The In Between: The Journey to Asexuality
Photograph: Chantal Convertini
“Labels. We’re obsessed with them. They can help us to understand the world in front of us, the people we meet, they might even help us to understand ourselves. But labels also keep people in their place and can force people into boxes where they don’t fit. For those of us that live in the cracks between what society deems as “normal”, these labels leave no space for us in the world.
The labels I’m talking about are the ones that define relationships and make them very black or white. You’re friends or you’re a couple. You’re in love or you’re not. No one talks about the grey area. I am a person living in the in-between - the murky space between a friendship and a romantic relationship that doesn’t have a name and therefore, isn’t seen as valid, and I’d like to tell you my story.
I’ve always known I was different. In school, boys didn’t interest me unless they were in an early 2000s boy band. And boyfriends? No thanks. Not that it mattered anyway, because I didn’t interest boys either. I’m unnaturally tall and chunky at the same time, I didn’t put much effort into my appearance since all the cool clothes and shoes weren’t made for me anyway, I very quickly decided I must be repulsive since no one ever looked at me.
Did this cause problems? Sure. I spent my teenage years navigating a path through people’s misjudged opinions of me ranging from “Oh she’s frigid.” To “Oh she’s a lesbian.” You can imagine how popular both of these misconceptions made me in secondary school. And perhaps more importantly, it’s hard for a girl to figure out her own identity when she’s surrounded by people’s misconceptions.
It wasn’t a conscious thing, but I quickly found myself a best friend and soon realised we didn’t really match the BFF stereotype, unless best friends are supposed to spend every waking moment of their lives together. It felt more co-dependent than a friendship should be. Something different.
Nothing sexual, nothing romantic. Just a bond.
It did nothing to quieten those lesbian rumours about me.
School became college and college led to university and we stopped talking somewhere in between, but nothing had changed in me. I still had this magical man repellent and I was still ok with it though the world wasn’t. I should have been in a relationship by now, should have been sleeping around and experimenting but I was still breaking all the rules. Most people come back from university having acquired a debt, a few exes and maybe a long-term relationship. I did not.
I did acquire a housemate though. A new best friend. Whatever label you want to attach to it. We’ll call her A.
I moved in with A after university - we told our families that we really loved our university town and wanted to stay. Truth is, we both liked living together and separating felt like it might be hard. We were best friends, but again it felt like more. Like sisters but better. 15 years later, here we are. Fully ingratiated in each other’s lives, attending family events having become a sort of, weird extra child for each other’s parents. You hear stories about the power of a female/female bond. You see it in movies, hear about it on social media. But it always seemed different to what I was experiencing. I was living in a relationship that mainstream society didn’t seem to have a name for.
Not sexual, not romantic. Just a bond.
As the relationship grew stronger, so did the assumptions that we were a lesbian couple. It bothered me for years that people made this couple assumption. That two women living together for over 10 years can only ever be defined as a couple. It’s unusual to live with friends when you’re in your 30s because it goes against the grain of everything we think we know. You meet a person, you fall in love, you have a family, and you make a life together.
But what if you don’t?
My siblings and colleagues make vague comments about my relationship as if they have me all figured out. Every time I call myself single or call A my friend I wonder if they think I’m a liar, or ashamed of who I am. I often feel misunderstood and I’ve questioned my own identity, maybe I am just gay and in the closet. Maybe I do love A romantically and I’m just scared to admit it. I would look at A and feel comfort and fondness. I felt a bond. But nothing remarkable, nothing that matches the descriptions I’ve read of romantic love, nothing that I don’t feel when I look at my cat. So back I would go to my undefined, in between existence where I’m probably just a closeted lesbian. I began to resign myself to the idea that I’d have to forever live under the mislabelling of ‘lesbian couple’ in order to get by in the world and it clouded everything until I couldn’t even see how special this weird, deep, female/female bond was and how lucky I was to have it.
It only took five minutes for it all to change and it started in my lounge. I was talking to A about how I thought I didn’t have a sexuality, since I don’t ever feel attracted to anyone I meet in real life. “You know there’s a name for that, right?” she said. I’d been ashamed to speak about this stuff fully. Even to A. Because I thought I might be dead inside or something. Then two words hit me right between the eyes.
Asexual
Aromantic
Now I truly understand the power that comes from claiming a label for yourself – instead of wearing one that someone else has given you. In that moment I realised I am not an anomaly, not broken or weird. I’m on the Asexual spectrum. It’s a spectrum that is infinitely diverse, but for me, it means I don’t feel either sexual or romantic attraction for anyone. When I found the Aspec community I also learned about queer platonic relationships or QPRs. And from there it all started to make sense. QPRs aren’t weighed down by societies understanding of what a relationship is or should be, they’re defined by the wants and needs of the people that are in them because every Aspec person is different when it comes to what they want from a relationship, if they even want one at all.
As I learned about all these things, I realised how limited I was by my own worldview. I couldn’t find my place because I didn’t know these things existed. I didn’t know there was anything in between friendship and couple and when I realised I was wrong, a whole universe opened up in front of me. When we live comfortably within the narrow confines of what is “normal” and “mainstream” we can’t see everything in between. Everything remains black and white, couple or friend, unless we lift the curtain to see the layers and realise that every layer is valid even if we don’t hear about it. The more we look for the layers, the more we see them and then maybe we’ll talk about them and help others find their place.
I found my place amongst the layers when I opened my eyes for just a second. If only other people would do the same.”