... Totally forgot it was Asexual Awareness week
Hi human beings! This is a post that isn't about things I wrote or thinly disguised whining about my academic life.
As several of you are aware, I'm asexual.
[I guess I'm being visible.]The brief description: I personally am not interested. In sex. With anyone. Ever.
This makes me Asexual.
There are also Aromantics. These people do not wish to have a romantic relationship with people - unlike me, they might actually want sex, but there are to be absolutely no sappy candy hearts and flowers. Or you get the kind of aromantic who kind of wishes that they could have sappy candy hearts and flowers, but never seems to find anyone in particular that they want them with.
The long description: When everybody else was busy having puberty, I was busy reading mystery novels. (That's not to say I didn't do puberty - the fact that I have boobs and hips and my own razor kind of says that biology happened. And hormones - I certainly had the zits to prove it. It's not that managed to ignore puberty, because most of the time I really wished I could, but when everybody else was discovering that they really had the hots for people, and daydreaming about kissing... I think it would have to have been Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom at that point... I was busy. I wrote fantasy novels I never finished, learned chemistry, and wrote in codes. Kissing was something that happened to other people, with other people. I was busy binge-reading the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes stories and crying over the fact that Watson never seemed to be able to keep Sherlock away from the cocaine that probably cut his retired years quite a bit shorter than they needed to be. And what was poor Watson to do with all the untended bees when the inevitable occurred?
Of course, during puberty I was pretty sure I'd hit the phase where I'd start really having crushes and becoming a twitterpated fool like all my classmates in a year... or two years... or the year after that... by the time I was a Junior, certainly... when I met people in college who I would probably be more attracted to since I hadn't known them since they were little snotrags stomping on worms who I kicked in the shins because worms deserve to live too...
Eventually? I was pretty sure by the time I turned twenty that puberty was officially over. No dice.
I also had to come to grips with the fact that I would never receive my Hogwarts letter. There are only so many years an owl can get lost in the jet stream.
In short, it looked like I wasn't a wizard, and my mother's routine interrogation of "Did you make any friends?" (Yes Mom, I went bowling with this dude from chem club and kicked his ass.) "Does he seem like a nice boy?" (Yeah, he knows everything about spectrophotometry.) "Do you like him?" (Mom, he's going out with my lab partner. And I've only known him for a week!) started to take on a worried and somewhat sinister tone.
Several wiki-walks later, I didn't stumble across AVEN. (You can get to their site if you click the flag, too.) I actually got there via TV tropes. Then I did research. While it made perfect sense to me that there were characters in stories who didn't care about sex, or romance, I didn't think I was one of them. For one thing, I still thought I wanted a white picket fence, and that I'd know the other 50% of that couple eventually because the heavens would open and the trumpets would sound and his voice would sound like something suspiciously dessert-y (seriously, chocolate and caramel do not make sounds, you'd have to eat synesthesia to figure out if a voice sounded like them, but I digress) and suddenly I wouldn't feel vaguely bored and uncomfortable at the thought of genitalia and we'd get married and shag like bunnies and have two perfect children who I would name and we would raise.
Actually, I didn't think much about the shagging like bunnies - like, almost never, and then with the assumption that it was probably better than it actually sounded, like squeaky cheese curds. They're actually delicious if you can get past the fact that they rub your teeth.
It was especially complicated because I clearly have a fangirling type for fictional characters: tall, dark, and usually unrepentantly snarky, but with a good heart, buried not too deep beneath the surface. This made appearing "ordinary" sort of easy at slumber parties and on the tennis team bus.
Interrogator: Hey Scribbles, who do you think is hot?
Scribbles: *Racks brains for interesting characters.* Aragorn. I really like him in the movie, they did really well with his emotional arc-
Interrogator: Oh, Viggo Mortensen? He's hot, good choice.
Scribbles: *Internal Monologue* Who the frick-frack is Viggo Mortensen?
Interrogator: So as I was saying, about Orlando Bloom's ass...
All of this was despite the fact that I had limited patience for the silly bits of people's crushes - the ones where they wouldn't man or woman up and face potential success or rejection already - and the fact that I'd sort of known since I was eleven that I was like Sherlock Holmes, more interested in puzzles than people's pants. In fact, peoples pants and the preoccupation with what was in them was pretty silly. In fact, most people were pretty silly, come to think of it. Was it too much to ask that my project partners concentrate on the presentation instead of making cow-eyes at each other across the table?
