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if only I was a dragon

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if only I was a dragon

I've read on here that often people face discrimination or just find others off-put when they say they're not interesting in dating/sex/are asexual. I haven't exactly explicitly told people I'm ace (mostly because I'm not 100% sure yet, I'm one of those college-aged confused young adults), but when things like that come up with friends and I express my continuing lack of interest in any of it, I really don't get much of a reaction. Just a, "Oh, this is part of the conversation, that's cool, next person's opinion", basically.

 

Is it actually unusual to be around people that don't particularly care?

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Most people in my life don't really make a big deal about my orientation. People started asking a lot more when I transitioned, and I did have a few people kind of expect me to become sexual because I'm taking testosterone, but that wasn't terribly common. That said, I'm often surrounded by musicians and scholars, and sex/gender roles are a little less rigid in these kinds of social situations.

 

I think the negative experiences tend to stick out in people's memories, especially compared to neutral experiences, so that might be a factor too.

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13 minutes ago, if only I was a dragon said:

I've read on here that often people face discrimination or just find others off-put when they say they're not interesting in dating/sex/are asexual. I haven't exactly explicitly told people I'm ace (mostly because I'm not 100% sure yet, I'm one of those college-aged confused young adults), but when things like that come up with friends and I express my continuing lack of interest in any of it, I really don't get much of a reaction. Just a, "Oh, this is part of the conversation, that's cool, next person's opinion", basically.

 

Is it actually unusual to be around people that don't particularly care?

I think it depends on who you speak to.

 

I've not come out to many people (like 2)

I've had opposite reactions from both, one was cool (and was like yeah no issues didn't care), the other was dismissive that I could be asexual .

Both of them were younger than me, I feel no need to tell others tbh and I expect that I will get a lot more negative responses from people my age and older and people that just don't accept it or understand.

 

 

Unless I'm likely to start a relationship with someone, I really don't feel the need to share it with anyone

 

Although I am happy you friends seem to be accepting without questions for you

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if only I was a dragon
6 minutes ago, Mezzo Forte said:

I think the negative experiences tend to stick out in people's memories, especially compared to neutral experiences, so that might be a factor too.

That sounds very plausible.

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People can be funny like that. I mean, they get weird when you say you don't drink. Many can't wrap their heads around such concepts, which just goes to show how far drink and sex is pushed down our throats from a young age. And across generations.

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30 minutes ago, if only I was a dragon said:

I've read on here that often people face discrimination or just find others off-put when they say they're not interesting in dating/sex/are asexual. I haven't exactly explicitly told people I'm ace (mostly because I'm not 100% sure yet, I'm one of those college-aged confused young adults), but when things like that come up with friends and I express my continuing lack of interest in any of it, I really don't get much of a reaction. Just a, "Oh, this is part of the conversation, that's cool, next person's opinion", basically.

 

Is it actually unusual to be around people that don't particularly care?

This is the same reaction I get when I bother to mention it, either they don't care at all or they assume I am joking and move on to other conversations.

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Some people pretend to not care or be cool with only to talk about it once you're gone. 

 

This was the beginning of the end of one of my friendships; when a mutual friend came out and hours later I had to hear an ignorant rant about how unnatural it was. WTF.

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It might be more of a thing the older you get.

 

By the end of college a lot of people have paired off, so your lack of doing so will be emphasized by exclusion.

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if only I was a dragon
4 hours ago, borkfork said:

Some people pretend to not care or be cool with only to talk about it once you're gone. 

 

This was the beginning of the end of one of my friendships; when a mutual friend came out and hours later I had to hear an ignorant rant about how unnatural it was. WTF.

Well... that sucks. I'm not very skilled at expressing empathy in a way that doesn't come across as insincere or patronizing, but seriously, that sucks.

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if only I was a dragon
5 hours ago, umbasa said:

People can be funny like that. I mean, they get weird when you say you don't drink.

Off-topic but ohmygoodness I know and it's so annoying! For Pete's sake, it's not "cute" or "adorable" that I don't drink, like I'm some small child that's done something amusing. It is my personal choice for many reasons and am not patronizing to you (general you, not you you o'course) about your life choices, so please respect mine. Grrrrr.

(I'm not irritated about this or anything.) 

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if only I was a dragon
7 hours ago, chandrakirti said:

I find 'cute' and 'adorable' are very patronising words and I usually challenge the people who use these.

 Until recently it hasn't been enough of a problem for me to realize it's a problem, if that makes sense. I don't know, though - I'm willing to put up with a few behaviors I don't like from people I do like, sometimes it's not worth it to challenge people on the small things... But I'm rapidly approaching the point where it is worth it, in this case.

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I never got much of a reaction. It's just what people would expect of someone like me. It simply fits into the picture.

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I've not had the "cute" or "adorable"  I think I just radiate "avoid":angry:

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I don't think it's necessarily unusual, I think it just depends on who you speak to. I've mostly had neutrally positive reactions so far. 

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awkward_pterodactyl

It really depends on who you're with and what area you're in. Our generation is generally more accepting of that kind of thing, so they might just be cool with it. If you're in a liberal versus conservative area, it also might not be as big of a deal. On the other hand maybe your friends are just supportive of you working things out, or they don't mix friends and relationships so they don't care who you're into. I guess it just depends on their views and priorities. 

