“When I first learned about her, no less than two million buffalo stampeded across my chest. (That is just an estimate at the risk of sounding dramatic.) When the dust finally settled, when chaos clipped its own wing & the Earth relinquished her thunder, I found the remains of a heart not twenty feet from my aching body, trampled into a bloody mess. This heart did not belong to me, but I ripped open my own ribcage just to double-check.”
Years ago, I had a close friend of almost ten years. We worked together and saw each other almost everyday. She was a big part of my world. I frequently talked about her when she wasn’t around, recounting all the hilarious things she said or the kind things she did for me or others. I found that she talked about me when I wasn’t around also. And she always had something she couldn’t wait to tell me, usually about one of her grandkids. I never imagined we could ever be apart. Life without her was unfathomable. It made no sense.
Then one day she just dropped dead.
At work.
A heart attack they said.
It was quick. Probably painless. For her. She was already gone when her body hit the floor. I was not there that day. I was on a meditation retreat. When I returned to work I saw her folded up newspaper and her half full bottle of water on her table. The water she was drinking and the paper she was reading just moments before her death took place. They never took it away.
I thought I would never recover. It was the absolute most traumatic experience of this entire life of mine. It wrecked me completely. I could not sleep and felt I would collapse in grief & trauma everyday wherever I was. I would wake up in a panic in the middle of the night. My body was constantly in the “fight or flight” mode. I forgot what it felt like to not be afraid. Her death devastated my world. Nothing else I ever experienced in this life came close to that trauma.
I constantly felt the urge to scream hysterically or scream her name until my throat was raw & tasted of blood. I imagined myself frantically climbing up the tallest skyscrapers in the city, like a wild animal, with just my arms and legs, and screaming her name off the rooftops, not to summon her, but to expel the violentprimalpain ripping through my body with every breath I took. I used to cover my face with my pillow in the dead of night to mask the screams. It was not crying or sobbing. It was screams. Primitive screams. Fear, pain ripping through me, trying to claw its way out of my body and escape into the night. Sometimes I would lay on a floor in a fetal position, holding myself, my entire existence throbbing hysterically. When I was able to finally drag myself up, I would look in a mirror and my eyes would be completely black. My face distorted by terror. It was a shock to see. I felt like the embodiment of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
I had no idea how to handle the fear of the thought of her being gone forever. I felt like I would go to the ends of the Earth to find her. It was the same sense of panic as a phobia. (I have, now dormant after exposure therapy, lifelong Claustrophobia, so I know). The panic of knowing she was gone forever, never able to return, the permeance of her absence, the permeance of death in general, death itself, threatened to drive me insane. Just very faintly, a hint of that feeling of possibly going insane without her here lingers today, only rarely appearing and is more like a hologram or a shadow than anything of substance. I knew people die and have even known people who died. But I had no idea someone can just die. I had no experience with it when it was someone that close to me. I suddenly realized the hard way that absolutely anyone can die and without warning. It was a rude awakening. I did not like it.
My mundane sense of safety & security was stripped away forever like being soundly asleep and having a warm comforting blanket unexpectedly ripped off of you and a bucket of ice water suddenly poured over your exposed body before you ever get the chance to process what is happening. For a while I lived in a constant state of confusion & shock.
I wanted to go back to my safe little bubble where no one close to me ever dies and couldn’t possibly die, where it was only something I heard about and knew in an abstract way, never my reality, my nightmare.
Sometimes I wondered if my own heart could handle the pain or if it too would soon give out, suddenly stop forever just like hers. There was once a couple months after her death where I truly believed I was having a heart attack too at 28 years old. I literally thought I was dying. It was something I never experienced before. I woke up in the middle of the night gasping for breath, plagued with the grief, but now accompanied by something else. My chest was caving in. It felt like I was suffocating. I couldn’t catch my breath. It felt like something crushing me. I dragged myself out of bed and looked in a mirror. My eyes were completely black. My mouth was agape in horror. Clutching my chest, I slid to the floor to die. Literally I believed the grief was physically k!lling me.It was the most terrifying thing imaginable.
Suddenly I realized it was the beginning stages of a panic attack. I never had one before.The only real anxiety I ever had before that was related to my claustrophobia but never resulted in a panic attack. I stopped it in its tracks with a meditation technique I learned. I never had one again but continued to live in a near constant state of panic for a while.
My whole world crumbled on top of me. It was like I had to learn to live again. It took years to rebuild myself.
I felt like I was drowning (when I was 11 years old I almost drowned in a swimming pool at a family member’s house, and this felt exactly the same) and like I was missing a limb. Every single day it felt like part of my body was missing, like my own flesh & blood was torn away. It felt like I had to learn to breathe again. Breathing no longer came naturally. Sometimes I was literally gasping for breath. My chest felt like it was being crushed. It truly felt like a nightmare I could not wake up out of. I did not grow up with Diane, I met her at 20 years old. I only knew her for less than ten years. We were not biologically related. But for some reason it feels and has always felt like her love has been with me all life long, for as long as I can remember, and her death feels, even to this day, almost like a biological injury, like I lost a piece of myself.
It took years for me to “get over it” as much as I ever will. She’s the closest person to me who ever died. I had friends/family who died before her, but nothing prepared me for this. My pets dying was not less painful, but I had pets who died since I was little and unfortunately expect that. I never imagined I would lose a human so close to me and so much a part of me.
She was old enough to be my mom and has sons around my ageor a bit older. She showed me a love that was like a Mother’s love. She would give me loving mom hugs. She was very protective and would yell at anyone she thought was doing something wrong to me. One day my dad came to work and was messing around joking and said “What are you doing?!” And my friend was going by in a car and heard him and she yelled “She’s working!! The fuck’s it look like she’s doing,” not knowing it was my dad just playing around. He was pissed. 😂
She used to invite me to her house for Thanksgiving & Christmas with her big family but I always had family plans and never accepted the invitations. Now I wish I did at least once. She would make me lunch and check up on me and even brag about me like I was her own daughter. All three of her sons wanted to date me at one point and would argue over me, and she told me she wanted me as a daughter in law but that I was too good for all of them. 😆 She said “Wait til they all get their shit together and then choose one.” 🤣 Diane was a widow, her husband died years before and she stayed single. Her three boys and grandkids were her world. I met all of them. They would come to our work, and she would proudly show them off.
She frequently told me I was too good for this world. She also told me one of her biggest fears in life was that this cruel world would turn me cold, harden me, and that I would lose my sweetness, my soft, gentle ways. My warmth. She told me she never met anyone with my level of kindness and never knew it existed until she found me. She said I have a heart unmatched by any other and she was afraid that heart could grow cold.
I once overheard her expressing this same fear to someone else and telling them one of her only wishes in life is for me to stay kind, warm, caring, even in the face of the world’s bitterness. She made me promise her more than once that I would never lose myself to the cruelty & coldness of others. I always had to say “I promise.” Sometimes, years after her death, I have felt that happening and then I remembered my promise to her and felt myself soften.
She would often say “Love ya, girl” when we were parting ways.
“Unfuckingbelievable”
The last word I ever heard her say.
It was a cold February morning. A sardonic smile creeping at the edges of her mouth, scoffing at the situation before angrily slamming a window closed in my face.I remember it so vividly. It’s burned in my mind. She slammed the window closed without giving me a chance to say goodbye. Then she turned her back to me and walked away.
I never saw her again.
That last encounter makes me laugh because it is so her. I did not like her when we first met. I thought she was obnoxious. She asked me how much something costs. I meant to say 75 cents or two for $1 and slipped and said 50 cents or two for $1. And she said “Yeah, no shit it’s two for $1.” 🤣 I never imagined then that I could come to love her the way that I did.
It doesn’t hurt me that we never got to properly say goodbye. It’s quite fitting. We never had a proper hello either. Diane walked out on me the same way she walked in. Loud. Sarcastic. Cynical. Fiery.
It really was just so her. And I wouldn’t have her any other way.
She was loud and sarcastic and cursed constantly just in mundane conversations. If she was angry or unhappy with us we knew it. She was also very kind & giving.
She loved Rod Stewart. And strawberry ice cream. And hot chocolate. And soft pretzels. We would sit together on cold Winter nights laughing and drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream and playing Rod Stewart songs. The memories make me dizzy.
I always said if I knew her heart was going to stop beating, that last day I saw her I would have cracked open my own chest, ripped my own heart out if I could have, and handed it to her. I would have given my heart to Diane so she could meet her grandbaby and so she could have more cones of strawberry ice cream and so that she could hear one more Rod Stewart song and so that she could keep yelling at her boys for “not having their shit together” and so that she could keep giving big tips to food workers (as food workers ourselves we had no money, but she always gave her last dollar to someone else).
She already had my heart. But if I could I would have given her every beat of it I have left, to keep her here.