Yeah, puberty was frustration. It just wasn't sexual frustration, it was can't-wait-until-college things-move-too-slow-around-here out-of-good-fantasy-novels-at-the-school-library frustration.
The late teens were more "I'm sorry, you want to what?" followed closely by "My boobs are not that educational. Stop staring." (And seriously, when the hell did those things show up on my chest? Last I paid any attention to them, I was having difficulty buying them training bras that didn't show hot-pink polka-dots through white shirts.) You could say that I was a bit of an alien to the stereotypical college freshman lifestyle. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I went out to class, went to clubs, and then sat in my room playing computer games and hoping like hell the squeaking from next door was my neighbor's wheely chair or someone jumping on the bed.
See, most of the people at high school - people who, in the large majority, I'd known since somewhere between eleven and fourteen - caught on to the whole asexual thing before I did. Not specifically, because, like I said, the tennis team liked to bait me during practice because they had nothing better to do, but in general most people's knowledge of me ran "This is Scribbles. She's still a unicorn magnet, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. Possibly until the sun burns out."
But honestly, in high school, I was the bookworm and nobody gave a flying fuck about my sexuality or lack thereof, assuming they ever gave it more than a momentary thought. College was suddenly very different, and yet, not different at all, because other than a few specific people who were blatantly interested enough that I actually noticed, I did the same things as usual, with the same kinds of people.
I guess I could wrap this up by saying that finding out that I was asexual was freeing (it was, but... honestly, mostly it killed the "there has got to be something wrong with me or maybe I'm just the suckiest actress ever," and brought on the "omgwtfbbq other people actually do think about the possibility of going at it like bunnies! Like, often! Like, with other people! What in hell is going on?") and that I finally found my people.
Not so much. I like the people on AVEN. It's nice to know that there's a place where people can come with similar problems to the ones I'm likely to face "re: I think I might like this guy, but human lips! I can't! They're like fishes, why do people go around sticking them to each other?"
Honestly, though, I worked through the ten stages of utter denial at high speed. (1. But there was that guy, in middle school... who I really wanted to play chess with? 2. I can't be! I'll be foreeeeeeeeever aloooooooooone. 3. Fuck you, life, just fuck you. Well, don't, but yeah. 4. Probably I'm only attracted to really damn smart guys? 5. Well, of course I'm not attracted to any guy at my college, the ones I don't know are all party hogs, and the ones I do know are dating my friends. 6. Damn it, I see the appeal of not giving a fuck about sex or relationships. This is a stupid thing to spend so much time thinking about! 7. I haven't known any guy long enough to be sexually attracted to him, except for the ones I've known so long that they're practically family, and, ew. (This lead to several weeks thinking that I might be demisexual, which was a.o.k. with me, because of the fact that I can't seem to shake the arguably catholic upbringing off my shoes.) 8. What the fuck ever, I don't care. 9. Okay, so I care, because this is yet another thing that most people will never get about me. 10. I am a floating brain, motherfuckers! Be careful or I'll clone myself into a goddamn army!)
Lately, though, I've come to realize I've always had my people.
I've got the girls at school, who I'm out to - especially my shiny new roommate, known to some of you as Watson (still like Sherlock Holmes, obviously,) who gets kudos for standing there and glaring at people who gear up to ask stupid questions - I've got my club and board members, who are more than willing to not make an issue... and to tell people to go wikipedia it if it comes up. I've especially got Moustache Dude, my favorite history major, who was just one week ago willing to cut through the bullcrap for me and explain his attraction to me... and allow my non-attraction to him to continue unthreatened. We might be going to see Monsters Universe tomorrow night.
I've got my mom, who is creeping towards the acceptance side of disbelief. I've got my dad, who never wanted to run off boys to begin with. I've got my little brother, who doesn't care in a very fraternal way and says that it's all good because sisters shouldn't have sex anyway.
I've got the net folks - lots more now, than I did last year about this time, when I was still stuck at the intermediate stage where "but houses and chocolate and flowers and reading over people's shoulders and eskimo kisses noo, don't leeeeave my future foreeeeever....!!!!"
And hey, I've always got myself. I figure I can work my way into most of the pickles being an odd type of human lands me in. :D
* Fun note: I still had no idea who in the nine hells played Aragorn - this despite the fact that he was a damn good actor and looked exactly like I'd imagined Aragorn - so I had to look him up. Things don't change.
