Why did you really join AVEN and have you achieved your goals?

[deactivated account]

What made you join AVEN?
Did you have any goals?
were/weren't they achieved?
why?
why are you still here?
I'm just kinda bored, i'm not nearly as active as i probably should be. long replies are fine. mines pretty long even though i missed out a lot.

(for anyone who prefers listening to reading, here's a text to speech website http://ttsreader.com)

here's my answer anyway:
I Joined Aven after many many months of debate with myself. I knew of it's existence for quite a while. I had figured out i that was ace some time in 2014. but only joined mid 2016.
which is super weird to me. i thought i joined earlier.... but i remember it all now..

I had a crush on some guy, my friend's friend, for at least a year. i hadn't crushed this hard since i was 12. i don't like the concept of crushes because i don't like explaining my lack of sexuality, it sounds like the most awkward a personal conversation ever. so I usually try to convince myself they aren't my type, or push them out of my mind. (anyone else do this?)

Anyway, i let myself go this year. It was a little silly of me. Like i said, he (Jam) was my friend(Peanut)'s friend, myself and Jam were both really into music and the 3 of us spent a lot of time together in the music practice rooms playing the piano and talking. I'm a rather shy girl, so it took me a while to join in with Jam and Peanut's conversations, but just as i was getting comfortable, a staff member decided that since Peanut didn't play an instrument, she was not allowed to stay with us. (sucks since it wasn't a problem the first year)

You see, I got comfortable with being with Jam and Peanut. Not Jam and me alone. So i was too anxious to keep seeing him without Pea. frustrated, Me and Peanut hung out together away from the music practice rooms.

Untillllll i got the courage to go in by myself >> yeah, scooting ahead with time.

I was considering confessing, but i had a few problems...
a) we were barely friends (i suck at verbal communication okay? XD)
b) was i just going to completely ignore my asexuality?
c) his other friend (Harvest, yes these names are fake) started coming to the Music practice rooms, I didn't know him and he had 0 interest in becoming friendly with me. he became a wall in between mine and Jam's poor excuse for a friendship.

my solutions were 
a) to become better friends
b) i wasn't going to ignore my asexuality. therefore was not. u3u not confessing. 
c) i was gonna be Harvests friend too!!!!

back to b. If he did like me, i would have to explain the ace stuff. but only 2 people knew about it then. my online friend that i hadn't talked to in a year or so and my sister. I decided to let 2 of my good friends know about my aceness (over whatsapp) as testing the waters/practice outing myself

Peanut and Petal 
They both took it well.

Petal told me she was ace too. I was so shocked and happy that i cried.
I didn't want to overwhelm her with questions. so i didn't talk to her about until the next day in person. I had completely pushed Jam out of my mind. I was only interested in Petal now. The first ace person i was friends with. I didn't realise how much i wanted someone like me to talk to.

she was acting weird the next day once i brought up the ace stuff. I figured she didn't know much about it and tried to explain my ring.

when she stopped me and asked "Wait.. are you being serious?" my mind emptied. "I thought you were joking but you look really serious" she continued.
Turns out she wasn't asexual at all. she thought i meant it in the biology sense, that i would divide into two to reproduce or something, she didn't even know it was a human thing. if someone said "Oh i was actually born on Venus and Jacksepticeye is my biological father" someone might reply "heck me too! we're practically siblings now!" that was the kind of situation she understood it as... 

anyway she apologised and we laughed it off. 

But the next hour we spent together in class was just a complete down spiral into a dark place. Petal felt bad for not taking me seriously, but it was my fault for telling her over whatsapp. i faked a smile, and for the first time, in a long time, i felt heart broken and completely alone.

I'm quite introverted so i appreciate being alone. I didn't have a crush on petal or anything, It was more of a squish.

I gave up on Jam (for a while at least but that's another story. we no longer talk today) and I searched the internet for some kind of comfort. memes, art, people. all things to do with asexuality. Then i finally joined AVEN. Looking for a friend to fill that dark hole that had so suddenly burrowed itself in my chest. 

I've talked to a few people. but i guess i'm still in my shell. My asexual friend count is.. well something close to 0. I did want to make friends, In all honesty i was hoping to also find someone who i was romantically interested in  ^^ it sucks a little that there are so many inactive accounts... I guess i haven't achieved much.

I should go in the chatroom more often really. I don't come online very often. 

and finally why am i still here? 

