I was curious now, that’s for sure.

And I was also terrified.

I mean, that wasn’t me. Asexual.  Aromantic.

I still wanted to have sex with someone eventually. Once I found someone I actually liked.

Just because I’ve never liked someone didn’t mean I never would…did it?

And I wanted to fall in love. I really, really did.

I definitely would someday.

So that couldn’t be me.

Fuck. I didn’t know.

The purpose of labels is to help. To help us categorize our experiences and find common ground and exchange with others we can identify with. If labels feel restricting or if our specific experiences do not fit them, we should discard them. Find other labels or use other language to describe your experiences. Your language. There is something incredibly liberating but also something weirdly threatening in describing experiences outside of specific categorizations. There is this fear that no one would be able to empathize, that you are solitary with your world of experiences, with yourself.

Loveless is about Georgia Warr who just entered college with two friends of hers. It’s about figuring out the meaning of friendship, love, finding community and figuring out sexuality and queerness along the way. You have your portion of drama, as expected from a YA novel but to my surprise, it never felt exhausting or unrealistic. I enjoy spending time in Oseman’s universes, there are always a bunch of creative quirky characters I find entertaining and even though conflicts arise, there lies a beautiful wholesomeness in the way friendships are portrayed. Loveless is special because there is barely any ace representation in narrative media and when there is, the story itself is almost never depicting the struggles the characters go through to realize and identify their sexual orientation. Furthermore, it is rare to see stories which are aimed at a young audience which deal with these themes.

I don’t identify as ace and therefore cannot explain how accurate the experience of being an aromantic asexual teenager are reflected in Georgia’s perspective but since Alice Oseman is aroace herself and the novel gets nothing but praise from the communities, I am sure, she did an amazing job. My fascination and the educational aspects of seeing queer representation in media aside, I also really enjoyed and devoured the book quickly because I connected with it personally. I have and still am questioning my sexuality but after diving into research mode in the last couple of weeks, I came to realize that I might be on the spectrum. If I had to pick a label, I would identify as greysexual. While people who are asexual experience no sexual attraction to other people at all, greysexuals experience little sexual attraction or only experience sexual attraction under specific circumstances. It’s a rather vague field and an umbrella term under which many other micro labels of the ace spectrum fall.

I think one aspect which had a huge emotional impact on me that was displayed in the story is the negative influence societal pressure and expectations have on Georgia. Believing that you are supposed to feel certain things and engage in certain ways considering romance and sex is not only restricting but devastating at times. More often than not my personal coping mechanism would be to come up with potential developments of my feelings which would be more socially acceptable.

It’s like leaving the backdoor open. I might not want to do x with y but that might change. It might be caused by anxiety and vanish when there’s enough trust and I feel comfortable with a partner. It might change when I’m in a committed relationship. It might change when I’m compatible with someone. And don’t get me wrong, no one can predict the future and change is possible but it’s not helpful at all to postpone self-acceptance to a point in time which might never come. I don’t need to be squeezed into boxes of societal expectations. I don’t need to be fixed. I am fine as it is. So are you. It’s time to shut the backdoor.

Being surrounded by people and reading about and seeing characters going through similar problems is validating and hopefully educating to many others who have never heard about the issue or have prejudices against it. Regardless if you claim a specific label or are still figuring things out and verbalize them in your own words, the most important thing is to find a way to be content with yourself and your desires and the limitations of them. I know, easier said than done. Support of family and friends helps, if you lack these resources, there are plenty of forums and discord servers for people who identify as ace or are questioning their sexuality and want to just communicate or meet up with others in similar situations.

Here are some resources I found helpful:

https://www.asexuality.org/en/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGUsNo_nE-A&list=PLmm2pb8hUJfUwcx6e5AjgA-7_5_gtX7zE

(Evie did some general informational videos on the topic but most of them deal with asexuality and kink)

https://www.reddit.com/r/asexuality/

https://disboard.org/de/servers/tag/asexual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF1DTK4U1AM&list=LL&index=4&t=1s