What did you call yourself before discovering Asexuality?

[bound dust]

I called myself a non-sexual. But I was to shy to say that to anyone, so when trying to explain it I just said I wasn't attracted to anyone male or female.

[Norellia]

42 minutes ago, Jean_rose said:

For me i had absolutely no clue, I just thought there was something wrong with me, so I’d say I was straight, or sometimes I’d say “I’m an anti social alien who does not have any time for relationships”. This resulted in people assuming I that I’m gay, to this day I’m still confused as to how they came to that conclusion. 

Ya most of my family thought I was a lesbian just because I never showed any interest in dating or talked about crushes. I think that the reason that people come to this conclusion is that they don't know that lack of attraction is an option (I didn't). So because I never showed interest in a heterosexual relationship that must mean I am a homosexual. So if i deny that I am a homosexual or bisexual than I am just repressing it or in denial, that kind of logic.

[Karret]

When people asked "Are you gay, straight or bi" my most common answers were "Or" "None of the Above" and "Opposite of Bi" That's the closest I had for names to call myself. XD or/none of the above, with opposite of bi as the definition.

 

Oddly enough, it took me a few years after I accepted the term "asexual" for myself to realize that I was rejecting heterosexuality since forever.

[Orianaro]

I always kind of assumed I was straight. But I'm also aromantic, so I realized I felt about as intensely for one gender as any other, so I tentatively thought I might be pan for a bit. I decided I was celibate a long time ago, too. And then I just decided I was straight again because bi or pan didn't really fit because in my mind I would rather a straight relationship (I think mostly because since I wasn't romantically interested in people of my gender, it seemed kind of stupid to pretend that's what I was feeling and get hate for it, whereas I could go along with a hetero relationship and it wouldn't be a hassle) so I decided I was just straight again but impervious to everything and disinterested. Seriously, I decided I was just impervious to flirting. I think most people thought of themselves as broken, but I always thought I was kind of above those feelings and that they were an embarrassment. Not sure where exactly I pulled that out of, but I'm guessing it has something to do with being ace and aro, so not only did sexual relationships not interest me, all relationships didn't interest me so I wasn't feeling broken about only wanting "half" a relationship or something. It was also partly a (continued) complete incomprehension of romantic and sexual feelings. They still seem extremely silly to me. (I kid you not, the first person who ever confessed to me I asked them "why?" and when they said I was pretty and smart I pretty much just ignored their feelings because I legit didn't think they were real. Since obviously that's not enough to like someone for. Duh.)

[Guest]

A year and a half ago I thought I was straight and a late bloomer. Now I'm not even heteroromantic.

[will123]

On 4/11/2018 at 12:23 AM, daveb said:

Heterosexual (never questioned that I might be gay, since I am romantically and aesthetically attracted to women). Other than, I just thought I was shy, awkward, inexperienced, unlucky, and socially inept.

 

Oh, yeah, also, picky and looking for the right person.

Pretty much what I went thru too.

 

I always thought I was straight. Being gay wasn't an option since I had no interest in other guys sexually or romantically.

 

I'll add 'with female friends' to the bold.

[will123]

On 4/11/2018 at 2:12 AM, smittyw said:

It's funny to think how little I really understood how I felt, because I used to assume I was straight but with such a disconnected feeling to the whole idea. I wanted to be a mom but never thought about dating or getting married. Then I thought harder about it and considered if I might be bi or lesbian, because I thought girls were pretty. 

 

Mostly I assumed it would take a long time for me to "find someone", as they say, but I wasn't ever interested, so I didn't bother looking; I called myself a "crazy cat lady in training".

 

Glad I know the right term to use now, because being a cat lady has nothing to do with asexuality anyway. I plan on being both!!

I can relate to that a lot!

[will123]

On 4/12/2018 at 1:09 PM, Galactic Turtle said:

- Difficult to impress.

- Straight but bad at it.

- Generally uninterested. 

