I’m on the Ace spectrum. For sure. I don’t think I can classify myself as 100% asexual, because that would feel like shutting the door on something that I might potentially feel in the future, and nobody can predict the future. So for the moment, I call myself demisexual, because I feel like it leaves that door open.
Anyway, it is only in the past 12 months that I have come to this realisation. Before, I was just sure there was something wrong with me. It was nice to discover that maybe there isn’t. But that’s not what I want to talk about.
I’ve noticed a lot of stigma against people on the ace spectrum. Some say they don’t belong in the queer community. Others diminish their feelings or experiences. It’s quite heartbreaking to see. But I just want to say the main problem I have with my sexuality that I really, really hate. The loneliness.
Since I finished school, all of the people who I called my close fiends inevitably found partners. This is great and I’m happy for them. I’m alone. I have friends, yes, but there is something hugely different between being somebody’s friend, and being the most important person in somebody’s life. I don’t think I’ll ever get that, but I see it in other’s around me – I’m like an outsider drinking in the happiness that they get through another, and it’s just intangible.
I struggle to build a social life around me to help fill that gap with friends, because all of my coworkers have partners and/or children, so the crap evening teaching hours and summer supervision gets lumped on my workload, because it doesn’t impact anyone else. These hours of teaching have to go to somebody, and they might as well get given to the person with no other obligations. So I work late and mark late and don’t have a summer and then come home to a lonely house, purely because it’s a lonely house.
I don’t feel like I can be myself at work or with friends, because at some point, a conversation will get sexualised and I genuinely do not understand nor can empathise or offer my opinion because it is alien. So I get lonely in a group, lonely surrounded by others, lonely when I get home. It’s a very isolating existence.
Even if you research sexual orientation, most journal articles state “very little research has been conducted on asexuality” or “information on asexuality is lacking”. This is despite the fact that around 1% of the population report being on the asexual spectrum – that’s around 647160 people in the UK alone.
Add that onto reading stuff about not belonging to the one community who I feel more a part of than any other, and I think you might understand why ace people may get quite defensive. It’s why I’m saying this today, even though I’m generally a closed off person who doesn’t like sprouting her opinions. It’s why even though I identify as being on the ace spectrum, I hate this about me. It’s why I really with there *was* something wrong with me, so it could be changed.
So please, the next time you wish to comment on asexuality, please keep this in mind.
I just wanted to let you know you’re not alone in feeling this way. I know that feeling of wanting to be someone’s number one. You can have friends. Best friends, many friends. But you’ll never be their number one. Because their significant other is their number one. And you wonder…if anyone will ever consider you their number one if you can’t be their significant other in a significant way. It’s very lonely. And working the odd jobs, the odd shifts because you’re the only one without a partner or a child. The working the shifts isn’t the hard part because you really do have ‘no obligations’, it’s the fact that you DON’T have ‘obligations’ and you’re not sure you ever will.
Same. It’s not about wanting to sleep with someone or even date them. It’s about knowing there’s someone who’ll drop everything if you need them, who’ll always be there with a reliability that involves making life choices and schedules together instead of separately. It’s about someone having your back.
And yeah, many of us are lucky enough to have good friends who’ll do their best by us. And they may try to assure us that they’d never leave us hanging if we needed them. But things come up, and if they have conflicts tugging them in more than one direction, you know you’ll never be their top priority. And it would be wrong if you were.
And you wonder what it’ll be like later on, as you get older. If you’ll still be okay on your own then. If you’ll need someone for your health or companionship.
And you can’t really talk to them about it because it sounds needy if they haven’t felt it themselves, and they’ll think you’re asking for attention or consideration, but it’s not about that. But even if they get it, there’s nothing they can do about it except needlessly feel bad, because they’re doing exactly what they should be.
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