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What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been!


CJ7

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First let me say.....PHEW! I'm so glad I finally found you all. I've been confused most of my life about who I am, because I never felt like I fit in any classification. I'm new here and sooooo, so happy to have stumbled upon this site. I live in New England (CT) and after 40 or so years I have (I think) figured out why my past relationships haven't worked out. As a teenager I had crushes on boys, as most girls did at the time, and dated a few, but as soon as they wanted sex I wanted to run as far and as fast as I could. I tried getting drunk to relax and go through with it, thinking it was just fear. As soon as I gave in, I immediately regretted it and felt very badly (was only with a few). Then my focus switched to females, thinking perhaps I was gay, (because I felt a strong emotional attachment to many) but the emotional attachment was not fair to the strictly gay girls I dated. It was like I wanted to be with a guy, because I always got along with them better, but didn't want the sex. Being with females just brought more confusion, and I didn't feel I was bisexual either. I never really enjoyed the sex with either, and unfortunately, and unintentionally, hurt the people I was with because they took it personally that I didn't want to have sex more.  I was very apt at pleasing them, but never really enjoyed being touched, let alone pleased myself. Then when I discovered how much emphasis they had on sex, it began to really turn me off to sex. It was like the more they wanted it, the less I did! I really thought something must be wrong with me. Why was I so confused? What orientation suited me? The saddest part is that my longest lasting relationship (6 years) pretty much ended because I wasn't "putting out" enough and it really broke my heart! In fact, (and I thought she was joking when she said this) she said to me, while chuckling "You must be asexual." I thought she was putting me down! Or that she was being very sarcastic by saying 'if you don't want to be with me sexually you must be asexual.' And yet, a bell went off in my head and I began to do some research. Come to find out being asexual was a legitimate thing, and not something to feel bad about! It was a revelation! I think though, that there is still one more element to this story that has been hard to understand about myself. There were times that I was in relationships with people over the years, and it would be okay to be intimate for the first three months, and then I didn't want it anymore, but I still loved them and wanted to be with them. The desire would just wear off really fast, but I couldn't understand why, and I certainly couldn't explain it to my partners.  In hindsight I get it now, but it's been, as I said a "long, strange, trip!"

 

Well my friends, now that I have discovered this wonderful revelation, I feel happy, but very alone in the world at the same time. They say we comprise only 1% of the population! Well how in the world do you meet others like us? Let alone someone to possibly be in a loving, supportive relationship with? I am romantic, love affection, just not sex, at least for the most part. I also feel like I should tell me exes so they don't feel like they did anything wrong, since they took everything so personally. It's a small corner of the world that we exist in, but knowing that you all are here and that we can talk openly helps a lot. We need support because I feel we are the most misunderstood and least acknowledged of all of the classifications. So thank you all for being here and for any words you'd like to share in response. 

 

Lastly, is anyone in the Northeast!? Would like to make some new friends! Kindred spirits, please!!!!

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I feel like you have just summarized my life!  😋  There are some scary parallels.  I am, however, about as far from you geographically as I can be and still live in the U.S.  Hi and hello from Alaska!  Welcome to the forums.  I'm new here, too.

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Thanks for the reply....distance knows no barriers when it comes to kindred spirits! Relieved that someone can truly relate. Trying to figure out my next steps!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/9/2020 at 10:15 PM, CJ7 said:

Well my friends, now that I have discovered this wonderful revelation, I feel happy, but very alone in the world at the same time. They say we comprise only 1% of the population! Well how in the world do you meet others like us? Let alone someone to possibly be in a loving, supportive relationship with? I am romantic, love affection, just not sex, at least for the most part. I also feel like I should tell me exes so they don't feel like they did anything wrong, since they took everything so personally. It's a small corner of the world that we exist in, but knowing that you all are here and that we can talk openly helps a lot. We need support because I feel we are the most misunderstood and least acknowledged of all of the classifications. So thank you all for being here and for any words you'd like to share in response. 