She was about to have a (great) grandbaby and could not wait to meet him. It was all she talked about. She died at 58 years old, just before he was born. I got to meet that baby and tell his sweet mom (her granddaughter) how much she already loved him, how he was all she talked about at work.
I have a sterling silver necklace with her name engraved on it and her birthstone (the one I’m wearing in this picture) that I bought after she died. I think of her often. It has been nearly ten years without her, but she’s always somewhere in the back of my mind, I can always feel her. While I felt the loss so deeply & so profoundly and to some extent still do, I never felt that I lost her love. It feels like it has never gone away. It’s an ingrained part of me that can never go away. It feels almost as essential to me as my DNA.
My grief for Diane is now quiet, calm. It’s as mellow as it will ever be. Such a sharp contrast to what it used to be. Even the “flare ups,” you know the ones that hit at random moments or are triggered by a memory or anniversary or certain part of the year, are quite soft now. It no longer traumatizes me or floors me or provokes the urge to scream into the night. And my eyes are no longer black with terror at the thought of her never walking this Earth again. There’s a somber acceptance now. A sad knowing that can coexist with me.
I am still sad.There is still heartbreak. But I can breathe again. My head feels like it’s above water.
Every now & again I feel a wave approaching. A wave of that grief I know so well. The grief that used to knock me to the floor or the ground, wherever I was standing. The grief that knocked the wind out of me, leaving me breathless. I brace myself for the blow as it comes at me. But when it arrives it’s soft & gentle. Briefly touching me, almost like a caress before bouncing off. It doesn’t take me under like it used to. There may be a hint ofthat despair riding on each wave. Sometimes there is still a sharp pang in the gut. But it never hits like it used to. It’s like an Ocean’s wave by the time it reaches the sand and only comes up to your ankles. You can still feel the piercing coldness of it and the distant or potential threat of it knowing how powerful it once was, how uproarious & v!olent. But it’s harmless. It’s just there. There may even be a touch of beauty to it.
Today I no longer think about what I lost but what I had. Her love was a gift that never had to be given to me but was.
And I am so so lucky.
Randomly, I write about Diane and share it. Ten years later she is still my inspiration for writing. I have written about her even before she died. My last post about her a while ago is something I titled “The Forgotten Mourners” and is about how the loss of a platonic friend is disenfranchised grief (and especially when it’s the loss of an online friend or a coworker).
It’s always someone else’s grief first. It belongs to the spouse or to the children or to the parents. It’s never ours. We’re always lost in the shadows of their mourning, the “real” mourners, seemingly hijacking their grief. This can make it so it feels like it’s not our place to grieve or to grieve as deeply as we are. Whenever my grief would reach its pinnacle I told myself to tone it down. What about her sons? Her grandkids? What about her siblings & “real friends?” Who am I to tread? Years ago shortly after she died and I wrote about her death, I asked everyone to withhold any sympathy/compassion directed at me, I said it wasn’t my loss, that it was her family’s loss, the loss of her “real friends,” I was just a little old work friend.
Years later I take that back. She was my friend. I was her friend. And it is a tragic loss to me, one that has left me with a deep gaping wound that took years to heal. One that still marks me today. Our grief is ours to claim. Some losses are more profound than others and someone grieving for the same person may have it worse. I’m sure losing a spouse, for example, is more devastating or extensive than losing a coworker. But that doesn’t make the grief for a work friend any less valid or any less painful than it is in its own context. There is unfortunately enough grief to go around.
My love for Diane has never faded like the worst of the grief has. My sense of missing her also hasn’t.
If I could whisper one thing into the uni-verse that could reach her it would be:
“I love you, Diane. I love you.”
“The rhythm of my heart Is beating like a drum With the words ‘I love you’ rolling off my tongue” ❤️
Not sure but this may need a content warning ⚠️: non sexual touching by a stranger without consent
A random stranger man came up today and hugged me without my consent. It was on a crowded city street in daylight. He looked to be early 30 something years old. A bit younger than me. I had earphones in and was looking at my phone when a man walked towards me asking me something. I wasn’t interested in whatever it was, I was on my way to work (turns out he was asking me what food I like). I sensed he was not a threat. But he wouldn’t let me walk by because he wanted my attention. Then he grabbed me by the left shoulder and swung around in back of me and pulled me close to him. My back was against him with his arms around my upper body, holding me close. It was completely non sexual/non threatening. He wasn’t trying to feel me up at all. It was just a heartfelt hug. It was more playful & silly than anything. He had a big silly grin on his face when I saw his face. I can tell he just wasn’t taught proper boundaries.
It’s hard to convey the nuances in writing or speaking. So it may sound scarier than it was. Part of me was super annoyed that he was touching me without my consent, but my body loved the sensation of being hugged & held, especially the way he hugged me so closely and tightly. It truly felt like love. It felt safe. It was the kind of hug that is usually reserved for close people, not strangers on the street. It’s not the way I hug strangers when I have a choice. I prefer that level of hugging to be for close people. Again, it was not romantic/sexual in any way. He wasn’t asking me out or trying to get my phone number or anything and no touching me other than his arms around me. But it was still wrong. I tried to pull away because it was not consensual and was just weird, and he pulled me back and held me even closer. It wasn’t in a dominant way like to show me he was in charge, and there was nothing intimidating about it. (I have experience with men like this and can tell the difference) It was more like he wanted to hug and wasn’t ready to let go.
He’s lucky I’m not a woman who would instantly pull out mase or a g u n or punch him. Especially with what has been going on these days.(Men holding up signs saying “Your body, my choice” & “Women are property” and blasting that sentiment all over social media ever since the misogynistic predator was elected as President again)
After trying to pull away and him pulling me back, my body reacted instinctively, leaning against him and letting him hold me close as if we were best friends. I put my arms around his that were around my body as he held me for a few seconds, his head leaning against mine. My mind felt guilty for enabling him to grab & hug stranger women on the streets, but physically it was satisfying & fulfilling. And I let that part override the guilt telling me I should put him in his place. It was my guilty pleasure. If he was trying to do anything other than hug me I would have done more to stop it. Or if his hugging was sexual in some way. But it wasn’t. It probably was because I’m a woman. He probably doesn’t run up and hug other men like that, but still it wasn’t pervy or anything like that. In no way does this make it ok. I’m just saying I wouldn’t have tolerated it if it was sexual.
Now layers of my touch starvation have been peeled away. Even a while later my body feels light and like it got something it needed. But this is not the way that should happen.
I really need friends lol
My touch starvation isn’t just because of lack of physical touch, it’s the lack of emotional closeness with someone. I haven’t had close in person friends in a while. If I had a close emotional connection with someone even if we never ever physically touch, my touch starvation would be less. Even a day of socializing with strangers reduces my physical touch starvation a little bit. There have even been occasions I had staff meetings at work and my whole body felt lighter after just because of being around people. I’m seriously so super extroverted, but everyone says I can’t be or can’t accurately use that label because of how shy & quiet I am lol
I don’t have a trauma history or sensory issues with touching people, so I don’t mind being touched in & of itself or being approached by men in a non threatening way. But it’s not ok to touch someone without consent. It’s not ok anyway, but imagine if a woman with trauma history is grabbed & held by a random man on the street. She would probably have a breakdown.
These boys need to be taught better growing up.
I’m literally concerned for his safety because some other woman is going to take no 💩 and either pull out mase or worse. And it will be 💯 his own fault even though he’s harmless or at least not a true threat. I can be intuitive & receptive so can usually tell if I have to be concerned about a man, but not every woman is and may mistake him for a threat or she may just see a strange man approaching & touching her and take action, or she may have a trauma history and fr3ak out and react. And all of this would be his fault, not hers in any way. And the fault of whoever brought him up lacking boundaries.
I love hugs and will hug anyone who requests it. I have participated in “National Free Hug Day” years ago and also had a “Free Hugs” t-shirt before, that I would wear out & about. Strangers on the streets would come over and request a hug (they always asked first). I lost the shirt and always want to get another one and never get around to it.
Anyway I feel guilty for physically liking it knowing it’s wrong and feel like a scuzzy gender traitor sort of for letting a strange man touch me and not speaking up for all of us even though it wasn’t sexual in any way. (I promise I’m not though lol I have definitely approached men before when I saw them harassing other women and have spoken up for myself before. I have invited women to walk with me when they were being harassed on the streets) It was good for my mental health also. Humans in general need connection & physical touch with other humans (even if just platonic like this), but it seems twisted of me liking it with how it happened. I in no way condone it or appreciate it at all. But on a physiological & some emotional level beyond my choice/control it benefits me. It’s a strange contradiction, I know. It feels perverse.
I feel like a total sleeze today lol Can’t say I’m a credit to my gender.
If he wanted a hug he should have just asked. I would have gladly said yes.
