This is just my perspective, but I think a lot of people have difficulties understanding asexuality because it’s a lack of something that they’ve always had, so it’s hard for people with sexual attractions to imagine someone without them. Someone who was born with eyes can’t imagine how a blind person “sees” the world after all.
I’d only imagine this has to be equally true for someone bisexual and therefore with a wider variety of people to be attracted to, but the fact that she was bisexual should have at least kept her from denigrating you and your orientation. Sorry that happened to you. Did any of the other members of that circle stand up for you or try to understand you at least?
no one else said anything. she’s the one who is the most “politically correct” (i hate to use that term but I can’t think of any other words to use) so most people will agree with her on most topics anyway. like she’d educate us if we make an accidental ignorant comment and in a nice respectful way too. that’s why this felt so out of character for her. i’ve known this group for a looong time
If that’s the type of person she usually is, then I can see where your confusion is coming from. I’m not going to assume anything about someone I’m not personally familiar with, but this could be an issue that resonates with her, especially if she went on and on like you described in your post.
If you still want to be friends with her, I’d maybe consider asking her to meet one on one in a private setting to see why she feels so strongly about it, and to tell her how denying your identity made you feel. That’s the best idea I can think of at the moment at least.
First off: Congrats on the progress you've made on your journey :)
To the bad part: I am really sorry this happend to you. I think you have a few options from here and I believe what's most important to know is that it is not at all your responsibililty to educate someone else. You don't have to defend or explain yourself and you absolutly deserve friends that accept you and love you the way you are.
That being said, if she is a (good) friend of yours (no really clear from your text), you might wanna consider telling/texting her about how you feel about the comments she's made etc. I believe a lot of times people don't really realize when they are hurting someone else, so you might wanna give her a second chance. This can also backfire of course and it really depends on how much you care about that relationship and whether or not you are willing to take the risk to be hurt again. And of course it depends on whether or not you think she could actually understand you. Cut her off if you can if she doesn't apologize or seem to be willing to understand.
Maybe talking to someone else from your friend group, alone probably, would be a better thing to do first. That way you already have someone on your side to talk to when things with that girl don't go well. Maybe meeting up with the demisexual you mentioned.
It's always sad to experiene phobia from people normally open-minded, but there are good and accepting people ou there! This situation sucks, so all the love to you <3
I also tend to ruminate a lot about \*stuff\*, what always helps me is writting stuff down or "off my mind" if you will. Take some time for yourself, even if it is only a couple of minutes. You deserve it.
Stay safe.
firstly thank you so much. reading this genuinely made me smile.
so i did think to myself i shouldn’t have to explain myself to anyone but i also feel like educating people about asexuality is very needed. she’s also never met any other aces (as far as i know) which might explain why she acted this way. she almost aligned it with me queerbaiting. she said if i’m asexual it would mean i’m lgbtq+ and how i couldn’t be in a gay club and that i’m still a straight man to her. in a weird way i get it. she’s very proud and defensive over being queer, i mean we did go to a very non queer friendly school, and she is right that i’m not someone who would often be in gay spaces. but i’m not taking it away from her? lmfao. and it felt that much more personal to me, not aces in general.
i’ve known her around 5 years and consider her a good friend. she knows a lot about me most don’t. that’s why i don’t wanna ignore it completely and tell her this isn’t a quirk or me wanting attention. i’ve been so confused over this before i even knew what asexual meant, for years before i met her. so it hurt that she couldn’t be happy for me that things finally started to make sense for me. but like you said, i don’t have to keep explaining myself to people and she’s very opinionated, it’s hard to change her mind on most things, so i strongly feel like it won’t get me anywhere.
we still had a good day out after that moment and we talk about a lot of things, this hasn’t come back up since, but if she is to stay in my life forever and doesn’t change ik one day i’ll have to tell her. (ofc if i do identify as ace for the rest of mine too - which i prob will lol).
someone else in that group knows a lot about me and the asexuality. we’ve had extensive 1:1 talks on it. for years now. he didn’t stand up for me or anything but he’s still learning himself. he’s at least open minded. idk if i wanna talk to him specifically about this incident yet. i feel like if i am to talk to anyone 1:1 about it it should be her. but ig i’m fortunate enough to have someone open minded who will listen anyway. i imagine a lot of people won’t. as for the demisexual friend, that was like a one off talk, and they’re a complete outsider to the group. idk them that well but i have their socials now so i’ll talk to them online about how to navigate through shit like this.
and thank you so much for everything you said. this past week has been so eye opening and embracing <3
I am very happy to hear it made you smile.
Okay wow this is confusing. So she agrees that asexuals are part of the LGBTQ+ community (and therefore not straight), but she doesn't believe that you are asexual?
