#and that's basically what Horror's garden need to thrive if I'm honest

[erineas]

You're making me crave fairies too AUGH JDCVKDNDNS littol fabric hoarding fairy,,,

What if I tell you you can be a pretty fairy and rizz up skeletons at the same time?

Just look at them!

This is how they spend their time together!!

[la-nightraine]

I thought my sexuality was just a personality.

Until I found out about demisexuality, I thought all this time that I just had different tastes compared to everyone.

You know, like how my fellow she/her peeps are into guys with cool hair, toned muscles or tanned skin. In fact, if you know that swimming anime called Free!, I tried watching it starting with the prequel movie and thought it was kinda nice. But then I got into Season 1--man there was an abundance of skin and muscles! And there was this one female character who loved those "sights", so the scene would turn all sparkly and amplified, right. I found myself cringing and covering my eyes almost the whole show that I ended up dropping it after like 7 episodes. I thought I was just being conservative because of how I was raised, religion and everything. But removing that aspect of me, you know just me trying to be open-minded and honest with my own feelings and opinions, I realized that I actually, genuinely don't like them. AT ALL.

My first excuse was, oh you know there are guys who don't have obvious toned muscles that look cute anyway (see: Chuya Nakahara). Men don't have to be like, idk 5'10" tall, to be considered handsome (see: Levi Ackerman). And it annoys me that there seems to be a standard where in order for guys to be attractive they'd have to be badass or something--I think they don't, they can simply be gentle and kind (see: Sykkuno). Basically my initial excuse was, "do you actually like people based off how they look?" Because my answer was "no". And whenever I'd tell my friends I like someone, they'd be like "WHY?? He doesn't even look handsome at all!" I mean, I liked them because I had so much fun being with them; they didn't need to be physically cute, they were just relatable and crazy and I liked that part of them.

Which brings me to my second excuse--I want my boyfriend to be my best friend too. This really seems like a valid but lazy excuse in terms of dating. The downside was that I don't get to go on getting-to-know-each-other phases or dates (which is what they told me was the purpose of dates). The upside, at least to me, was that I don't need to feel like I have to keep my guard up all the time beside a stranger I'm looking to love, I could just be myself and still have fun with this person. And then we'll see if he can match up my idea of fun and if we do, then we can give it a try.

I tried making other excuses in my head like "maybe I'm just an introvert with poor social skills" or "maybe I just haven't found the one yet" or even "maybe I'm not into guys?". It was a sudden dilemma that occurred the moment I stepped into higher education. My new friends were collecting senior crushes from each college while my high school friends were getting into relationships within the first semester. Man, college already scared me during the first semester more than the horror movies that scarred me for life, and they were all asking me "Is there anyone cute in your college?" DUDE. How am I suppose to answer that when I have deadlines I don't even have the energy to do, I don't know, maybe that 178cm guy with the bright smile over there???

And I really was able to convince them that this guy was my crush. For a few weeks, I thought I had convinced myself too, I even wrote a song about him! But then we got close, interacted more, and I saw it myself: I barely wanted to date him. Were there any pet peeves? I don't know. But there was definitely no spark. It was beyond him being out of my league, we just don't thrive in the same garden. And looking back at that song, it actually feels bland and generalized (a sensation that hurts me as an artist because it lacks story depth), you couldn't even tell it was about him.

So I stayed frozen there, seemingly in the middle of space, contemplating. Thinking back to when I was a hopeless romantic with three different crushes every year that I never pursued until the drummer guy back in 10th grade, the new friend in 11th grade (which I only dated because he confessed first), and my 12th grade guy best friend (who's more like a FWB than a boyfriend). I was in a world bigger than my local high school, and as they say there's more fish in the sea to catch. Yet somehow, I didn't want to catch a fish. It felt really weird at first, and then it sank in to me. Maybe it's because I wanted a dog to tame and take home instead. And coincidentally as I was writing this I just realized that, dogs are man's best friend.

Three months ago after giving a few hours researching about the whole LGBTQIA+ community, finding out about asexuality and the ace spectrum, eventually I saw that I wasn't alone. I wasn't the only one confused thinking if I was still okay in the head and being judged by friends because of my lack of dating criteria. There's this whole squad of people that identify themselves as demisexual individuals who apparently feel the same feelings and think the same thoughts as me. Because I did my own research, I haven't really talked with an actual group of individuals but I hope that I get to meet some of them soon and share more stories with them and everything. I think that would be comforting.

Long story short, it took one year but I can finally identify myself as a demisexual heteroromantic, retaining my she/her pronouns while fully embracing my belongingness in the ever-fluctuating ace spectrum.

Happy Pride Month! Sorry for the long post, I just needed to let this out somewhere.