Anyway, sending a consensual hug to anyone out there who needs or wants it lol 😘
My dad inspired my interest in politics. He listened to talk shows/voted in every Election for as long as I can remember. He took me inside the booth w/ him every Election Day. I LOVED it. I just knew it was so fun, that he let me vote for him, & there was a collective feeling in the air. I would go in & pull the levers he told me to. (They were levers back then lol) He’s a Republican (ick, just realized I been voting Republican for years 🤣). A D Trump supporter. Once when we went into the booth I reached for the Democrat one & said “Can I pull this one, Daddy?” I knew he wouldn’t like it & was trolling him. He yelled “Ahh, NO!!!! Not the Democrats!!! NO!!!” It was hilarious. 😆 When I was 14 years old I began to think for myself. I decided I am a Democrat. I somehow convinced him to vote for Al Gore. He was angry with the Republicans then for some reason. So he let his guard down, I saw my chance & took it. He said he knew he was making a big mistake & would regret it. I pulled that thing as fast as I could before he could change his mind. He closed his eyes & turned his back & was saying “just get it over with.” 😆 At 18 years old I registered myself as a Democrat. My dad was yelling “You baby k!ller, I can’t believe it, you’re joining the baby k!llers?!!!” 😂🤣 Every year on Election Day we would show up to the polls together voting for each other’s rival, sometimes him in Republican gear, me in Democrat. Sometimes we would remind each other that today is Election Day & that we had to go vote. I found that funny since we were on opposing sides. Sometimes we would walk in & he would say “Ugh! She’s a Democrat.” 😆 I would laugh. He would say something like “Kim, your boy won last night.” Or “Kim, your girl lost.” My dad is terminally ill now, & tomorrow he will not be voting for me. He will be getting in one last vote for Donald Trump. I won’t be joining him. He will be pushed by my aunt in his wheelchair that he is now confined to. She’ll push the buttons for him or help him push them. I already voted for Kamala Harris. 💙 I never realized back then that one Election Day would be our last together. I admit those are some happy memories that I cherish ❤️
Wide awake Shrouded in the suffocating loneliness That old familiar companion That never leaves her side Her mind drifts to a long ago That is so out of reach now it’s almost Too painful to remember Her body heavy with the memories Of what used to be Before things got so dark It feels like another life One that wasn’t hers Could never be hers
A million lifetimes ago Like another dimension Where a different version of herself exists A happier version Knowing only innocence & love
The nostalgia leaves her breathless
Knocking the wind out of her Painful & joyful alike
She lays beneath her soft silken sheets
Feeling like a distorted replica of her former self
A contorted character in a dark novel, an empty shell of what used to be
As if her life were a convoluted storyinspired by some distant reality that was once hers
Just when her despair Reaches a new depth I find myself seeping into the cracks Of her shattered mind Uninvited Creeping into her darkest spaces Taking up residence in her darkness Feeling it surrounding me Like a midnight melody Somber, sweet, aching
She hears me humming the song She wrote As she bolts upright in her bed Trying to discern If her midnight serenade is real or A figment of her sad imagination I journey through all the crevices of her brain, therecesses of her mind,and all the delicate veins, tracing the curves of her body with my tender touch Trying to learn all of her ways All of her secrets The intimate longings of her heart So I can sing them back to her
Mirroring her own love And showering her in it Like a waterfall of nectar cascading over Her rocky, tumultuous world And soothing the darkness in her soul
My humming gets louder As she gets up and walks to the doorway She hears my voice up the hall Gently singing the song in her bones
One hand on the doorframe, she tentatively looks down the dark hallway, afraid of what she may see but her curiosity too strong to quell
Seeing my slender silhouette on the cream colored curtain, doing starlit pirouettes My long hair blowing in the breeze She freezes And blinks As I vanish into the night She opens her eyes And in that fraction of a second I am gone She walks along the hall til she reaches the opened window And stares at the now blank curtain blowing softly As moonlight drifts in
She reaches out
And touches the curtain
Gently rubbing her hand down the soft fabric
Pulling it aside to look in back
Confusion written all over her face As she looks around, peering into the darkness Of the hall The darkness matching the darkness within She begins to slowly walk back to her room Her hair hanging softly down her back Resting against herpastel pink lacey lingerie top That reveals the soft smoothivory skin beneath
Her lips are full & pink Glistening As she calls out To whatever apparition Lurks in her darkness I whisper her name Into her ear So lightly Like the breeze That creeps in through the window
She jumps And shudders A chill running up her spine As she walks back to the window And closes it The curtains now hanging Still, lifeless
Her bare feet make a soft padding sound Against the wooden floorboards as they creak in the night I silently float beside her My mind connecting with hers She can’t see me But she can feel me In every breath she takes She turns to the side and catches my shadow As I instantly disappear
She can hear my soothing voice Caressing the shards of her mind And feel my loving embrace Around her shoulders She pulls away Unsure if it’s real or imagined I move closer Until my hair falls over her shoulder Like a shadow in the night My glossed red lips Just barely touch her cheek As she quickly reaches up And brushes her cheek with her hand
She turns, abruptly
And we are face to face
So close, she can feel my breath in her face
Like the kiss of a midnight breeze
She sees through me
Then for a moment our eyes seem to meet
Just for one infinitesimal moment
A knowing look suddenly crosses her face Like a fleeting light Piercing the darkness Then fading away As quickly as it appeared
She turns and walks briskly back To her bedroom And slams the door Shutting me out Willing me out of her mind Out of her awareness Out of her blo0dstream Out of her soul
Her darkness closes in And suffocates me Pulling me into an endless abyss I fall and fall Free falling Flailing And crashing back into my own World Without her All encompassing pain Taking over As I lay Rejected & defeated The ache Taking over As I lay in my bed late into the night I can feel her in the shadows That surround the night And I wonder if I’m haunting her Tonight
Memories of me filling her mind Memories of a love that never was A love that could have been but ended before it began Memories & longings she wishes only to banish
I lay in my darkness Dreaming of her In the moonlight Memoriesof longago Of youthful, hopeful dreams now shattered, swirl around in my head as if to taunt me As she haunts me Tantalized by her wild beauty Pulled into an endless night Where I live in her nightmares Aching for something Homesick for a place that never existed For a person never meant to be mine Grieving for an old love That nevertruly lived
But burns in me like a fire
That can’t be tamed
(I’m disappointed with how this poem is structured. But jetpack/WordPress won’t let me write a sentence or a few words and hit the enter or down key and have another sentence directly under it. It puts a space. I had to write this in my phone’s memo section and paste it here. But I decided to edit & add things. When I added a new sentence, it couldn’t be right under the one before it when I hit the enter key or whatever the key is called now to go to the space below a sentence or word. I saw someone else expressing the same problem while trying to write poems. For paragraphs in regular writing, like this, we don’t have toskip to underneath, but poems & songs are structured differently.
If I were to write a poem directly here instead of writing somewhere else and pasting it here
It
would
be
like
this.
Who wants all those spaces after each word or sentence in a song or poem? I always find myself rereading & editing my poems for days and days. I think it’s done and paste here then realize more work can be done. And when I edit them here, I have to have spaces or begin a whole new blog post because when I delete everything in the current one, the structure is still all messed up. We shouldn’t have all that extra work to post a poem. There are so many other glitches with this app and website too. It’s an ongoingissue for years no matter which phone I use. Sometimes it almost feels like it’s more trouble than it’s worth, but I like having this space to share things. It’s different than regular social media, and sometimes my posts are too long to fit in a social media post. So I keep this around. I’m going to upgrade it when I get money. It feels kind of ironic that I’m complaining that something is more trouble than it’s worth and in the same breath saying I’m going to invest money in it to keep around lol)
This post is edited to fix it up a bit but is essentially the same.
⚠️: not the topic, but brief mention of depression/su*cidal inclination/s*icide
This is my true story. “Tell me how to win your heart For I haven’t got a clue But let me start by saying I love you” ❤️
When I was 18-20 years old (around 18-20 years ago), I was head over heels in love with another girl, a gay girl who hardly knew of my existence. I loved her secretly and never acted on it, but it was one of the most passionate loves I have ever known. I loved her with every fiber of my being, more than life itself. It was a fierce burning love that consumed all of me. There is still a vestige of that love living somewhere in me today, permanent, like a tattoo on the very soul of me.
She was a cisgender masc woman, a stereotypical gay woman with short black hair, and warm brown eyes. Very outgoing, the kind of person everyone liked. She was genuinely interested in people. She was around 30 years old when we met. The age difference did not matter. It doesn’t matter to me how much older someone is than me.