I don't know. I'm not nearly as lonely and sad as i was when i joined. I'm too busy drawing comics to be lonely >> pfft 

i'm still here because i look at all the inactive accounts i tried to contact and decided i didn't wan't to be the person who never replied.. heh no, really, there are some fun things here. Aventities sing is adorable. and hot box is interesting.


i don't know. what about you guys? any interesting stories?


also am i even posting this in the appropriate place?


 

[ChillaKilla]

Yeah, probably not the best subforum for this

[Anthracite_Impreza]

Joined because people being douchebags about asexuality to my face, stayed because #drama.

[deactivated account]

5 minutes ago, ChillaKilla said:

Yeah, probably not the best subforum for this

what do you suggest?

[deactivated account]

2 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

Joined because people being douchebags about asexuality to my face, stayed because #drama.

douchey by doing what?

u3u and drama can be interesting depends really

 

[Anthracite_Impreza]

Just now, AndyAce said:

douchey by doing what?

u3u and drama can be interesting depends really

Denying asexuality could be a thing and insisting I was really into something kinky or illegal. They retracted it later but not after many jokes about me being good with drivebelts (I was at college doing mechanics at the time).

 

It's drama I can turn off, I like that kind of drama.

[Sherlocks]

I found this place by accident when I was looking for something else. So I decided to sign up and abandon the other forum I was frequenting. I was doing research on the computer and this popped up. I was like "Wow they have a forum for asexuality"! 

[deactivated account]

2 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

Denying asexuality could be a thing and insisting I was really into something kinky or illegal. They retracted it later but not after many jokes about me being good with drivebelts (I was at college doing mechanics at the time).

 

It's drama I can turn off, I like that kind of drama.

sounds annoying as heck. that's why i wouldn't just tell anyone about asexuality

"It's drama I can turn off" good point.

[Anthracite_Impreza]

1 minute ago, AndyAce said:

sounds annoying as heck. that's why i wouldn't just tell anyone about asexuality

"It's drama I can turn off" good point.

We found mutual ground on the sexiness of the Ford Capri, it's all good.

[deactivated account]

5 minutes ago, Sherlocks said:

I found this place by accident when I was looking for something else. So I decided to sign up and abandon the other forum I was frequenting. I was doing research on the computer and this popped up. I was like "Wow they have a forum for asexuality"! 

i guess you're on aven often then? X) that's a rather random way to find the site

[FemmeFalconer]

Honestly, I joined AVEN by searching for "not interested in sex" and this is what popped up. I contemplated joining for a week or so, maybe longer. Finally I decided, what the hell, maybe conversations here will beat my friend's conversations about how great their sex life is blah blah blah. Even hiking with my best friend results in her talking about sex with her then boyfriend. Just not my thing. There are even discussions about sex at my work and I just walk away casually pretending there is something to do elsewhere. I'm not disgusted by the conversations of sex, but I figured this site might have some equally minded people that are indifferent when it comes to sexual contact. My problem is I don't know how to initiate conversations without feeling like I'm butting in.

 

I've only been a member less than a week so I'm not sure why I'm still here. I actually asked how to delete this account earlier, but more for future info than anything. Turns out, you can't delete your account. Anyway, if nothing else I like the option of being able to give advice from similar situations I've been through to maybe make it a little more comforting. If someone knows they are not going through something alone, it makes them feel better... Or maybe it does. I don't know.

[ChillaKilla]

Probably Off-A, JFF, or AMR.

[Scott1989]

What made me join AVEN? Long story short, I knew I was Ace Aro for about 8 years now, but did nothing about it really for most of that time. For some weird reason, I got into an app called Whisper, which is an anonymous social app, early last year. I slowly started looking more and more at asexual topics, and then started seeing more references to cake and black rings. Thinking I was missing out on some ace lingo, I googled them, and found my way to here, and thought, why not join?

Did I have any goals? No, not really. Not much of a forum person so didn't expect to hang around too long, maybe a few weeks.
 

Why am I still here? I enjoy it here. Also been to a few AVEN meet ups nearby and met some good people at them, so it's a good way to get info on future ones. Plus other great people in the forums too as well.

[Sea Lemon]

I joined because I was questioning my identity and I wanted to make friends who were at least a bit like me. 

I stayed because I actually found friends, and bonus I finally figured out how to talk to people on the internet

[Tainted]

I joined because I discovered I'm ace and had questions.

 

I stayed because of several awesome AVENites...

