Changing perspective

[Claire1983]

Does anyone else who realize they were ace later in life have trouble shifting their perspective on things. One still kind of In the questioning phase but thinking I was straight for 34 years I’m used to looking at things a certain way. After the initial excitement over discovering asexuality wore off, most of the time it seems like nothing’s changed which makes me wonder if I’m wrong about this? Can any other formerly straight people relate or am I just over thinking this?

[patronusmagic]

Im just 22 but I get that feeling too. I keep wondering if im making a mountain out of a mole hill when I think that Im different from others, same thing when I call myself ace. I know (or atleast think I know) that Im ace, but wraping my head around the "not straight" consept is a lot harder. I keep thinking in termes of "we straight people" and stuff like that. Maybe some day this will be the new normal, but Im not quite there yet. 

[Claire1983]

2 minutes ago, patronusmagic said:

Im just 22 but I get that feeling too. I keep wondering if im making a mountain out of a mole hill when I think that Im different from others, same thing when I call myself ace. I know (or atleast think I know) that Im ace, but wraping my head around the "not straight" consept is a lot harder. I keep thinking in termes of "we straight people" and stuff like that. Maybe some day this will be the new normal, but Im not quite there yet. 

Well put! I was having trouble finding the words! Glad to know I’m not alone in this.

[patronusmagic]

Another thing I do is forget that Im not straight. Sort of, like I´ll walk into a room full of say100 people, and my brain will tell me stupid trivia like: statistically at least one person in here should be ace.  A second later the penny will drop and I´ll realise that there is an ace in the room, and it´s...ME.  Any room Im in has an ace in it.

[Miss Anne Thrope]

I thought I was straight until I came across something online that told me sexual attraction and romantic attraction are two separate things. At that point, I realized:

1. All of the times I had liked men, it was purely romantic attraction

2. Those feelings I had had towards some women that I decided were platonic feelings at the time (because I knew I wasn't sexually attracted to women) were also romantic attraction

This lead to a long period of questioning myself. Even after I decided that I was a biromantic ace, I would find myself thinking "Am I sure I'm really ace?" and "am I really attracted to girls?" I would then think back at some of the many signs of asexuality that were present in my life long before I knew what asexuality was, and would go "okay, yeah, I'm ace." That just gradually happened less and less, and now I no longer question it. It just takes a little time.

Oh, and I stopped questioning my ability to love women when I ended up falling for one harder than I had ever fallen for a man, haha.

[Claire1983]

27 minutes ago, patronusmagic said:

Another thing I do is forget that Im not straight. Sort of, like I´ll walk into a room full of say100 people, and my brain will tell me stupid trivia like: statistically at least one person in here should be ace.  A second later the penny will drop and I´ll realise that there is an ace in the room, and it´s...ME.  Any room Im in has an ace in it.

Lol!  Yeah, I'm so used participating in discussions on straight topics, like "ugh, online dating is the worst!" it belatedly hits me that I might not be the best example.

[Skycaptain]

I discovered asexulity at the age of 42, having previously thought that I was cisgender heterosexual and had just never met the right person, hence an intact v-card, but Asexuality answered a lot of unanswered questions. 

Yes it did change perspectives, now I realised why I was "scared of single females", simply because I feared that they would want something I don't. Now I understand that there are others who also don't want that, so it's expanded my circle of friends and acquaintances 

[AndrewT]

4 hours ago, Claire1983 said:

Does anyone else who realize they were ace later in life have trouble shifting their perspective on things. One still kind of In the questioning phase but thinking I was straight for 34 years I’m used to looking at things a certain way. After the initial excitement over discovering asexuality wore off, most of the time it seems like nothing’s changed which makes me wonder if I’m wrong about this? Can any other formerly straight people relate or am I just over thinking this?

I never really gave a lot of thought to what Straight actually meant.

 

I knew I was not gay as I was not attracted to men. Until very recently I didn't really understand the difference between romantic and sexual attraction, so the fact I was romantically attracted to women life just went on.

 

I had no idea what asexual was until my late 20's, from then on till about 3 years or so ago I was taking so many drugs for pain relief I didn't really give the lack of sexual attraction a great deal of thought.

 

I'm now confident I'm asexual, but day to day life has not changed (I don't scream that I'm asexual from the rooftops)

If anything I'm more at peace knowing that I'm asexual.

 

there is so much more I could write, but probably for another day

[LouiseHope]

It's like the whole world has changed, and nothing has changed. I mean in a literal sense nothing about my life is different than two weeks ago when I found out about the label asexuality, and yet everything has changed. I'm suddenly more confident in myself and my desires/choices. The fantasy future I sometimes dreamed of with a best friend as a housemate in my older years now seems like a totally reasonable concept, not merely a silly fantasy. I feel freed from so many of the gender expectations that I didn't even realize I was still sort of measuring myself against.

 

And yet I agree that in some ways it is totally irrelevant to my life. I'm just as single and not looking for a relationship as I was last month! I think this is an issue peculiar to aro aces. I assume when someone realizes they are homosexual, this impacts everything in their lives, in particular, all their connections and relationships. By our very nature, many of us are living our lives the way we want to, we just didn't realize quite what was driving us to avoid society norms. So the discovery of the label is more an affirmation of an internal knowledge and an acknowledgment that our feelings are legitimate and shared by others. This is utterly amazing, but in every day life has little impact on going to work, getting the chores done and catching up on our favourite shows. 