- Late bloomer.

- Person with standards.

- Might consider with parental approval. 

 

On 4/12/2018 at 3:04 PM, CosmicTheAceOfSpace said:

A Heterosexual that was bad at being Heterosexual, then picky, then asexual, then aromantic asexual, then hetero-romantic asexual, and then finally bi-romantic asexual. Though even I'm not quite sure if I am actually bi-romantic but I don't want to limit myself (if that makes sense), my perfect man or woman or just person in general could be out there waiting for me right now! (I will welcome them with lots of hugs!)  (it's just been a complete roller-coaster, which may or may not be finished, we'll see what happens)  

 

On 4/12/2018 at 3:13 PM, Homer said:

This is great

X2

 

On the bolds, I never thought of it that way, but that pretty much nails my 'pre-asexual' life.

[Lirpaderp]

Until 10th grade, on the outside I never said I'm anything other than confused. In 6th grade I learned what a lesbian is. In 7th grade I first thought to myself I'm not straight, I then got scared and stuffed my feelings away. In 10th grade my friends asked me who I like and I shrugged. I heard that some people never feel sexual attraction and I ignored it. A month later I met someone who's asexual and they used that term and it clicked. But then I was in denial for 2 years before accepting that I'm asexual. But there are some almost but still not quite romantic feelings towards four people total that make me question being aromantic too.

[verymelancholic]

I actually thought I was straight back then, but also a bit confused. Eventually I came to find out that I was asexual because back then I didn’t understand how attraction worked and now that I know that I actually do not feel it and only conditioned myself to “feel” the attraction because of what people tell me, and after researching about asexuality, that was the time I started to consider myself ace.

[Guest]

I had always thought that I was straight, but just a late bloomer. I never really felt like there was something wrong with me, at least not until I got older. I chalked it up to my being shy and that I'd yet to meet the right person. As I got older, my lack of a significant other grew increasingly scrutinized. I would just reply that I haven't met anyone who caught my interest, and leave it at that. in my mind, I liked the idea of sex/romance, but it honestly was never a significant thing in my everyday life. Now that I'm aware of asexuality, so many things have been explained. I never realized it until recently, but the idea of someone finding me sexually attractive is.... weird at best. 

[squaggly]

Before I learned about asexuality, I thought I was just straight. I also thought that demisexual people just thought that the rest of the world is just filled with rapists. Then I realized I wasn't comparing them to straight people, but to ace people.

[CatsClubsNCake]

On 4/10/2018 at 11:15 PM, Norellia said:

So I was watching a asexuality documentary the other day and one person said before discovering the word asexuality they called themselves a natural born celibate. So just for fun was their any terms that you called yourself to describe being an asexual before discovering it? Or maybe if you just want to list what you identified as before realizing your orientation it would be cool to see people's journeys before reaching asexuality. 

 

(should have added this in before making the post...)

For me I questioned if I was a lesbian or bisexual but ruled that out due to never having attraction to women and cause I thought my aesthetic attraction for them might have been more.  After that I knew something was off but figured I had to be straight if I wasn't lesbian or bi, so I thought I was just a messed up straight person. Finally discovered asexuality and it cleared up so much confusion.

Focused on my studies, Christian, too young to experience sexual attraction

That's funny, I never really thought about it 

[will123]

I can't get over how so many of you describe yourselves and what you went thru so similarly to what I felt, almost to a T. What was so confounding about how I felt about myself before was, how I could easily find a female attractive (aesthetic attraction, which I had no idea of) as most guys would, but didn't really think of the person in a sexual way? It was always in the back of my mind that scenario, "I 'like' girls, but don't think about sex". Then what the heck am I?

[InariYana]

56 minutes ago, will123 said:

What was so confounding about how I felt about myself before was, how I could easily find a female attractive (aesthetic attraction, which I had no idea of) as most guys would, but didn't really think of the person in a sexual way? It was always in the back of my mind that scenario, "I 'like' girls, but don't think about sex". Then what the heck am I?