[Guest]

i joined because they made profiles private and i couldnt creep on people anymore

 

stayed for the memes 

[Guest]

I don't remember, that was so long ago 

[Guest And Peggy]

I joined because I wanted a place to belong

 

i stayed cuz stockholm syndrome

[Starry Sky]

Awwww, I felt so crushed to read that Petal didn't think you were serious about being asexual when you were so excited to know an irl ace : (( *huuuuuuggss* And haha, yep, AVENites SIng is just too adorable :'3 

 

I joined to figure out if I'm ace, like many others have. That was my only goal; lurk until I know whether or not I'm ace. Once I had my answer, I planned to leave, which I did. I came back when I was questioning my gender. That is all figured out now, too : ) I planned to leave again but then I saw CAPS LOCK CLUB and posted in there and slowly found myself in love with the site. I've made some great friends who mean the entire universe to me and they are the reason I've stayed. I'm not online anywhere near as much... it's such a chore for me to simply say hi to my friends. I log in to make a quick post and log right back off, completely ignoring my notifications and PMs... Trying to get back into being active here, though. I'm not sure how much longer until I find myself having been away from AVEN for a very lengthy period of time  But! I am still here nonetheless and it is 110% because of the people here. 

[chair jockey]

I joined AVEN because it was in the search results when I googled "asexual." I had first seen that word used in connection to a human, in an Alice Munro short story, but had glossed over it. Probably my subconscious processes correlated it to the way I was and led me to google the word seemingly at random. Then, before I registered, I read the FAQ and felt like I'd had a religious awakening. The FAQ totally made sense of everything to me...for the time being. Over time I became purely a social member, because that will happen after seven years, but my initial motivation was the key word in the website's name.

[kani]

I joined the same day I realized I was ace (January 20th 2015, I thought it was 15th but I checked from my diary lol). And I made a post to the welcome lounge to kinda to sort my thoughts out and then I popped in every now and then but wasn't really into it for a few months. Main reason for joining was that I figured it could be fun and then again what's the worst thing that could happen on an asexual forum?

 

At the time though, I wasn't sure about being ace, because I like gay stuff like a lot a lot. So figuring that shit out was my first goal. I became more active around late spring, chatted a little bit, then got into other things and eventually forgot my password... Soo, I made a new account (which is now merged with the old one, take it easy), ended up also making an account to the Finnish asexuality site even though it is pretty dead and now is completely broken (they're making a new one I guess). But there I discovered aegosexuality and it suited me like a fist in the eye and I was finally sure I was really ace and not just straight or something.

 

After that I was able to relax a little more, I became a more of a chat regular, tried to not overshare as much (still working on that tbh) and ended up making some friends too. Or acquaintances at least. Then the chat broke and there was a lot of drama and shit-talking going on so I took a break again aand now we're here. Long story short, I'm not really a guy with a plan but I take what I can get. And it's always me or AVEN changing so I can't really hold on to the old shit for long either.

 

Yet there's something about AVEN that makes me stick around, even though people come and go and it's not relevant for me anymore to figure out why some things tickle my pickle and some don't.

[Diamond Ace of Hearts]

2 hours ago, AndyAce said:

What made you join AVEN?
Did you have any goals?
were/weren't they achieved?
why?
why are you still here?

I had a crush on some guy, my friend's friend, for at least a year. i hadn't crushed this hard since i was 12. i don't like the concept of crushes because i don't like explaining my lack of sexuality, it sounds like the most awkward a personal conversation ever. so I usually try to convince myself they aren't my type, or push them out of my mind. (anyone else do this?)

I was considering confessing, but i had a few problems...
a) we were barely friends (i suck at verbal communication okay? XD)
b) was i just going to completely ignore my asexuality?
c) his other friend (Harvest, yes these names are fake) started coming to the Music practice rooms, I didn't know him and he had 0 interest in becoming friendly with me. he became a wall in between mine and Jam's poor excuse for a friendship.

my solutions were 
a) to become better friends
b) i wasn't going to ignore my asexuality. therefore was not. u3u not confessing. 
c) i was gonna be Harvests friend too!!!!

I'm quite introverted so i appreciate being alone. I didn't have a crush on petal or anything, It was more of a squish.

I've talked to a few people. but i guess i'm still in my shell. My asexual friend count is.. well something close to 0. I did want to make friends, 

i don't know. what about you guys? any interesting stories?

I'm sorry about your crush situation.

