People always think if you want to hang out you have to DO something. Like… No.. Invite me over to your house, introduce me to your pets, give me a plate of Oreos and your wi-fi password. We can sit together in silence for HOURS.
go 40 minutes without blowing your nose when you have a cold so you don’t have to loudly blow it in front of a group of people
use extremely dull pencils because you don’t want to sharpen them because that is also loud
not order what you actually want to eat because people might think it’s strange
not wear the clothes you want to wear
wear the clothes you want to wear and then spend the whole day worrying that everyone is judging you
put down every accomplishment you have ever made for fear of being looked at as different
-hold your pee for 4 hours because you’ve never been to this house before
-go without food rather than eat in the cafeteria because you’re afraid someone will judge you for eating alone
-show up to class 20 minutes early so you can be the first person to sit down
-panic for the next 15 minutes that you’re in the wrong room because nobody else has shown up
-wander around a building for half an hour waiting for someone else to open the door of the classroom you need to be in because it might be locked and then you look dumb for trying to open it
I might go dig out a pack of cards later but I wanted to post this before I lost my nerve. I needed to write this.
It wasn’t until partway through college that I even heard of being asexual as a legitimate thing. It took even longer before I finally felt comfortable enough to actually say I was ace. I wish I’d heard about it much sooner–it would have saved me a lot of years and some bad experiences trying to fit with what I thought I was “supposed” to be like.
Because no one ever told me it was okay to just…not like that kind of thing. I thought I was…wrong, somehow, that I hadn’t grown up enough yet, or part of puberty had lagged behind on me, and I wanted to fit in. God, did I want to fit in so badly.
I felt like I had to act a certain way, go along with certain things because that’s what was “normal.” Because I was normal too, right? I felt normal to me. Maybe I was just late picking up on it.
I wish I’d had someone to tell me from day one that it was okay to just not. That it was still normal. That you can be an adult, be mature, and just not like sex. That it’s not childish, it doesn’t make you immature. It was just another thing that was totally normal, and yes, totally valid.
At the very least that I wasn’t the only one.
So just….to past me, or anyone else still struggling with this kind of thing:
You’re not broken.
You’re not wrong.
You’re fine just the way you are.
No change required.
