What did you call yourself before discovering Asexuality?

[south paw]

a celibate pansexual with a nonexistent sex drive. . . that's what i thought i was.

[darvyn]

17 hours ago, Norellia said:

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.

This is exactly what happened to me! Oh my goodness I am so relieved I wasn't the only one to deny it in such a way. Though I held onto the bi label a bit longer than I should have haha.

Thank you for this thread!! 

[Norellia]

Loving these responses . While I never officially called myself a lesbian or bisexual it was something I still questioned because I didn't know what else I could be. I also thought I might have been picky, just had not met the right person, or I was just broken. It is just comforting to see similar journeys. 

[Kyachi]

I identified as straight, but the interesting thing was that whenever I described someone I was crushing on I said they were attractive. Not hot, not sexy, none of the words you’d associate with sexual attraction. Friends described me as “not interested in sex”.  

[Bronztrooper]

31 minutes ago, Kyachi said:

I identified as straight, but the interesting thing was that whenever I described someone I was crushing on I said they were attractive. Not hot, not sexy, none of the words you’d associate with sexual attraction. Friends described me as “not interested in sex”.  

Whenever I looked at someone I considered 'attractive' (primarily in an aesthetic sense, looking back), I just said that they looked nice.  'Attractive' seemed to be too strong a word for it at the time, and still does (at least, to me).

[andreas1033]

Androgynous.

 

I do not relate to males or females, and had no sex drive, and i just assumed i was too in the middle of the two extremes to be like others.

 

What i thought about myself, was what we know an asexual is. So i never knew the word asexual before, but i just used the word androgynous, as i never wanted sex, or fancied people, or related to being male, or female for that matter.

[Skycaptain]

Following on from my earlier post, what I would now describe myself as is "a cowardly liar who tried too hard to conform to the life path that they thought family and society expected, without saying that this wasn't them, and ultimately realising that everyone involved is more than happy with me being Ace" 

Sorry for the rant but *is brassed off that I wasted 25 years being someone I wasn't because I was too freaking cowardly to talk to me family *

[Raire]

What did I call myself? 

 

Weird. 

Broken. 

Freaky. 

Alien. 

Un-natural. 

 

Words along those lines. 

[Homer]

Same as now: Not interested.

[Semisweet]

Straight but picky, independent-minded, and both conflicted and clueless about sex and relationships. 

[James121]

Embracing virginity?

[AndrewT]

1 hour ago, Skycaptain said:

Following on from my earlier post, what I would now describe myself as is "a cowardly liar who tried too hard to conform to the life path that they thought family and society expected, without saying that this wasn't them, and ultimately realising that everyone involved is more than happy with me being Ace" 

Sorry for the rant but *is brassed off that I wasted 25 years being someone I wasn't because I was too freaking cowardly to talk to me family *

I still am

[Biblioromantic]

I didn't have words to describe how I felt, but I knew I was different from everyone else. I was having mental health issues too, and I figured that was the problem as most psychotropic meds cause sexual side effects. No one around me was discussing their sex lives because they were all (with one exception) waiting until marriage. When that one friend started talking about sex, I was completely grossed out, which caused me some distress. I felt broken. When I allowed myself to consider my sexuality at all, I was intensely confused but tried willfully ignoring the whole issue.

[BobRossRules]

Dysfunctional, sadly.

[Ldlelee]

Bisexual, because I was aesthetically attracted to both. Then gay, because I didn't want to have sex with men. Then messed up, because I didn't want to have sex with women, either, and I had no idea what I was and it was driving me mad.

 

Then I discovered asexuality, and I was just like, "Oh."

[Gloomy]

I thought I was a lesbian who just didn't care about sex. Before then I also thought I was straight, then bisexual, then pansexual.

[MelasVera]

On 4/10/2018 at 11:36 PM, Alejandrogynous said:

Broken.

 

Or I'd say asexual, but like a self-deprecating joke because I didn't know asexuality was actually a thing.

Dude, I felt the same way. 

 

Broken. Not right. Unusual. Alone.

 

But then I found out what asexuality was and I felt lighter. I wasn't broken. I wasn't alone. It was such a huge relief.

[PhoenixWright]

Straight but then I wasn't interested in guys.

Thought I was a lesbian but then felt nothing when a girl kissed me I felt nothing^*.

Broken because I had all these guys and girls interested in me but I wasn't willing to meet them halfway.

Then asexual (whoop whoop)

 

^*But in hindsight I think this was because I didn't like the girl at all and was just experimenting.

[Galactic Turtle]

- Difficult to impress.

- Straight but bad at it.

- Generally uninterested. 

- Late bloomer.

- Person with standards.

- Might consider with parental approval. 

[Mae 🌼]

I thought I was just a nerd that was too picky  

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

I went from nothing/I don't date and I don't care, to nothing/dating guys because I guess I'm hetero, to lesbian/bi/why the hell did I go out with guys I wasn't attracted to and was in fact creeped out by, to ace/aroish/bi/genderfluid. Mostly I grew up not thinking about any of it and just keeping my head down with constant anxiety.

[CosmicTheAceOfSpace]

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)  

[Homer]

2 hours ago, Galactic Turtle said:

- Straight but bad at it.

This is great

[Just Believe]

I just thought that because I wasn't straight I had to be gay, but then didn't understand why that didn't feel like the truth

[-----------------]

x

[knittinghistorian]

On 4/11/2018 at 5:53 PM, Raire said:

What did I call myself? 

 

Weird. 

Broken. 

Freaky. 

Alien. 

Un-natural. 

 

Words along those lines. 

Exactly. I figured I must be a heterosexual, by default, but a defective one.

 

Realizing that I was not, in fact, a defective heterosexual, but a healthy something else, was huge for me.

[CierraJasmineJ]

Same as many others, I’ve always thought of myself as “probably straight”. I assumed I was just too immature and childish, a bit stunted, and to tell you the truth, I’m still not sure. I don’t really know where I am now, except I might be asexual and I might just be not mature enough yet, emotionally or mentally. All I know is that after discovering asexuality, I’ve stopped calling myself “stunted”, “broken”, and other similar words like many of the others. I still don’t know what exactly I’d call myself, but at least now I’m on my way to figuring things out  

[Shay21]

I never really identified as anything before I knew what asexuality was, I just knew there was something different about me that I couldn't quite put my finger on. But I'm glad that I was able to figure out what was going on and realize there was nothing wrong with me!

[dancingeologist]

In my teens/20's I never considered my sexuality. I described myself as independent and too busy exploring the world for a relationship.  I knew it was unusual I had never been on a date, kissed anyone, had sex, or even held hands but I did not think about it much. When I got into my 30's my life was more settled and most of my friends were getting married and having kids so I started to think maybe I should try dating. I spent a couple years dating  people of the opposite gender but never was attracted to anyone, so then tried dating people of the same gender.  While I meet some people I wanted to be friends with things would always get awkward because they would want to take the relationship to a romantic place and I would not. That's when I did some online searching and found the description for aro/ace and thought that describes me perfectly. 

[CasperJ]

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.