I remember the moment we first met. It was a cold mid-December afternoon in 2004. I saw her across the crowded lobby, holding her jacket, standing with a couple of people, smiling & looking around. It was one of those moments where time stands still. The place was packed, but I only saw her. I had no idea who she was or that our lives would soon cross paths & touch ever so briefly but impact me so profoundly. I was instantly drawn to her. A feeling of excitement automatically ran through me. She was around the same size as me, a wh!te woman wearing glasses with a backpack on. She was wearing blue jeans & a long-sleeved plaid shirt with the sleeves pulled up & sandals with socks.
I don’t remember the color of her shirt, but I vividly remember the sandals with socks; I thought it was cute & not something I saw often, something conventionally considered a fashion fail, but she pulled it off adorably. She exuded self-confidence.
Her hair was short (like what is typical for a man) & messy, sticking in all directions. She had a masculine way of moving; she was clearly a woman/fem presenting person but with a degree of masculinity, even the way she would brush her fingers through her hair or rub her hand down her face, was conventionally man-like. She was what someone would call boyish or tomboy. There was something macho in her mannerisms & appearance, masculine, but not so much so that she could be mistaken for a man. Anyone could see she was just a non gender conforming woman. She had the gender identity of a woman & was assigned female at birth.
Her voice was feminine & so was her laugh. She sometimes wore men’s cologne. I loved getting a whiff of her cologne. It was beyond thrilling when she would walk by me in her masculine way with her cologne wafting around me; my heart would race because of the thrill (men don’t do that to me, only women do, lol). Even now, I can feel the thrill, just remembering. I so want that experience again with someone else, someone who loves me back.
She had tattoos on her arms & a large silver watch on her wrist that was probably intended for a man. It added to her masculinity. And the whole masc thing drove me wild. When she would move in her masc ways, it was a big “turn-on.” It thrilled me to the core, sometimes sending my heart racing & making me giddy. Extreme joy & light would fill me to the brim. No makeup, occasionally she wore a necklace & small earrings. Some days I would see her dressed professionally, in pantsuits or shirts with collars. 🥵 Sometimes she wore baseball caps. I thought she was adorable.
Her aesthetic/style/appearance was very different than mine. I had hair long enough to sit on. It would hang over chairs when I would sit down & reach the floor when I laid in bed & threw my hair over the side. I wore large silver loop earrings & always had painted nails or, once in a while, even a French manicure if I was able to get the money 😁 I wore belly shirts that showed my whole midriff & low cut blue jeans with 5-inch stiletto heels & too much eyeshadow. I was told by different people that I looked like a stripper or a wh0re or asked if I was one lol
There’s no denying there was some kind of instant attraction that wasn’t sexual in nature but was very gay. lol I wouldn’t dare admit that back then.
The day I first met her, she walked over and leaned over me to look at something in back of me. She was mumbling something half to herself & half to me. Her face was in mine but off to the side. I was leaning on my side against a wall with my back against a long table that was pushed up against the wall I was leaning on and another wall in back of me. She wanted to see a poster or something on the wall in back of me.
The table and me were blocking her. And instead of asking me to move, she just leaned over me, lightly brushing up against me with her whole body. Instantly, an uncontrollable tingling feeling began in my fingertips & surged through my whole body to the tips of my toes, almost like if you take a shot of something alcoholic. I still remember it so vividly & just the way it felt to be around her. It’s a pleasant memory and gives me hope that I can have that again one day with someone who loves me back.
Her body just barely touched mine, but it was enough for me to feel something being that close. It felt not platonic but wasn’t sexual. While it was a pleasant sensation, could have even been thrilling, I was disturbed because I thought it made me gay and that that could potentially make me a target of homophobia even if I told no one. And I absolutely would not have told anyone at all back then, even if I trusted them, because then it would be out there in the uni-verse.
But even just keeping it to myself I did not want it to be true or to acknowledge it. I loved her being that physically close to me. The tingling feeling really disturbed & confused me when I would occasionally feel it around her. She would also give me a racing heart sometimes, not because of anxiety, but thrill. I would be giddy & ecstatic seeing her across a street, walking or talking to someone. She definitely gave me feels.
I was jealous of the people who knew her outside the very limited context I did. I remember feeling real jealousy that they got to know & love her while I just lurked on the sidelines and hid in the shadows secretly pining for her. I would have loved to be anything to her, a friend, an acquaintance, her life partner. When I would see her with coffee or lunch, I thought about how lucky the servers were to get to interact with her even if only briefly. She was that amazing to me.
She was a bubbly, energetic person who could brighten anyone’s day or uplift any mood, like one of those energizing “feel good” songs that make you want to get up & dance whenever it plays. She was my sunshine. I kept trying to come up with a way I could make contact with her and get her into my world, but I was too shy. And that is the story of my life. Lol
I loved her deeply right away & wanted her in some intimate way that I could never express. I thought of her as my baby, and every love song reminded me of her. She was the first thing on my mind waking up & the last thing falling asleep. I wondered what she was up to, thought about when I would see her again, fantasized about becoming so close to her.
I was thrilled when I knew I would see her again. I found myself dressing to attempt to impress her. I wanted her to like me like I liked her & think I was beautiful. I don’t fully understand what sexual attraction is or feeling “horny” because I never developed those feelings. I can only imagine.
So all life long my brain has compensated for the lack of understanding by focusing on the aspects that I do understand or experience myself, like thinking someone is breathtaking and wanting to stare. I wanted her to want to stare at me, thinking I was breathtaking. I did not realize it could make her “horny.” Lol
People ask me why I would dress the way I do if I don’t want s*x or don’t feel sexual attraction. It’s because I experience the aesthetic aspect of it. Beautiful women, including myself, intoxicate me, but they don’t make me horny. So I was trying to get her to feel the same feeling I have when I see a beautiful woman. I knew gay people are sexually attracted to people of their own gender & it has something to do with hooking up & liking how someone looks, but I never understood in an organized way what it means, the underlying phenomena of it. My understanding was vague & mechanical, logical.
Like, my friend dates/looks at other men because he’s gay. Gay means sexually attracted to people of your own gender. So my friend is sexually attracted to other men & loves to look at them. That much I knew, but I had no idea what the underlying thing is going on, what sexual attraction feels like, what it even is. My brain summed it up to basically loving how someone looks, but I still sensed there’s more to it.
My love for her was all-encompassing. I thought of her in every single thing I did. I was cr@zy for her. She was the love of my life. I wanted her so desperately, & eventually, I could not imagine life without her.
“I’m not your lover, I’m not your friend, I am something that you’ll never comprehend” Prince
Prince’s lyrics really resonated with me then because the love I experienced for her was so fierce and passionate, and all-consuming, that it truly was hard to comprehend. I thought she could never grasp the depth & intensity of my love for her. I remember feeling that I would never be able to explain adequately enough for her to understand it, even if given the opportunity. I felt there were no words. I also remember being jealous of my own love for her because no one loved me that fiercely and maybe never would.
That was a prominent thing on my mind back then that I totally forgot about until writing this. Remembering that feeling now is so familiar, like a long lost friend, a feeling like how did someone get so lucky to be loved to this depth & wishing I had that love lavished onto me. It was not arrogance at all, but I remember thinking in a detached way how lucky someone is to be this loved by someone else, & not just a feeling, but there isn’t a thing I would not have done for her, even if it meant I had to lay down my own life in an instant.
I felt I would have her back & cheer her on all life long even if we weren’t in touch. And I knew then the love was unconditional & lifelong (and it is). It wasn’t an everyday kind of love. It was a love that felt like a comet hit the Earth. It’s something I wasn’t accustomed to.
I would imagine us walking around together late at night in center city, Philadelphia, looking at all the buildings. Going to restaurants and sitting on the same side of the table. I always thought that’s adorable when I see happy couples sitting on the same side, in each other’s faces, even when it’s just them. I always wanted that with someone. I saw us sitting together, discussing law & politics & psychology & philosophy. I imagined us going to events around the city & having a group of mutual friends and us being the main two, the closest ones.
Sometimes I would daydream of her having a girlfriend but being closer to me. Lol I had no idea I was fantasizing about emotional cheating. That wasn’t my intention. I simply wanted her as my close cuddly friend, as mine, but knew people usually have a romantic partner, so I just casually imagined that aspect in my daydreams.
In my dreams we would curl up together on a sofa, our bodies touching while we talked or watched movies. I would imagine her having bad days so I could hold her all night and caress her cheeks & hair. Sometimes, I would imagine us arguing and then making up with long, loving hugs. She often got into tiffs with people because of her insulting sense of humor.
She got a kick out of taking playful jabs at people, sometimes quite tactless, something I’m not a fan of but could tolerate in her. She always apologized more than once if someone was truly offended & said she felt terrible, it was genuine. She loved tasteless jokes. She would say things like “boo-hoo, cry me a f*cking river” if someone complained about something she found petty, especially something political. She ragged on Republicans.
