Just found out my friend is asexual, too!

[dash]

Yesterday I happened to bring up asexuality in my blog, and someone I've known for about a year and a half told me he was asexual, too. We weren't ever that close, so it never came up... and I guess it's just not something which often "comes up" for either of us. I was suddenly so glad I'd brought it up on my blog.

Now I understand why OKCupid gave us such an exceptionally high match score... but we're not actually attracted to each other romantically at all.

It's amusing to me that it never came up, but it makes sense... people talk about what they think about, not what they don't think about. I only think about being asexual when people are talking about sex and making the assumption that everybody else must grow up to want that, too. Yet, this friend and I last saw each other at Rocky Horror, and that's all about sex! Oh, the irony.

So then today I decided to go for it and bring it up with another friend of mine, who I found out to my disappointment wasn't aware of even what asexual meant and was made pretty uncomfortable by the whole thing, especially the perspective of repulsed asexuals. So I wasn't about to step into that discomfort and say "Hi, that's me."

She doesn't get it and I don't think she's going to accept my asexuality- at least not without great discomfort- due to her own personal reasons. She and I were discussing a movie and she said part of the reason she liked it was that the lead actor was so "drool-worthy".

"Then again, maybe you're not into that sort of thing," she said, and the tone in that caught my ear. I was reading something and looked up and said "Huh?" So she repeated it, with the same tone.

"I said, maybe you're not into that sort of thing." As if she was saying, "Then again, maybe you're not normal."

"Not only am I not into it," I said carefully, "I don't even notice it!" There was an awkward pause, and I felt her feeling I had just said admitted to something unnatural. I filled in the pause by saying, "Some people are into that sort of thing, and others are not." The awkward pause continued, before she changed the subject completely.

It's like in her mind she keeps trying to hand me complete humanity and I keep rejecting it, and that makes no sense to her. She thinks I'm sexual and has her rationalizations for why she feels that way. So she either talks down to me or tries to explain, using her life as an example, the (sexual) parts she feels are "missing" from me. I think it shows fear and insecurity on her part.

[ily]

Hey, it's cool that you found a fellow asexual in your midst! I have an old friend who I was positive was A as well, but when I told her about it, she'd never even heard the term. At least, she was intrigued. As for your other friend...it seems like she's making things awkward for pretty much no reason. At least you're not buying it. ;)