This is going to be different from most of the posts I've done in the past. I haven't done a piece just on a topic in a long time (just didn't really get to do that as often when I was always behind on relaying actual events over the past week or four), and while this does somewhat fall into the "storytime" kinds of things I tend to have under the "Faith Project" label, this isn't quite like that stuff either, though I'm still leaving it there for convenience and because one point of this I could argue belongs in there.
I'm tired. It's going to be really late (like, even by my standards, which are so much lower nowadays) by the time I finish this, but I just felt like I had to. I've been thinking about all of this a lot lately, and I know I'm just gonna drive myself crazier if I never get all this written down.
Here's the intro you may have been looking for:
Hello world! I think I'm ace.
As all the Spideys said in Into the Spider-Verse, let's go back to the beginning one last time.
There's always been little stuff that could perhaps hint at me eventually coming out to something along those lines. All the way at the start of this blog, I talked about how I was bothered by all the love songs when I thought there were so many other things you could talk about. Like, I thought it love was real and important, but not to the extent they seemed to think it was in music and movies and stuff. The 12-year-old in me still gets happy when I finish watching a movie and it doesn't end with a kiss because it proves that people can still have the happy ending without it, you know?
I'm pretty sure I also mentioned at some point a thing I've tended to do over my life of being kind of... proud that I don't get crushes. That's the best way I can describe it, though I imagine it sounds odd. Now that I'm in a class called Human Development Throughout the Lifespan, and the Adolescence unit included the "personal fable" concept (that you feel that you are so different from other people, no one understands you, and also that you are invincible/invulnerable because, in a sense, you're the main character in your story), I'm thinking that mindset of mine was fueled by that. I'm different from all you overdramatic peasants! I don't even entertain potential feelings and thus avoid all this stupid drama and pointless heartbreak! I have other, better priorities! Yes, that's me making fun of myself, and yes, maybe I still feel a wee bit of that pride that I just don't even deal with that when I see people go "woe is me" over relationships.
I do know that this was, in part, due to the constant moving around. I still wanted friends and made friends, but in the back of my mind I knew that the friendship was way more likely to terminate permanently once I inevitably moved away again. What was the point of getting attached to people in the romantic sense if it was never going to work out? So, when I felt like maybe, maybe, I had a crush on someone, I did my best to immediately stomp it away, which honestly didn't take much effort. I think Coatrack was pretty much the first time I had to face that the usual routine wasn't always going to work, but I did still go a long time without really crushing on people, both by the fact that I just didn't really feel that kind of thing much in the first place, and crushing away the crushes that slipped through.
Yes, I did say that I didn't feel like that much in the first place. I certainly think I've mentioned my mom and sister being quite frustrated with me over my life for hardly ever admitting to liking someone cuz I just didn't. At some point in high school they finally accepted that I wasn't going to give them any answers besides:
- I mean, I guess [actor or random kid]'s good-looking? But I don't care? I don't really think about it?
- There was that one kid at the Houson airport that I thought was cute when I was 13
- I kinda like a book character, but not even really in that way (yes, totally talking about the cinnamon roll that is Alphonse Elric who I mostly just wanted to be friends with really bad, I dig Al being with May, and he'll always have a place in my heart even though I don't really have the baby crush on him anymore)
- You guys insist I had a boyfriend in 2nd grade, I only remember remembering (is that a phenomenon you readers deal with?) that I held hands and picked boogers with some kid with dark hair down the hallway once
Coatrack and especially Human were the closest I ever got to maybe understanding what people apparently deal with on a regular basis, though at this point I'm still not sure just how odd my personal experience is from the norm. I still think the media over-portrays romance, but I've also recently been encountering way more aces online that I expected to, so I'm not so sure about percentages.
Point is, my circumstances did somewhat shape my thinking, but ultimately I think it's in my nature that I just... don't think/feel that way as much as it seems everyone else does. I mean, if I did crush on boys much easier in the past, would I have really been as okay with burying those emotions away, even with the moves? Would that have even been my first thought as an acceptable solution? Would I have been happy with myself for not looking for romance? Sure, my very-much-introverted personality wouldn't have made me act that differently, I still would've kept a lot of that to myself (cue a decent amount of secret doodling), but I really would not be the same person that I am now if that were the case.
I'm pretty sure I first heard what the full acronym is- LGBTQIA- and what the last one stood for- asexuality- when I was 16, which is awfully late for a Gen Z kid but I generally avoided Tumblr like the plague back then and I think that's where kids my age tended to get their first exposure. It sounded weird to me at first, though that was more the term itself and not the definition (as a biology major, I'm still very much bothered by it, so I'm gonna go with calling myself "ace" a whole lot more).
I honestly didn't really think about it again until last summer, when Echo Gillette put up a video talking about asexuality. I watched it before going to work (the lab internship), and I thought about it near-constantly for I don't even know how long. Intensely, near-obsessively, for nearly a week, and it would get stuck back in my head sometimes for a couple weeks after that. Like, I was really shook.
