Trying to figure out if youâre ace or aro can be so goddamn hard because itâs like, trying to find the absence of something. Imagine youâre at a pond and you want to know if there are any turtles, or fish. Say you find a turtle and youâre like âgreat! Now I know there are turtles.â Or a fish, now you know for sure there are fish. Or you find both, and now you know for a fact there are both turtles and fish in the pond.
But like, if you donât find any turtles it might be that there are no turtles or maybe youâre just really shitty at looking for turtles and maybe you THINK you saw a turtle over there or maybe it was just a stick. Maybe there are only a few turtles. Maybe you need to do something special to find the turtles. Maybe a bunch of these rocks are actually turtles but you couldnât tell them apart. Maybe there are no turtles. You have no idea. Meanwhile some people are saying âOh there have to be turtles! Youâll find them eventually ;)â or âHow many turtles have you found in your pond?â or âTry planting some vegetables at the shore to attract the turtles.â Or âOh no! What disaster happened to your pond that there are no turtles?â And youâre just standing there wet with an empty net and a tired expression.
But whatever because whether there are turtles or fish or not your pondâs ecology works just fine without them because thatâs what eco-communities do they form a system around what they have. You arenât missing anything if you donât have turtles you just have a pond system without turtles. If someone tried to change you by pouring a bunch of turtles into your pond it would probably fuck something up.
So you donât have to be entirely sure. You donât have to search every inch of the damn pond before you can decide there are probably no turtles. If you want to take the aro or ace label because you think it fits go for it. And if you do find your turtles you can rename the pond. Thatâs fine.
