both do and don't want to share some gender + sexuality things i realized about myself so this is that

don't in that i don't want to dwell on the gender stuff for long - i want top surgery and i want to grow my facial hair out, the latter is not new, the former is, neither is feasible for me at any point in the forseeable future and it sucks

but i find it an interesting development, as is the fact that after reading a couple romance fics (which I admit aren't good comparisons to real life behavior but they're the best I have) I feel like i'm more aromantic than i thought i was

i do want a life partner and thought of myself as 'in love' with people on a couple occasions but - and this is sort of funny - my own headcanons about a fictional character (roland) help me here b/c he reads to me as asexual and yet clearly has had strong romantic and sexual desire in the past, so i'm used to the idea that shit's complicated

i've never had sexual desire for another person but I feel like the things I want out of a life partner are ambiguously romantic, like what I want includes being very close to someone and a couple gestures that read as romantic wouldn't go amiss but I'm not a romantic, I don't feel great passion in that way, I don't want to go on dates

and I definitely don't want to START OUT looking for a life partner like people do when they dates and I've never wanted that. which means I basically want a very close ambiguously romantic friend? idk XD

i just think it's interesting, I never thought the 'aromantic' part of asexuality applied to me but I think it sort of mostly might. it does bring up a funny question of I guess taxonomy - bi or asexual? bi applied when i thought I was romantic, but if i'm not asexual would be more accurate. and also harder to explain to people

but i've never been in a situation where i explained myself to anyone in rl so i might as well go with asexual? i think it's interesting how - in my understanding of how they apply to me - they are basically the same thing with different intensities

it's also interesting that that makes me - as my first reaction, not as something I think is necessary - feel like I have to figure out how to 'justify' my lgbt+ness because from the impression i've got bi is closer to being accepted than asexual in the community and I'm not comfortable enough with gender stuff to 'claim' transness.

it's just interesting that that stuff goes through my head when none of it is necessary really, when there is a large group of people who emphatically don't feel like anyone has to 'prove' their lgbt+ cred for anyone, so it's not like there aren't places where i'd be accepted. and even beyond that i'm not an involved part of 'the community'

and never have been, i don't even participate in the lgbt+ community as much as i participate in fandoms and i almost dont participate in fandoms at all. but i've always felt close to and apart of it even if i am only aware of anything going on in it second and third hand

although the spaces i move in online have always been lgbt+adjacent, to the point where at one point i was talking about a friend to my mom (this was a long time ago) and she asked if they were gay and i was like why and she was like well your friends always are XD

i explained to her why it was rude to ask and she was cool with it but i just think the observation was funny because it was true and i'd never thought about it before that

i honestly don't recall if that was as much the case before i got into dw rp, i suspect online spaces in general might seem more heavily populated by lgbt+ people just because of the nature of being online, where it's often safer to tell the truth about yourself in that way, or if it's because dw rp just has that high a lgbt+ population

now that i think of it mom asking that question was before i was into dw rp so i guess i must have always made friends that way. which makes me a little curious about my rl friend group back in school but i am not close to any of them at all anymore so i guess i'll never know. which is fine

not to dump on asexuality cuz I used to ID as asexual, but some things to possibly consider 1) you can be bisexual with a low sex drive 2) depression can really mess with sex drive. I used to consider myself asexual, but once I got my depression under control with meds, I realized that I do have some. (not a lot but whatever)

I'd just like to put the point out there that oversexualized media messes with understanding sexuality with a low drive

+ impacts of mental health issues on drive

depression is a thing to consider - but I definitely have a libido, so I feel like that lessens the chances of that applying to me. while i'm not opposed to someday having sex with someone i've never had the desire to make that libido interact with anyone else.

so i feel like asexuality is the most accurate label. but when it comes down to it i see it like, it's not like I have either bisexual or asexual in me and I'm just trying to figure out which one,

it's that sexualities exist outside of our words for them and I'm interested for reasons that may not be logical, possibly just the desire to label myself and see which group I fit into, or to contextualize my experiences, or something. basically i already know how i feel about sex and my own sex drive,

I am just interested in what word to use to attach to it

ah, gotcha. reading comprehension was not with me.

i generally go with grey a because my experiences largely separate me from more sexual people, while there is still some complexity and hard-to-label-ness there. also a lot of it is down to personal definitions, like i'd think of 'bisexual with a low sex drive' as potentially grey-a

Just sliding in here to offer support from one non-cis to another

oh gosh I definitely feel you on the gender/sexuality front - I'm pretty solid on being asexual, but I have no idea if I'm aromantic or I just like, can't really imagine myself in a relationship with someone because it feels pointless to consider

since most sexual people aren't down for a relationship that doesn't involve sex and I'm not really comfortable budging on that front

and as for gender, god yeah it's so hard to define because I'm not attached to any specific identity and I don't care what pronouns people use for me, but I am uncomfortable presenting certain ways

and I want to physically transition in a few small ways but not completely from one end to the other

it's all a big confusing middle ground that defies labeling so I just kinda shrug and throw my hands up

sometimes That's just what you have to do, shrug and give people a broad answer instead of a specific word

thank y'all for the support <3 the not knowing if you're aromantic or not thing is interesting because like, how do we even define romance? are there parts of that definition we want? it's hard to figure that shit out, especially when it's all theoretical and in my case is likely going to keep being that for the forseeable future

Yeah like, my definition of romance and the sort of romance that is typically associated with a sexual relationship are pretty different, and it's hard to distinguish between platonic/romantic things when the sexual elements are removed

it really is DX in a lot of ways we have to define these things for ourselves which makes communicating with whoever would potentially need to know that info about us tricky