Thursday, September 26, 2013

An emo, whiny post about how my life sucks

So, I could say that the reason I haven't posted anything in a while is due to the influx of homework and work assignments since the start of the semester, which is mostly true.  But it's also due to the fact that I'm having a really hard time bringing myself to write about this.

While I haven't completely resolved every issue I could ever have with autism, I have made significant progress, enough that other issues have begun to overshadow it, and I haven't really thought about it much (although today, when someone asked why I don't like shopping, I explained that I have sensory issues, and she totally got it, which was such a validating feeling).

What's been on my mind is only related to autism in the most insignificant of ways, yet I really need to talk about it somewhere.

I am asexual.

I'm terrified of even typing it.  I know I shouldn't be: it's not the worst thing in the world, and there are plenty of other people in the world just like me.  But, unlike discovering that I am autistic, the realization that I am not capable of being attracted to other human beings is just... I can't even find the right word for it.  Sad is too juvenile, depressing is too emo.  I'm actually even a little angry about it, even though it's nobody's fault.

I always thought that I was a late bloomer.  I figured when I found the right person, I'd become attracted to them.  I sometimes toyed with the idea that maybe I'm just bi, equally attracted to both genders, which, I suppose is technically true.  I never heard of the concept of asexuality until a few months ago, before I ever read anything about autism.  I wondered for a while if that could be me, but it didn't make sense: I find people aesthetically appealing.  There are many beautiful men and women in the world, and I have the finely tuned senses to spot them.  I've trained myself since I was fourteen to do just that, ever since I found out that fourteen year olds were supposed to have "crushes," guys that they were "in love with" and were terrified to tell said "crush".  They're supposed to write their names with little hearts in their notebooks, and explain to their friends what was so great about those guys.  I didn't get it, and I didn't know how one went about picking a crush, but when cornered, I told them the first guy I could think of.

Since then, I paid close attention to the guys that all the girls crushed on.  Sometimes I could tell what they liked about them, sometimes I couldn't.  Sometimes I would pick someone, and just try.  Try to be in love, to engage in this hobby of teenage girls, but it was no fun, confusing, not to mention time-consuming and annoying.  I gave up after a while, and I couldn't understand why other girls were still doing.  I guessed it was just like all the other hobbies other people were into, which I didn't understand, like watching football, collecting clothing, socializing, and things like that.

I feel like an idiot now.  Watching movies, and people around me, I never understood why people made googly eyes at each other all the time.  How showing a little skin, or gyrating bodies can make people lose their minds.  I really couldn't get it.  I didn't know what I was missing, but I figured it was an acquired taste, like pizza, or Doctor Who, both of which took years and multiple attempts to understand what everyone liked about it.

Problem is, it has been years.  I've dated several people, none of which went anywhere, because each and every one of them was too stressful to pursue.  The last and first serious relationships were possibly the most traumatic times of my life.  My first was constantly asking me why I didn't initiate anything with him: I was always responding, reacting.  My most recent one was even worse: he was so sweet, so respectful, so careful with me.  I was terrified of breaking his heart.  I couldn't understand why I couldn't fall in love, why I still, after everything, cringed at the idea of having him touch me.  I never talked myself into kissing him, not once, and we dated for months.

I'm twenty-two for heaven's sake.  If I haven't "bloomed" yet, I'm not going to.

I finally got the courage to do some research, to better understand what asexuality is, and whether or not that describes me.  You see, if being asexual means you aren't attracted to either sex, that means you've never felt what it is to be attracted to someone.  And how can you know what something feels like, if you've never felt it?

Well, in this case at least, there is a way to know.  When I see scantily clad bodies, I don't get excited: I'm curious.  When I see women in bikinis, I hope to heaven that those skinny straps don't break or get untied.  I'm honestly grossed out by boobs.  I can't understand why two mounds of fat and skin are so important to the opposite sex.  I can't understand why certain dance moves excite them.  When I see men in bathing suits or underwear, I often see body hair, excess fat, and tan lines, all of which I am disgusted by.  In the absence of those, I do admire the hard work he must have put forth to maintain his physique.  And I count ab muscles: there seem to be a different number on every single guy, but maybe it's because they're shaped differently.

My guess is, this is not what runs through a sexually minded person.

I hear sex mentioned on a daily basis.  They talk about it on TV and the movies, songs on the radio, jokes, art, not to mention regular conversation.  It's brought up so often, that my mind jumps to sex at nearly anything, which drives me absolutely mad.  I can't hold a normal conversation with a man, or a woman, without wondering whether my words or actions are being interpreted sexually.  And I have a hard time being alone in a room with a member of the opposite sex.  I just stand there (or sit there, if I'm forced) on high alert, carefully watching, waiting for the soonest possible moment that I could leave.

