At least since high school, I’ve been aware that I was sexually different from my peers. I don’t know if there was a first moment when I realized this, but I have a few memories that stand out. Once I was riding on a bus with a few other male students. The conversation turned to a topic many asexuals have come to dread: “Who do you think is hot?” Before this point, I had never been in such a conversation before. I had been asked who I liked, but I could answer that because I did occasionally get crushes on girls, which usually lasted a while. One of the guys on the bus answered the question, talking about this one girl. One of the other boys teased him about how he liked her. But he responded that he didn’t like her; he just thought she was hot. I was taken aback by this distinction. Everyone else understood it, but this meant that there was this experience of thinking someone was hot entirely separate from liking them that I had never felt. When it was my turn to answer the question, I said I didn’t think anyone was hot. No one believed me.