All my life I knew something was different about me, and it got even more noticable to me as I grew up and entered middle school. People around me started getting boyfriends and girlfriends, kissing and holding hands and hugging, and some of them having sex. People were falling in love and getting pregnant well into high school, and I just didn't. I didn't feel any romantic feelings for anyone. I, of course, had silly little school girl crushes on different guys. But, it never went beyond thinking they were cute and visioning myself being their girlfriend. I never had a boyfriend-or a girlfriend. I never hugged or kissed or held hands. And I hadn't done any of those things because they made me EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE. Just thinking about those things caused pings of anxiety to go through my whole body, my hands would start to shake, and I would feel like I was going to vomit. I didn't think it was all that big of a deal for a while. I didn't think anything of my feelings, and just brushed them off as being just an age thing, that I would get better as I got older. Wrong. When I entered high school, I started getting picked on for many things-never having a boyfriend, never kissing anyone, still being a virgin. It tore me to pieces. No one had ever cared before, but now that I was in high school, suddenly everyone cared whether or not I had/had done those things. There were countless nights I would lay awake, crying, not because of the mean things they said to me.. But because I thought I was broken. If someone asked me to describe myself, I would say I'm like an untuned guitar with a broken string. A basketball with no air in it. An cup of soda with no carbonation. I thought I was a mistake. That when God made me, he accidentally forgot to add a part of me that would make me fully human. I thought I was destined to be alone for the rest of my life, that no one would ever love me. I started self harming everyday, purging, and all around treating myself like the disappointment I thought I was. Because who wants to date someone who has nothing to offer them? Who would ever want someone for years and marry them and grow old with them, much less love them, when they can't ever do anything besides what best friends usually do with each other? No one. My first boyfriend was last year (my sophomore year of high school). His name was, well, I'll just call him C. He was such a great guy. He could be a dick, but he didn't mean to be, and we got along so well. When we started dating, we took it kind of slowly. Although I was an extremely nervous person through the whole relationship, I was somewhat okay with what was going on. (Which is a complete lie, I just tricked myself into thinking I was okay because I thought it was normal and what I was supposed to do). The first time he tried to hold my hand, I flipped shit and yanked away from him. That upset him, because he though it was something he had done, and then that upset me because I felt like I was a failure of a girlfriend. But what he didn't understand, and what I barely understood myself, was that when he touched my hand, I didn't feel cutesy little shivers of giddyness. It wasn't soft, or warm, or comforting. It was painful, his touch made my entire body panic, and I jumped as far as I could from him. I didn't mean to, it had just been my instinct. Eventually, I learned to ignore the uneasy feelings and let him hold my hand, and even hug me. And we were both okay with that. I wasn't entirely fine, but I dealt with it because he was a nice guy and I felt like he deserved a nice girlfriend. So I ignored my own feelings for the sake of his. But then he started hinting that he wanted more, he wanted to kiss me. I can't describe the feeling of dread that came over me when I typed that. He started making it obvious that the whole hand-holding-and-hugging-only thing wasn't working for me, and that (his change of mind) wasn't working for me either. When he first brought it up, I felt sick. My entire body froze and I felt like I was going to throw up. I lied to him and said that the reason for my discomfort was that I'd never kissed anyone before. So he told me he would be patient and wait for me to "get over the fear". That was like a punch to the gut because, like, I can't just get over it. I can't just take a few deep breaths and suddenly be 100% okay with it. A couple weeks passed, and I thought he was finally getting over the fact that I wouldn't kiss him. Until one night, we were hanging out at my grandma's house watching TV, when out of nowhere, he pushed me down on the couch and started literally sucking on my face. He found my lips and started kissing me, and just kept kissing me and kissing me. And I just laid there, stiff as a board, and I couldn't stop crying. He pulled away and I was sobbing, and just pushed him off. Partly because I couldn't bear to look at him anymore, and partly because of the hard on he'd gotten while laying on top of me and kissing me. I cried because he was obviously getting something out of it, but I wasn't. I cried because he had been turned on by our closeness and movements, but I had felt nothing but what I could only describe as a whining, sad puppy in my stomach. I cried because I felt like absolute shit about pushing him off. I cried because he stood up, readjusted his pants, gathered his shoes, looked me dead in the eye and said "We're fucking over." before leaving me there to drown in my self-pity. I cried because not only was my heart broken, but because I felt like I'd just been punched in the face because the guy I thought I was falling for proved to me that all he wanted out of the relationship was the physical parts, and that was all that mattered to him. After that, I decided that my problems were never going to fix