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Telling parents???


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HI. I have recently discovered that I am aro ace. For a long time I struggled with depression and self harm and not knowing what was wrong with me. I spent a lot of time wondering why I was depressed and felt different to everyone else. It was only when my friends had their 1 year anniversary that I got to thinking will i ever have that? And then i thought, well I dont think i actually do! I was very confused and then found this website. It took me 5 months to tell anyone and I eventually told a friend from a music group that I had only really just met and only see once a year. Everyone was discussing who they thought was sexy and who they would date, they then asked me and i just replied "no one". This led to some weird questions and a lot of explanation. It then took me another 4 months to tell my closest friend when a post from asexuality awareness week inspired me to tell her as we normally have no secrets. Sh replied with "is this a copy and paste thing" as i had started with its asexuality week. This kind of threw me and I was turned off the idea of telling anyone else. My friend was ok with it but i get the idea that she doesnt accept it as an actual sexuality as she keeps saying im "still straight" and "not really different". I couldnt tell anyone for a long time after this and it took me until a life skills lesson about safe sex and when to say no that i finally decided to tell my other friends, about 7 months after telling my first friend. MOst of my friends dont really mention it and it makes me feel like they dont understand and accept me. It really hurts me to know that they arent there for me. My next step though, is to tell my parents. They are constantly dropping comments about weddings and children and i dont know how to tell them that i dont what that and to be true and to be true about who i really am. I would love to know how anyone else told their parents and how they explained it to them as my mother describes the LGBT+ community as "attention seeking" and "over branching" and "too much".  Please any advice would be greatly appreciated, 

thanks :)

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I never told mine, but then I cut them off a long time ago.

 

Asexuality is not something 99 percent of the population understands or accepts, and that includes most gay people. This is my own personal opinion.

 

I would bet money if you told your folks, they would not know what to do with the information.

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I've been contemplating telling my family, as well. I told my sister and she was very understanding, and already knew a little about it, so she took it very well and is being supportive about it. I actually learned about asexuality in general from a friend that is far more knowledgeable about these sorts of things than me. He's a super nice person, and actually let me vent for a while before telling me about this sort of thing. I don't want to tell my family right now on the grounds that they wouldn't even let me finish the sentence before having a conniption. My parents are. . .very conservative. They'd let me get as far as "I'm not straight" before having a fit. I've told most of my friends, though, and all of them have either gotten it or just wanted to know more so that they could try to understand. Hell, I'm in a discord that when it came up, I was flat-out told that not only were they happy for me for finding something that shows me there's nothing wrong with who I am, but if anyone tried to give me shit for it, the mods would personally intervene. Which, to be fair is their policy for any type of mistreatment of people because of their orientation, but, still nice to know.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is: Telling your family can be a complicated thing. They aren't likely to know or understand what you're saying, and even if they do, they very well may not take it well. I'm lucky to have so many friends that get it and are supportive, so I can't imagine how it must feel to not have any support group among friends. I guess that's why this site exists though, huh?

Good luck figuring things out, and hopefully your parents will be understanding if you tell them.

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Mezzo Forte

In regards to telling your parents, that's up to you. There's no guarantee that they'll understand, but no matter what, you're living your own life, and nothing they say will make you any less aro/ace. I think it helps to have a larger support network of people you feel like would be more likely to understand and accept your asexuality before you tell major family members, but your approach to coming out is entirely your prerogative.

 

Some musings about my own experiences:

Spoiler

 

I only told my parents about my orientation when they directly asked, but they asked because I had come out to them as trans, and from my experience, coming out as trans suddenly makes everyone want to know what your sexuality is. :lol: I personally didn't use the labels, but rather just said that I've never been attracted to anyone, and while one parent seems to understand my orientation better than the other, neither give me grief about it. My parents a heavy emphasis on close familial and platonic bonds, so they just want me to have meaningful social bonds in general. My dad hopes I find a platonic partner someday, and while my mom seems to hold out hope that I'll find a romantic partner, I think that's because she has a skewed concept of romance herself that makes it seem more platonic.

 

Now that people are suddenly super inquisitive about my orientation, I deal with a lot of people basically telling me that I'll meet *the one* someday and/or that my orientation still has the potential to change. Go figure they say that, considering that I've been through two puberties and am still quite aro/ace, but I just roll my eyes and don't bother fighting them. Honestly, a lot of people just think I'm gay because I'm super sentimental about my friendships and my two dearest friends happen to both be men, and they don't seem to believe me when I say that my bonds are platonic. Probably doesn't help that I'm apparently capable of sensual attraction toward dear friends. (I've had two different bisexual people jokingly yell "GAY" to me when they learned about how tactile I sometimes get with one of my dearest friends. That said, both of them 100% understand I'm ace, so the comments genuinely were in jest.) I just roll my eyes at this point because I don't need to prove to the world that I'm asexual in order to actually be ace. My dearest friends all completely get that I'm ace and don't question it. Heck, part of the reason why I can get so tactile with my friend is because we both 100% trust that everything we're doing is platonic because he's exclusively straight and I'm asexual.

 

 

I guess with all that rambling, I'm mostly saying that it helps to find your support system of people who will definitely understand your orientation so you can have more confidence in yourself even when you deal with those who are skeptical of how you identify.

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