Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Situational Friends, Part 2: Success!

Remember my situational friends? Recently, I've come out to two of them--people that happen to be ones I'd like to get to know better. One person discovered I was asexual through Facebook, which is a-ok with me. The other asked me about some of my activism experiences, and it only made sense to bring up the stuff I've done with asexual visibility. I gave them both AVEN pamphlets, and they seemed interested without making a huge deal about it. Success, I'd say!

And related, something I've realized about coming out as asexual (that is unique to lesser-known orientations): It really helps to mention, as early as possible, that you are not the only asexual in the world. As obvious as it may be to readers of this blog, many people will not be aware of the fact. Well-meaning but uninformed people may assume, unless they're told otherwise, that "asexual" is a word you made up to describe only yourself. Of course, if this was the case, it would still be worthy of respect, although sadly, that respect might be harder to get. Most people have no idea that asexuals have online communities and meetups. They're often very fascinated by this, and not in a bad way. When I've talked to people about my various interactions with other asexuals, they start seeing asexuality as more of "a thing". There's power in numbers, but those numbers don't necessarily have to be in the room with you. Sometimes just mentioning them is enough.

/Captain Obvious, signing out. But before I do, here's a link I found that's quite relevant to my last post on dating: Hi, I'm single, but I'm genderqueer and you don't know what that means. The title alone is just...yes. Awesome.

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