To My Friends

(A pre-warning: this is probably going to be a very long and personal post. Those who are not my real-life friends may want to just sit this one out. To Lissa: if you know how to cut this behind a "read more" link, I'd love to know.)

Dear friends,

Welcome to my blog, guys. A few of you expressed interest in seeing it, and a few of you already know about it, so I thought I'd give an explanation. And what better place than my blog itself? I hope I'm not being too cowardly by doing this online rather than telling you face to face. I can sure say that I feel bad about doing this way.

So here are the facts. I am asexual. Asexual people are a varied lot, but what it basically comes down to is this: asexuals are people who do not feel sexually attracted to other people. Some of them may feel romantically attracted to other people, and some of them may not feel romantic attraction at all. At this point, I'm not sure which of those two categories I fall into, but as I've never felt a desire to have a romantic relationship with anyone, I categorize myself as aromantic.

I don't feel attracted to anyone, guys or girls. I can appreciate people's appearance on an aesthetic level, but it's not something that usually jumps out at me. That's why I've always felt alienated by my sister's rating system. But I never feel like I'd like to have a romantic or sexual relationship with the people I think look good. (Hooboy, does it feel awkward in here to you?)

Obviously, we are not exactly what most might call "normal teenagers," and you may be thinking, "Well, I don't feel like I want to have a relationship with someone either," or "It's normal not to want sex at our age." (Or you may not be. I don't want to presume your thoughts, I'm just trying to explain my perspective.) But do you remember back in middle school, when we actually discussed "crushes?" Here's the thing: I've never actually had a crush on someone. Some of you may remember a certain boy by the initials of TB. But you also may remember that I had a "crush" on him for three years. I made it up because everyone else had someone they liked.

Please don't think that I don't trust you. I made it up because in elementary school I'd been made fun of for saying I didn't like-like anyone, and I didn't know that you guys would be so awesome and understanding when I told you. But you all had crushes, too, and so I kept saying it to keep seeming normal.

I hadn't figured all of this out yet, on that fateful day when Nikki declared her straightness. Luckily Eddie saved me from having to answer, but I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. At first I thought I was bi, because I couldn't understand why a person's sex would matter for having a relationship, and that instead their personality would be more important. I vaguely remembered a website I'd read once called the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network, or AVEN, and started thinking that I was "in effect asexual," because I had no idea how to figure out my sexuality when I'd never been attracted to anyone. It didn't really affect my life, so I just didn't think about it.

But as you may have noticed, in the past year I've become incredibly more focused on queer rights and issues, and now I want to join the GSA. It's hard to do this without being fully aware of my own (a)sexuality. While having a conversation with someone about my disappointment about the complete lack of happy characters who are not in a relationship, my identity kind of solidified suddenly. I'm still not entirely sure why, but I have to say that feeling like I'm part of a community where there are other people like myself is a really wonderful sensation.

One of the results of this was that I became more immediately aware of being "in the closet." This feeling, for those who don't know, really rather sucks when you want to be out. I've spent way too much time trying to figure out how to tell you guys, and it makes me feel miserable. Honestly, I have no fear that you'll be hateful or anything, I'm just a chicken. It's really very difficult, because most people have never heard of asexuality. And plus, I'm more comfortable writing than speaking. But you already knew that.

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to tell my parents this. As George Washington didn't say, "I cannot tell a lie," and I'm not sure how the whole GSA conversation is going to go. But I wanted you all to know, preferably before school started, because it feels terrible to keep you in the dark, and because I want to be able to talk about it. So that's the crux of it. I'm ace (asexual), and I don't want be silent about it, because it's part of who I am.

So feel free to hang around this blog, ask me any questions, or share any feelings. Check out some of the links on the side of my blog, and the AVEN link above. I'd like it if you could give me some indication that you've read this post, even if you'd rather not comment on its contents. And thanks for being great friends to me, as always. :)