I remember that decades ago I felt a strong type of attraction, towards both men and women, some kind of obsessive fascination with the way they move, talk, smile, the way they look at me... I could not get them out of my head, but those were never sexual thoughts! It was aesthetic/sensual attraction I think, with a little romantic overtone.  

 

I've never had that curious phase when older kids get interested in how other people look naked (apart from checking out a few books and then getting bored with them). I've never been really curious about how sex feels like or excited about the idea of how it would feel the first time (for some time it was THE main topic for all of my sexual girl friends, but not me!).

Sex just kind of happened while dating sexual people, but it wasn't anything special or worth pursuing in any way. Sex for me was "that's what people do in relationships, oh well, I don't mind... but I hate when they pester me for it. I really can't pretend I want it as much as they do..." I also had a phase of being a bit sex-repulsed and I felt like sex actually ruined some deeper connections between people, as the sexual dynamic was getting too much focus. A little later I felt sexual attraction a few times but more like something I didn't want to act on, something unwelcome and annoying. I actually ended up sleeping with one of those people (just a casual thing) and it was all gone fast, attraction vanished, despite actually physically satisfying sex... and my partner was gorgeous as well. That's not how it should work, I thought, surely people want it MORE afterwards?

 

At first I remember considering myself mostly straight. Then I thought I may be bisexual or heteroflexible, but hmm... not interested in actual sex and that confused me. Later I thought I just had a really low sex drive and somehow naturally my body was not interested in sex. Then I thought maybe it was genetic, or maybe many more women felt like that and that maybe it was natural for females to be rather disinterested. Later on I discovered I was panromantic and that gender did not play any role in romantic attraction for me, but the sexuality part was still a mystery. At some point I thought I may be demisexual, but it didn't feel quite right, so I found gray-ace label in the end. For now, it fits perfectly              

[Janus the Fox]

Didn't really call myself anything until I become more aware, sort of along the lines of Bisexual, Asexual, Aromantic the Bi-romantic Asexual, along with the addition of fetishist.  best of all, it may not be totally accurate with the romantic bit either still

[Norellia]

Wow I come back from a week long hiatus and this thread has picked up again lol. 

5 hours ago, will123 said:

I can't get over how so many of you describe yourselves and what you went thru so similarly to what I felt, almost to a T. What was so confounding about how I felt about myself before was, how I could easily find a female attractive (aesthetic attraction, which I had no idea of) as most guys would, but didn't really think of the person in a sexual way? It was always in the back of my mind that scenario, "I 'like' girls, but don't think about sex". Then what the heck am I?

When I made this thread I was hoping that it would just have some interesting  or funny responses. I think it is really nice though how similar everyone's experiences is though when it came to trying to identify themselves. The aesthetic attraction gets a lot of people though, I had that issue too. I remember that I found this one background dancer chick from the high school musicals movies aesthetically attractive when I was in middle school and for a short time I was just like "omg I am a lesbian".  It is really supportive though to see all the similarities and it is a great relief and joy to read this thread.

[SithLord]

I was jumping between bi and straight.  Because I didn't see men differently from women in that way, but my experimentation with girls was weirding me out and I didn't have any guys to experiment with (also because the default was straight for me back then  )

[Lanti SF]

I ID'ed as heterosexual at the time. Didn't come out before learning about asexuality. 

[Guest]

21 hours ago, will123 said:

What was so confounding about how I felt about myself before was, how I could easily find a female attractive (aesthetic attraction, which I had no idea of) as most guys would, but didn't really think of the person in a sexual way?

Agreed! I find women aesthetically attractive almost daily, but that's it. Nothing more. A few times, out of sheer curiosity, I've tried to use my imagination, and 99 times out of 100 it felt weird, and the one time seemed... meh.

