wait no go back
go all the way back
~2015 - i was handed a note by some kids who i didn't really get along with. it was a written confession of love from a girl i kinda knew. we were both smart, and were somewhat acquainted with each other. i don't remember any passages from the note. it was hand written on loose leaf, and the writing was messy, so i assumed that it was a prank that the kids who gave it to me tried to pull. i showed it to my friends and laughed, thinking that it was an absurd concept for a girl to be in love with me. i imagined her and i exchanging a knowing glance, one that said "ha! we'd never fall in love with each other."
throughout middle school i heard more and more about people discovering their sexuality and going on dates and stuff. i thought that this was amusing. what do you do on a date with another middle schooler? hang out at your house while your mom makes you grilled cheeses? what a dumb idea. being in love was for high schoolers, i thought. but i never thought about the fact that i might fall in love. love and myself were never placed together in my mind's logic. in freshman year of high school, i was not thinking about love at all. i was enjoying talking with my new friends at a new school. i wonder what would have happened if COVID-19 hadn't resulted in the lockdown and the virtual year. when that was over, i had become so withdrawn that i only spoke to one other person. i'm not sure exactly when, but at around that time i realized that something was amiss. when was i going to fall in love with someone? did i want to fall in love with someone?
after having become comfortable identifying as an "aromantic" over the span of about a year, for the first time ever, EVER, in the spring of 2024, i fell in love. i don't ever remember a desire (while conscious) to like or be liked by a girl before that. i'd always found it rather annoying when people in movies fall in love. like, god, does this have to happen EVERY movie? it still annoys me for sure (but that isn't to say that depicitions of love can't be sweet or heartstring-tugging). before her, i had felt like love never occurred independently within me. i think an idea was fostered within me at a young age that traditional romance and common decency could not coexist. how does one communicate affection for an acquaintance/stranger (or even a friend) without eschewing propriety and being a creep?
romantic love, at first, was not a positive feeling at all. i might have gotten a head rush a couple times, but the majority of its effects on me were overwhelmingly negative. at its worst point, every time she would say something, i would be hit with a devastating depression and i would mull over things i would say to her and how she would react. before i even realized i was in love with her, i felt a particularly poisonous kind of aggressive jealousy towards anyone who spoke to her. especially if they said something that i thought was dumb. back the fuck off, idiot. leave her alone. now, of course, the feelings are all hugging and wonderful (that's the best way i can describe it), but that hasn't completely stopped the nagging thoughts.
i am distinctly attracted to femininity. i do not find masculinity sexually* or romantically attractive. before i got together with her, i had never felt sexual attraction, and by extension had never felt sexual frustration. the idea was odd to me. the ol' German tissue dance was enough for me, and i had trouble visualizing sexual encounters in my mind. i'm still not very good at it.
verdict: perma-virgin "yikes! that's gotta sting!"