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The people that I'm around don't particularly care either.  It might be partly an age thing or a clique thing.

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Again most of my friends are from uni, so they're usually pretty okay with the idea; but there were a lot of questions. The time when people are the most ignorant I've found is when they really don't want to believe it, either because they're interested in you sexually or for some other reason really want you to be in a relationship.

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Strange But Not a Stranger

Only my parents and sibling know, and one online friend knows. I have no intention to tell anyone else, unless it's sort of necessary (no idea when that could be, but you never know). I want to be seen as a human being, not as a rarity. I know from experiences in the past how people react to you when you're a little bit different (sexually or otherwise) and most of the time it's not exactly fun. I guess you could say I got a little bit fed up with explaining myself to people over the years. And this was before I was sure about my orientation.

I've never experienced that people don't care and just move on to the next subject or something. I think I would have preferred that, instead of all the explaning and being seen as a weirdo. ^_^

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I'm pretty open about it, especially at work, where the atmosphere is pretty causal and one person in particular likes to talk about sex and what everyone is into and what porn you watch, etc. I've told most of them that I'm ace, and explained it, but pretty sure that at least the older folks don't understand or forget, but one time I completely stopped a conversation about porn by saying I've never watched any. At all.

But on the whole, I've had the "huh, that's interesting" or "oh, I've never met someone like that" responses. That, or, as I said, they tend to forget and ask me if I'm seeing anyone or got a boyfriend yet, or am interested. And I have to say, again, that I'm not interested in that sort of thing.

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I’ve never really said anything to anyone, and no one’s ever asked. I’m extremely unattractive, so people don’t want to think of me as having a sexual orientation anyway. I’m just sort of default coded as ‘nonsexual’.

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In my case it depends...sort of. If I’m with friends that know me well or my brother, it’s a given that I’m not a romantic or sexual person. One of my main characteristics in my HS friend group was I didn’t care about getting a girlfriend (or boyfriend/etc. for that matter). That was my established reputation and it was rarely questioned. However, it takes a while to establish that, and it had the side effect of ostracizing me from others cause they saw me as unrelatable and cold/cynical/whatever. And that’s WITHOUT revealing I’m asexual. Around my dad who’s somewhat religious, I pretend I’m straight but absurdly picky and cynical cause I know he’ll take a bit of issue with it (he won’t rage out but he’ll be skeptical and stuff 😐). So while I can be myself to an extent, I’m not really confident in being explicitly out to everyone.

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I'm still in school, so I dont get it as much as I might when I leave.

When talking to adults about my 'ace friend' (referring to myself in third person without giving name) I've had mixed reactions mainly 'oh that's normal to feel like that at your age' or 'you're still so young' (almost 18) or 'I didn't feel like chasing boys at your age either' - I'm in my last year at school, not super looking foward to getting to deal with my peers negating my orientation, as well as older people.

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Janus the Fox

I'm surrounded in people that don't seem to care, that or I really don't see the unspoken sexual reality at all.

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Most people don't seem to care. I haven't opened up to a lot of people close to me though.

I get the feeling one of my friends sees my asexuality as more of a phase in stark reaction to this sexual society. However, I think she's starting to see how real the ace-ness is. *thinks back to the time when I didn't pay too much attention to the picture of shirtless Kylo Ren that she showed me*

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All my experiences have been shit if I brought it up. They either comment on how weird that is or they start trying to poke holes in my statement, find a flaw somewhere that must prove that what I stated was wrong. I've never met a single person that just said "Okay, neat." and moved on. So I stopped bothering.

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if only I was a dragon
On 2/2/2018 at 7:11 AM, TheNerdyOne said:

Most people don't seem to care. I haven't opened up to a lot of people close to me though.

I get the feeling one of my friends sees my asexuality as more of a phase in stark reaction to this sexual society. However, I think she's starting to see how real the ace-ness is. *thinks back to the time when I didn't pay too much attention to the picture of shirtless Kylo Ren that she showed me*

I can recognize attractiveness in a general sense, but shirtless Kylo just seemed kind of gross. When the Kylo-Ren-shirtless thing came up with friends... well, apparently even a lot of sexual people didn't find that shot particularly attractive (pleasant surprise there). Reportedly, the meme is now "Swolo Ren," or something. 

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On 2/3/2018 at 10:59 PM, if only I was a dragon said:

I can recognize attractiveness in a general sense, but shirtless Kylo just seemed kind of gross. When the Kylo-Ren-shirtless thing came up with friends... well, apparently even a lot of sexual people didn't find that shot particularly attractive (pleasant surprise there). Reportedly, the meme is now "Swolo Ren," or something. 

In one of my classes, somebody drew a shirtless kylo ren on the board. I have no idea how people think he's attractive... he's very rectangular in body width lol.

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Some of my choir friends and I were visiting a really amazing candy shop after a performance and we were talking about sexualities. They questioned me and I told them I never felt sexually about anyone and that it's asexual and surprisingly, all 4 of us knew it was a thing! 

Only half the choir kids are straight anyways so we're all accepting of LGBT+ people

 

But most of the time, it's just an "oh neat!" Thing and not a big deal

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