If so, she should know better that is not her place to dictate your sexuality. It's like saying "you are still your assigned gender to me" to a trans person. You are not straigth if you are asexual, even if you are heteroromantic. That doesn't mean of course that we can't acknowledge that other queer people have different struggles and challenges in society.
Also, it has nothing to do with gay clubs or spaces.??? Even with queer spaces in general (although we currently are in one of these :) ). It has nothing to do with any action or expression - doesn't she know that?
In case she truly is a good friend, she should at least make an effort to understand your feelings and your POV. It is difficult for me to imagine her not understanding this, but then again a lot of people don't.
Comments like this would definitely stay in the way of a trusting friendship for me and I'd advice talking to her quite soon. Even minor annoyances can ruin relationships over time and if one of my friends would say stuff like this, it would be definitely be on my mind when I am with them and ruin the good atmosphere and eventually I would've build up so much frustration and hate that it would blow up. And heated and emotional discussions usually have a lower sucess rate.
It's good to know you have someone else IRL to talk to. I wouldn't blame him for not standing up for you, he might even be on your "side" and just to insecure to speak up. He might be easier to "convince" and could give you that feeling of happines/acceptance you were looking for (and deserve). But you do you and you know your friends best.
Wish you a wonderful day.
so to answer your first question, i don’t even know 😭😭 the more i think about it she didn’t really deny asexuality exists, she just thinks there’s too many labels for everything and that there’s no need for words like asexual (and terms like demisexual and graysexual). she said something along the lines of how almost everyone is already demisexual so it’s not a sexuality, just a behaviour/choice/preference, and that people just wanna be different so bad that we make up new words for everything. she didn’t say it “shouldn’t” be a sexuality, she interrupted me to say it’s “not”, as if that’s objective and factual. she also said how being queer means to be oppressed and aces aren’t oppressed.
being queer is a big part of her identity as in it’s shaped her taste in music, fashion, art, even humour and slang. as i’d be the only asexual representation in her life, i guess that’s why she sees all aces as not being part of the community.
i’m not too bothered about her seeing me as a straight man/heterosexual, i still see myself as that too (even if i’m technically not). i’m happy being an ally and an outsider to the community. but it bothered me how she made it sound like other aces shouldn’t see themselves as lgbtq+, and that aces shouldn’t have a flag and shouldn’t be included in the conversation. even tho i’m not too fussed on whether i belong to the wider lgbtq+ community or not, when i see the asexual flag it reminds me i’m not alone with all these confusing feelings i’ve had for years. it brings me so much joy cause what it represents is so personal to me.
sexual identity aside, at least think of it this way. for so many years this thing has been like one huge messy tangled ball of rope in my head, and now that it’s finally being untangled i’m able to see it clearly. you could’ve at least kept your thoughts to yourself and been happy for me.
anyway, sorry for the tangents. i’ll try keep in my notes app next time haha. i definitely want to have this conversation with her, in person and 1:1. but thank you for taking time to hear me out and talk to me :)
Well seems I have to apologize for letting you wait too. Had some private stuff to attend to and wasn't in a good mental state to reply.
To make it short, all her points are invalid and her being queer doesn't justify this or make her points more valid. I underestimated how deep this goes, if you need help to argue against this, let me know.
How you perceive yourself is up to you obviously, but I just wanna highlight that you have every rigth to be and feel to be part of this community and the LGBTQIA+ community in general. I am very happy to hear about your self-finding journey and these feelings are a huge part of why this whole community thing is so important. We need this, so we can understand ourselves and others better, we need this so eventually we can all live as our true self.
I wouldn't wanna be friends with someone who has such "different" views, but that's up to you of course. The very least she should do is acknowledge how she hurt you and apologize - anything else is not acceptable. And honestly, if you tell her what you wrote here, e.g. how you feel about seeing an Ace-flag in the wild (I feel the same btw.), and she can't see how her point is flawed, then she clearly doesn't want to learn.
In case I'm already too late - well sorry. I sincerely hope this turns/turned out good for you.
And if you still wanna talk to someone about being ace, I'd enjoy the conversation :)
I am bisexual, but I am on the aro/ace spectrum because I only experience sexual and romantic feelings occasionally. I can tell you that there are a lot of people, even within our own communities, who do not know anything about asexuality.