I had to cope with the fact that 1. I maybe fit the definition of being ace, 2. that would mean I was part of the LGBT+ community which I never saw coming, 3. I didn't know what being ace could mean for the future I had envisioned of a husband and family. That last one was what really had me reeling.
I'll be real, I'd always thought more about wanting kids than wanting to marry, but I did still want (or expect, I guess) the latter to happen. Like, I'd probably still want to get married eventually, maybe, if it wasn't for the fact that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. There's a strange culture around the Church, especially in Utah specifically, about getting married as soon as possible (it really does happen, more than I thought it did, because I really don't want to just buy into stereotypes, you know?), which is not part of the doctrine. What is part of the doctrine is having a healthy temple marriage with children, whenever that ends up happening. So, if I don't at least try to follow that commandment... that is not good. Not in the "What's everyone going to think of me?" way. I genuinely believe in my religion and in the importance of this commandment, so I would be horrified with myself and thinking about how God would feel about that, that I wasn't willing to do what it took to accomplish one of the main purposes in life, to have a family. I just... for the first time, I truly questioned whether I would even be able to be as faithful as I want to be because of the way I am, and thus not be as happy as I could be and not make God as happy with me... (Like, I know He loves everyone so much, but He can still be disappointed in people's actions/decisions just like a normal earthly parent can love their kid and still be like "Bruh, that was stupid, I can't believe you" if they made a poor choice, you know?) That just... really hurt and terrified me at the same time. It was very much a tug-of-war between the religious part of my identity and the emerging self-aware sexual orientation part of my identity.
The best I came up with was that maybe I would find one of the few people I did feel more strongly about. I kinda compared my situation to that of this one short documentary about a few Mormon men who had same-sex attraction but were still looking for a woman to have a family with, because that is the commandment. They needed to find one of the women who they felt something for or at least felt comfortable enough with that they could be happy with her even though they were gay (they didn't identify as gay, since that implies they'd be actively seeking out dudes rather than women, but they pretty much are). I think two of the guys were already married with a kid by the time they were in the documentary, and it did seem like it sometimes got tough between the couples but they still wanted to make it work and seemed to overall be happy. It wasn't exactly the most ideal situation, but I figured that, if they figured it out, then I could have hope for myself... but then again, the future is really hard to grasp as is without feeling like one of the inevitables is now less inevitable.
I dunno, it was still really hard on me. I didn't really want to acknowledge being ace for a while because... I mean, it didn't exactly go against my religion, but it certainly complicated things, and that was obviously upsetting. I didn't even really get a break while being Human's girlfriend (which I still get surprised even happened!), because in general it seemed like he was more into me than I was into him. I loved spending time with him and cared about him and enjoyed cuddling and naps, but the aspect that had to do with kissing and saying cute, romantic stuff and stuff I was way more unnatural to me. I ended up liking kissing more than I thought I would, but even then most of the time I kissed him because he wanted to, not because I really wanted to, or because it seemed like I was supposed to at the moment.
I have no idea when I saw it (just sometime after learning being ace was a thing and before Echo's video), but there was a comic that I saw posted on Facebook once about being ace in a sexual relationship. The narrator (who was also the artist, of course) talked about how she didn't really get any satisfaction from sex while her partner did. It was less like she didn't want to or didn't like to, but more like she was neutral or whatever about it, fine either way. I remember, when I first read it, that I was like "That just doesn't sound right. How can you just do something because your partner wants you to but you don't?" I realized just this past week that that's exactly what I was doing, though, even if it didn't actually go further than kissing. I tended to be kinda uninterested in it, or indifferent, but not actually against it.
I haven't actually mentioned that Human and I ended our relationship last December, the night before his family took me to the airport so I could be with my family for the rest of Winter Break. He left on his mission on New Year's, so we weren't going to see each other again. That means we were officially together for around 3 months, knowing from the very beginning that the relationship would have to end. (He had already put in his mission application papers, and got his call back just a week into going steady.) It was so nice to have less pressure on the relationship, considering how it involved a lot of firsts for me. Nonetheless, I was so insecure about whether I was being a good enough girlfriend the entire time since I just didn't feel like girlfriending came as naturally to me as it was supposed to. I know the thing about the kisses was a big part of that, but other little stuff about how I didn't feel as comfortable with being romantic as he was. And I could hardly figure out how to explain that to him without making it sound like I didn't like him or make him feel like he was doing something wrong or... I dunno. I did tell him about how I wasn't really sure what I was doing because I hadn't done this relationship thing before, and about the moves, but all those other little reasons that stacked up to looking like I was... I guess mostly ace, I kept to myself. I doubted myself a lot, and doubted whether it would really help to tell him about that other stuff.