 

That's pretty much why I'm here too. The conflict between finally accepting that I'm probably ace and suddenly having a new romantic interest in my life made me need friends, people who could relate to at least the ace part (nobody irl knows - or at least I haven't told anyone yet). My goal was to meet some people and make friends. It hasn't really happened yet because I don't like online chats and I never feel particularly comfortable commenting on threads either, I often feel like I'm boring people. I usually read most of the stuff that's on here and it makes me feel like I'm hanging out with you guys but obviously if I don't comment, you won't know it so I feel closer to everyone else but half the people don't even know I'm here yet. So as yet I have not achieved my goal(s) because my lack of energy for social interaction extends even to online forums, apparently. I'm still here because I'd like to think my goal is achievable one day.

 

 

1 hour ago, FemmeFalconer said:

My problem is I don't know how to initiate conversations without feeling like I'm butting in.

I also have this problem. You should stick around, we can be introverted AVEN-newbie buddies.

 

 

51 minutes ago, Scott1989 said:

What made me join AVEN? Long story short, I knew I was Ace Aro for about 8 years now, but did nothing about it really for most of that time. For some weird reason, I got into an app called Whisper, which is an anonymous social app, early last year. I slowly started looking more and more at asexual topics, and then started seeing more references to cake and black rings. Thinking I was missing out on some ace lingo, I googled them, and found my way to here, and thought, why not join?

I was mildly (no wait, that's not the word, I mean MASSIVELY) addicted to whisper until my phone went kaput and then I discovered that my new phone didn't like whisper and anyway I couldn't sign into my original account on my new phone. That's part of why I'm here; whisper was like prep for being part of an ace community so when I had no more whisper I had to dive in here.

 

------------

 

So, the story in more detail, should anyone care, is that I got a new job last September and it's in a different city to where I live. I was going to be around new people and it seemed a good time to start being open about being ace. Everyone would be new to the job so there would be lots of people all coming together for the first time so me and my identity wouldn't be in the spotlight, I'd be one of nearly 600 people and I wouldn't even have to come out because I would make it part of my identity from the start of all these new friendships/acquaintances. Smart, I thought. But then, the opportunity to mention that I'm ace never really arose and then I met ... someone (I can't think of a suitable fake name) ... and there was some attraction there (aesthetic, at least at first, and some romantic too). Well, there was attraction on my side, anyway, I don't know about hers. We got on great throughout training for the new job and the longer it went on the more serious my feelings got and the harder it became to let anyone know what I am. Eventually I retreated back into the closet and buckled up for the next instalment of "Dan messes up a potential relationship because he's too damn scared."

 

Eventually I couldn't withstand the feels alone any more so in search of support and sympathy I told one of my other colleagues first that I have feelings for ... "someone" ... and then that I wasn't sure I was straight. He straight up ignored me sort-of coming out and doesn't seem to understand romantic attraction in the same way I do and is frustratingly useless as a confidante when it comes to matters of the heart. I've got a few friends who I knew I could count on for understanding the attraction side of it, but no-one I knew could be guaranteed to sympathise with ace part of it. Well, that's not 100% true. I had one friend who I thought would be able to understand but before I could come out she cut me out of her life for reasons too complicated to get into right now.

 

So - in need of a shoulder to cry on about the loss of my friend, my identity issues and my unrequited romantic feelings - I joined whisper, firstly for the anonymity and secondly because I recalled a buzzfeed article from years ago that listed posts in the asexual group on there, which meant I knew there would be a community waiting for me. I enjoyed the app but there wasn't really anyone to pour my heart out to properly, so I knew I'd end up here eventually. Then my phone died and I decided to give AVEN a go.

 

I'm still looking for a confidante. Now I think real life will be a better place to look than online but I don't make friends very easily so it's not going to be an easy search either way. Meanwhile my romantic interest seems to be losing what little interest she had in me, my new job is getting less enjoyable by the day, my colleagues seem more distant and I'm still not over my best friend dumping me over what I'm sure was a misunderstanding. AVEN helps me forget all this for a little while every day, so even if I'm not as active as I'd like, I can't stop coming back.

