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Life stages of an ace : the good, the bad and the lonely


Astrea

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Fair warning :  I know brevity is the soul of wit but that's not my strong suit (make of that what you will ^^).

I've always known I was ace, even when I had no idea it was a thing. I never had any intention of having children either. I am not sex-repulsed, just uninterested, but I am definitely pregnancy-repulsed. I mean, seeing the baby move through the skin is just.... you know this episod of the Twilight zone where a surrogate mother turns out to have an alien inside of her who eats all her organs at the end?  Yeah... that's about the feeling the idea of having a symbiot moving and touching my internal organs evokes in me.

So, it comes as no surprised that I am now in my thirties, single and childless.

And for the longest time it was fine. Having a relationship would have been nice, but I could do without. I was going to school, then university, studying a ton of different things, doing a lot of stuffs with my small group of friends and living with my pretty big family.

Then, I started to work and moved out of my parents'. I work from home and have no direct contact with anyone in that respect outside of emails / rare phone calls and occasional events.  I love my job, but it's pretty isolating. It was still good, as I had to struggle to make the job thing work and still saw my friends often.

But in the past few years, all my friends have suddenly gotten married and are starting to have kids. They have no more time for single people and are certainly not available anymore to travel or spend any real amount of time together.

At this point, I'm also doing fine with my job (which I'm not complaining about) and I really love the freedom of working from home, but it's also leaving me with endless time to think about how it's likely things are just going to go on the way they are forever. And that's a bit scary, honestly. 
I want to do the sharing things with each other, supporting each other and doing fun things / laughing together things with someone else and I'm pretty sure that doing without these things gets harder as you grow older. But I've never even met another asexual person and I know that  sexual partners are out of the question I'm not willing to force myself to have sex to satisfy them, nor would it be fair or realistic of me to expect them to give up on this. 
Honestly, I think I would be fine just having (a) very close friend(s) who would be single / ace too. Because in the end, the depressing part is how empty a lot of things feel when you never share them with anyone. But you can't really look for people saying 'hey, I want to travel, cook, watch movies, go to concerts and restaurants... maybe eventually go live in other countries a few months a year  when you're able and support each other if one of us ever end up being ill or something? Just... no sex ever, OK?'
Of course, you can do these things alone. I have and I will. But sometimes it really gets to me especially since no one around me seems to understand that I can't just suck it up and bear with the sex to get a guy to live with me or something. 🙄
So, you know... I've got a dog. He's a good dog, even if his appreciation for Tennessee Williams, the 1975 and Stranger things is a bit underwhelming. Sadly, he's not allowed in museums or other events and I'm not at a stage of desperation where I make him macarons yet (though, give it time : the way things are going, it might come to that at some point 😁). But what can you do?

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We have no use for witticism here, don't worry about it! Unnecessarily long-winded verbosity is how aven rolls. 

I 100% agree with you about pregnancy and being able to see the baby move. I haven't seen the Twilight Zone, so instead it always reminded me of that scene in Alien when it bursts out of a dude's chest. Y i k e s. 

That said, I'm really sorry you're feeling like this! I'm younger than you are, but I think the loneliness is pretty much universal in the aspec community. Our expectations on friendship are often different from allos because the general consensus is that a sexual and romantic relationship is one step above a platonic one. And that always hurts, to know that you can value a person's friendship more than anything but that it still will never measure up to a romantic and sexual partner. 

But it doesn't have to be like that! Refusing to adhere to norms will obviously be more difficult, but it made me a bit sad to read how much you have internalised the mindset that asking for companionship without sex is somehow ridiculous and unrealistic when that really is not the case. There are happy mixed couples that never have sex and there are happy couples where both people are asexual and there are happy platonic couples that still prioritize each other over romance. Wanting someone to just experience the world with is not a crazy idea and you absolutely don't have to "suck it up and bear with the sex" just to get a guy to live with you!

 

I really recommend you to seek out asexual and/or queer groups in your area or online. I don't know if you identify as LGBTQ+ but the few aces I have met in real life have been at queer gatherings. Also, in my experience, queer people are more likely to be sex positive (which includes your right to say "uhm, how about never?" to sex) and to be more critical of amatonormativity (the assumption that everyone needs to and wants to be in a romantic relationship)  and other norms surrounding relationships. 

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Purple Red Panda

I think there are a lot of people in the same situation many of them non-asexuals.  Doing stuff with other people is just nice sometimes. I believe there are websites a bit like dating sites but strictly for friendship, that might be something to consider.

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On 6/11/2020 at 3:33 PM, Astrea said:

Honestly, I think I would be fine just having (a) very close friend(s) who would be single / ace too. Because in the end, the depressing part is how empty a lot of things feel when you never share them with anyone. But you can't really look for people saying 'hey, I want to travel, cook, watch movies, go to concerts and restaurants... maybe eventually go live in other countries a few months a year  when you're able and support each other if one of us ever end up being ill or something? Just... no sex ever, OK?'

That describes so much how I feel. Especially with travelling and holidays. When there is nobody else with you with whom you can appreciate it, there are some experiences which don't feel complete somehow.

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Oh, a fellow French person ^^
Maybe we should organize ace group trips, then?  😊 I'd be down with something like that. I mean, I don't mind doing things on my own during a trip, but eating alone in restaurants at dinner time is just blah... I wish to at least spend dinner time with other people to talk about the things we did during the day and appreciate the food together.

On an unrelated note : that's an interesting username you have, Ortac. Are you a northern gannet's enthusiast? ^^

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Janus the Fox
3 hours ago, Astrea said:

Maybe we should organize ace group trips, then?  😊 I'd be down with something like that. I mean, I don't mind doing things on my own during a trip, but eating alone in restaurants at dinner time is just blah... I wish to at least spend dinner time with other people to talk about the things we did during the day and appreciate the food together.

Anyone can organise a Meet-up, Asexual Meet-ups can be organised from our Meetup Mart Forum.  Even if it just scopes out any local Asexuals that use the site.

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