One thing that really helped me come to terms was when I got my patriarchal blessing last October. Human had encouraged me to get it the moment I told him about how I'd been thinking about it lately, and was really supportive even though, by the end, I decided to be alone in the room while receiving it. The patriarch was so sweet and hugged me after while I was crying my eyes out. (I have still told him about a few of the things said in it, and even now I feel like I'd be more comfortable sharing more of it with him than you're really supposed to be when it's the kind of thing you should only share with immediate family and your spouse.) I knew that the blessing would be a game-changer, part of why I waited so long to get it, but I didn't know just how much. Ever since getting it, my brain has latched onto a couple details in it and run through it for weeks, figuring out what it really meant and why it was important for me to be told that. One of the ones that stuck to me at first was that I was outright told (is it okay to say this here?) I would get married and have kids. Like, that just slammed me down to the ground because it was confirmation that I would still be okay! I would still find someone that I liked enough (in theory)! (Hopefully, I'll eventually talk about more of what I've learned from my patriarchal blessing, as there's some other major stuff that just proves more and more to me that He knows me personally and knows exactly what I need and wants to give that to me. My testimony has increased a lot, and I'm really thankful.)
I didn't want to be cliché and figure out that stuff better because of Tumblr, but... well, it did kinda end up that way. I ended up joining Tumblr in order to make an art commission, and because I had finally done it, I decided I might as well make use of it and start following and interacting more with Danny Phantom (henceforth referred to as DP or, referring to the DP fandom specifically, the Phandom) blogs, and just like Tumblr and other social medias are known to do, I've gotten pretty sucked in. But I'll (hopefully) talk more about all that stuff later. For now, you mostly gotta know- the content I ended up running into there and on Youtube kinda brought this whole internal monologue once more into the forefront, but this time the marriage revelation came with it, combining to become one of the major themes of the semester. A big realization that ended up getting added to the previous one was that God knowing that that I needed to know marriage really was in my future would help me accept being ace now because things would work out in the end anyway. It didn't mean calling myself ace really went against the things that I was taught and what I wanted to happen, it just meant I could be more authentic. That realization made me feel like I was given the OK, basically, and that was such a relief. That plus the content I was seeing online was giving me more confidence in maybe calling myself ace rather than making me worry over it. I actually tested it out with a new friend I've started chatting with, Kiri, admitting to her that maybe I was ace during a conversation that wasn't even focused on that kind of thing, and... I dunno, it felt kinda nice. Like it really did fit. I tested it out again, with this post:
Yeah, it still felt kinda... right. (Also, a few people actually ended up reblogging it with my addition, and I feel honored.)
Just two weeks ago was when I finally tried talking to someone who, like, knows me in real life and knows me well about it. I think that's not how this usually goes for people coming out, but I... emailed Human about it.
When he was leaving I felt very conflicted because... (This is one of those moments where I'm regretting making this blog public but it isn't really read much and it's still principally for myself, so guess I'm gonna still say it:) he said "I love you" and I wasn't so sure I could honestly say it back in the same way, but not like I could honestly not say it back either? I told him that over one of the first emails we exchanged as he was training, and he agreed to let me just think on it more on my own and figure out what I really felt.
So, when he brought that back up, asking if I had come to a clearer answer on all of that, I realized I kinda did, but probably not the kind of answer he expected. It felt like Human was the person who deserved most to hear what I was thinking about this whole thing.
I laid out some of the stuff I said here to him. We had been chatting on Hangouts when he replied to it (that's a thing missionaries can do now!), and he sounded like he mostly doesn't agree with me. He even said that thinking I'm ace could just be a phase, which actually hurt quite a bit. I had started with telling him I'd been thinking about this for a long time- thinking seriously about it for nearly a year- and I thought I sounded like I was taking this seriously. I feel like, even with having more immature parts in my personality, it's usually the more mature, logical, thought-it-through-a-lot-before-bringing-this-up parts that would be talking if it came to subjects like this. I dunno, maybe it had to do with me literally never talking about things like that with him before. Guess that's the problem with keeping these kinds of things close. (Just a week-ish ago I had revealed to my roommate my past in singing, dancing, and a wee bit of acting, and she was like, "Wow, how many secrets do you have?! I'm such an open book compared to you!" and it hadn't registered quite as much as right there that I really don't tell people much about myself, not without being asked about something or feeling like I have a reason to, and even then it's usually just lesser-known hobbies and tidbits from my past that aren't terribly personal.)
Anyways, we've talked again and it looks like he's more okay with the concept, but I still have to figure out what to make of our relationship from this point on. We decided on being friends while he's on his mission, but it does feel like he still treats me like more than that.
There's some other stuff related to this I want to talk about, especially because I haven't talked to anyone about it because I just don't know how to bring it up. Hopefully I get that done soon.
I guess this was me coming out to myself? Is this me officially calling myself ace? I think I could say aromantic, too, but I think that is less... an inherent nature than the ace part. I know I would probably fit under "graysexual", but I dislike that even more than "asexual", so the title that currently feels most comfortable and accurate to me is "mostly ace", even though the wording's a bit silly.
So, uh, yeah. There you go, world. I don't even have the brainpower to finish this with pizazz. But I totally aced the rest of it, right? Eh? Eeeeeeeh? *wiggles eyebrows* ...I only put this here so I could use a pun in the title, and bye.