 

Because sexuality plays so little part in our daily thinking, learning that we are different that way doesn't impact us in the same way as suddenly realizing that our every sexual thought (a large part of our daily thought) doesn't match up to the heterosexual and societally dominate norm. While, from what I've seen on Aven, many of us think we are broken, I don't think many of us have thought we are deviant or perverted which is a huge barrier for people who come to acknowledge that their sexual desires don't align with what everyone around them tells them is ideal. Sexual identity is such a fundamental driving force in sexual people that to be out of sink with your social community is a major difficulty.

 

Our problem is one of silence. We simply don't exist in public consciousness. Therefore, our realization of our internal state has little impact on how we are viewed by the world because they either don't believe it or don't care. There have been a lot of spinsters aunts and bachelor uncles over the centuries who have passed silently through life. No-one lynches us for being different because they simply assume we are one of them, because of course, everyone is!

 

I think the realization of asexuality is simply a recognition of a known internal truth. Most of us have always realized we didn't seem to quite match the world around us; getting the label is just about recognizing and acknowledging that truth. I think for those us who were happily living an aro ace life before the label, its impact is not as mind-altering as for others who have been struggling to fit in and have to reevaluate all their past choices. I personally found the realization that I might be more of a linguist vs a complete science nerd more of a disturbing self-realization than being an asexual, since my science nerdiness is a more integral part of my self-identity than sexual orientation.

[Claire1983]

12 minutes ago, LouiseHope said:

I think for those us who were happily living an aro ace life before the label, its impact is not as mind-altering as for others who have been struggling to fit in and have to reevaluate all their past choices. 

I fall into the latter category.  I'm used to being weird and different so that part isn't scary for me, it's more that my certainty about  it keeps wavering.  I attributed my lack of relationship success to anxiety and low self esteem.  The idea of being ace is actually a huge relief because it means that I'm not as broken as I thought.  But that makes me wonder if I'm evaluating my past experiences correctly.

[Spotastic]

For me it was more of an Ah-ha! moment. Everything just made sense. My wife and I had to take some time to figure out exactly what it meant for me and our relationship, but after that all got worked out things have been good. Personally, there's no change in the way I see things, but I realize now that I'm a bit more 'bendy' than I thought I was.

[violet_rose]

This  kind of articulates the way I have been feeling . I too had the initial excitement stage  and sense of relief when I figured out I was asexual and that there wasn't something "wrong with me" as I had been told in the past .  On reflection I think I was naive about how much of a positive impact it would have in my life. Embarrassingly I think I thought I was embarking on this voyage of self-discovery. I now see how overly idealistic I was being. 3 years on I feel as disconnected as ever. I didn't gain the confidence and assertiveness I thought I would because I now had a label. Most people in my life assume I'm straight. The times I have tried to explain my asexuality haven't gone so well . No one has been mean but I  have had some pretty patronising and slightly dismissive responses  and I haven't really had the will to challenge them , which makes me feel like a bit of a fraud. I don't really feel anymore secure in my sense of self.  

[AndrewT]

32 minutes ago, violet_rose said:

This  kind of articulates the way I have been feeling . I too had the initial excitement stage  and sense of relief when I figured out I was asexual and that there wasn't something "wrong with me" as I had been told in the past .  On reflection I think I was naive about how much of a positive impact it would have in my life. Embarrassingly I think I thought I was embarking on this voyage of self-discovery. I now see how overly idealistic I was being. 3 years on I feel as disconnected as ever. I didn't gain the confidence and assertiveness I thought I would because I now had a label. Most people in my life assume I'm straight. The times I have tried to explain my asexuality haven't gone so well . No one has been mean but I  have had some pretty patronising and slightly dismissive responses  and I haven't really had the will to challenge them , which makes me feel like a bit of a fraud. I don't really feel anymore secure in my sense of self.  

I understand the disconnected feeling, granted I only accepted my asexuality a few months ago, but I'd say on a whole life has returned to as it was

[violet_rose]

1 hour ago, Andrew001 said:

I understand the disconnected feeling, granted I only accepted my asexuality a few months ago, but I'd say on a whole life has returned to as it was

I think coming to terms with asexuality brings about  conflicting emotions, well at least it has for me. I can feel relieved that I'm not the only person feeling this way but at the same time it also reinforces how isolating the experience can be. 

[DJS05]

Nothing much really changed for me. What has changed? I have a term to describe me, and I'm making friends too. What hasn't changed? The stars still shine at night, the fish are still biting, my dog still loves me unconditionally, and beer still makes me piss more.

[Guest]

On 23-3-2018 at 2:01 AM, LouiseHope said:

I think the realization of asexuality is simply a recognition of a known internal truth. Most of us have always realized we didn't seem to quite match the world around us; getting the label is just about recognizing and acknowledging that truth.

Exactly how I experienced it. Discovering my ace-ness made me feel validated, and while it took a number of years I now proudly steer away from societal norms.

[Harkness144]

I’m 34 and only just, in the last few months, starting thinking that I could be asexual. I’ve always, from a very young age, felt like I was different to all those around me and when I read an article about asexuality I realised that it sounded a lot like me.

 

I think the hardest thing for me is accepting that I don’t want a relationship - I want to want it, but it just isn’t who I am. I’ve also questioned if I’m attractive to women, but again I’m just not sure at the moment.

 

I think it’s almost made me a bit more lonely in a way, because I’ve started to realise that I may never have the sort of life that everyone else seems to have - marriage, children etc. 

 

I feel like the perfect relationship for me would be more of a friendship, but not many people are going to want that! 

[lilgroundhog]

I'm still sorting so many things out.  One big thing is realizing what in I want is a qpr as far as a "relationship" but having no idea what that really looks like.  Also I've started getting involved in the LGBT+ group at worm and starting to sort through some of my feelings towards the group as a whole (I'm a complicated mess on the whole).