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 when that was over, i had become so withdrawn that i only spoke to one other person.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?
i was very certain about using the term "aromantic" but after a couple strange experiences i think i am going to start not saying i'm anything in the fear that i am wrong. i'm just going to say what i know here. 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've always found it rather annoying when people in movies fall in love. like, god, does this have to happen EVERY movie? i do think that love can be quite pretty, though. but i 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 cannot coexist. how does one communicate affection for an acquaintance/stranger (or even a friend) without being weird?
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. i have never felt sexual frustration before. baseline stimulation is enough for me. sexual fantasy is very vague. if i put too much thought into me being the one who is having sex with somebody else, i don't like it. it feels ill-fitting. i think this is the kind of thing that would be more satisfactorily explained if other people weighed in.
verdict: perma-virgin "yikes! that's gotta sting!"