What answers you received when you told to your friends that you are asexual?

[Svete]

Well it happened to me today that i received a cruel answer.That one was that i'm mentally ill and i need to go to a psychologist cuz i don't want to have sex.I am aware about what i am,what i fell and i am proud about this but the others can't understand and believe that i'm a freak.

[Sleppy]

'Lol k' was my response

[MrAce]

Only real bad experience I had was one friend saying "Oh thank god, I thought you were coming out as gay" which I didn't really think was appropriate.

Some people are really uneducated on asexuality and will say you are mentally ill. You are not mentally ill! YOU ARE YOU!

[Podsnap]

That one was that i'm mentally ill and i need to go to a psychologist cuz i don't want to have sex.

I got the exact same response when, in college, I told my best friend who had just come out as a lesbian.

[MiniVegan]

I've only come out to two people. My husband of 7 years (it took me a while to figure it out): he's not sure he can deal with it, and only time will tell. And one friend: basically pretended I didn't say it. I don't know that I plan on really coming out altogether. I don't want to have to constantly explain myself.

I'm sorry your friend wasn't understanding. But we are! There's nothing wrong with you. Allow me to offer you some cake.

[Philip027]

The most common sort of response I've gotten was basically "that makes a lot of sense"

I'm one of the more obvious aces, I guess.

[.lannah.]

I have only told two of my friends. They were really accepting and knew a little about asexuality. The two of them didn't question me about it or give me reason to feel like something was wrong with me. We had a long discussion about it. I knew they would be that way though, so I wasn't anxious or nervous about it.

[Midnight Star]

Usually they "accept" it. But I'm putting that in quotes because I can tell that 99% of them don't actually believe me. I can read body language and voice very well so I know when someone is just trying to avoid confrontation.

[Scott1989]

First 2 reponses were accepting (Can't really remember the 1st one but the 2nd was something like "fair enough").

3rd response were more concerned that I was still a virgin and later plotted to "help" me lose it (I destroyed the plan).

4th was probably the worst, from a sibling who was like "So what, you going to just date asexuals or rape victims who are too scared of sex?". That one really angered me but also made me scared to come out to others, including my mother. I didn't know about aromantic then to counter the comments.

[Polygon]

I never really use the word asexual, but whenever people ask me about my lack of interest in sex, I just say I don't really care about it and can do just fine without. I guess that's just my way of easing the people around me into it so I don't drop it on them at once.

Unfortunately, that method somewhat backfires and all the responses are just some version of "(dismissively) eh, you'll change your mind". It can be disheartening that what I say has so little influence on their judgment of me, but it is what it is. Most of the time I see no reason to tell anyone unless they bring it up first.

[Ruqiah]

It shouldn't matter what they think. Sounds like they are worthless. That person isn't worth being around.

[Sleepy Skeleton]

Most people who I've told have been other LGBT folks or in a group situation where people don't usually speak up.

The only time I'm told someone one-on-one that I was asexual, he was pretty cool about it. He had never heard of it before and he had some questions so I explained it to him and it was all good. I trust him though, so I imagine the situation would have been much different if I told someone I didn't know as well. If everyone I come out to would be like him, it wouldn't be a problem at all.

[BreeZaps]

Told my cousin I was asexual. He also was asexual and he said he could tell I was asexual before I even knew it was a thing.

[HesitantAlien]

Most of my friends think I haven't been with the right person, or it's because of trauma, or I'll find the right one and everything will click adn suddenly I willl magicallly be different. *sigh* I can't convince them otherwise.

[Svete]

Thank you all for all the answers and support ^_^ ^_^

[Hermit Advocate]

The only person I've told pretty much said something along the lines of "that makes sense" and then the subject moved on about 10 seconds later. So while I think she accepts it and doesn't think I need therapy or anything, I'm not 100% sure she really knows a whole lot about asexuality and what that means for me. I think that she might think that I'm just a "late bloomer" who will lose my virginity in my late 30's or something.

[Slimer509]

The only bad responses I've had are people who have never heard of asexuality before, and say something insensitive on accident. (Heh, one time it was a plant joke.) I never tell people who I think will be nasty about it, so after explaining it to them, we were cool. I'm pretty lucky in that most of my close friends, and my immediate family, are accepting people. Though, I do think it's really important to use discretion; 'coming out' isn't a one step process, so you are typically able to choose who you come out to (except if someone outs you, which is a real jerk move on their part), and thus the reactions you'll get, unless someone's unpredictably crappy about it.

[Miss Anne Thrope]

The first friend I told just went "That's cool. I still love you." Though he has come out to me a couple times for different things and my responses were just as accepting and simple.

The second friend seemed to be completely supportive and understanding at first, but after the past couple of times I've mentioned something about my asexuality, she responds with something that makes it clear that she thinks I'll change once I try sex or kiss the right person.