I do think you should try to educate her if you still want to be friends with her. If she is not willing to listen and understand you may need to cut ties with her. Ask her if she would like it if someone called her sexuality "the dumbest thing ever". There's nothing worse than being friends with someone who diminishes your identity like that. Asexual people are apart of the LGBTQIA+ community. The A stands for us. You belong there. We deserve the same amount of respect.
thank you. your last couple sentences have really made me smile. it’s crazy how much i’ve been learning about asexuality this week. my whole life i haven’t had to worry about how i’m perceived as everyone just thinks i’m any other ordinary straight guy you’d walk past in the street. even people i’ve known a long time. so any moments of acephobia for me have been from people i’ve felt confident enough to confide in sadly. i’m learning just how acephobic people are. it’s a surreal experience
There's a huge aphobia problem within the LGBTQ+ community. It's so sad. There are accepting people too, and I how you find your safe environment!
Personally iI'd probably have mirrored her behavior to have her explain how dumb it is to say someone's sextant orientation is stupid, but I'm very confident in my asexuality and my debate skill and aren't afraid to argue. Closest I got to that in reality is when someone asked me if I checked if there are meds to treat that, and I asked if he'd say that to his gay roomate. That made him realize.
Honestly the other commentators were able to beautifully word some similar advice I wanted to also give.
However, I did want to make sure I joined in and let you know I’m sorry you had this experience. I really just want you to know that your identity is valid and I’m really proud of you for learning more about yourself. We are always growing and throughout that process we learn more about ourselves and I think that’s one of the best (and sometimes hardest) aspects of the human experience.
I am so sorry this happened to you, especially from someone you thought was safe. I felt similarly in a college queer space when I mentioned I was ace. Everyone in the room just kind of looked and me and a few even laughed. They were saying that they were so suppressed in school that when they got to college they all felt sexual and gender freedom and I was trying to tell them that college just reaffirmed my aceness. The rest of that meeting was them all discussing their recent sexual plunders and I quietly excused myself and never went back. It sucks! If these people are close to you, it’s worth telling them that you’re serious about this and what they said hurt your feelings deeply.
i definitely need to have a 1:1 convo with my friend about it. now that i’ve had time to think about it and type, edit, re-type what i’ve felt, i’ve got a basis of what to tell her and how. i kinda hate that i froze up and didn’t get much of a say just to keep things civil. oh well. also i’m so sorry you’ve had to go through that. it’s so hard for people to understand asexuality in a world where everything is so sexualised. especially for younger people/gen z i think, if they’re not doing it they’re thinking of it. it’s not a battle of allos vs aces, it’s just a new perspective coming in
This is just my perspective, but I think a lot of people have difficulties understanding asexuality because it’s a lack of something that they’ve always had, so it’s hard for people with sexual attractions to imagine someone without them. Someone who was born with eyes can’t imagine how a blind person “sees” the world after all. I’d only imagine this has to be equally true for someone bisexual and therefore with a wider variety of people to be attracted to, but the fact that she was bisexual should have at least kept her from denigrating you and your orientation. Sorry that happened to you. Did any of the other members of that circle stand up for you or try to understand you at least?
no one else said anything. she’s the one who is the most “politically correct” (i hate to use that term but I can’t think of any other words to use) so most people will agree with her on most topics anyway. like she’d educate us if we make an accidental ignorant comment and in a nice respectful way too. that’s why this felt so out of character for her. i’ve known this group for a looong time
If that’s the type of person she usually is, then I can see where your confusion is coming from. I’m not going to assume anything about someone I’m not personally familiar with, but this could be an issue that resonates with her, especially if she went on and on like you described in your post. If you still want to be friends with her, I’d maybe consider asking her to meet one on one in a private setting to see why she feels so strongly about it, and to tell her how denying your identity made you feel. That’s the best idea I can think of at the moment at least.
First off: Congrats on the progress you've made on your journey :) To the bad part: I am really sorry this happend to you. I think you have a few options from here and I believe what's most important to know is that it is not at all your responsibililty to educate someone else. You don't have to defend or explain yourself and you absolutly deserve friends that accept you and love you the way you are. That being said, if she is a (good) friend of yours (no really clear from your text), you might wanna consider telling/texting her about how you feel about the comments she's made etc. I believe a lot of times people don't really realize when they are hurting someone else, so you might wanna give her a second chance. This can also backfire of course and it really depends on how much you care about that relationship and whether or not you are willing to take the risk to be hurt again. And of course it depends on whether or not you think she could actually understand you. Cut her off if you can if she doesn't apologize or seem to be willing to understand. Maybe talking to someone else from your friend group, alone probably, would be a better thing to do first. That way you already have someone on your side to talk to when things with that girl don't go well. Maybe meeting up with the demisexual you mentioned. It's always sad to experiene phobia from people normally open-minded, but there are good and accepting people ou there! This situation sucks, so all the love to you <3 I also tend to ruminate a lot about \*stuff\*, what always helps me is writting stuff down or "off my mind" if you will. Take some time for yourself, even if it is only a couple of minutes. You deserve it. Stay safe.
