A Personal Story About Sexual Orientation, Romance, Identity, and Sexuality (Probably NSFW)

Hello Steemit!

To be honest, I wasn't planning my first non-introduction post on Steemit to be something like this. I wanted to write something lighthearted, like what I think about forum role play and how it can help people. Or my favorite type of horror. Or to simply gush about a web serial I've been reading. Those have to be posts for another time though, this particular subject has wormed its way into my mind and if I don't really write about it now, I doubt I ever will.

(This is bound to be deeply personal writing, so if you've gotten to this point this is your warning. If you read this you may learn some things about me you may rather not know. I will also be shifting from subject to subject in a way that may not make sense. That's how my brain works and they're all associated in a way. Even if it seems like they're not at first.)

I've always been a sucker for love. I never really experienced that cliche "Ewww, girls are gross and have cooties!" phase. My Mom and my Dad loved each other, so it was only natural for boys and girls to do so too. I once asked a girl to marry me when I was in preschool. Not as a joke, but as an honest-to-god request. She rejected me of course, because "Ewww, boys are gross and have cooties!". I spent my entire Kindergarten, Elementary, and Middle School career flitting from one crush to the other. I even developed a rivalry of sorts with one of the other boys in my class, because he got the girl I asked to marry in preschool, and I didn't. He wasn't too gross for her apparently.

Now I've always been a sucker for love, sex though never really entered the equation until I was 14 or 15. Not until my first actual genuine romantic relationship. I'd never really felt desire for someone sexually as much as I did her. Sure I had crushes, and they were god damn adorable, but it wasn't until my first love that sex was even considered. I was too nervous and self-conscious to approach her about it, even when we were dating. Then eventually the relationship ended as catastrophically as any teenage romance can, and we both moved on in life.

This became a regular theme in my life. Sure I have sexual desire, but I didn't really want to ever express it until I was in a relationship with someone. I had been offered casual sex before, and I turned it down because I felt no emotional investment in the person. Now I'm saying "person" instead of "girl" even though the person I'm referring to is a girl, and that is something I will get into here in a bit.

You see, over time in my online gaming I had shifted from using male characters to using exclusively female characters whenever I had the opportunity. I started this at first because I had a far easier time coming up with feminine names than masculine ones, a problem I still have. Then I'd joke that it was because "If I was gonna be staring at a butt the whole time, it might as well be a nice one", a joke I took from my Stepdad. Over time though, I found it easier to associate with female characters than male ones. I empathized with them more. It's why my username on here, and most places end with "-chan", a feminine suffix. I even pronounce my username with the feminine "El-lee" than the masculine "Ee-lie".

Even with this happening in the background, I'd considered myself Straight for a long, long time. My sexual orientation wasn't really ever called into question until I watched a show called "White Collar". It's a crime drama about a detective and a former criminal working together to solve white collar crimes. I was fascinated with the character Neal Caffrey. He was smart, confident, had a style that I just wanted to emulate so badly, and I found him drop dead gorgeous. This was something I found odd. I mean, I had always considered myself straight after all. I never really had been attracted to guys before this moment. I was okay with it. But even with role models like my older sisters, who were Lesbian and Bisexual respectively, I didn't really accept the fact that I may not be quite as Straight as I thought I was.

I've never really talked about my sexual orientation publicly until now, but I'll tell you, I'm not Straight. I had to come to terms with this fact after the second incident of me becoming incredibly attracted to a guy. This one was a guy in the gaming clan I had come to join and have a part of my daily life. We'll call him "B". B is another guy with a really strong personality. He's confident, funny, an absolute joy to spend time with, and really, really attractive. I actually considered asking him out a long time ago, but decided it would be a terrible idea. I decided I'd rather preserve the friendship I have with B. I'm still friends with B to this day. This whole ordeal though made me question my identity. What was I?

I couldn't possibly be Straight, I mean I've gotten really strong crushes for guys twice at this point. Girls though were still very much in my ballpark. Bisexual maybe? I had friends though and knew people that were Trans, and I could see myself loving a Trans person. And spending time on the Internet as much as I have you do run across people of different genders entirely, Intersex. Even thinking on that I saw myself loving an Intersex person. I ultimately came to the conclusion that I just really like People. It doesn't matter what gender they are, if any. If I have a strong enough emotional connection to a person, I can totally love them and be just fine.

So with that, I decided I must be Pansexual. I mean, gender doesn't really matter to me. But even with that revelation, something felt off. Like I hadn't really ever hit the root of who I am when it comes to love and sex. I haven't found myself. It wouldn't be until just weeks ago that I would find out why.

You see, my friends and roommates have said often that they need to get me to meet people and hook up with them. That I need to get laid. But, as with the girl I turned down when I was a super hormonal teenager, the idea of casual sex is just not appealing to me in the slightest. I want love, I want romance, I want to just know that the person I'm sharing that experience with is just as much into me as I am into them! Not just going at it to fulfill a base need that is programmed into our monkey brains and for no other purpose. Sure that doesn't make me conventionally "Manly", but I have come to accept that I'm not masculine a long time ago. I don't want to be "Manly", I emphasize better with feminine things to begin with. Yes, I have a libido. But without an emotional attachment, without romance, I'd just rather satisfy it myself than to indulge in casual sex.

There's also the things that happen at my work. I work in a Jimmy Johns on a university campus. That means a lot of attractive people come into my work all the time. It's a rather common occurrence for an attractive woman to come into the store. Then after I deal with her professionally and normally like any other customer all the other guys treat it like it's a cardinal sin I didn't hit on her, try to get her number, or anything like that. The fact of the matter was, while I understood she is attractive, and can see how people would be into her, I just wasn't attracted to her. I knew nothing about her, the emotional connection wasn't there. All I knew is she was hungry, and wanted a sandwich. She was just another customer to me. I don't get sexually attracted to someone without romance it seems.

With all this in mind, calling myself Pansexual always felt odd. I mean, I could love anyone. But I wasn't sexually attracted to just anyone. 

Then about a week ago I was creating a character for someone on my Forum Role Play. When you make a character, you're always asked what the character's Sexual Orientation is. So that the obvious shipping of characters can happen at some point. I decided to mess with the person and find a sexual orientation that would make it difficult for them to ship their character with mine. I looked up a list of Orientations, and looking over it I found one that resonated with me. That fit me much better than Pansexual ever did.

So this is it, my super long winded, rambling post to come out as Demisexual and try to explain how I came to discover this. 

You gotta date me, before you lay me.

If you read all of this and made it here, you are a god damn trooper. Thank you so much for reading me ramble about myself for probably far too long.

Next post should hopefully be something on the more casual side of things.

I'll see you then Steemit!

Steem On!