Looking at the word Aro Ace now, I realised that’s who I really am.
Now, saying coming out as Aro Ace has been easy would be a lie, but being supported by those I’m close to has certainly helped me in coming out.
I first started to realize that I didn’t fit the romantic ‘norms’ when I was around the age of 11. At this time, I’d just broken up with a close friend/boyfriend (only relationship I’ve ever had, might I add). Now, this was the closest relationship I’d had with another person of the opposite gender.
After breaking up with him, I would stumble upon the term ‘Aro Ace’ while scrolling through the endless pages of the internet (I still don’t know why it appeared to me). Seeing the words Aro Ace and finding out their meanings, I was confused at first.
“Everyone has to have some relationship, don’t they?” I thought myself, but as I took a deeper look into the meaning of Aro Ace, I realized that at the time, it partly applied to me.
Seeing the word ‘asexual’ for the first time and reading the definition, an asexual being someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction to anyone, I realized that it applied to me.
Now I know what you’re thinking, how can an 11-year-old possibly know their sexuality at that age? But seeing the term asexual, I felt a strong connection with the definition of an asexual.
Despite seeing the term for an Aro Ace and connecting with it, especially the definition of an asexual, I would scrunch this idea up and throw it into the mental trash bin.
Over the next three years, I would always keep remembering and coming back to the definition of Aro Ace, especially the definition of an Ace. Despite the term constantly coming to mind, I would continue to push it away and continue my attempts to find another person to crush on. However, it would prove to be a more difficult task than I had first expected.
“Why aren’t you normal?” I would keep asking myself, watching as the people around me developing crushes and relationships.
I would eventually come back to the page I had first viewed about being Aro Ace, hoping to finally find some answers about why I wasn’t ‘normal’. After revisiting the article, I would finally take the term ‘Ace’ as something that applied to me. But when it came to romance, it was a hopeless task.
I would eventually decide that I fell under the aromantic spectrum and would start to take a deeper dive into all the terms that fell under the aromantic umbrella term.
While scrolling through these terms late one night, I would stumble upon the term ‘Demiromantic’. Seeing this and reading the definition, a demiromantic being someone who falls in love after developing a strong emotional bound, I would decide that I was demiromantic.
Now, coming out about this to friends was a lot easier than coming out to my family. About a month after coming out to my friends, I would finally speak to my mother. Speaking to her was one of the hardest emotional events of my life, even though I knew she’d love me for whoever I was.
She gladly accepted me for who I was and was quick to give stories about her life to make me feel better about myself, something I greatly appreciated.
I would go under the term of Demi heteroromantic Asexual for around 6 months (my mind’s very fuzzy, but I believe this is the correct time frame), until I went on a camp.
Strange as it sounds, I would change my romantic orientation after a camp.
During this camp, I would be staying in a room with three of my friends. While playing a game one night, we would get onto the topic of romance. While my other friends would talk about each other's crushes, I could only sit there and wonder about love.
They eventually asked me “if I could ask anyone I knew out on a date, who would it be?” I sat there, stumped.
Sitting there, I thought deeply about all the people I’d seen throughout the course of my life but couldn’t imagine my having any romantic interest in any one of them (of any gender or sexual/romantic orientation). After a moment of silence, I would reply by saying ‘I’m a Demi heteroromantic Ace, but I’ve actually believed I’m an Aro Ace for a long time’.
My friends would just simply smile and tell me about their sexualities and romantic orientations. And even though most of them were hetero (the term for straight), I still felt great about their enthusiastic support.
Now, over the following days I would think to myself “I’m still young, and what if I haven’t met the ‘one’ yet?”
After some thought of my own, I would decide that I didn’t want a relationship with anyone and that it was my choice if I ever changed my mind and decided I wanted to date someone (which I still believe will never happen), I could always date them.
Overall, it can be said that my romantic and sexual orientation has been a complete mess. But accepting myself as an Aro Ace was just one step in a long journey of self-discovery, and it sure has been a hectic journey.
To any other’s who are still unsure of themselves, all i can say to you is to go for it. If you believe in yourself, you’ll go places and discover amazing things.
All you need to know is that you’re not alone on this journey.
