I’m Monty, I’m 21 and last year, just after Ace Week, I started using asexual as a label.

I wanted to try the word out for myself, staying consciously open to the thought that I would likely change my label again. I thought I would quickly realise it wasn’t the right word for me.

I was not prepared for the intense, immediate relief I felt in that label. Apparently, I had tried very hard my whole life not to be asexual.

When the topic of crushes first came up as a teenager, I was sure we were all just trying to be more grown-up. Everybody else faked, and then so did I.

I picked a person, someone people had made comments about for me anyways, and tried to make myself feel all the emotions I’d read about. I faked the shyness, excitement and then jealousy when they started to go out with someone else, trying to dislike the person they were going out with.

But as we got older, “I don’t have a crush on anyone” seemed to be an even more glaringly unacceptable response. And maybe it was me, maybe I just didn’t understand what a crush entailed. No one ever explained it, so I’ve probably had crushes all along and just couldn’t decipher them as such.

And so I reflected on all my past relationships (all platonic), and the close friendships I had had that ended and became retrospective crushes. I was sure, next time I got a crush, I’d know.

Then a very close friend told me they had a crush on me. I didn’t know what to answer – we hung up the phone and I was shaking. I knew they meant a lot to me. I knew I didn’t want to lose them, I was very scared that I might. The thought that they might want to kiss me made me shudder, a friend laughed at my innocence but I could barely say it aloud.

My brain couldn’t comprehend more than that. So probably not a crush back, then.

The situation resolved itself and, for a few months, my mind wandered away from any stresses about crushes.

Looking back, everything makes so much sense. Writing it now, it seems ridiculous that I ever thought I could be anything other than asexual.

But for most of my time growing up, I didn’t know asexual was something I could be. It wasn’t a word I knew, an option I was given, or had ever seen represented.