As several of you are aware, I'm asexual.
[I guess I'm being visible.]The brief description: I personally am not interested. In sex. With anyone. Ever.
This makes me Asexual.
There are also Aromantics. These people do not wish to have a romantic relationship with people - unlike me, they might actually want sex, but there are to be absolutely no sappy candy hearts and flowers. Or you get the kind of aromantic who kind of wishes that they could have sappy candy hearts and flowers, but never seems to find anyone in particular that they want them with.
The long description: When everybody else was busy having puberty, I was busy reading mystery novels. (That's not to say I didn't do puberty - the fact that I have boobs and hips and my own razor kind of says that biology happened. And hormones - I certainly had the zits to prove it. It's not that managed to ignore puberty, because most of the time I really wished I could, but when everybody else was discovering that they really had the hots for people, and daydreaming about kissing... I think it would have to have been Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom at that point... I was busy. I wrote fantasy novels I never finished, learned chemistry, and wrote in codes. Kissing was something that happened to other people, with other people. I was busy binge-reading the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes stories and crying over the fact that Watson never seemed to be able to keep Sherlock away from the cocaine that probably cut his retired years quite a bit shorter than they needed to be. And what was poor Watson to do with all the untended bees when the inevitable occurred?
Of course, during puberty I was pretty sure I'd hit the phase where I'd start really having crushes and becoming a twitterpated fool like all my classmates in a year... or two years... or the year after that... by the time I was a Junior, certainly... when I met people in college who I would probably be more attracted to since I hadn't known them since they were little snotrags stomping on worms who I kicked in the shins because worms deserve to live too...
Eventually? I was pretty sure by the time I turned twenty that puberty was officially over. No dice.
I also had to come to grips with the fact that I would never receive my Hogwarts letter. There are only so many years an owl can get lost in the jet stream.
In short, it looked like I wasn't a wizard, and my mother's routine interrogation of "Did you make any friends?" (Yes Mom, I went bowling with this dude from chem club and kicked his ass.) "Does he seem like a nice boy?" (Yeah, he knows everything about spectrophotometry.) "Do you like him?" (Mom, he's going out with my lab partner. And I've only known him for a week!) started to take on a worried and somewhat sinister tone.
Several wiki-walks later, I didn't stumble across AVEN. (You can get to their site if you click the flag, too.) I actually got there via TV tropes. Then I did research. While it made perfect sense to me that there were characters in stories who didn't care about sex, or romance, I didn't think I was one of them. For one thing, I still thought I wanted a white picket fence, and that I'd know the other 50% of that couple eventually because the heavens would open and the trumpets would sound and his voice would sound like something suspiciously dessert-y (seriously, chocolate and caramel do not make sounds, you'd have to eat synesthesia to figure out if a voice sounded like them, but I digress) and suddenly I wouldn't feel vaguely bored and uncomfortable at the thought of genitalia and we'd get married and shag like bunnies and have two perfect children who I would name and we would raise.
Actually, I didn't think much about the shagging like bunnies - like, almost never, and then with the assumption that it was probably better than it actually sounded, like squeaky cheese curds. They're actually delicious if you can get past the fact that they rub your teeth.
It was especially complicated because I clearly have a fangirling type for fictional characters: tall, dark, and usually unrepentantly snarky, but with a good heart, buried not too deep beneath the surface. This made appearing "ordinary" sort of easy at slumber parties and on the tennis team bus.
Interrogator: Hey Scribbles, who do you think is hot?
Scribbles: *Racks brains for interesting characters.* Aragorn. I really like him in the movie, they did really well with his emotional arc-
Interrogator: Oh, Viggo Mortensen? He's hot, good choice.
Scribbles: *Internal Monologue* Who the frick-frack is Viggo Mortensen?
Interrogator: So as I was saying, about Orlando Bloom's ass...
All of this was despite the fact that I had limited patience for the silly bits of people's crushes - the ones where they wouldn't man or woman up and face potential success or rejection already - and the fact that I'd sort of known since I was eleven that I was like Sherlock Holmes, more interested in puzzles than people's pants. In fact, peoples pants and the preoccupation with what was in them was pretty silly. In fact, most people were pretty silly, come to think of it. Was it too much to ask that my project partners concentrate on the presentation instead of making cow-eyes at each other across the table?