This has been a mind-blowing revelation to me, too. Which seems silly, since I knew I was asexual as a teen in the '80s, I called myself asexual in my 20s and even tried to participate in some primitive precursors to this board in the '90s. Like, AOL chat room-level stuff. But at that time there was almost nobody involved, and those who were seemed more like gatekeepers interested in purity tests. I soon dropped the whole thing, naively defaulting back to my solitary life and hearing my mother's comforting words that eventually the right man would come along, and I'd want to be with him. (Gender was not impt. to me but I never corrected my dogmatically Catholic mother on that).

 

So I didn't come back around to the asexuality thing until the past year, after I was hurt very badly by someone who could have been my very first relationship. I agonized over taking him up on his frequent and prolific offers. It didn't help that I had a squish on him (or what I always called "my little 3rd-grade crushes" because I'd never heard the word "squish"). I wanted him as a special friend. I didn't have the words yet to express I desired a queerplatonic relationship, though he would clearly not have been down with that idea. I told him over and over again that I was asexual, but he remained smugly, self-righteously clueless.

 

A few more months went by with many texts containing way too many innuendos, many of which I didn't even get but the ones I did were utter turn-offs. Finally he came out and said he didn't want to be "just friends anymore." Which to me sounded like an ultimatum: either enter into a basic garden-variety, het-sexual relationship with him, or he would disappear. And that's exactly what he did, but not before insulting my asexuality, making what he called "the rejection" all about him, and gaslighting me. Oh, the gaslighting!  Too long and way too upsetting to hash out tonight.

 

The "just friends" trope is *very* triggering. To me, friendship isn't "just" anything; FRIENDSHIP IS EVERYTHING. 

 

After that catastrophe, I drifted though the long dark night of the soul for months, until a book passed over my desk at the library where I work. This was the very first thing I'd read in black and white that asexuality is a valid queer identity. The book also taught me these wonderful words, like "queerplatonic" and "squish," and the unpronounceable but utterly perfect "amatonormativity." This was last September. I started crying and really haven't gotten hold of myself ever since. I feel like this new information has reordered the pixels of my universe, and I have no idea what to do next. 

 

Can someone feel "found" in the world yet still so very alone? After so many wretched experiences being put down, excluded, and GASLIGHTED by smug allos that the way I feel isn't really the way I feel, where does one go from here? I had no idea how amazing it felt to be validated,. I feel happy, and kind of "hugged" by this obscure corner of society, but also extremely bitter: Just discovering all this now that I'm 50 years old. I turned 50 this past Monday. How does one go about finding a special intense friendship, knowing that options are severely limited?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Je te comprend tellement.  Maintenant que je sais que je suis as je me remémore les situations passée et comprend mieux mes réactions. Quand j'étais jeune je croisais parfois ma soeur qui était à l'adolescence et se fesait "plaisir". Je pensait "mais voyon elle va devenir prostituée". Je ne comprenais pas son désir. Je suis romantique, donc vers l'âge de 17 ans j'ai eue envie d'être avec un partenaire pour me sentir aimé.  J'avais une colocataire très ouverte sur le sexe, elle m'a prêté un livre sur le désir des hommes et la fellation. J'ai donc fait ce qu'il fallait faire pour que mon copain soit satisfait, mais je disais toujours je garde ma virginité pour LA bonne personne . Parce que je ne veux pas être enceinte d'un homme qui ne restera pas dans ma vie...Jusqu'à ce que je rencontre quelqu'un d'assez compréhensif, patient, paternel. On s'est marié, on a eu des enfants, mais je n'ai jamais aimé le sexe. Il pensait que je n'étais pas attirée envers lui. Il me laissait faire les premiers pas et moi, une fois pas mois, je me disait "il faudrait bien qu'on le fasse...". Maintenant nous avons 3 beaux enfants, mais je ne sais pas ce que l'avenir nous réserve. Je l'aime et je me vois passer le reste de ma vie avec cet homme, mais je ne pourrais jamais lui procurer la vie sexuel qu'il mérite.