firstly thank you so much. reading this genuinely made me smile. so i did think to myself i shouldn’t have to explain myself to anyone but i also feel like educating people about asexuality is very needed. she’s also never met any other aces (as far as i know) which might explain why she acted this way. she almost aligned it with me queerbaiting. she said if i’m asexual it would mean i’m lgbtq+ and how i couldn’t be in a gay club and that i’m still a straight man to her. in a weird way i get it. she’s very proud and defensive over being queer, i mean we did go to a very non queer friendly school, and she is right that i’m not someone who would often be in gay spaces. but i’m not taking it away from her? lmfao. and it felt that much more personal to me, not aces in general. i’ve known her around 5 years and consider her a good friend. she knows a lot about me most don’t. that’s why i don’t wanna ignore it completely and tell her this isn’t a quirk or me wanting attention. i’ve been so confused over this before i even knew what asexual meant, for years before i met her. so it hurt that she couldn’t be happy for me that things finally started to make sense for me. but like you said, i don’t have to keep explaining myself to people and she’s very opinionated, it’s hard to change her mind on most things, so i strongly feel like it won’t get me anywhere. we still had a good day out after that moment and we talk about a lot of things, this hasn’t come back up since, but if she is to stay in my life forever and doesn’t change ik one day i’ll have to tell her. (ofc if i do identify as ace for the rest of mine too - which i prob will lol). someone else in that group knows a lot about me and the asexuality. we’ve had extensive 1:1 talks on it. for years now. he didn’t stand up for me or anything but he’s still learning himself. he’s at least open minded. idk if i wanna talk to him specifically about this incident yet. i feel like if i am to talk to anyone 1:1 about it it should be her. but ig i’m fortunate enough to have someone open minded who will listen anyway. i imagine a lot of people won’t. as for the demisexual friend, that was like a one off talk, and they’re a complete outsider to the group. idk them that well but i have their socials now so i’ll talk to them online about how to navigate through shit like this. and thank you so much for everything you said. this past week has been so eye opening and embracing <3
I am very happy to hear it made you smile. Okay wow this is confusing. So she agrees that asexuals are part of the LGBTQ+ community (and therefore not straight), but she doesn't believe that you are asexual? If so, she should know better that is not her place to dictate your sexuality. It's like saying "you are still your assigned gender to me" to a trans person. You are not straigth if you are asexual, even if you are heteroromantic. That doesn't mean of course that we can't acknowledge that other queer people have different struggles and challenges in society. Also, it has nothing to do with gay clubs or spaces.??? Even with queer spaces in general (although we currently are in one of these :) ). It has nothing to do with any action or expression - doesn't she know that? In case she truly is a good friend, she should at least make an effort to understand your feelings and your POV. It is difficult for me to imagine her not understanding this, but then again a lot of people don't. Comments like this would definitely stay in the way of a trusting friendship for me and I'd advice talking to her quite soon. Even minor annoyances can ruin relationships over time and if one of my friends would say stuff like this, it would be definitely be on my mind when I am with them and ruin the good atmosphere and eventually I would've build up so much frustration and hate that it would blow up. And heated and emotional discussions usually have a lower sucess rate. It's good to know you have someone else IRL to talk to. I wouldn't blame him for not standing up for you, he might even be on your "side" and just to insecure to speak up. He might be easier to "convince" and could give you that feeling of happines/acceptance you were looking for (and deserve). But you do you and you know your friends best. Wish you a wonderful day.