Yeah, puberty was frustration. It just wasn't sexual frustration, it was can't-wait-until-college things-move-too-slow-around-here out-of-good-fantasy-novels-at-the-school-library frustration.
The late teens were more "I'm sorry, you want to what?" followed closely by "My boobs are not that educational. Stop staring." (And seriously, when the hell did those things show up on my chest? Last I paid any attention to them, I was having difficulty buying them training bras that didn't show hot-pink polka-dots through white shirts.) You could say that I was a bit of an alien to the stereotypical college freshman lifestyle. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I went out to class, went to clubs, and then sat in my room playing computer games and hoping like hell the squeaking from next door was my neighbor's wheely chair or someone jumping on the bed.
See, most of the people at high school - people who, in the large majority, I'd known since somewhere between eleven and fourteen - caught on to the whole asexual thing before I did. Not specifically, because, like I said, the tennis team liked to bait me during practice because they had nothing better to do, but in general most people's knowledge of me ran "This is Scribbles. She's still a unicorn magnet, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. Possibly until the sun burns out."
But honestly, in high school, I was the bookworm and nobody gave a flying fuck about my sexuality or lack thereof, assuming they ever gave it more than a momentary thought. College was suddenly very different, and yet, not different at all, because other than a few specific people who were blatantly interested enough that I actually noticed, I did the same things as usual, with the same kinds of people.
I guess I could wrap this up by saying that finding out that I was asexual was freeing (it was, but... honestly, mostly it killed the "there has got to be something wrong with me or maybe I'm just the suckiest actress ever," and brought on the "omgwtfbbq other people actually do think about the possibility of going at it like bunnies! Like, often! Like, with other people! What in hell is going on?") and that I finally found my people.
Not so much. I like the people on AVEN. It's nice to know that there's a place where people can come with similar problems to the ones I'm likely to face "re: I think I might like this guy, but human lips! I can't! They're like fishes, why do people go around sticking them to each other?"
Honestly, though, I worked through the ten stages of utter denial at high speed. (1. But there was that guy, in middle school... who I really wanted to play chess with? 2. I can't be! I'll be foreeeeeeeeever aloooooooooone. 3. Fuck you, life, just fuck you. Well, don't, but yeah. 4. Probably I'm only attracted to really damn smart guys? 5. Well, of course I'm not attracted to any guy at my college, the ones I don't know are all party hogs, and the ones I do know are dating my friends. 6. Damn it, I see the appeal of not giving a fuck about sex or relationships. This is a stupid thing to spend so much time thinking about! 7. I haven't known any guy long enough to be sexually attracted to him, except for the ones I've known so long that they're practically family, and, ew. (This lead to several weeks thinking that I might be demisexual, which was a.o.k. with me, because of the fact that I can't seem to shake the arguably catholic upbringing off my shoes.) 8. What the fuck ever, I don't care. 9. Okay, so I care, because this is yet another thing that most people will never get about me. 10. I am a floating brain, motherfuckers! Be careful or I'll clone myself into a goddamn army!)
Lately, though, I've come to realize I've always had my people.
I've got the girls at school, who I'm out to - especially my shiny new roommate, known to some of you as Watson (still like Sherlock Holmes, obviously,) who gets kudos for standing there and glaring at people who gear up to ask stupid questions - I've got my club and board members, who are more than willing to not make an issue... and to tell people to go wikipedia it if it comes up. I've especially got Moustache Dude, my favorite history major, who was just one week ago willing to cut through the bullcrap for me and explain his attraction to me... and allow my non-attraction to him to continue unthreatened. We might be going to see Monsters Universe tomorrow night.
I've got my mom, who is creeping towards the acceptance side of disbelief. I've got my dad, who never wanted to run off boys to begin with. I've got my little brother, who doesn't care in a very fraternal way and says that it's all good because sisters shouldn't have sex anyway.
I've got the net folks - lots more now, than I did last year about this time, when I was still stuck at the intermediate stage where "but houses and chocolate and flowers and reading over people's shoulders and eskimo kisses noo, don't leeeeave my future foreeeeever....!!!!"
And hey, I've always got myself. I figure I can work my way into most of the pickles being an odd type of human lands me in. :D
* Fun note: I still had no idea who in the nine hells played Aragorn - this despite the fact that he was a damn good actor and looked exactly like I'd imagined Aragorn - so I had to look him up. Things don't change.