It’s Been Nine Years Since I Discovered I was Asexual

For some brief context, in 2012 I bought a book titled “How to Make Money Blogging: How I Replaced My Day-Job and How You Can Start a Blog Today” and it’s one of the many ebooks that’s just collecting whatever the digital equivalent of dust is in my digital library. The only thing I remember from the book is the tip that if you run out of ideas you can always revisit old posts and I am finally at the point where I’m comfortable looking back at my earliest posts from a charitable and reflective position. I started a blog about a year after figuring out I was asexual because I also had to figure out that I was also aromantic and agender. I keep promising myself that I’ll write more for my blog and I don’t think that’s going to happen (maybe I’ll make my New Year’s Resolution 4 meaty/meaningful posts in the next year as a SMART goal). I also don’t want to wait for the tenth year to do a serious reflection.

DECEMBER 17, 2015: “I Should Have Known I was Asexual/Aromantic Sooner”, feels a lot like a “Hello World” post. The title is a little misleading; I should have said “I Wish I Had Known I was Asexual/Aromantic Sooner”. I also really hope that my writing skills have improved significantly. There are a couple references that were mentioned and not linked so significant context is missing. However, I think I remember the inspiration for the blog post from an emotional standpoint and that’s the more interesting story that I should have told at that time. I was on my way to class (I had some education award left over so I spent it on a couple community college classes) and a song came on the radio. I don’t remember the title and don’t remember enough of the lyrics to look it up, but the message of the song was the singer was telling the listener to basically leave their man if they didn’t love them passionately enough and having just recently figured out I was aromantic at the time I found the experience of listening to the song very unnerving and hurtful.

DECEMBER 17, 2015: “Coming Out” is basically the story of coming out to my parents. It didn’t go as well as I had hoped and I still haven’t come out to a lot of other people since then. My brother and (now) sister-in-law have asked since then and when they did I didn’t say I was asexual and instead I more or less dodged the question by saying “dating is not my thing/priority right now”. A significant difference between when I wrote the post and now is I do have elevator speeches ready that aren’t asexuality and aromanticism 101. My brother is also very anti-label so discussing sexuality and orientation with him is a workout. The main sticking point that people are probably more interested in is that I am a life-long-single person. The “dying alone” stereotype is something that I’ll occasionally see aces and aros sort of overcorrect on which can be alienating because while singleness is very much an agentic choice for me, most people would rather not be single and will intentionally or not stigmatize being single as inherently bad instead of accepting it as just another stage in the relationship process. Bella DePaulo has several articles and books on the subject, but in all honesty I’ve only ever saw one lecture where she says that how happy you are when you’re single is the best indicator of how happy you’ll be in a relationship once the “honeymoon phase” is over. I found that point exceptionally validating. So, while I LOVE all the weird nuances of asexuality and aromantism and I love talking shop with other aces and aros I don’t plan on coming out to anyone anytime soon.

DECEMBER 19, 2015: “You’re so Weird” was basically me saying “I’m not actually weird” and I must now debunk that claim because since I turned 30 I basically went straight into my “retired grandma energy” era because I like tea, fiber arts, I just acquired a small collection of books on English witchcraft from a historical perspective that I read in between my small collection of Chinese novels that I read between the various on-going series I’m reading, and none of my college degrees have gotten me out of working retail yet. I also take tai chi classes and collect practice weapons. I’m also reading up on constructed alphabets because I watched a YouTube video on the Shavian alphabet and my dyslexia said “fuck that noise” so I’m going to try and construct my own alphabet for journaling and notetaking. The future descendants that have to deal with my personal effects when I die are going to be so confused. I can’t promise I’ll be historically relevant enough by that point, but maybe some of my stuff will have some archival value.

DECEMBER 30, 2015: “The Third Option” talks about being agender and there’s not a whole lot of growth in this area because I still struggle to find the language to describe my gender experience. Fortunately Canton Winer has coined a term for me and that is “gender detached” which I consider more accurate than my previous “none of the above”. I have not made many nonparasocial connections to the trans and nonbinary communities and I think that my gender detachment is informing that. The concept of gender itself feels very pervasive and burdensome so it makes sense that I wouldn’t be drawn to communities were gender experience is the focus. However, gender detachment might be surprisingly prevalent in the ace and aro communities so that’s probably why I’m more comfortable with my orientations being the anchoring point for community membership.

JANUARY 12, 2016: “Not Perfect”. I actually really like this post. Kudos to past me. The writing has significantly improved compare to my first couple of posts. I don’t remember if this was when I discovered the fine art of proof reading. A couple of changes between then and me now: 1) I no longer consider myself Buddhist, but I also don’t label myself as “Pegan” because the belief system I’m currently studying is, I think, best described as traditional folk practice rather than a “religion” or “spirituality”. 2) Thanks to some deprogramming I realize that my original point of people needing more things than they can give is most likely incorrect and very capitalistic. I’m not going to do a deep dive on that in this moment. I love that I put in writing “I’ve accepted that I will never be perfect. I’ve accepted that while I think other people-” I don’t specify who, but it was probably work or school related -“expect me to be perfect or even normal, I’m not going to be. And I’ve accepted that’s not my fault”. I do think it’s important to be charitable to one’s self. Backtracking to the folk practice thing, I don’t have a shrine or altar dedicated to a deity or anything, instead I have two thought bubbles hanging above my sleep space that say, “Seeing Clearly, Living Ethically, Daily Practice” and “What comes after helping yourself?” This intentional display is the best representation of what I’m aspiring to or trying to manifest or what have you.

I’m going to end the post there because while I’m really glad that I took the time to do some reflection, my craft project list has also become way beyond reasonable so I want to get as much done about that as possible before my class starts again. I’m going to be doing a craft speed run and get as much of my stash used up and made into actual cozy things. I’m in the middle of several quilt tops, several quilt sandwiches, a shawl, two hoody-scarfs, a quilted jacket, a wall hanging, and an embroidery sampler. Writing up a thoughtful blog post takes me at least an hour and I would really rather spend that time making cozy things, sipping on tea, and listening to video essays and podcasts. I would for sure make more blog posts if I could type and sew at the same time.

I never really had a targeted audience in mind when I started my blog. It’s just that I stumbled upon a blog post one day nine years ago and it made a difference for me on a personal level. My Fae/faer rant post is still my most viewed post, but I don’t actually know what people are getting out of it. It was really just a chance for me to do a resource dump and complain about my least favorite fantasy genre trope.