[Icelime]

I joined because of boredom 

[deactivated account]

2 hours ago, FemmeFalconer said:

maybe conversations here will beat my friend's conversations about how great their sex life is blah blah blah. Even hiking with my best friend results in her talking about sex with her then boyfriend. Just not my thing. There are even discussions about sex at my work and I just walk away casually pretending there is something to do elsewhere. I'm not disgusted by the conversations of sex, but I figured this site might have some equally minded people that are indifferent when it comes to sexual contact. My problem is I don't know how to initiate conversations without feeling like I'm butting in.

ugh yeah, now i'm 19 conversations about sex pop up with non religious people. i feel it's only going to get more frequent as i grow older >< i'm not disgusted by it (on some levels) there are just an infinite amount of other things to talk about ><

yeah, group discussions are kinda hard to join, as well as busy forums. making your own kinds gets you past that first hurdle.
and we (as humans) usually over think things. I should probably try taking my own advice, but just do what makes you comfortable. ^^ butting in can be one of the best decisions you've made in x amount of time

[deactivated account]

1 hour ago, ChillaKilla said:

Probably Off-A, JFF, or AMR.

a mod put it in the right place now, XD but i don't know what those stand for sorry *is still a noob*

[deactivated account]

1 hour ago, Scott1989 said:

I got into an app called Whisper, which is an anonymous social app, early last year. I slowly started looking more and more at asexual topics,

i was planning on doing that actually (before i ever heard of aven) but never did. glad you enjoy yourself here though. ^^ i'm not much of a forums person either

[deactivated account]

1 hour ago, skit` said:

because they made profiles private and i couldnt creep on people anymore

elaborate?

also 
 

Spoiler

 

[deactivated account]

1 hour ago, Starry Sky said:

Awwww, I felt so crushed to read that Petal didn't think you were serious about being asexual when you were so excited to know an irl ace : (( *huuuuuuggss* And haha, yep, AVENites SIng is just too adorable :'3 

 

I joined to figure out if I'm ace, like many others have. That was my only goal; lurk until I know whether or not I'm ace. Once I had my answer, I planned to leave, which I did. I came back when I was questioning my gender. That is all figured out now, too : ) I planned to leave again but then I saw CAPS LOCK CLUB and posted in there and slowly found myself in love with the site. I've made some great friends who mean the entire universe to me and they are the reason I've stayed. I'm not online anywhere near as much... it's such a chore for me to simply say hi to my friends. I log in to make a quick post and log right back off, completely ignoring my notifications and PMs... Trying to get back into being active here, though. I'm not sure how much longer until I find myself having been away from AVEN for a very lengthy period of time  But! I am still here nonetheless and it is 110% because of the people here. 

*huggles* yeah :< 'twas a poop

and i can relate with the effort to log on and off etc. keeping in contact, checking forums. it's real time consuming especially if you're active on multiple other social media.

the people here are great though from what i've seen  the little games and clubs here are cute

[Scott1989]

12 minutes ago, Diamond, Ace of Hearts said:

I was mildly (no wait, that's not the word, I mean MASSIVELY) addicted to whisper until my phone went kaput and then I discovered that my new phone didn't like whisper and anyway I couldn't sign into my original account on my new phone. That's part of why I'm here; whisper was like prep for being part of an ace community so when I had no more whisper I had to dive in here.

I started to be midely addictied to whisper but as I said, thanks to a curiosity to cake (Not the Czechoslovakian drug ) I ended up here. I rarely go on whisper now but I like to drop in still sometimes. Heard some unforgetable stuff on it. It was interesting to see some non aces reaction to ace stuff (though some of it ws just toxic). Agree that whisper did make good prep for AVEN.

1 minute ago, AndyAce said:

i was planning on doing that actually (before i ever heard of aven) but never did. glad you enjoy yourself here though. ^^ i'm not much of a forums person either

Yeah, though I never planned it for using whisper for talking about asexulity, but it just happened, and made me embrace it more probably (I just didn't bother about it\just lived with it). And yeah if I rememeber a response to my welcome lounge post when I joined, hearing that AVEN seems to have a few people who aren't forum people. Who knows, someday I may build up to talking on the chat too 

 

 

[deactivated account]

1 hour ago, chair jockey said:

I joined AVEN because it was in the search results when I googled "asexual." I had first seen that word used in connection to a human, in an Alice Munro short story, but had glossed over it. Probably my subconscious processes correlated it to the way I was and led me to google the word seemingly at random. Then, before I registered, I read the FAQ and felt like I'd had a religious awakening. The FAQ totally made sense of everything to me...for the time being. Over time I became purely a social member, because that will happen after seven years, but my initial motivation was the key word in the website's name.

that's pretty cool actually. i have no idea how i learned the word besides biology. it's interesting that you seem to have read it in a book.

"I read the FAQ and felt like I'd had a religious awakening" perfect explanation. the world just started making sense.