Life stages and being asexual

[donttouchme]

Hello all,

 

I will celebrate 1 month on this forum in a week and I have one topic lurking in my mind: life's stages and your social network. To start, I have had precisely 1 relationship in my life that lasted 2.5 years (go me) and to no one's surprise here, sex was difficult. Three years later I have lived the single life sans sex, sans relationships, but I have very strong friendships. As I reach my later 20s, obviously life transitions drastically. Friends marry, have children, and buy a home (in no particular order). What frightens me is that these friendships slowly erode in the face of time poverty and loss of shared interests. Children are a delight, a refreshing reminder of the world's wonders, but I am confident that is not a mantel I shall ever carry. Of course I have learned life is full of mystery and surprise that could well quash any worries I have now. However, I cannot dismiss the voice in my head when my friends have schedules full of play dates, school functions, and the like.

 

Older asexuals--how have you managed the transition if you never participated in the traditional family pathway? Did you lose touch and reconnect later? Was it permanently lost? Thank you for all consideration.

[Digs_Dead_People]

My situation is a bit different is that I lose friends every time I move, usually by my own hand.  The current friends I have I see at work and we talk over Facebook.  Most of them have children and had them when I met them so the dynamics haven't changed for me.  I have lost two friends, but it's because their lives did grow busy and they were willing to not speak to me for months; I'm not content being that friend so I had to remove them for my own happiness.  Anyway, I have managed my late 20s like I have the rest of my life.  I made new friends after moving and we'll see if I keep them when I move again.

[Busrider]

I did of course loose touch with people a few stay somewhat connected but to put things simple: I work during the "family hours" of average people, so I'd be challenged to meet them. I made friends when they already had kids. I don't mind kids. 

Some friendships are based on shared interests (or struggles, like university). - Whenever you drop or mothball a hobby you'll most likely loose the majority of related friendships. I'm happy about and content with the new online culture. - So much hobby related stuff to dive into. I don't mind being quite a hermit right now I hope to change that after retirement.

[teatree]

To me, asexuality doesn’t matter in this issue; friendships and relationships ebb and flow no matter what. I am still in contact with some childhood friends, for example, while some other friends throughout my life stages (I am 58) have gone away. Circumstances just change! I did go the "traditional" route of marriage, kid, and house, but that doesn't matter--my friends are based on compatibility and shared interests. You DO have to work at keeping them, but that being said, relationships won't all last.

[birdybudge]

Yes, I've found that it's difficult to maintain friendships.  My best friend from school was late to start dating (around 20 or so), but she married the guy, they had two children, and now her life is so very different from mine that it's almost impossible to find common ground.  Our priorities aren't the same; her world revolves around her kids and the family unit.  These days, we tend to meet up once a year, around Christmas-time, for a catch-up.  

 

Being something of a hermit, I find that friendships are more easily created and nurtured online.  I've always been spectacularly useless/awkward/reluctant (delete as applicable) with the real-life alternative!

[Techie]

I guess at 55 I qualify as an older asexual   I did not learn that asexuality in human's was something and that there was sexual attraction as well as romantic attraction until four years ago.  However, since I was around 8 I always felt "different" and knew within my core being that I would never get married.  On a related note, my father was 16 years older than my mother and my mother always said the she knew since she was a child that she would marry an older man some day.  I often wonder if there is some kind of programming applied to us either through DNA or at the "spiritual" level that guides us in our formative years.

 

So, as I had this deep aversion to marriage from my earliest days, I never had the push to seek out a relationship in order to achieve the goal of marriage and kids.  In fact, the thought of having kids at all was not even on my mind until my youngest sister presented me with twin nieces at which point I did feel some mild stirrings.  Going through middle school and high school I did start to notice the pretty girls but as I now realize that was romantic attraction in action not sexual attraction.  I have truly never experienced what people describe as "lust".