And touch?  Don't even get me started.  I would have been uncomfortable with touch anyway, with my hypersensitivity, but I actually didn't mind that so much growing up.  I only started having problems when I began to learn that some touching is intended sexually, and some is not.  I have no idea how to tell which is which, but I know it's true.  That if you let a guy touch you in certain places, that makes you "easy", and if you don't let people touch you certain places, that makes you "sobbish" or paranoid or something.  So, after some study, I've decided that if someone touches me in the "sex areas" (where my underwear is), I make a fuss.  If it's somewhere else, I put up with it.

But then people expect me to touch them.  I remember my first boyfriend getting fed up, grabbing my hand, and putting it on his knee.  I didn't know was supposed to touch him, and I didn't know where, when or how to do so.  My friends pat me on the arm or the shoulder, they hug me (and a couple might kiss me on the cheek), all of which is still alien to me, but I know it means they like me, and I let them do it.  But I only recently realized that I'm supposed to do these things back to them.  I try.  I really do.  Hugging's the only type of touching I can do even halfway right, and even then, I don't know for sure.  Every time I pat someone back, I feel off-tempo, like I didn't time it right, or maybe I did it too hard or soft.  I don't know how to tell if it was welcome or not, or if it was even expected of me, or if it had the desired effect.  I keep doing it, though, because that's what you do.

But the thing is, when I touch someone else, it's weird.  Gross, even.  The best way for me to describe it, is handling a dead body.  I feel flesh and bone, and it's even warm (most of the time), but... it's not part of me.  I only feel half of the interaction.  It gives me the creeps.  I can't understand why other people want to engage in this behavior, all I know is that they do, and I must keep at it, if I'm to make people feel comfortable around me.

Keeping all of this in mind, I'd like to get to the point where I feel somewhat bitter about my situation.  I know, it's not like anything really changed before and after I started finding out about this stuff.  But knowing that there really is something missing in my head, some extra sensory perception that everyone else on the planet seems to have but me, that's distressing.  All of this autism stuff was great, because I found out why I'm so different from other people, I found out all the things that I do have that other people don't, for the most part.  But this?  This is the first time in my life that I've felt truly defective.  It shouldn't matter: I could make great contributions to the world without ever having a sexual relationship.  I mean, look at Isaac Newton (who, fun fact, was the first one I had ever heard of who was asexual).  He didn't bother with chasing girls around, and instead, he followed his true interests, and rocked the freaking world.  I could be that.

But, all my life, I've wanted a family.  I would be okay if they didn't teach about me in history books, or name a school after me.  In fact, I'd really rather not have people know my name.  It's one of my idiosyncrasies   I just want to make a difference in the world, and the biggest, best way that I know of, is to be a great mom.  I look at my mom, and my parent's moms, and they were the world to somebody.  They shaped who my parents were, who shaped me in turn.  They changed the world, even if the world doesn't know it.  I want to do that.  I want to be that.

But how can I have kids?  I could adopt, I suppose, but I always wondered what my genes would turn into, mixed with whoever I pick, or who picks me.  And how, how can I expect someone to stay with me, to love me, to want me, if I don't feel that way about him?  If I can't be attracted to him, and it's almost painful for him to touch me?  That's not fair!  It's not fair to either of us, but especially to him.  He'd feel like I "settled" with him.  That he's not really what I wanted, but I went for it anyway.  That every time we make love, it's not because we both want it, but because I'm doing him a favor.  What kind of relationship is that?  How could I possibly do that to somebody?

I couldn't, that's how.  I don't want to give up, and I'm not, not completely, because there are so many things about people and relationships that I just don't understand.  But it feels like the only way for me to stay in a relationship was if I hated him enough to put him through... me.  If I actually loved him, I couldn't do that to him, so I would have to let him go.

It's a paradox, and my stupid Aspie brain hates paradoxes.

Eventually, I'm going to start dating again.  Eventually, I'm going to figure out how to tell people about this.  I haven't told a soul.  This is the first time I'm even writing it down, that's how... ashamed I am, I guess.  I don't know how to tell them, or if I even should.  This is somehow even more personal than being autistic, and I don't do personal with people.

I honestly don't know what to do.  I just feel so lost right now.  I wish there was a button I could press, a book I could read, a pill I could take, that would make me more like everyone else.  Activists would probably spit on me for saying something like that, but it's true.  It sounds so fulfilling, to be in a relationship where both of you are gravitating towards each other, instead of one poor soul following me around, too stupid to realize that I don't even know how to want him.

But I know there's no way to change any of it.  I just have to trust that everything will work out in the end.  That I'm the way I am for a reason, and that I can do so much good in the world because of it.

Penny

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