#mayastuff

I mean, yeah, she still says things like "You'll never know..." but she says it in a less adamant way that definitely doesn't imply that she doesn't believe me when I say it to her. I overheard her talking with my aunt saying that she was glad that I wasn't interested in relationships and both of them seem so understanding of me being aro.

She sometimes just randomly tells me stories of relatives and friends she had that lived fulfilling single lives in order to cheer me up when I lament amatonormativity and loneliness, and perks up whenever she hears real people who share my experience too!

Recently, I've noticed that she likes telling me about characters in the shows she watches that she thinks I'd relate to, and excitedly tells me when a character comes out as ace or aro or aroace.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there's more diverse Disney movies as of late and representation is always important, but I feel like how the movie is set in a fictional South East Asia kinda cheapens it for me. I feel like my country does have representation but it doesn't feel complete, like it's sorta there but it isn't?

I see arnis sticks and love her fighting since it makes me remember the arnis classes that I used to take in school, but when she travels around to fight the aesthetics of the buildings are super foreign to me since they aren't common in my culture. I see small little gold accent pieces that remind me of some of the historical series that I've watched as a kid, but their outfit feels foreign to me to bc it borrows from another country that I'm not 100% used to. I could imagine that some SEAsians feel the same way since they pretty much took the different cultures of SEA and just shoved them in a blender as I see it.

I do understand that it's more of a minority opinion compared to what other people think and it also doesn't mean I think the movie would be bad at all especially since I haven't even seen it and I think the animation is phenomenal from what we've seen so far in the trailer, but it would be hard to shake off this small disappointment.

If your friend comes out to you as ace or aro, be supportive as best you can and treat their coming out seriously.

Some people tend to say that coming out as ace or aro doesn't really matter compared to other orientations, but it does matter and it could mean the difference for the person coming out.

When I said I was ace to some people, they usually didn't comment on it or ever brought it up again, but when I told my senior high guidance counselor being ace, she took it seriously and was even glad that I trusted her with that information.

I didn't think much about it then but after that happened and whenever I get confused or sad because of bad takes about asexuality, I always come back to that memory and remember that at least one person out there who had no information whatsoever about asexuality took it seriously. That people can take me seriously for who I am regardless of their background.

The same goes with me coming out as aro to my mom and her even telling me that she knows older people that could be described as aromantic. Whenever I question whether or not it even matters or if I'm going to be sad for life since I could not experience something so pervasive in my culture, I think back as to how supportive she was to me coming out and all the other adults in my life that live good lives despite not getting partners.