 

For me there was never any transition.  As my user name here implies, I am a technically oriented person with a background in electrical engineering and computer science.  My jobs always required a lot of time and commitment so not being in a marriage or relationship gave me more time to focus on career.  The only complaint I have is that I never truly monetized my skills or overtime like I should have but I am still much better off financially than many people.  As I got older, my younger siblings had kids that I have been involved with.  A sister two years younger than me has an 11 year old daughter who I did the daycare thing for for the first five years of her life.  As a software developer, I had a lot of flexibility to work from home as well as odd hours so that I could look after her during the day and do work at night or during her down times.  Essentially she became a surrogate daughter to me and a Ancestry.com DNA test last year proved that we are closely related genetically (not that there was any doubt) 

 

So to summarize, I have had a myriad of colleagues, I have friends from church, work and childhood, neighbors, I am involved in volunteer organizations and I have my siblings and their families.  There are many ways to be involved with other people and not be in an intimate relationship.  I will grant that it is not the same.  Having a spouse or life partner does have the "theoretical" benefit of having someone there for you most of the time through the good and bad.  Over the last several years I have had the usual bouts of bad colds, a case of tendinitis and a nasty flu like illness in December 2015 that have had me bedridden for a few days at a time.  If I had a partner, I would have had someone to (hopefully) take care of me and run errands while I recuperated. Instead, I have to muster up whatever strength I can find and do my own drug store and doctor runs.  The flu like illness in 2015 was particularly acute and twice I had to drive (drugstore and then doctor) when I would have preferred to have someone drive me.  But I still prefer relying on myself over having to depend on someone else.  Perhaps one of my biggest fears about getting old is that someday I might be forced to depend on others for the basic things I do for myself now.  If anything, being ACE has forced me to be self reliant to a large extent and I prefer that over having to depend on others.

 

(gad, this started out being a short note and wound up a book - sorry)

[Aqua Blue]

IVe been thinking about this topic since I saw it yesterday.   HEre are my random thoughts.

 

i was married in my mid 20s.  Bad move I didn't realize at all at that time that I was asexual.  I feel like that was my contribution to the bad situation.  There was no love or kindness ever...having read now about narcissism I would say that was him.  It was bad and my whole focus was surviving.  I focused on work and friends.  No kids, I have some regrets abuout that, but in the end it is probably for the best they sure wouldn't have had a loving dad.. Early on I realized quite clearly that whatever my feelings I needed to be positive about others life choices like kids and so I enjoyed the kids of friends and family that were in my life.  But, I also gave up things like a job I loved to try to make something work that wouldn't work.  I will always wonder if I had been sexually interested would it have been different. Although I seldom said no, I never was eager.

 

the 30s were similar.  I look back and am amazed I made it.  It was so soul wrenching.  I also got a lot of pressure from my family of origin that I had to be the problem, I was always the odd kid.  What part of that was the asexual in me and what wasn't I still am not sure.  Every time I take the Briggs Meyer inventory I come up INFJ, so that may be part of it.

 

in my 40s I decided that I had enough abuse and divorced.  I never could understand why others jumped back into marriage when I didn't want to even date.  In my 50s I started reading about asexuality no realized that was me.  I continued to be friends to people, always the person to volunteer to help etc.  I also always knew I would be second rate to their real family so for the most part I have been an observer not a participant.  I have also learned to be alone.  I have been by myself for more holidays than I have been with someone.  

 

Im in my 60s now, retired, living alone for the past 20years.  My situation is different now.  Many of my friends and family members have lost their spouses, and of course their kids are long gone.  So, I am more like them, or rather they are more like me.  I have more people to do things with and a better support system than I ever had.

 

about a year ago I had some work done on my house and encountered a guy on three different occassions.  We really clicked and ended up talking for a couple of hours each time.  I don't think it was one sided, he very much kept the conversation going. I have carefully guarded pandora s box,  I never flirt, I don't go out of my way to meet men and when I do deal with them I put out the emotional guard dogs, but somehow he got past them.  I haven't heard from him since, but the box was opened and I can't get it stuffed back in.🙁Hopefully someday it will go away.  I actually really am surprised that I still want a committed companion. 

 

Now, knowing what I know if I had it to do over, I would be more open about my asexuality and look for someone who could handle it.  It's a different world now.

[Snao Cone]

I try to hold a variety of friends. It helps that I'm generally introverted, and I work in a fairly social atmosphere; I get to interact with people during the day, and I quite like unwinding alone at night. Some of my longer held friends have settled down to start families while some have moved elsewhere. Doing things with them is more of a special occasion. Some of my closer friendships are with people who already live far away, but we still keep in touch. And I have a couple of them who are in a similar boat: 25 - 40  years old, full time job, no committed partner, up for casual hangouts. I wouldn't mind one or two more of those, to add variety, but they are harder to find. There are definitely challenges to this, but because I live in a medium sized city I'm getting by with my basic social needs largely met.