[Decaf]

I've had mixed responses. For some reason, most of the negativity has come from LGBT people, whereas straight friends have been mostly very positive and supportive.
​A few straight friends have commented along the lines of 'Oh, I think I've heard of that...I saw something online...you are the guys with the cake, right?', whereas LGBT friends have mostly either never heard of ace or tell me that it doesn't exist or that I have a hormone disorder or something.
​The very first person I came out to was a lesbian friend who basically threw her head back and laughed, saying 'Are you just making this shit up??'
Oh well, things can only get better! lol.
​It's all OK though, Svete. We don't need the opinions of others to be our true selves xx

[dandilion]

I've only had good responses from my friends. I was kind of casually out without using the word asexual and we even had inside jokes built around it. When I started slipping the term into conversation I only had to do a little explaining to a few of them. Funnily enough, because of this I somehow missed telling my BEST FRIEND and a few weeks ago we ended up coming out to each other as ace. Two years of missed bonding over this ._. *sigh*

[Desmister]

I've only ever told one friend but that's only because he told me he was asexual first. I was kinda shocked at first because I never thought any of my friends might be asexual. It made me super happy to know I finally found one in real life and he was already a good friend of mine. So needless to say he was completely and totally accepting of it.

[Jzar]

Well, I kind of made this discovery with my best friend in the sense that I was reading and finding out stuff about asexuality that i didn't know and he was the one that was encouraging me to search more because I was fitting into this... when I told it to our 2 other friends they were both fascinated to learn things they didn't know and they were really happy that I was finally able to understand things about myself and felt comfortable, but also they wanted to make sure that I'm not going to feel guilty or anything....

I guess I'm lucky for my friends haha!

[Luftschlosseule]

The only bad response so far came from an ignorant therapist.

My friends... didn't say anything specific, they were like "okay, nice to know, thank you for sharing!".

My mother was like "Yes, you've been so all the time" as I explained it to her.

[Toinette]

Well, for me responses have been varied. Note : I'm not even sure am ace, so half coming out it was, and probably a bad idea. Coming from : why would I care ? to my mother being very embarrassed that I mentionend it. She feels like that part of my life is none of her business. Or people sort of not understanding why it was supposed to be a thing. No real rejection though which is good.

[Zargos]

I've never really "come out". I don't have a lot of family that I'm in contact with and only a couple close friends so only a few people know. Basically it started out as a joke before I actually knew I was asexual. Like, I'd be having a conversation with my friend and relationships would come up and I'd just half jokingly say "Eh, I'm probably asexual anyway". Then I actually properly researched asexuality and after a lot of puzzling over it, realised I was in fact ace. It was kind of a gradual thing with my best friend and she is really accepting of it. I think she may actually be on the ace spectrum herself anyway.

My mother has always pondered about asexuality in regards to herself so she's fine with it. It's kind of been an open thing that I was asexual, the only thing missing was the label.

My other friend had actually told me he wondered if I was asexual as I'd apparently "never had a boyfriend and seemed disgusted by the thought of dating any of the guys I know". While I was pretty annoyed because that really has nothing to do with asexuality IMO, he was actually right. Recently I ended up bringing what he said up and telling him that.

Honestly, if people don't completely understand that's one thing but to act as if there is something "wrong" or that asexuality is some sort of illness, well that is just absolute ignorance on their part. I'm sorry you had such an awful response. Here's some cake

[AW10]

Well it happened to me today that i received a cruel answer.That one was that i'm mentally ill and i need to go to a psychologist cuz i don't want to have sex.I am aware about what i am,what i fell and i am proud about this but the others can't understand and believe that i'm a freak.

I have mistakenly defined myself as asexual and when I told one friend about being asexual, he told me that is impossible, but he kinda accepted it. However, now I know I am sexual, not asexual, and I know that asexuality is certainly a possibility, so what he said is kinda irrelevant now.

Anyway, to comment on your post, I agree with a way you deal with other's responses. Whatever you currently believe, you currently are. In other words, if you are currently believing you are asexual, then be glad about it and simply accept that not anyone can understand you.

[iitu2]

I just recently came out to four of my friends, on separate occasions, and they were really positive and supportive about it ^_^ I'm not quite sure about where exactly I sit on the sexual-asexual scale but I'm definitely don't fit the norm of allosexuals. I'm pretty much already the spinster of my social circles so I guess it's not a big surprise to my friends.

My gay flatmate friend was like "what's that? ... oh so that's the A in LGBTA+? cool.".

My best friend knew about asexuality through her studies so her response was "oh honey I kinda new already but really glad that you finally figured it out yourself" :D

The last two close friends of mine also knew about asexuality. They actually suggested that if I feel like I'd need some peer support (I've been a bit depressed lately) then I should talk to X (sort of common friend) who is very openly aro ace. I did not know that :o But yeah they were super supportive and really glad that I brought this up with them.

All in all: why have my friends known more about asexuality than I have?!

[Blaiddmelyn]

I've mentioned it to two friends. One took it completely in her stride and said, "To be honest, I think people overemphasise the importance of sex. I mean, I like doing it with my boyfriend but I also really value sitting up and talking with him. So I don't see why someone can't just have a relationship without sex". The other's response was, effectively, "I won't pretend I completely understand that but each to their own. Let me know if you want to talk about it or anything related to it". Which was fairly encouraging.

[Tanzanite]

My friends were cool with it and my mom was neutral. I doubt I'll come out to other people though, it was exhausting just to plan it.

[Homer]

Being ace has been suggested to me more often than I have told anyone by myself :D

There were two occasions where I actively told people. The first one was quite helpful, I think, because a lot of things seemed to suddenly make sense. The second time I got "You're lying.", so there's that. Didn't affect me much.