Asexual realization

[pudding24]

So...im going to tell everyone how I realized that I was an asexual. I would like it very much if everyone could tell me about their experiences when it came to them realizing that they were an asexual. I was 17 years old when I first realized that I was 17 years old. Lol! I was at my mom's house and I was sitting in the kitchen thinking to myself, "why don't I want to have sex? I mean yeah they tell you not to have sex until you're married or whatever but shouldnt i at least have the urge to?" I was thinking about getting checked up at the doctors until I thought about looking it up online. I then realized that there was such a thing called asexual. I couldn't believe that I was not alone and that there we other people like me. I felt so recognized and happy for once. Come to think of it that's probably why I've s had problems with interacting with other people. I guess it all has something to do with getting to know each other so that you we can reproduce. But i dont want to reproduce so maybe that's my problem. I dont know what the cause of asexuality is or how it works exactly but I'm happy being myself and by myself. I don't if it has something to do with a chemical imbalance or hormonal imbalance. All I know is kids aren't my forte so unless I just want to make sure that I'm healthy there's really no point in me getting checked in the future. I'm glad that I'm an asexual and that that's what I experience I guess but it's really a big thing. It's just something that I do and the way that I am. And I like it. 😀

[Yatagarasu]

Being asexual has its advantages, for sure.  I'm an ace and I can't imagine myself having to deal with sexual urge whatsoever. That would be too draining for me, I reckon.

[OpticCanoe]

I think I was about 17 when I realised I was asexual. I was mainly in a group of friends where we did not discuss our sexual relationships or anything like that, so i was under the impression that I was normal in the sense of not wanting sex or having sexual urges. But then one of my friends from that group got the implant to stop her from being pregnant and I remember thinking "why would you get that if you aren't having sex? Why would you have sex for fun?", but then I caught on and realised that I was in the wrong. Once I had been exposed to that the rest of my friends in that group thought it would be a good idea to talk about their past sexual relationships, and I saw that I wasn't as normal as I thought I was and how sheltered I was about it all. I thought back to a conversation I had with a family member at 16 who thought that I was asexual, but I had never given it much thought up until then as it had not bothered me. I did a bit of research after that and discovered that that was who I am. I then proceeded to tell the only friend I knew who was also asexual and we had a party together with cake. So not a bad realization overall

[bsloths]

All through high school I thought I was just a “late bloomer.” My friends weren’t really interested in dating either so I didn’t feel out of place. I took my (male) cousin to prom and had a blast.

 

In college, people started talking about having sex and I would always feel supremely uncomfortable when they did, knowing I had none of those urges. I kept waiting for the feeling of having a crush on someone to happen, and it just didn’t. My best friend in college was a guy, and we were often mistaken for a couple since we were together a lot, but it never even crossed my mind that I would be attracted to him (but I liked when people thought we were together because it made me feel “normal”). I knew there was something “wrong” with me but couldn’t figure out why I was the only one not interested in dating. Maybe I was a really, really late bloomer? But something in me knew that wasn’t it. 

 

In summer 2010, when I was 24, I was watching the (gone-too-soon) ABC Family show Huge when a pretty girl character was asked out, and she told the guy she wasn’t interested because she was asexual. Something in my brain went “click” and I googled the word asexual. I found AVEN (but didn’t have the courage to make an account until last year) and Tumblr and read all of Julie Sondra Decker’s posts (which led me to the word aromantic). It was a magical time - suddenly I wasn’t broken, I had a community, I belonged somewhere, and I could name what I was. REPRESENTATION MATTERS!! 

 

It took me 2 years to come out to my parents and another few to come out to others in my family, and I still struggle sometimes with feeling abnormal and left out of something others find so special - but I am so grateful for everyone here and aces around the world who make me feel less alone.

 

Cake for everyone! 

[AnnGrey]

Ok, I'm gray-A so get ready for a crazy multi-part story. So here it goes. 

The first time I realized I wasn't like everyone else was when I was like 13 and everyone was talking about these new sexual feelings that were blossoming and I honestly thought some kind of invasion of the body snatchers business was going on cause like 1 day my friends are normal and the next they're speaking another language and that has to be aliens right (I went to a Catholic school...we had really informative sex ed as you can see)? But then I figured out it wasn't aliens and that this was what was "supposed to happen" (although, isn't that what the aliens would want us to think?) so I just thought it would happen to me SOMEDAY...but something felt off, that somehow didn't seem right. And like one time my parents asked me if I had any questions about sex and I got so flustered cause I was all like "great! a reverse pop quiz!" and I spent all night trying to research (this was before common internet access) in like my little Catholic school books and trying to access porn trying to develop questions for my parents...pritty sure my questions were all along the lines of "how do pizza delivery boys ever make any money?" and "if I don't want to have sex with the guy who fixes my hot tub can I just pay him??".  And I also had like no idea WHERE these feelings came from and was taught they are only between a guy and girl. So when I met my first gay guy at 14 I was confused as hell cause he told me he didn't chose to be like that and I didn't know what that meant or how this all worked so I thought it was like some kind of Harry Potter deal where they sort you into your orientation then give you a manual, so I'd like patiently wait for my owl to tell me where to go to get sorted cause it was getting confusing not having that manual everyone else seemed to have. Also, the story of Adam and Eve confused the hell out of me cause I couldn't figure out how they'd ever figured out how to "multiply"...like, its not like that's sicking a penis in a vagina seems like something that would come to someone naturally right? But then he just really messed me up and told me he was born that way and I was like "what the actual hell?!" cause if people are born having these feelings and its not a sorting hat doing it then why don't I have them. So then I just kind of thought I was a freak and I ask my priest and he told me my husband would "fix" me by having sex with me when I got married and all that did was make me never want to get married. Anyways I got into science and stuff and learned more about the world (clearly needed) but I still didn't understand what was "wrong" with me cause I just never felt like everyone else and I just tried to act like what I thought was normal.

