Hey giraffe! Saw you reblogged the post about random asks to get to know you better, so I thought I’d ask ☺️ (if it’s too personal, I won’t be offended if you don’t want to answer): When did you realize you were ace/aro, and do you identify with any micro labels?
Thanks for asking! Not offensive at all!
First off, yeah, I do use microlabels. I'm sex-repulsed or apothisexual and romance-indifferent or icularomantic. That basically means I want absolutely nothing to do with sex and wouldn't touch it with a 39 and a half foot pole, but I'm chill with romance. I don't actively seek out a romantic relationship or anything, but I'm not upset or weirded out by the idea of being in a romantic relationship.
I realized I was ace and that I was aro sort of separately, and I don't think I really had a single "AHA!" moment for either.
The first time my orientation really even crossed my mind was my sophomore year of high school when a girl in my orchestra class pulled me aside randomly one day and asked what my sexuality was. I had never had a crush or any sort of feelings for anybody before, but I kind of just assumed it would come at some point. Before that moment, I would have just said I was straight, but something about how she asked the question made me pause and think about it. I eventually told her, "I don't know. I've never felt that way about anyone before."
It kind of went to the back of my mind until my junior year when I started watching Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube. One of the main content creators there, Red, is openly asexual. That was the first time I had ever heard the term or heard of someone else who'd never had those feelings, and I found I related to a lot of her experiences. I think, over the course of that year, I slowly started applying the "maybe I'm ace" mindset, and it really did fit. It felt right, and by my senior year, I was just like "yeah, I'm asexual."
The thing is, it wasn't really important enough for me at the time to go digging on everything that meant. I had a word to explain how I felt, and I didn't really feel the need for anything else at the time. It didn't help that my religion is queerphobic (I'm not. Most individuals I know are not, but the policies as a whole are, and it's a thing that drives us all crazy. You can find more information about it on the queerstake or tumblrstake tags). I lived in a very small rural town that was pretty much all that religion too, so between those two things, nobody really learned about queer stuff unless they were queer and went looking or had queer friends who talked about it. And since I wasn't super close with any other queer people at that point and didn't know much about the queer community in general, I wasn't really aware that aromanticism and asexuality were two separate things.
It wasn't until sometime in the summer after I graduated that I was made aware of the distinction. I didn't feel the outright repulsion to romance as I did sex, but I had also never felt romantic attraction and had no desire for a romantic relationship, so I wasn't really sure where I was with that. Like, I knew for sure I was ace, but I didn't know enough about the arospec to really know how I felt about identifying that way. So I adopted "grayromantic" for that period of time.
When I went to college, I suddenly met a LOT of queer people, and was online a lot more. This meant I had the opportunity to be in a community of aspecs for the first time, and I ended out finding a YouTube video that went over the intricacies over the arospec and some of it's microlabels. But I also wasn't out to anybody yet, so I felt like I could take my time coming up with a label that fit me better.
Finally, I got a roommate second semester who was bisexual and who I talked to a lot. Eventually, I had a conversation with her about my aromanticism, and she was like, "Honey, you've never had a fictional crush. You ARE aromantic." And I was like, "Huh. I guess you're right."
So I've been actively identifying as fully aroace for about 5 months now, which is also coincidentally when I started using Tumblr, but I actually just found my microlabels 10 days ago! I made a long rambling post (like I do) about how I experience love, and was given some suggestions by the lovely @aroacemagicstar! So all the thanks to them!
Again, thanks for asking me!