[donttouchme]

I finally got around to reading these wonderful responses (my best work always came at the witching hour). Aqua Blue and Techie--thank you for your introspective posts. They really shed light on what the future could hold. However, like Aqua Blue said, it is a different world now. Alternative lifestyles are more mainstream though I believe the biggest game changer is simply the internet. This forum as well as other sites offer connection like no other time in history. I know this is a tiresome phrase uttered by countless talk heads but they are right. Like all relationships, the strongest ones contain a foundation of self-knowledge. That knowledge keeps you centered and also provides an opportunity to change. The danger we have to avoid is complacency in our boundaries. For the record, I too am an INFJ. 

 

I have always possessed a feeling that people will return to me, prompted by a faint memorable trigger as if I am some Facebook memory posted years ago in another age. Time will reveal if this is just a silly feeling or something more intuitive about myself. For now, I will enjoy my 20s though likely without a committed companion. The days grow closer when I have to face my family and friends with this side of me though part of me believes they already suspect it. I suppose I can always have unreasonably high standards or have just never met "the one" as stock excuses. Perhaps one morning I will find the courage to own this part of me but I make no demands on myself to explain it for now. Again, thank you all for the thoughtful and thought-provoking responses. Hope to talk to you again on some other chain.

[Aqua Blue]

Yes, the internet is a big contributor.  You can google things in th privacy of you home,  things I would have never felt comfortable talking about in trial life.  It also gives you connection to similar people.  I only have one friend in real life that we slightly touched on the subject of asexuality, once very briefly.  I appreciated that encounter, but this site has been invaluable in coming to terms with who I am.  

[cijay]

I never had a lot of friends but I know that the ones that fizzled and died did so after they had kids. I found (and, rightly so, I'm not complaining or blaming) they had a totally different lifestyle and bunch of friends. I was welcome to visit and such, it's not like I was 'shut out' but more like I didn't belong. There were no such things as "play dates" for my friends' kids but they always had to bring the kids along or leave the kids with dad and fret and hope that they were okay. (There were no such things as cell phones either.) If the kids were with them, there was no chance of an adult visit and of course they weren't free to come out at the drop of a hat, stay out after a certain hour if they said they'd be home and their friends all had kids. This is just what happened and it makes sense that there's this natural curve. Now there are scheduled "play dates" and cell phones and I don't know the etiquette anymore with single friends because I'm beyond the age of friends having children. Re-connecting hasn't been successful because by now my friends are becoming grandparents so the cycle is all over again. Others have divorced and are re-dating and they're at the "horny dog bum sniffing" stage where they have to phone Honey every 12 minutes to check what they're doing. We're just different people.  I don't accept friend requests on facebook. I'm not really interested in re-connecting because in a lot of peoples' eyes - I haven't moved on. I  haven't changed. I'm the lonely little spinster who never got married and they'd never admit they're wrong about that.

 

All of my old friends (I met one in 1970, one in 1974, one in 1977) that I'm still in touch with had no kids. Our lives are free of drama and when we get together, we don't have to answer to anyone, phone anyone, ask permission or 'check in' with anyone.

[darkgreen]

It is interesting. I am closing in on 40 so I have seen a lot of this. I am surrounded by families and the only single one in sight. Friends, yes, neighbors, more. For what I would call my true friends, yes, they marry, move, etc. and it is harder to see them. But, that is life. It does transition and that is ok. At least with social media, it is easier to stay connected along with traditional e-mail, phone, and even texting (I do not like texting). I would say I have lost touch with a lot of kids I grew up with in school, but we were never that close. Those I am still connected with were my true friends from the start. 

 

Sometimes it makes me feel "less grown up" but then I realize I am me and I am on a different path - which is fine by me. Live the life you want to live and not focus on what may be the stereotypical, heterosexual or homosexual adulthood of school, marriage, kids, soccer practice, all those things that may pop in your head if you played word association with adulthood. 

 

If you are looking for people to meet, there are meetup-type sites out there where you can find others to do things with. What about your immediate family, more distant relatives? The more I realized that I do not need to compare myself to what my high school classmates, as an example, are doing now, the more at peace I am with how things are for me. Maybe you have nieces or nephews that, in a way, you can treat like grandparents would their grandchildren?  Enjoy your life and live it up. It will be happier that way.

 

 

 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

Yes, everyone has paired up, and being the odd one out is a bit awkward. Couples I don't know very well seem defensive (as if I intend to steal anyone ), but , come to think of it, when I was a teen, my friends did the same. Every time there was a new partner, they disappeared , unless of course it ended and they came back again, but I always found that relationships became very exclusive and others didn't get near.

 

Maybe as time goes by and there are many more elderly single people, things might change again and friends will appear.