Ace Dad Advice: I think I'm aroace, but what if I'm wrong about the label?

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CJ writes:

I’m in my twenties, and it was only recently that I started to question if I’m aroace. 

If I’m being honest, I don’t really know what sexual or romantic attraction feel like. I don’t know if I have ever felt it. I am comfortable with sex and romance in the fictional sense, but those things are never really on my "radar," if that makes sense. I forget that people actually go out and experience those things.

When I tried out the term “aroace,” something felt, settled in me, I guess?

What I am struggling with though, is that I always thought I was straight. It was only when I really started reading into sexual and romantic attraction that I really had to sit back and question whether I had really felt those things. I guess I am just scared about using the label, because what if I am just making stuff up about myself to fit the label? Maybe it's because I’m questioning who I thought I was? 

Of all the experiences I have read, people have said that they have always felt different from everyone else. I have never felt different, maybe because I never knew that sexual or romantic attraction were really a thing? I've just felt like me. 

Maybe this whole thing sounds stupid. Maybe I’m just overthinking this? If I’m in my twenties, shouldn’t I have known I was different? 

Do you have any advice for someone who never knew they were supposed to feel different, never knew they were different, or maybe is just scared they are overthinking/making something up?

Hi CJ,

I want to begin by highlighting something important you share in your message: “I’ve just felt like me.”

Yes, for a lot of queer people, this is an end point. It’s a kind of self-acceptance we arrive at, after sometimes lengthy periods of time where we feel othered, different, out of place, and broken. It happens so often, it has become accepted as a default queer experience: you start to understand yourself and the world, you recognize you’re different, you struggle, you work hard, you arrive on the other side with self love and self awareness.

The fact that you began there, that feeling of “I’ve just felt like me” is a plus, not a red flag. If you began this journey of self-examination with acceptance and grace for how you move through the world, that’s awesome! You don’t have to experience identity dissonance in order for your experience to be legitimate. You’re just discovering language for that experience. And instead of that language causing a shift in how you live it, the language is simply reinforcing what you already seem to know and be comfortable with.

What I do think is worth talking about is the anxiety you’re feeling around using the language for yourself. This battle you’re having — Am I making this up about myself? Am I just trying to fit the label? Do I have a right to this language? — is an experience I see a lot in young ace and aro people. There’s a lot of sturm und drang around adopting, using and fitting the labels of asexuality and aromanticism, sometimes so much of it, people choose to not use any language for themselves at all.

My question for you would be: so what? So what if you were wrong about being aroace? So what if you were overthinking it? So what if you adopt the label aroace now, and five, ten, twenty years from now, come to understand something different about yourself?

There are no punishments for using ace and aro identity language. The Ace Police aren’t going to descend on your house and cart you off to a garlic bread-free prison cell if you get the words wrong. The language of ace and aro experience is a tool, not a test. It’s there to accomplish two things, and two things only: 1) help you describe your individual experience, and 2) help you find community with others who share that experience.

That’s it. If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re working from some ulterior motives. Identity language works for us — not the other way around.

If the language of aroace feels right, then you have the right to use it. It’s okay if you’ve never felt different. It’s okay if you’re not 100 percent sure. it’s okay if it turns out later you’re wrong. Labels aren’t boxes we shove ourselves into. They aren’t destinies we resign ourselves to fulfill. Use ‘em while they work for you. Discard ‘em when they don’t.

And continue being comfortable in your own skin.