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Phantasmal Fingers

🙂 👋

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/23/2020 at 10:00 PM, IvoryBill said:

This has been a mind-blowing revelation to me, too. Which seems silly, since I knew I was asexual as a teen in the '80s, I called myself asexual in my 20s and even tried to participate in some primitive precursors to this board in the '90s. Like, AOL chat room-level stuff. But at that time there was almost nobody involved, and those who were seemed more like gatekeepers interested in purity tests. I soon dropped the whole thing, naively defaulting back to my solitary life and hearing my mother's comforting words that eventually the right man would come along, and I'd want to be with him. (Gender was not impt. to me but I never corrected my dogmatically Catholic mother on that).

 

So I didn't come back around to the asexuality thing until the past year, after I was hurt very badly by someone who could have been my very first relationship. I agonized over taking him up on his frequent and prolific offers. It didn't help that I had a squish on him (or what I always called "my little 3rd-grade crushes" because I'd never heard the word "squish"). I wanted him as a special friend. I didn't have the words yet to express I desired a queerplatonic relationship, though he would clearly not have been down with that idea. I told him over and over again that I was asexual, but he remained smugly, self-righteously clueless.

 

A few more months went by with many texts containing way too many innuendos, many of which I didn't even get but the ones I did were utter turn-offs. Finally he came out and said he didn't want to be "just friends anymore." Which to me sounded like an ultimatum: either enter into a basic garden-variety, het-sexual relationship with him, or he would disappear. And that's exactly what he did, but not before insulting my asexuality, making what he called "the rejection" all about him, and gaslighting me. Oh, the gaslighting!  Too long and way too upsetting to hash out tonight.

 

The "just friends" trope is *very* triggering. To me, friendship isn't "just" anything; FRIENDSHIP IS EVERYTHING. 

 

After that catastrophe, I drifted though the long dark night of the soul for months, until a book passed over my desk at the library where I work. This was the very first thing I'd read in black and white that asexuality is a valid queer identity. The book also taught me these wonderful words, like "queerplatonic" and "squish," and the unpronounceable but utterly perfect "amatonormativity." This was last September. I started crying and really haven't gotten hold of myself ever since. I feel like this new information has reordered the pixels of my universe, and I have no idea what to do next. 

 

Can someone feel "found" in the world yet still so very alone? After so many wretched experiences being put down, excluded, and GASLIGHTED by smug allos that the way I feel isn't really the way I feel, where does one go from here? I had no idea how amazing it felt to be validated,. I feel happy, and kind of "hugged" by this obscure corner of society, but also extremely bitter:

 

You bring up good points, I imagine we'll magically fall upon the asexual fairies who will have pity on us and grant us a wish for the perfect partner! Good Luck! Let me know if your wish comes true!

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On 2/8/2020 at 10:30 AM, Jolyjulie said:

Je te comprend tellement.  Maintenant que je sais que je suis as je me remémore les situations passée et comprend mieux mes réactions. Quand j'étais jeune je croisais parfois ma soeur qui était à l'adolescence et se fesait "plaisir". Je pensait "mais voyon elle va devenir prostituée". Je ne comprenais pas son désir. Je suis romantique, donc vers l'âge de 17 ans j'ai eue envie d'être avec un partenaire pour me sentir aimé.  J'avais une colocataire très ouverte sur le sexe, elle m'a prêté un livre sur le désir des hommes et la fellation. J'ai donc fait ce qu'il fallait faire pour que mon copain soit satisfait, mais je disais toujours je garde ma virginité pour LA bonne personne . Parce que je ne veux pas être enceinte d'un homme qui ne restera pas dans ma vie...Jusqu'à ce que je rencontre quelqu'un d'assez compréhensif, patient, paternel. On s'est marié, on a eu des enfants, mais je n'ai jamais aimé le sexe. Il pensait que je n'étais pas attirée envers lui. Il me laissait faire les premiers pas et moi, une fois pas mois, je me disait "il faudrait bien qu'on le fasse...". Maintenant nous avons 3 beaux enfants, mais je ne sais pas ce que l'avenir nous réserve. Je l'aime et je me vois passer le reste de ma vie avec cet homme, mais je ne pourrais jamais lui procurer la vie sexuel qu'il mérite.

CAN YOU TRANSLATE THIS TO ENGLISH PLEASE!?

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