[I'm Ace I guess]

For a long time I thought I was just straight, and didn't realize that my version of "liking" someone was very different from other people's. I thought I was just normal until I liked someone platonically and mistook it for being sexually attracted to them. When they tried to start a relationship I realized how wrong I had been, and the idea of them touching me made me so uncomfortable I felt like throwing up. Needless to say that relationship ended really fast with me feeling like I had been broken and violated and them feeling like I was being unfairly sensitive. Then I just felt like I was just different from everyone else and possibly broken until I came across asexuality and everything started to make sense.

[bonny]

I assumed I was heterosexual as I was occasionally sensually attracted to males and never to females, but I knew my thoughts and feelings about sex and romance were different from what was conventional. I knew that friendship was much more important to me, and I made up a word, amoutié, to describe a feeling stronger than most people's idea of friendship, but not romantic (I would now think of this as queerplatonic attraction). After I experienced sex in my early 20s, I also thought I must be rubbish at it. 

 

[the_alternative]

Like most, I thought I was straight. I did think the term wasn't quite fitting, but I thought that I was just too young to like people that way. I was indeed too young to even like somebody platonic or aesthetically. But I got super confused when I started to have a huge crush person more than I did to others my whole life and began to wonder: Why do I like everything about this person and would love to be next to him 24/7, but in the same time can't imagine kissing him or going further than that? One day I saw a video which explained many sexual orientations in like, 5 secs (it went: some people are sexually attracted to men, some people are attracted to women, some people like all genders, while others are attracted to none). I still remember me watching the video on and on and reading the term 'asexuality'. 

[CirothUngol]

I openly identified as "asexual" back in the '90s, but meant in a more literal, biological sense (eg. I only have sex with myself), and only to those who asked... which was mostly gay guys at the club who knew that I and the girl who clung to me while trolling for other guys weren't having sex. I guess I always assumed my orientation was hetero. Women are sweet, pleasant to touch, and comprise most of my closest friends, but for whatever reason I had always considered me-sex a non-thing.

[Shanmimi]

Questioning.... Or maybe straight though I'm not interested in romance/sexual interactions at least.

[SylviaDragon]

 there was plenty of "just not interested/ focus on of other stuff right now/ i'll just be a crazy cat lady" excuses but the one that kept popping up for me was describing myself as "highly platonic." Like i would tell people "I would be a highly platonic girlfriend." 

[Larkaloke]

Until I was eighteen I either never thought about it at all or thought "eh, I'm just still too young for that stuff". Then for a while I assumed that my equal (lack) of attraction to anyone implied I was probably bisexual, but again, I mostly didn't think about it. I simply assumed that the way I felt was completely ordinary, because I'm very bad at reading people and have a bad habit of assuming that every way I feel is the norm. It was only once I finally realised that, no, other people actually are interested in all this sex and romance stuff and they're not just making it up for unknown reasons that I realised there was anything unusual about me in that way.

 

[EngineeRaven]

Antisocial.

[Muir Caileag]

I remember not showing the level of interest in guys as my peers were, so I just assumed I was somewhere on the gay-bi area, but then I noticed I didn't particularly have any interest in anybody, so then I thought I was maybe demisexual (This should've been the point I got the hint. It was not) but I didn't want anything more than the friendship I'd make with someone I'd meet. So then I thought I'd just go on a bunch of dates with guys, but even then it just didn't work. (Really should've been the point I got the hint. It was not). So theeeen I was like "Oh let's just try the do" but that was a solid nope, so eveeeeeentually I came around to this! 

[Madao]

I don't think I called myself anything before I discovered I was Ace. When I was small, I did imagine myself having a family and stuff. However, I think I was so immersed in studying and reading, that I never paid any attention. I never had any real crushes, only celebrity and book crushes. I thought I was same as others- straight, but didn't really know about that term much. I appreciated looks, but I think it was only aesthetic attraction. 

I came to know about asexuality few months ago, and then here I am.