I would imagine us being very emotionally & physically close. I did not have the nerve to daydream about (nonsexual) physical things with her. I never imagined her with no clothing, it never even occurred to me. I genuinely wasn’t interested. Thoughts about tenderly touching her would pop into my head, and I would instantly banish them. I imagined our faces touching, lips brushing each other’s, my hands cupping her cheeks, sliding up her shirt to gently rub her back, her hand in mine, caressing it, holding her close. My body would melt at the thought.
Then I would tell myself I can’t be gay, it wasn’t happening. So sometimes I would imagine her having a bad day (sometimes she did seem a bit dejected but was usually very cheerful) & me holding her close to comfort her. It was my excuse to imagine touching her without being gay about it. Lol
I would imagine her falling asleep in my arms & me running my fingers through her hair. I would tell myself I was going overboard with the fantasies for a “hetero” girl. I imagined nonsexual sleepovers, us falling asleep together, me holding her, my arms wrapped tightly around her, never letting go. My fantasies felt “too gay” even though they were never sexual. I knew people would think that if they knew, and I struggled with anxiety even though no one could find out. The biggest insecurity was that it was not as valid according to society because it was nonsexual.
The thought of me possibly being gay was stressful; there were occasions when it was low-key traumatic. But me being nonsexual was the biggest insecurity & stressor of all. It was mortifying & filled me with fear in every conversation with friends or peers, afraid they would catch on, but lying about having desire/experience felt so off and unnatural to me. I never heard of such a thing as me and thought I was the biggest fr3ak of nature.
I internalized society’s messages about people who are different & about romantic/sexual feelings being most important. Back then I never heard of asexuality. I had no idea there are more people like me. I had no idea how to even explain what I am; I could tell it runs so much deeper than a dysfunction & just “not wanting s*x.” It’s an ingrained part of me since birth. I couldn’t articulate it. The lack of that aspect did not make my love for her any less like society would have us believe.
I would imagine me buying her gifts, like cupcakes & coffee. I imagined her causally taking a swig of the beer she loved as we hung out on some apartment balcony in center city late at night, surrounded by the city lights, laughing about everything. In my mind, we listened to Phil Collins, George Michael, Billy Ocean, Hall & Oates…all night long & danced under the stars to our 80’s songs.
Now I understand that she would never have been interested in an 18-year-old anyway. When I was 30 years old, an 18-year-old wouldn’t even catch my eye or cross my mind. The age difference itself isn’t a problem; it’s not even that significant, but my age was a kid age. But at 18 years old I did not realize that. I couldn’t have cared less that she was 30 years old or even 50 years old. I just liked her, & that’s all that mattered.
Over a year later, after not seeing her anymore but knowing she was around still, I randomly saw her walking into the building where her work office was. I did not know she still worked there, but I did know she was still around that location even when I no longer saw her. I knew I could run into her again & had so much hope that I would.
I found myself going out of my way just to see her, going into the building when I had no reason to, & walking by her office to catch a glimpse. I would see her in professional mode in her glasses, shuffling papers around her desk, sometimes writing something down, pulling things out of a filing cabinet, talking to people, laughing & joking, & drinking coffee. And oh how it thrilled me. Every little thing she did amazed me, even the most mundane things. I loved her laugh. She intoxicated me. She had me spellbound.
I would walk by & listen to parts of her work conversations, not to hear what she was saying, but to hear her voice & that laugh. It was only for a few minutes, then I would leave. But it brought me so much joy. I secretly struggled with depression & su*cidal thoughts off & on. Sometimes just thoughts of her would ground me & keep me here when I really began to contemplate. She was my glimmer.
I used to walk to the subway sometimes right before seeing her & try to get up the courage to go when the train would come. I would get so close to the edge, & when the train would come speeding, I lost my nerve and would step back. Then I would see her & thank the heavens above that I stayed. Just a glimpse of her was enough to make me want to live. You never know who you may be helping or inspiring just being you.
I would run up like 14 (maybe more; it was like 20 years ago; my memory of some details is a bit hazy, lol) flights of stairs in my stilettos just to see her. I am claustrophobic (it’s dormant now but was active back then) & was afraid of the elevators. Her office was right there near the door at the top of the stairs. Her door was always open.
I used to have to open the door slightly & peer through to make sure she wasn’t walking out of her office as I was walking into the hallway because she did know of me (though I’m not sure she remembered me, my hair was so long that it stood out, people would stop me on the streets to comment on it, so that maybe could have given me away 😆), & I had no reason whatsoever to be there. I hoped the same people wouldn’t see me lurking around every day lol
It would have been awkward to come face to face with her like that, & I would have had some explaining to do. I wasn’t about to utter the truth, “Oh, I’m just lurking around stalking you because I’m in love with you.” She basically had no clue who I even was. She knew me a year before but only in a superficial way. I was just background noise to her. (I’m literally laughing out loud as I’m writing this and imagining that 🤣) 😆 Her back was to her door & to the side.
Thankfully, she never turned as I was running by every day. Creepy, I know. I would like to give the excuse that I was practically a kid, but I’ll admit that I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same now at nearly 40 years old if I met another woman & became absolutely whipped (and I can just as easily run up 14+ things of stairs today lol) 😂
She was a gay rights activist and openly gay. We chatted occasionally but were never friends or acquaintances. When her hand accidentally touched mine (and it was definitely not intentional, lol. She had zero interest in me – actually, one day she did affectionately touch my arm, but not that way), my whole body got warm fuzzies.
She asked to borrow my pen one day and then stopped writing and touched my arm to ask and make sure she wasn’t making me late for somewhere. She wasn’t, but even if she was, I would have said no. 😆 That warm gesture, I knew it did not mean much to her; I wasn’t delusional; it wasn’t personal on her part. But it stayed with me for a while. I felt that it really showed how caring she was.
I did not know her extremely well or know her very long. But I knew enough. She was outgoing but not a very open person with people in general. She said she was generally selective of who she opened up to. But I got a good idea of her general temperament, some of her life & career goals, & her sense of humor; she was very easily amused & lighthearted like me. She had very Liberal/progressive/feminist/atheist views, like me, volunteered at Democratic political events and the polls at every election.
She was anti-d3ath penalty & pro-choice. Very intelligent and intellectual, loved to read and discuss educational topics. She liked the same tv shows as me. She had a master’s degree & was working to get a phD. She loved to read educational texts just for fun. I also do! We had the same interest in topics like law & psychology. I would buy law textbooks at used. bookstores to impress her in case we became friends. lol I used to buy them just for me to read also, but I remember going out of my way and buying more, imagining how impressed she would be.
She looked “rough” on the outside or had a “rough around the edges” air about her & used the word “f*ck” a lot just in her general conversations and was sarcastic & outspoken. But she had a softness about her, a sensitivity; she was deeply compassionate for humans & animals and very kind, humble, loved kids.
There was a gentleness in her interactions with others. She called people “love” & “hon.” She was a softie inside, a fact that wasn’t evident at first glance and may not have ever been detected by people not particularly intuitive or not paying attention. I loved the combination of her bad@$$ery and warm softness. It suited her well. In a way, I knew her in a deep way, enough to know I truly loved her and wanted to spend forever with her.
I knew she was genuine, a good person; I would trust her with my life, my bank account, my secrets. But in another way, I only scratched the surface, most of what I knew was superficial. I knew she loved Jack Daniels beer and cheesesteaks and 80’s music (me too with the 80, lol. I am a vegetarian, though, so no steaks for me, also I’m not into alcohol, but we did have a lot in common also).
Another thing I knew about her is that she knew since she was little that she’s gay but kept it a secret until after she graduated undergraduate school because of fear of homophobia. Another gay woman she met inspired her to “come out.” I thought she was the most perfect amazing person I ever met. I ached for her, for her companionship, for her love. Back then I loved her more than anyone.
One day, someone said something homophobic to her, and she got very, very worked up & defensive and asked him how he (a nonwh!te man) liked it when he heard racist remarks & explained that’s how it feels to gay people hearing homophobic stuff. I wanted to walk over and hug her. I felt so guilty (and to this day, still do) for not defending her and all gay people. I felt very defensive of her. But I just stood there frozen in place, not able to open my mouth and speak up.
I remember this extremely self conscious, anxious feeling come over me, that he was going to think I was gay and target me next. There was no reason at all that he would think that, but I was self conscious about possibly being gay. I did not exactly think of myself as gay but still felt att@cked. He apologized to her.
She wanted to get married & have kids. Something I never wanted. So we weren’t compatible as life partners. I still wanted her though 😆 This is one indication that what I experience is lesbian oriented aromanticism (it’s a thing) and not exactly homoromanticism. Romantic attraction doesn’t usually have this boundary.