 

So when I was 19 I ended up getting super drunk and high at a hotel party and got lost in the hotel's closet and started screaming to my friends that I was so far in the closet I'd found Narnia, but turns out like 3 of them already knew what asexuality was and thought that was me coming out when, nope, really I was just high. So then at like 21 I was dating this guy at a camp and I had some sexual feelings which at first made me really excited cause I thought I was "normal" but then they weren't like everyone else's and I actually got really depressed cause I was under a lot of pressure and threats to "pass" so I actually considered killing myself, but then at the camp there was this asexual guy and that also really confused me cause I wasn't like him or like my partner but after meeting him I knew I also wasn't sexual and I was really embarrassed about it cause I was like literally in a sexual relationship. But luckily camp ended and with that the relationship but then I had a pregnancy scare and I was more scared that I might have to pretend to be sexual my entire rest of my life with my ex than I was I might actually be pregnant (luckily I was not) and I realized I really couldn't pretend to be sexual anymore so then like a year after that and after looking it up and realizing I was gray A I told my old high-school friends only to find out they thought I was out all that time. And that's my   life. People who say an asexual or gray-Asexual character in a movie would be "boring" have never met my disastrous ass. 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

It all went over my head when I was at school, nobody made any advances either, it's as if they knew not to. Having gone through the motions of a marriage and having a child, I realised my priorities weren't sexual relationships. At first I was just a busy single mum, then when I didn't have to be single any more, I realised I didn't want to be anything else but single. I just took it form there and started looking for a name for it. Took me a few years, then found AVEN by accident one day .

[:)(:]

Btw think I am asexual I don’t wanna comit yet but..

For me I had always kinda hated the idea of marriage and still hate the idea of being pregnant and my friend was like hey are you asexual and I snapped kinda because I hate it when something gets super personal and a lot of stuff made sense. then I did some research on it and welp here I am?

[Firefly1495]

First I'm so glad you're happy with yourself and how your life is going! That's so good.  

 

It took me a long time to accept that I was ace even though a close friend in the LBGT community suggested it to me, I denied it at first. I didn't want to be different. However after dating several guys and always being so confused why they just wanted to get physical with me, like try to kiss me while we were talking. All I wanted to do was just talk and sit together! This happened with 4 or 5 guys before I realized it wasn't their personalities or anything, I just didn't want to be touched sexually like they wanted to. Eventually someone pointed me towards AVEN and everything started to click.

I had a hard time for awhile accepting it, but nowadays I'm starting to come around to it and see that its okay for me to have a different life without boyfriends and sex and marriage and all that, I can still be close to people:) 

[Rhaenys]

I think my body knew since I was 4 or 5 but I realized it when I was 16. I was with an annoying sexual guy who kept talking about me like I was a piece of meat and found myself wondering why staying with him through all the troubles, supporting him etc weren't enough. He made me feel like my body was my only worth that's where things clicked.

[mazzy]

my high school bf used to tell his friends he thought I was asexual (whack i kno)  & I got really defensive about it bc I didn’t know still lol, now here we are and I think maybe I was mad bc on some level I knew he was right but I didn’t want to believe it 🤷🏻‍♀️ now idc what he thinks & I think I found my people & am starting to accept who I am 😊

[Tortuga]

I found out that I was ace on AVEN... Here's basically how. 

So, this one dude in my gym class- his name is Aven, yes, spelled exactly that way. I wondered what that name meant because it was a weird name, and so I searched it on google. I found AVEN and asexuality's definition, something clicked when I clicked on the hyperlink to AVEN and read the definition of asexuality, and I had finally found that definition for me that actually fit. 

So, yeay thats how I found that I was asexual...

*confetti, confetti*

[KorraLover]

I had a string of coming out dramas.

 

I knew when I was 11 or 12 that I was different in that I wasn't drawn to anyone. By the time I was 15, I knew there was a clear division between my girlfriends and me. What? I wasn't sexualizing all the boys in our class. So, I thought that meant I must mean I was in girls. I mean, I liked to cuddle and kiss a bit with them. So, I came out as a raging homosexual--the only lesbian in the school. But I loved being out.

 

Skip to 18 and college where I met more lesbians and realized a horrifying thing--they were sexualizing women just as much as my high school girlfriends had men. I didn't do that, so I did the only logical thing I could do. I "split the difference" and came out as a timid bisexual.

 

It was on a lark that I found AVEN. While attending one of our Coming Out Day events in college, I noticed asexual on the list and wondered what that is. So, I Googled it, found AVEN, read for days, and came out immediately. Since then I've been growing in my understanding of my brand of asexual, but it's been the perfect label for me.

 

P.S. My mother says I'm not allowed to come out anymore.