As you can imagine, this was bewildering to me. I had been falling for this person over the past year. I had romantic feelings for them, so I just assumed that I was physically attracted to them as well. After all, that’s usually how it’s supposed to go. The difference between physical and emotional attraction was so unfamiliar to me and I didn’t want to confront these feelings.

Looking back, during my late teens I had an inkling that I did not experience sexual attraction like the people around me. I considered every feasible possible label that I had heard of. I questioned if I was attracted to women, but I wasn’t wired that way. Little did I know, I was not wired in any way. Nobody around me spoke of asexuality outside of it being the butt of a joke, so I continued living my life assuming I was allosexual – that is, that I experienced sexual attraction in a manner that society deems to be “normal”. 

Despite what I was beginning to realise inside, I tried so hard to prove to others that I was a sexual person. I went from wearing turtlenecks and cutesy dresses to wearing low-cut tops, in an attempt to appeal to the male gaze. I had such a desire for male validation and to have men find me attractive, in an experience that now feels disingenuous to me. In some ways, I relate to the experiences of women who love women. Not only does the world assume that most women are straight, pushing them towards prioritising potential sexual and romantic relationships with men, it also assumes that women are allosexual – something I’ve experienced first-hand.