Romantic attraction often inspires feelings of wanting to build a life together and share every aspect especially things involving kids (or not having kids) and a home. For me it’s more about an intense emotional connection especially, and an element of sensuality and some unity, but overall separate lives but with the same level of importance to each other and emotional investment as romantic relationships.
I would have given my whole life to & for her. If I had to give my own life to save hers, I would not have hesitated. I would listen to this song by Prince over & over thinking about how it describes me and my love for her so so well. I’m not your lover, I’m not your friend….I am something that you’ll never comprehend…I did not want to date her or hook up with her, but I wanted to be her everything. And she was already mine. I wouldn’t have minded if she had a girlfriend and wanted to be close friends with me even if it wasn’t as close as I wanted.
I wanted to spend life together and see each other everyday, share whole nights together, but not “build a life” together or make big life decisions together. So her wanting kids did not matter to me because they wouldn’t be my responsibility. But now I know if we were as close & invested as I wanted to be, it would be expected of me to be closely involved with them too.
Since she’s a gay woman, she would be expecting a relationship where I would be the other mom. But before I fully understood how romantic relationships/feelings work, I wasn’t thinking of that. I was just thinking we would be each other’s person with separate lives. I thought she could have a wife/family along with me but separately, not thinking it would not be practical/ethical if they aren’t polyam.
I imagined her having a girlfriend or wife just because that’s how life usually works, it’s something everyone does. So when I would daydream or imagine life with her, I kind of causally imagined the wife, which she did not have yet, taking the back burner and her and me being each other’s main source of emotional connection and happiness & by each other’s side always, spending nights together connecting and talking about everything & nothing, being each other’s “date” to everything. While the wife just existed. Lol
I did think about how it would be very unlikely to meet someone who loves me as much as they would love a romantic partner or even more and be as close to me or even closer, but still thought there could be hope (not realizing it would be unethical/emotional cheating on the wife. Because it’s not sexual/fully romantic, I thought it was ok, now I know it’s not).
Years later after conversations with people and thinking it through, I realized I was actually kind of imagining these women I loved or a future one I hoped to meet as loving me romantically because unconsciously or on some level I kind of knew that’s likely what it would take for them to feel as close to me as I wanted, and I just imagined their romantic partners as like filler people in the background. I began to understand that’s not how that would or should work.
I remember telling my mom before that I want a gay girl best friend and her asking why her sexual orientation matters and me having no idea what to say and feeling cringey for saying that. I realize I knew on some level a “gay girl best friend” could potentially be closer than a hetero best friend. I also would love a regular best friend of any orientation or gender. But what I was describing to my mom is even closer and more invested, and I did not consciously realize. I also remember thinking I would like to have a gay girl roommate and “accidentally” fall asleep in bed together. 🤣
A few years ago after conversations with a few people explaining how monogamous romantic attraction/love/relationships work, I realized that a woman is not likely going to have a girlfriend or wife and be able to be that emotionally invested in me and available to me. I remember the sinking feeling when I was told that when someone is in love with someone or even just very into someone romantically, if they aren’t polyam, they don’t usually have any kind of real feelings for anyone else that way.
It just hit me that the only way a woman is going to be that close to me is if she’s romantically interested (or is like me, which is very hard to find), but then if that’s the case, she’ll want more (sexual) than I can give and would probably lose interest in me with me not being completely compatible.
I kind of already knew this on some level, but now saw it at a different angle or on a more conscious level or more defined way or saw it in a different light. I always knew I would likely never be someone’s person, someone’s love. And that has always wounded me off & on throughout life, and now it hit me so hard that I fell into a deep month-long depressive episode when it registered that I may never have the woman of my dreams. And not in the way everyone these days feels they’ll never find their person because dating is just so hard and people just s u c k now but because of the way I’m made. I’m compatible with almost no one. Like most, I only love one woman at once like this but can have multiple close friends.
There are people out there who are like me, and there are people who are not like me but would give up some of what they desire or crave for a relationship with me that I want and still be overall happy & fulfilled. But they are hard to find. And I would never expect someone to settle for me. It would have to be someone who genuinely sincerely truly feels I have something invaluable to offer & would not be essentially less happy with me than someone more compatible even if there’s a lack of something. I can initiate & reciprocate verbal, emotional, physical affection in ways that could feel/appear to be romantic, but I’m not like the average person in terms of sexuality.
It can wear on my sense of self esteem/worth knowing that romantic/sexual relationships are most important in life and not being cut out for them because of the way I’m made and knowing that someone is either going to have to reject me or settle for me. Likely, anyone who ever loves me will always be settling (if it’s romantic) or love someone else more (if platonic). I will never be someone’s person, someone’s top priority. And even if so, there will always be another equally beautiful woman out there who can give her all that I can & everything I can’t.
I wouldn’t mind at all if she has sexual encounters with others, but most are monogamous. I would feel I’m holding her back. It can feel like she’s neglecting/lowering herself, with me enabling it.
It’s like being a half-baked lesbian, a fake gay woman, a cheap knockoff of the real thing. This is only a thought that pops up occasionally, I don’t dwell on it, but it’s unpleasant and toxic to me when it “rears its ugly head,” especially when it’s accompanied by depression.
Asexual people are often told that we are selfish & unfair for wanting a close emotional & physical but. nonsexual relationship, that we aren’t deserving of it because no one can possibly be happy & fulfilled with us even if they say they don’t mind.
The truth is, though it’s exaggerated, I believe there’s a shred of truth to it. Some can be happy & fulfilled with an asexual person & essentially no less happy, but something will always be lacking for them even if it’s not significant enough to really affect them. Still there’s a lack. I either have to selfishly accept they are lacking something with me or never have a close relationship like that.
Knowing this can sometimes wear on my sense of self-worth, knowing I’m inherently not enough, could never be enough, & that I’m not worthy of that love & closeness because I was born lacking a nearly universal, primitive drive that is considered fundamental to being human & essential to the most important relationships.
I have a diagnosed depressive condition. Because I already have this condition that comes & goes, I began to have su*cidal thoughts not just because my dream felt shattered, that too, but because I felt so inadequate and inherently unlovable and unworthy. And I felt like I have been going through life all along not knowing or fully understanding how it works, how normal people operate. I felt subhuman, not only not experiencing but not even truly understanding basic or primitive feelings that are nearly universal, that even children experience & understand.
Being aromantic & asexual since birth can make it hard to understand the nuances of romantic & sexual attractions and relationships even after we learn & grasp the concepts, intellectually. Sometimes it can be hard not to feel so broken in a world that centers around romance & sexuality and expects everyone to have those experiences and values them above all else.
I have often felt invalidated and inadequate when I would hear comments saying or implying that romantic relationships/life partnerships necessarily involve a sexual aspect. I want a relationship with the same level of importance & investment but without the sexual aspect, & always hearing that sexual feelings & activity are necessarily part of that or that sexual activity & feelings are needed for two people to be as close as they can possibly be can make it seem like I’m broken inside or that any relationship I would ever have wouldn’t be as real or valid. Or that if I meet a woman who loves me and feels close to me it still wouldn’t be to the extent as if it was a relationship with a sexual aspect.
I don’t believe it genuinely. There is no doubt two people can be in a nonsexual relationship that is just as loving and fulfilling and happy and intimate as a sexual relationship but without that aspect. But still hearing certain comments and just being so different in that way, it can be hard not to internalize it and feel inferior or broken or not good enough.
These comments & messages by people and society as a whole are not necessarily said to me directly or said about me or asexuality itself, they’re just comments or reflections in conversations or sometimes personal development or relationship books. It’s just kind of understood in U.S. society that sexual relationships are the closest and most intimate. As someone who longs so deeply for a deep, emotionally intimate, relationship it’s hard to hear those mundane comments strongly implying or saying that sexual feelings & encounters are the closest someone can be to someone else & most important.
There are remarks/sentiments I have heard all life long, like to make sure you “test” sexual activity before getting married/moving in together/committing because it will be a “waste” or you’ll “have to cheat” later if they’re lousy at it. As an asexual woman it’s disheartening to know that no matter how loving and affectionate and caring I am none of that matters, my personality doesn’t matter, nothing about me matters, I’m a waste or deserve to be cheated on because of the one thing I was born lacking.
It truly can feel like nonsexual people are inferior or inadequate, not cut out for what is considered the most important kind of relationship in life & lacking what is considered the most important feelings. I don’t think people who are not asexual would understand the feeling of hearing that we’re a waste, that the whole person has to be rejected or thrown out because of that one thing we lack. It’s completely valid to require compatibility in that way in relationships, but it’s also valid to find that it cuts or stings to know that’s the general sentiment.
It’s an insecurity that, when it flares up, can permeate every other aspect of life, making it feel like I’m less as a whole woman, a whole human, like nothing else about me matters because I lack what is considered the most important feeling/inclination, like I don’t matter anywhere, at work or in friendships, or in anything I do since I’m not adequate for what is socially considered the most important kind of relationship & no one could ever want me. It doesn’t matter if I’m a good friend, a good employee, a good person when I’m not good enough for what society values most. It has triggered su*cidal thoughts & urges in me.
