it just sorta happened for better or worse (most times worse at first, after a while it got easier). I've always been one of those people to just come out with stuff (unless it's deep and/or I'm likely to be attacked for it :/), so it wasn't really hard for me, and I'm always happy to do a bit of ace-awareness :D

[Dizzard]

I'm not really out. I told my best friend, but I'm not sure if that really counts. I don't think my parents would get it at all so I don't feel a need to tell them.

I also don't use Facebook or Twitter, so it's not like I'd ever post a picture on social media like "Guess who's Asexual!?"

There's also the fact that I only started seriously identifying myself as Asexual about two months ago.

[StarWarsOZ]

Like a few people have said before me, I'm really not that fussed about telling people about my asexuality. My closest friends know, just because it came up in conversation and one thing lead to another.
But I don't feel the need to tell anyone else about it, especially not my family. They wouldn't understand, and it really doesn't change anything to do with them.
The whole 'grandkids' issue is still a thing, but I have a sister so its easier for me.

My advice would be to only tell people who you think really need to know. Most of the time, for most of the people you know, being sexual or asexual doesn't really affect them much, and it would just cause problems if you told them. But of course, it is up to you.

I wish you luck

[Eccentricly_Awkward]

I called my mom and told her because she's a very open minded person. I had to explain to her what asexuality was (she had asexual confused with pansexual) and she seemed fine with it. Same with my sisters. My dad, however, thinks that I will stop being asexual when I meet "the one". Which is annoying. I have yet to tell my friends.

[TheBeatlesPkmnFan42]

I think it was about 3 years ago (damn, now I'm remembering that I did know about my asexuality a few years before I signed up here. My memory really does suck), when I told my mom. My mom had been getting into religion a bit because of my brother's teacher, and I also realized I was an atheist around that time too. I was stressing out because I was afraid of telling my mom that I was an atheist, since she had recently bought me a bible a few weeks before. Though honestly I had no reason to stress, I was stressing over nothing, since I should have known better that my mom wouldn't care (it would be awfully out of character for her if she did, after all, even back when I was a toddler and my family went to church, she and my dad still weren't very into it. And I know my dad is an atheist too.). So I was just stressed out, crying to myself in my room and my mom walked in, wondering why I was upset. I told her and she hugged me and something about romance/sex came up (I don't remember how) during our conversation, and I just then casually mentioned my asexuality.

Back then, and even to this day she says shit like I'll "find someone eventually". She still thinks my asperger's is just making me "behind" with romance. It seems she'd be perfectly fine if I were straight, lesbian, bi, etc, but somehow she cannot comprehend me not being sexually or romantically attracted to anyone. Every time she brings up finding someone, having a child, whatever, I have to explain it to her all over again and she still won't get it. Just last year, her and I went to Red Robin to hang out with a friend of hers, and said friend's daughter. She and her friend were discussing sexuality, and she said that we "didn't know" my sexuality. I was so close to going off and screaming at her that I had told her about my asexuality before, but of course, we were in a public restaurant, so I just put my head on the table and silently cried. A similar thing happened at Walmart not long after, too. When she said something about how she thinks I'll change my mind when it comes to not wanting a child. I held back tears the entire time until I got home and cried in my room. I think I talked about that somewhere here. Here it is:

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/17687-worst-responses-to-your-asexuality/page-101#entry1060907863

As for other people who I've told IRL, I just tell them when they ask me something about romance or sex and explain what asexuality is.

[The7thDraconian]

I came out when I was calling my family in my college dorm. I texted them a picture of an event going on campus where people could come and make their own sex toys (Yeah, my school's weird like that) and when my parents asked if I was going, I just sort of mentioned that I thought I was Asexual. The only one who reacted was my sister who went "I knew it!" before my mom told her to shut up. When I went back home for Christmas, my mom asked me a bunch of questions about my asexuality and she did her best to listen and be supportive. Most everyone I've talked to about my Asexuality has reacted with a "Okay, cool" and have gone on with their lives.

