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30/31 and still trying to understand myself.


Dun Loireag

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Dun Loireag

I think this is the right area...

 

I have been told all my life that I'm supposed to be x or do y or its weird not to feel z and while my family is accepting of homosexuality and transgender...  I'm always told "you just haven't found the right person yet but no matter whom it is, we will be happy to support you." Which is great!  Except...  Any time I suggest I'm not interested I get a look of sheer confusion.

 

I tried having a boyfriend when a good friend of mine confessed he wanted to try.  It was, sadly, also around the time my dad was sick and looking back I may have wanted to show Dad that his little girl was growing up and would be fine.  My boyfriend was far more into the idea of having found THE ONE and any time he talked about past girlfriends without any promoting from me, he'd overshare and I'd feel incredibly uncomfortable.  I was content to have a friend.  He never pressured me for sex but would coax me into hugging him.

Between past depression and how I never felt as strongly for my boyfriend as he did me, I always wondered if there was something wrong with me fundamentally.  If I was broken, or still too depressed to really feel for someone else.  I've never felt the need for sexual satisfaction and never saw the appeal of forced romance scenes in media.  I also never saw the appeal of daydreaming about people.  I had a crush, once, but it was more over how nice the person acted to me before I confessed how I felt and he turned around and treated me like shit over it.  Which?? Does not help???


Recently, someone in an indie game community was talking about pronouns and the sexuality spectrum and when they brought up ace and demi and how it felt to be it...  It was like sunlight through heavy clouds.  "Another person feels the same way I do.  Does this mean I'm not broken or weird?  I'm... normal?  I'm actually normal?"

 

I can't discuss this with family.  They brush off my suggestions and questions and there's a big to-do over my older brother getting a girlfriend.  Family has joked that Hell will freeze over before I settle down and have kids of my own, setting aside the massive list of health reasons why I'd be worried about pregnancy on top of the act needed for it.

 

Friends is trickier.  I "ghost" among friends by mirroring their jokes about how x person is physically attractive and constantly feel like I'm an alien pretending to be a human.  "Year 3 and the earth creatures have yet to suspect I am not one of them.  My disguise slipped but no one noticed.  Will report back to the home planet in a few days."

 

I just don't know.

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I can relate to this a lot. It took me until I was 30/31 to realize this too. I had so many excuses for why I wasn't pursuing sex or relationships until it hit me that is probably just not my thing in a very natural and stable way. 

 

I'm glad you found your way here and I hope you find AVEN as useful as I did. :cake:

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You certainly are in the right place! Whether you ultimately settle on ace, aro, aro/ace, aegosexual, aegoromatic, grey of some sort, or some combination, this is a safe place to discuss, learn and feel free to find yourself without judgement or negativity.

 

Personally - at 66 - I feel for you in your frustration, but am so glad this venue and others are available to help you find your way. By the time I was your age I was married (unhappily), and living a lie, because I didn't know I wasn't broken and was just trying to fit into a world for which the rules were clearly wrong for me. 

Keep trying on labels, if that helps, until you pinpoint what works for you. Or just relax in the knowledge that you are not alone, if labels are not important. The main thing is you are not broken, not a failure, you have worth just as you are, your feelings are valid. Welcome 😘 

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tinyOWLface
20 hours ago, Dun Loireag said:

I have been told all my life that I'm supposed to be x or do y or its weird not to feel z

 

20 hours ago, Snao Cone said:

I had so many excuses for why I wasn't pursuing sex or relationships until it hit me that is probably just not my thing in a very natural and stable way. 

Ditto to both of these.  35 year old aro/ace here 

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Hi I'm newish to all of this and get quite lost in all the labels. I am now 59 years young and have struggled for years to find 'my people'. Having recently discovered that a sexuality is a thing and finding great relief that I was not broken, I still find it so difficult to navigate emotions and feelings and relationships. That aside its even worse that others do not get it that there is such  a thing and when they seek to understand where i'm coming from it seems as clear a mud to explain. I've been in relationships where it all starts out like a usual relationship but then becomes just like a deep and meaningful friendship with no sex. At times when I have declined or not been amorous I've been called such names as 'frigid', 'ice queen', a  'prick tease' etc. 

Anyway, I just decided to name it and get on with it but at my age now I find I struggle to have anyone to relate. Getting into a relationship seems fruitless as I come up against the same issue after a while. I can become very close to someone, be very romantic, love intimacy, kissing, touch, but once it becomes about nakedness and body parts and such like i'm swithed off to the disappointment of any partner. Many times I've been told this is ok and they understand but really its not when they have needs I cannot fulfil.

It's a kind of lonely planet unless you are happy in your own company I guess.

Any positive feedback would be helpful. Thanks

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Dun Loireag
On 4/6/2021 at 4:05 PM, Snao Cone said:

I can relate to this a lot. It took me until I was 30/31 to realize this too. I had so many excuses for why I wasn't pursuing sex or relationships until it hit me that is probably just not my thing in a very natural and stable way. 

 

I'm glad you found your way here and I hope you find AVEN as useful as I did. :cake:

Excuses never came up for me.  But high school was the worst though because you'd see people kissing and fondling in the hallways and gushing about boy/girlfriends and who they were taking to the prom and there I was just... Sitting there.  Didn't even want to go to the prom but mom kept insisting because she couldn't go to hers.  I never cared for school dances to begin with.  To make it worse, one of my classmates pretended to be dryhumping me in the dance pit so I just fled out of sheer embarrassment and confusion.  Wound up spending the night just lurking near the mediocre buffet table.

20 hours ago, slywlf said:

You certainly are in the right place! Whether you ultimately settle on ace, aro, aro/ace, aegosexual, aegoromatic, grey of some sort, or some combination, this is a safe place to discuss, learn and feel free to find yourself without judgement or negativity.

 

Personally - at 66 - I feel for you in your frustration, but am so glad this venue and others are available to help you find your way. By the time I was your age I was married (unhappily), and living a lie, because I didn't know I wasn't broken and was just trying to fit into a world for which the rules were clearly wrong for me. 

Keep trying on labels, if that helps, until you pinpoint what works for you. Or just relax in the knowledge that you are not alone, if labels are not important. The main thing is you are not broken, not a failure, you have worth just as you are, your feelings are valid. Welcome 😘 

It sounds horrible that you were in an unhappy marriage.  The "usual" stories I hear from relatives with that is how the spouse is cheating and they force themselves to stay together for the sake of the children and the maligned side has nowhere to go because the people they could go to are either dead, too far, or in one case the toddlers didn't know better and kept crying because they wanted to be at home.

 

Given the prevalent low key pressure from family to have a boyfriend or "when are we going to see children from (so-and-so)?", the simple lack of interest in anything stronger than a very good friend you can relax with is baffling on both sides of the fence.  Family has no idea why not, I have no idea how to say why not when they don't listen.

4 hours ago, tinyOWLface said:

 

Ditto to both of these.  35 year old aro/ace here 

(fist bump)

14 minutes ago, minie said:

I've been in relationships where it all starts out like a usual relationship but then becomes just like a deep and meaningful friendship with no sex. At times when I have declined or not been amorous I've been called such names as 'frigid', 'ice queen', a  'prick tease' etc. 

Oh god, yes I feel you.  I've been called a heartless bitch, frigid, and more when I turn down someone who's cruising for an intimate connection.  When I broke up with my boyfriend, family joked that I was heartless for doing so because "wow I never got a guy to cry when I broke up with one!". Which just made me extremely uncomfortable and second guess myself.  But it would had been crushed to lead him on when we didn't feel the same way, right?

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