There’s also the infantilization of people who don’t have those feelings or don’t have any/much romantic/sexual experience. I have been told that I can’t have an opinion on anything because I don’t have adult feelings or experience & can’t be taken seriously. I have seen people say the same about the Pope/religious people who are celibate & just people who don’t have much relationship experience.
This has occasionally provoked feelings of not being a real adult or real woman or real person in me, feelings of being a useless member of adult society, like I have nothing to contribute, am just one-dimensional, nothing of substance. When my depression flares up with su*cidal urges, this can push me over the edge.
It’s painful to always be erased, overlooked, not believed. It’s no one’s fault if they never heard of us, but to have everyone, including healthcare workers, assume everyone is sexual/heterosexual is suffocating. It’s like being an irrelevant person.
And yet I wouldn’t change my asexuality even if I could because I am made this way, and that itself doesn’t hurt me.
Also, I am wounded, in a way I can’t explain, by the fact I had to suppress my love for other women & live in fear because of a society that is so unaccepting.
I have longed so deeply for a relationship that is just as invested as romantic with some of the nuances. For a love that deep & central to our lives, for my person where we are so close there has never been anyone closer. For a warm tender love that has the core touch of a lover but isn’t quite one, though is beyond typical friendship. I’m not your lover…I’m not your friend… I would Die 4 U.
I saw a YouTube video where a woman was talking about her wife’s su*cide. She said in the beginning, her friends & family were there constantly with her, providing love & support. But it began to fade; everyone went back to their own lives, which is completely valid and expected. Even a close best friend has to get back to her own life. But a wife or girlfriend would still be there if someone close to you dies. She wouldn’t have a different life to get back to if your brother or mom died. You would be her life. She would still be there weeks, months, years later helping you cope in ways even your closest friends & family wouldn’t be.
This is the kind of relationship I have always wanted, the kind where I am important enough to someone that they wouldn’t have another life to get back to. It’s just one of the nuances of a romantic relationship that platonic doesn’t have. I would not expect this of a typical platonic friend. I have just always hoped to meet a woman where we happen to have this inclination for each other. & it hit hard when I consciously realized it’s even less likely and more complex than I thought since I lack some of the feelings that usually go along with this. I used to fear that expressing this would come off as clingy (or gay – and I wasn’t ready to face the homophobia) & that I would be judged for it.
This woman, I loved in a way that I wanted her by my side for life, every day, as close as two people can be. I only knew her briefly and never saw her again. But it was true, passionate love. I still think of her occasionally and those days.
One day, 18 years ago, two years after we met, when I randomly saw her out walking, I decided to walk up and say hello. I’m not outgoing, and we hardly knew each other. When I got up to her, I lost my nerve. She had her back turned to me, walking. I walked right up to her back & was going to get next to her when suddenly she stopped and looked into her bag. I abruptly stopped as well, then walked around her and stopped in front of her, hoping that she would say something to me & we could possibly exchange phone numbers. I looked back at her, but she did not acknowledge me at all. She walked around me and kept going. That was the last I ever saw her.
I remember suddenly becoming very conscious of my hair, thinking she would remember me by that but apparently not. Or I was so insignificant to her that she did not see any reason to communicate with me. If that is true, it wasn’t rude or negative. We likely all have people who aren’t essential in our lives & wouldn’t necessarily go out of our way to talk to them even if we saw them.
The last memory I have of her is watching her walk away in a long Winter coat as I stood feeling so very unimportant, alone, & empty.
She was so much more important to me than I was to her. I got this sinking & empty feeling. I did not have any main/close friends. Her not acknowledging me added to my loneliness. Once in a while that love & longing for her would rekindle even after not seeing/hearing anything of her for years.
I knew I would not be seeing her anymore because she was getting a new job. I experienced grief almost like when someone dies. I remember the empty feeling and the deep grief when I walked by her office and it wasn’t her at her desk but someone else. I already knew it and walked by just to confirm, but it still hit me hard. The pain was so intense I felt the need for some kind of instant relief. It was throbbing. My entire world felt empty & sinking because for two years I built it around her & the hope that she would someday be mine. And then she was gone. I was gutted.
For a while after not seeing her anymore I would actively love her & long for her companionship. Time & distance gradually faded that longing, the love became dormant. Eventually, she became just a pleasant thought that pops into my head now & again through the years. I never forgot her or the impact she has on me. I cherish the memories.
There have been occasions, even years later, where I experienced a wave of sadness that we never got to be friends & all the years of knowing each other were missed.
I can still imagine loving her like that today. I recently saw her on social media (we’re not friends), she’s just as amazing as I remember. I have the same love for her I did back then but not the invested kind I experienced then. It’s very warm, deep love but now lacks the intensity & physical aspect of back then. She’s happily married to a lovely fem girl, for years. They have a college aged daughter, pets, very successful, got the phD she was working on. Her & her family are happy & are surrounded by close friends & family. I’m so very happy for her.
Those feelings of back then probably have potential to be rekindled if we got to know each other & she wasn’t married (not that it matters, she’s married lol And waayy out of my league, always was. I’m not interested anyway). She is still adorable, looks the same, same style, hair, personality. She is still a passionate lgbtq+ activist, her & her wife both. When I have that love for/emotional attraction to another woman, I can easily & happily be their friend, it doesn’t have to be the invested relationship I desire with them. I would love to be friends. But we are total strangers & really always have been.
I don’t belong or fit in anywhere in this sense. I am very attracted to the appearance of other women. My aesthetic attraction to other fem-presenting people is powerful enough to stop me in my tracks & inspire me to stare, feeling intoxicated. I experience a kind of emotional attraction to them that I don’t to men. I can imagine “coming home to” and sleeping in bed with another woman, touching in sensual ways.
Yet, I don’t belong in the lesbian community or lesbian groups because I don’t want sexual contact with them. I see frequently in lesbian groups online the women bashing women who don’t “give head” or don’t “scissor,” saying they’re really heterosexual women who are just using lesbians because they’re tired of men or that they’re a “waste of time” when they go on a date with them only to find out they don’t give it.
An essential part of being a lesbian & lesbian identity is the sexual aspect, & that’s completely valid, but it makes it feel so out of place to be an asexual lesbian. But I’m not heterosexual either in any way. There’s just no place in society for an asexual person in terms of sexuality/romance. And if we have aspects of another identity, particularly a queer one, it’s like our asexuality cancels it out according to society because the sexual aspect is so prominent for most and so valued by society that that’s what the whole identity is reduced to. Sometimes it feels like being basically nothing, and that’s an unpleasant feeling.
Even in the asexual community it’s often like being out of place because it’s full of people who love s*x & “normal” people who just lost their s*x drives because of aging/medications/menopause/stress…and call themselves “asexual now.” True, thoroughly asexual since birth people with the full ace experience are rare even within the community it seems.
People think that anything that doesn’t fit into the perfect uniform boxes that society created (gay, hetero, and cisgender) to shove us all into, so they can feel more comfortable & secure, is just some trend, us jumping on the bandwagon to try to be different, fit in with people who aren’t the norm, or rebel against society. But those strict boxes are social constructs.
Attractions & love are natural things, but saying everyone has to experience that & those experiences for everyone all have to look, feel, & be expressed exactly the same is unnatural. There will always be people outside of the norm who always existed but never had a label or organized community of people like them. People who do not fit inside those perfect boxes.
I never began getting crushes when other kids did; I hardly understood what a crush even is; I never had a first kiss because I have no inherent desire. I have never been on a date or saw anyone I was interested in taking on a date, I never looked at someone at any age & thought I would like to see them with no clothes on.
At every age & stage of life, I have struggled to understand what is driving all of this for everyone else. Since childhood til well over 30 years old. At every age I felt something is off with me & could never say what & was mortified because of what people may think or say about it, & tried my best to fit in by making up stories about having crushes on men.
I never truly understand what “horny” means and have always experienced confusion upon hearing the term “attracted to” or “sexual attraction.” I had no idea what that truly is because no one explains it because they think everyone will begin to experience it and just know. I used to Google “What does horny feel like” and “What does a crush feel like” even at 30+ years old.
It’s interesting because even though this experience was 20+ years ago, it’s still overall so vivid in my mind. And it’s still so profound. Certain minor details may be a bit hazy now, but I still remember all the feelings almost like I’m reliving them. I can still hear her voice & her laugh (I’ll admit I have {rarely} stalked her online since then, out of curiosity, and saw her in a couple of YouTube videos, so that helps 😆 but even without that I remember her voice & laugh back then) The memories of her still feel so familiar, and this experience still feels like “home.”
