A bit different, but that's Fine

(S)

Hi, all! I am Kal, one of the new people! I am 20 and asexual and genderqueer and from Canada. Whoo, now that that's out of the way, I'll start my first ever post.

So as stated above: I identify as asexual. And this is my finding-my-identity-story.


Since the beginning of time... or age twelve, I've known I was well... different. Not in a good way or bad way, just different. You see, all of my friends came to be of that age when hormones start going every which way and pretty much your sex drive becomes awoken and you start feeling sexual attraction towards others. And everyone did. Everyone..but me. I labelled myself as a late-bloomer, I mean I was terrible at French, my parents called me a late-bloomer for French studies, so why couldn't I be a late-bloomer in other areas? And that worked out fine, and I managed to learn from what friends said who was attractive and who was not, so blending in was so easy!

So then high school happened. More hormones going every which way and now sex was added to the equation. To me sex was foreign and weird and WHY on earth would you put that there? Ewww! So that was never a problem for me until grade twelve when it happened, cue dramatic music, I had my very own boyfriend. And it felt so “normal” to hold hands with someone in the halls. It felt right, that I was a normal girl, just a late-bloomer, but I was a late-bloomer in French and I turned out fine despite that. So I was okay. I was good. I was normal. Yes. Good.

And the inevitable happened- the boyfriend and I shared our first kiss. Now, having watched Disney movies and whatnot, Princess Bride comes to mind, I expected the first kiss to make fireworks go off and romantic music playing and frankly, none of that happened. It was terrible! Disgusting! Ew! Why would anyone find that attractive! So, my conclusion was I was a late-bloomer with kissing too.

But that was one thing I was not okay with. I tried to enjoy kissing, I really, really did, but I couldn't! It felt gross and icky and I couldn't stand it. No matter how hard I tried to enjoy it, I just couldn't. So I was no longer a late-bloomer. I was broken. Defective. Every other normal girl loved to kiss, but me. And that was my conclusion and the worst thing of it all- I accepted it.

So let's fast-forward to second year university. Still thought I was broken, but was at terms with it. I found some friends who were actually friends and didn't care whether I was a virgin and didn't like to kiss or not. One thing led to another and I found myself, one day reading fanfiction. (Stories/scenarios written by fans of a specific work) and a character was mentioned to be asexual. So I thought it was some whacky alternate-universe/alien world kinda thing, since people cannot have babies with themselves! How silly! But curiosity got the best of me and after a quick Google search, I realised that asexual is also an orientation. Vwaa-boom! The sound of my mind being blown.

It was like love at first sight - or well, identity at first sight. I hardly had to do any research, I just knew that I was asexual. I knew from then on that there was nothing wrong with me. Sure, I don't feel sexual attraction to anyone, but that's fine and other people feel that way too! It's normal in my own way and best of all, I'm not alone with this. And that has to be the best feeling ever.