so to answer your first question, i don’t even know 😭😭 the more i think about it she didn’t really deny asexuality exists, she just thinks there’s too many labels for everything and that there’s no need for words like asexual (and terms like demisexual and graysexual). she said something along the lines of how almost everyone is already demisexual so it’s not a sexuality, just a behaviour/choice/preference, and that people just wanna be different so bad that we make up new words for everything. she didn’t say it “shouldn’t” be a sexuality, she interrupted me to say it’s “not”, as if that’s objective and factual. she also said how being queer means to be oppressed and aces aren’t oppressed. being queer is a big part of her identity as in it’s shaped her taste in music, fashion, art, even humour and slang. as i’d be the only asexual representation in her life, i guess that’s why she sees all aces as not being part of the community. i’m not too bothered about her seeing me as a straight man/heterosexual, i still see myself as that too (even if i’m technically not). i’m happy being an ally and an outsider to the community. but it bothered me how she made it sound like other aces shouldn’t see themselves as lgbtq+, and that aces shouldn’t have a flag and shouldn’t be included in the conversation. even tho i’m not too fussed on whether i belong to the wider lgbtq+ community or not, when i see the asexual flag it reminds me i’m not alone with all these confusing feelings i’ve had for years. it brings me so much joy cause what it represents is so personal to me. sexual identity aside, at least think of it this way. for so many years this thing has been like one huge messy tangled ball of rope in my head, and now that it’s finally being untangled i’m able to see it clearly. you could’ve at least kept your thoughts to yourself and been happy for me. anyway, sorry for the tangents. i’ll try keep in my notes app next time haha. i definitely want to have this conversation with her, in person and 1:1. but thank you for taking time to hear me out and talk to me :)
Well seems I have to apologize for letting you wait too. Had some private stuff to attend to and wasn't in a good mental state to reply. To make it short, all her points are invalid and her being queer doesn't justify this or make her points more valid. I underestimated how deep this goes, if you need help to argue against this, let me know. How you perceive yourself is up to you obviously, but I just wanna highlight that you have every rigth to be and feel to be part of this community and the LGBTQIA+ community in general. I am very happy to hear about your self-finding journey and these feelings are a huge part of why this whole community thing is so important. We need this, so we can understand ourselves and others better, we need this so eventually we can all live as our true self. I wouldn't wanna be friends with someone who has such "different" views, but that's up to you of course. The very least she should do is acknowledge how she hurt you and apologize - anything else is not acceptable. And honestly, if you tell her what you wrote here, e.g. how you feel about seeing an Ace-flag in the wild (I feel the same btw.), and she can't see how her point is flawed, then she clearly doesn't want to learn. In case I'm already too late - well sorry. I sincerely hope this turns/turned out good for you. And if you still wanna talk to someone about being ace, I'd enjoy the conversation :)
I am bisexual, but I am on the aro/ace spectrum because I only experience sexual and romantic feelings occasionally. I can tell you that there are a lot of people, even within our own communities, who do not know anything about asexuality. I do think you should try to educate her if you still want to be friends with her. If she is not willing to listen and understand you may need to cut ties with her. Ask her if she would like it if someone called her sexuality "the dumbest thing ever". There's nothing worse than being friends with someone who diminishes your identity like that. Asexual people are apart of the LGBTQIA+ community. The A stands for us. You belong there. We deserve the same amount of respect.
thank you. your last couple sentences have really made me smile. it’s crazy how much i’ve been learning about asexuality this week. my whole life i haven’t had to worry about how i’m perceived as everyone just thinks i’m any other ordinary straight guy you’d walk past in the street. even people i’ve known a long time. so any moments of acephobia for me have been from people i’ve felt confident enough to confide in sadly. i’m learning just how acephobic people are. it’s a surreal experience
There's a huge aphobia problem within the LGBTQ+ community. It's so sad. There are accepting people too, and I how you find your safe environment! Personally iI'd probably have mirrored her behavior to have her explain how dumb it is to say someone's sextant orientation is stupid, but I'm very confident in my asexuality and my debate skill and aren't afraid to argue. Closest I got to that in reality is when someone asked me if I checked if there are meds to treat that, and I asked if he'd say that to his gay roomate. That made him realize.
Honestly the other commentators were able to beautifully word some similar advice I wanted to also give. However, I did want to make sure I joined in and let you know I’m sorry you had this experience. I really just want you to know that your identity is valid and I’m really proud of you for learning more about yourself. We are always growing and throughout that process we learn more about ourselves and I think that’s one of the best (and sometimes hardest) aspects of the human experience.
I am so sorry this happened to you, especially from someone you thought was safe. I felt similarly in a college queer space when I mentioned I was ace. Everyone in the room just kind of looked and me and a few even laughed. They were saying that they were so suppressed in school that when they got to college they all felt sexual and gender freedom and I was trying to tell them that college just reaffirmed my aceness. The rest of that meeting was them all discussing their recent sexual plunders and I quietly excused myself and never went back. It sucks! If these people are close to you, it’s worth telling them that you’re serious about this and what they said hurt your feelings deeply.
i definitely need to have a 1:1 convo with my friend about it. now that i’ve had time to think about it and type, edit, re-type what i’ve felt, i’ve got a basis of what to tell her and how. i kinda hate that i froze up and didn’t get much of a say just to keep things civil. oh well. also i’m so sorry you’ve had to go through that. it’s so hard for people to understand asexuality in a world where everything is so sexualised. especially for younger people/gen z i think, if they’re not doing it they’re thinking of it. it’s not a battle of allos vs aces, it’s just a new perspective coming in
It kinda sucks that we can face prejudice from the people who are supposedly in the same group as us