[4square]

At university, I took a sociology course and my professor had never heard of asexuality, so I wrote a paper on it. After reading it, she decided to incorporate the material into her curriculum. Of course, I told my parents without revealing the content and they asked me to send it to them. I did so and merely got a text saying that they loved me. When I got home, my mother was initially disbelieving ("you're just a late bloomer," "your cousin didn't have a girlfriend until college," etc.), but my dad accepted it. Mom eventually came around (mostly, at least she stopped dropping hints about relationships). Thus, I came out through an academic paper.

[Guest]

Twitter, basically. Hashtagging is the preferred way of coming-out for the modern Western hikikomori, innit?

Not that it was a big surprise for anyone knowing me closely - most good acquaintances know I'm a virgin and have zero interest in changing that fact, tyvm ^_^ - it was more like "btw, this is what it's called, the label I've searched for in vain for twenty years or so".

[nicknack12]

When I "came out" to my sister (via text message), I said something along the lines of "Hey sis, guess what? I'm asexual!" The thing is, she had just gotten a new phone and she didn't have my contact info put in yet, so the response I got was "Aww, Emily that's great! I'm so glad you finally figured that stuff out"

My name is not Emily

[CathMaybe]

Omg im not out, i dont plan to even come out ever... like i just dont think anyone would get it. It's nice to hear other people's stories though.

[RavenKawaii]

Well after a year of saying that I don't find sex interesting (and finding out about all the different sexual orientations) and my parents both saying "You'll find the right person someday", "You'll change you're mind when you're older." and just silly little jokes of "Don't kiss any boy's today." I finally accepted that I was asexual. Then one day we went on a car trip, and I brought up asexuality. My mother said that it didn't exist and people who say the have no sexual attraction have something wrong with them and need to see a doctor. I was silent the rest of the trip (mainly questioning if some thing was really wrong with me). A few months later, the comments started up a bit more then usual and I went into my room for comfort. My mother came in and I said we needed to talk. I told her I was asexual and what it was and told her to go onto AVEN if she had any questions about it. She was overall accepting of who I was, but was none-the-less baffled. It's funny because she said that she was prepared for me being anything but asexual. After I told her, I told my step-dad. He said he didn't care what I identified with as long as I was happy and that he would minimize his comments of kissing in general. It was a good out-come, so I'm happy about that. I still haven't told my biological father, and I don't plan to till I can move out of the house.

Advice: Be sure to accept yourself for who you are, and be prepared for the out come of coming out. Know that it's okay to cry.

[Eccentricly_Awkward]

On 7/6/2015 at 0:02 AM, Eccentricly_Awkward said:

I called my mom and told her because she's a very open minded person. I had to explain to her what asexuality was (she had asexual confused with pansexual) and she seemed fine with it. Same with my sisters. My dad, however, thinks that I will stop being asexual when I meet "the one". Which is annoying. I have yet to tell my friends.

Update, Dad's cool with it. 

[GoldenAllie]

So I had been relatively known as bisexual for a long time. Then a friend expressed interest, and I was interested back, but I was afraid that he wouldn't be ok with the "ace" part. So I came out to my best friend, and told her I had reservations about dating him. She launched into a rant about how I shouldnt let my previous bad relationships dictate what's going to happen. And I told her "No, I'm asexual, and I don't know how he'll react". She went "well that explains things. But still tell him.". I did tell him that something else he needed to know if he was sure he wanted to date me was that I was biromantic asexual. His reaction was "ok. I'm more interested in being with you than anything - just... can I like hug you and stuff?"  I burst out laughing before hugging him. 

 

I haven't told my parents, partially because I dont think they need to know. They know I'm not interested in having kids, so they leave it alone. My big thing is I only tell people I think might need to know what I'm doing in the bedroom, otherwise, does it matter?

 

But I would definitely say be confident in yourself first, then tell someone you care about and trust that you know has an open mind. if the first person you tell can be accepting, its really a huge relief and you can go through telling anyone else you want to easier.