Differentiating between aro/ace and symptoms

[gndrqrd]

Hello, everyone.

 

I used to frequent this site a decade ago (yikes...) when I was a teenager. I stopped coming on here around 6 1/2 years ago now (yikes again, where does the time go) because I decided that I was gay, not aroace, and that my sexual orientation was clouded by a) internalized homophobia, b) gender dysphoria, and c) untreated sexual trauma (which I did not figure out until I started attending therapy in college).

 

I'm now 23 and I've been in a relationship with someone for just over two years. It is, decidedly, a romantic and sexual relationship. However, we've hit a few walls because of my apparent inability to fully meet the enthusiasm he has for me. Now, for context, I started regularly going to therapy in 2017 when I was 19 years old, and I came to terms with some childhood traumas that resulted in certain mental health diagnoses (such as a dissociative disorder). In October of 2021 I officially started taking testosterone after waiting over 8 years to do so, and I have also come to embrace that I am bigender/genderfluid/genderqueer/trans androgynous/etc, etc.

 

My boyfriend is a cis bi man. For all intents and purposes he is perfectly lovely in every way, shape, and form. We don't really argue or anything, so please don't read this post as him trying to change me, but rather as a post looking for insight into myself for the sake of both of us.

 

What I mean by this is that we've had a few situations (not arguments, more of frank and emotionally engaged conversations) where he'll express that he feels he is much more invested in our relationship than I am. This is frustrating to me, because a lot of the stuff that leaves him feeling insecure (like how I let him choose to do things vs making decisions that we're going to do x or y) is just kind of natural to the way I operate. I try very hard to be sensitive to people and their needs, but it's usually very often difficult for me to really tell what people want/need and I' m consumed by anxiety at the thought of messing it up.

 

In our conversations I brought up how, when I was younger, I had many adults suspect that I had Asperger's syndrome. Obviously, Asperger's no longer exists, and I had since moved on from thinking I could be autistic, but after having a series of problems (including a situation where I lost around 10 friends because of my inability to communicate in a way that's gentle, I guess), I'm revisiting the idea. My therapist thinks I'm autistic, but I haven't been formally diagnosed, and I'm not sure where to start, anyway, as I am an adult.

 

But I am also wondering if, perhaps, I am maybe on the aro/ace spectrum. Admittedly, over the years, I have grown very frustrated by many areas of discussion around aceness, which is another reason I stopped identifying as ace, but I started reading the Angela Chen book and now I'm wondering again. The points against me are that I do like having sex and do feel sexual attraction sometimes, but the vast majority of my sexual attraction has been to celebrities. In real life, I've only been attracted to two people, one of which was my French professor in college, and the other of which is my boyfriend. Relatedly, I've always been confused about romance. Even when I was a teenager who identified as aroace, I thought of romantic attraction as a thing that didn't really exist but was rather this kind of manufactured idea of how an ideal sexual relationship should work, if that makes any sense. Now that I'm in a "romantic"/sexual relationship, I consider the two definitely closely linked to me. I know that it is possible to have sex without romance or romance without sex! But to me, they are mostly the same thing (and I say mostly because sex, while fun, is not really necessary for me, but I don't think not having sex renders a relationship non-romantic).

 

However, I don't know if my feelings on sex/romance is related to the fact that I'm maybe aro/ace or that I'm potentially autistic. Or even both? When I bought the Angela Chen book, my boyfriend asked me if it was because I related to the like, experience of aceness, and I said yeah, maybe a little. And I feel bad because he is very romantic and also very sexual, but his goal is to please me first and foremost, and I don't know what's wrong with me. I want to make him happy, too, and I know that he'll still love me even if the answer is that I am on the aro/ace spectrum, but I'm just confused about how to actually define sexual/romantic attraction and if it's even worth deviating from just "allosexual" if the experience of allosexuality is so diverse and large, anyway. Like what material difference does it make if I don't want to have sex with people almost ever? I don't know.

 

TL;DR I have a wonderful boyfriend who's very romantic and sexual and I am very not. Don't know if it's because I'm on the aro/ace spectrum, potentially autistic, or both. Would like to figure this out for both my sake and his sake so we can continuing improving our relationship and how we treat each other into the future.

[LeChat]

@gndrqrd Hi. Welcome! 

 

Thanks, for sharing your journey.