themselves. I would have to take the matter into my own hands. Summer of this year, I found out about asexuality. I went on the official asexuality website and read everything there, and learning things about it. And I cried. This time not out of frustration or sadness, but out of relief. It's an indescribable experience to find out what's wrong with you, or what's not wrong with you. I repeated "I am asexual" to myself hundreds of times, and it felt right. It was like something clicked in my brain, and a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. But everyday I'm still struggling. I deal with people telling me that asexuality is made up and fake. People tell me it's just a phase. They tell me that I "just haven't found the right guy yet". I get told that I'm only saying I'm asexual because I want the recognition of being on the LGBT spectrum and that I only want attention and some kind of "special status". I get told that if I don't have sex in high school, I'll never have sex and I'll live alone forever. I get people making jokes about my sexuality, and mocking it by saying things like "My boyfriend forgot to get me extra whipped cream in my starbucks this morning. I'm going asexual. That'll teach him!". And they don't fucking understand how it makes me feel. It feels like a guillotine cutting my soul in half. It hurts to get told that the only solid thing in your life, your sexuality, is not a real sexuality. I'm not posting my story here for sympathy, I'm looking for empathy. I'm looking for people who have been in/are in my position, and can help me, and guide me in the right path for my future, and who can offer some sort of support for a 16 year old girl who feels like she's stuck. Any help would be extremely appreciated. Thank you for reading this, if you did. xxC
Wow, I'm just amazed. Teens can be so cruel. I'm asexual and aromantic which is the fancy way of saying "forever alone". But I'm really not. I have family and friends. And they accept my asexuality. It hasn't always been easy. And then there's when people start "liking" you. They don't typically believe me when I tell them I'm ace and aro and think I'm just making an excuse. I have had people also say "Oh, one day you'll meet the right person!" or "Just give it a little time *wink*" or "You just need to try sex". Granted, that's far nicer than the things you've been told. I'm 25 now, people are doing that a lot less and take me a bit more seriously when I say, "Not happening". There are people who understand that sex and romance isn't for everyone and that your orientation doesn't really... matter. There's still people, for many reasons they might think that life is about sex or romance because to them, that is what's truly important to them and they can't imagine how someone wouldn't want that. But as people get older they tend to start to understand that not everyone is like them and that it's OK. If they don't get that then they are still immature. I say all this to say that things will hopefully get better for you. I'm kinda baffled and saddened that you're being treated this way, though. This is no better than people being racist or homophobic. You're not broken or weird or something because you're asexual. You're simply being bullied because people like to bully people for things that really don't matter at all. Don't feel like you need to change yourself for them. They're not worth it. There are people who will accept you for you and won't think they need to change you.
Tell them. "Why would I ID myself as asexual if you're going to treat me like this? I ID myself as asexual because I am asexual."
I can definitely empathize. I only recently found out what asexuality is and felt such a huge relief. It made everything really clear for me and allowed me to let go some of the hurt from past relationships. I also had a relationship like what you described, though it was more unspoken than yours. My very first girlfriend broke up with me and then slept around with about 4 of my guy friends because I couldn't bring myself to have sex with her. She didn't want to talk about our problems and assumed that I must not really like her the way I said I did if I wouldn't have sex. Many of my other girlfriends after that also broke up with me for similar reasons. I'm 23(almost 24) and fairly new to realizing what asexuality means for me, but I'll see if I can't give you some good advice. First, realize that being asexual means you have to build your own kind of relationship. There aren't any 'steps' for asexual people to be in a relationship and that means you get to create one that's unique to you. Looking at different relationship models might help you decide what you can feel comfortable with doing, particularly if you have a sexual partner. Second, if you feel uncomfortable with sex, don't do it--no matter what. For a long time, I thought I was obligated to have sex with my partners. This isn't true and it will lead you down a fairly dark road of depression and sex can even become the tool you use for self-harm/sabotage. Third, trust your identity but don't be chained down by it. This goes for anyone, but it's important to remember. Give yourself permission to explore what relationships hold interest for you on your own terms. If you know you're asexual, be that; but if it changes, that's okay too. Sexuality is fluid and being 16 means you still have a lot of specifics to discover about yourself. Enjoy the journey. And fourth, you're not alone. While it may be more difficult to find a relationship while being asexual and you receive a lot of flak, remember that you're not alone. There are others like you and who have been where you've been. If you can't get any support at home or among your friends, find a community online or someone you trust to talk to, like a therapist.