Recently I walked to the place where I knew her all those years ago. Nothing to do with her. I was there for an event. I have only been there on a few occasions in the last 15+ years. All the memories and feels came flooding back. I could feel her everywhere. It was a mixture of beauty, & pain, joy, & a sense of loss & missed opportunity. It was an unbearable nostalgic feeling. It made me want to go back.
It inspired a brief sense of that yearning I experienced all those years before. I couldn’t tell if it was a yearning for her now or if it was a yearning for what used to be or for what never was but, in theory, could have been. But whatever it was, it was a large wave that crashed into me & washed over me when I walked the streets we walked along back then & remembered that feeling of potential that has now been crushed by time & distance & circumstance & age.
It was so powerful I felt I could buckle at the knees. I remembered being young & the youth I lost along with all the possibilities, I felt the remnants of the giddiness and laughter & joy and young love that I lived back then. I remembered how young she was back then and felt a kind of grief for all the young years we lost and missed out on together (even just as typical friends) and a hint of despair at the fact that back then our lives were just beginning and are now over half over.
I was reminded of the grim fact that if I am lucky enough to meet another woman I have this love for who loves me back, we’ll never have the chance to be young together & won’t have many years together or at least not younger ones. When you meet your person/people, whether platonic or romantic or whatever, back then, you have many years to be young & fairly young together & have memories of being young together years later. Meeting in older age that opportunity is lost.
It can be depressing when I’m in a certain mood. I have had thoughts like this before, particularly when I’m in a depressed or somber reflective mood, but it all hit me with such force then along with the breathtaking nostalgia and flood of memories.
I have experienced this for quite a few women through the years, but my experience with her is one of the most intense. I’m so lucky for the honor of getting to love her back then even if only from a distance.
This is how I love women in my aromantic asexual lesbian way. I decided to share just to put it out there & in case anyone reads & can better understand what it’s like to be aromantic & asexual but also be oriented. I get many questions/insults by confused & judgey people. And in case anyone who can relate happens to read and understands themselves better or feels less like an outcast. Even many asexual/aromantic people don’t realize we can be oriented and are confused by their tertiary attractions.
This post is inspired by those Prince lyrics people were sharing about Prince not being your woman or your man lol Gives me chills. Seems this song is queer in more ways than one, sounds like he could be oriented aromantic/asexual & nonbinary 😆 Maybe he’s the triple-A, aromantic, asexual, agender 💚
Content warning ⚠️: nothing graphic but mention of mental health issues, s*icidal inclination, r*pe(I have never experienced r*pe, myself, just briefly sharing that it happened to someone I used to know)
I did a thing! My heart was pounding so hard, my hands were shaking. I hesitated and thought I would back out. I even got dizzy. It wasn’t anxiety. It was fullblown FEAR. There was a sickly terror running through me. My body was in full fight or flight mode as if I was in literal life threatening danger. My gut was telling me not to, that it could only end badly. It wasn’t my intuition talking but my fear. There was a loud voice in the back of my head yelling at me not to. But something deep inside told me I had to. I had to know. My healing has made room for curiosity & concern, where there was no room before. The space in me was taken up by seemingly insurmountable pain & humiliation & fear & selfish love & coveting, despair. No room for curiosity or concern or selfless love. Until now.
Around a year ago, I shared a deep, raw, honest, heartfelt post about when I was rejected by a woman I was secretly (never told anyone about her or this experience til last December when I posted it here) head over heels in love with for so many years and how that experience has deeply affected me in both pleasant & not so pleasant ways to this day. She was 45 years old, I was 27 years old when I confessed my love for her. I met her when she was 40 years old, and I was 21 years old.
I loved her since that very first moment I laid eyes on her, when I saw her across the crowded room, and the world suddenly stopped spinning.
I know that it might sound More than a little crazy but I believe I knew I loved you before I met you I think I dreamed you into life I knew I loved you before I met you I have been waiting all my life
This is what it felt like upon finding her. It felt like finding my other half, like we were the two halves of the same whole.
She was my everything, the love of my life, and I thought she would be by my side forever. I sent her messages telling her that, and she unfriended and ghosted me without a reason given or any response. I was utterly ruined. I agonized for years over why she did not want me even as an acquaintance or casual online friend, yet she had so many others she loved, even strangers. She’s a universal lover like me. Everyone is welcome in her world. But not me, the one I felt loved her most. This shattered meto my core. I would have instantly laid down my own life for her if necessary.
After she rejected me, I stalked her social media accounts for years in absolute despair.All of her stuff has always been public. She did not block me, just unfriended and stopped communicating with me. Before this, we were hardly even acquaintances but did occasionally communicate through her Facebook posts. She never initiated contact with me, but she did respond to my comments to her. After she cut me off completely, I read her blog, watched her YouTube videos, still looked at her Facebook and Instagram accounts, til eventually it got to be too much, and I stopped looking for years but still loved her. Then, with lots of conscious work, I became indifferent to her. I stopped the online stalking and moved on. It was the only way for me to emotionally survive.
The rejection destroyed me, and I thought I would never recover. It took me YEARS (even after no longer looking at her social media for years) to get over her and the rejection. The rejection physically sickened me, I had headaches for weeks after the initial rejection, I fell into a very deep major depressive episode for months. Through the years, every now & again, another depressive episode would be triggered, especially if I looked at her social media accounts/blog/YouTube while in a low mood.
Especially when I saw her with other people, especially when I saw her with him. Words can never express the deep pain that ripped through my entire being to see that other people got to have access to her, be loved by her, had the gift of her time and presence but not me. And not understanding why because we have all the same views, interests, values… we’re so, so alike. She’s very social and was always around people, hanging out with people. She cherished and prioritized platonic friendship, like me. She would take pictures of her friends and write about how much she loved them. She would share pictures of them laughing together at restaurants and cafes. While I was happy that she had people to love and be loved by, so much of me was beyond jealous and just shattered that I couldn’t be one of them. It just k!lled me. Through the years, I would look at her Instagram account after she unfriended me on Facebook (I did not have an Instagram account back then), and see her with other people and fall into a deep, s*icidal depressive episode, sometimes for months. I would ask myself why. Why I wasn’t good enough for her but they are. This triggered me to feel not good enough for anyone. Before her, I had amazing self esteem, maybe a little bit too much self esteem. I admit it. In my last December post (2022) about her, I share that now I’m glad she humbled me because I thought I was all that and a bag of Skittles. Lol I was arrogant. I’m glad I’m not anymore.
Every now & again, I still experience a hint of that feeling that I’m not good enough for anyone and have nothing to offer, as a result of her rejection. I internalized it as not being good enough. A feeling that no matter what I have to give someone, someone else can give better or more so why would anyone want me. It still lingers today. It’s not a constant feeling, an insecurity that comes & goes. Sometimes I’m hesitant to reach out to people for this reason. Before her, I never had this feeling, before her I thought I was the sh!t who could love someone better than she has ever been loved before, that I had everything to give, that my love was unique and rare and shocking because of how deep and whole it is. Like I mention in my other post, she knocked me down a few pegs, and I never quite got back up. But that’s ok, it’s part of living. It’s nearly impossible to get through life without any scars. Also, she did nothing wrong by rejecting me. However I interpreted or responded to it is my issue, not hers.
I had to work for years to become indifferent to her because the memories were so painful. She brought me immense joy to think of but also so much pain.
For so many years, I could not let myself be curious about her. I couldn’t think about her in an attached way to be concerned. It was destroying my mental health. My love for her became dormant. Memories of her no longer brought me joy or pain. Eventually I pretty much stopped thinking of her at all. Last year I decided to share a post about her inspired by a post I saw for Pride Month asking us to share about our first heartbreak if we aren’t heterosexual.It took me six months to complete. It was exhausting to write, but I loved writing it. I loved revisiting that joyful and agonizing experience. Writing that true story helped heal me so much and made me realize I had so much pain and pent up emotion in me about the whole situation. I realized I never stopped loving her. Now after ten+ years, I am able to release it all and set it free and go back to loving her but with a selfless detachment.
I love her deeply. I always have. I never stopped loving her and never will.
I recently decided to look her up online, something I told myself I would never ever do.
The reason I looked her up now is I am now strong enough and healed enough to think of her and be affected by the memories without crumbling. Everything I suppressed & repressed has been released and let go. It made room for other things.
I realized I have been very very concerned about her safety. I wasn’t even sure if she’s still alive. I did not want to think that or mention it, but it’s true. I began entertaining the idea of looking her up online to be sure she’s at least alive and hopefully ok.
She has been dangerously s*icidal off & on for many years. She even has a history of attempts and hospitalizations. She struggled immensely with mental health, self esteem, body image, relationships, addiction to prescription pills,she lost her job when I last knew her years ago (they did not have enough money to pay all their employees and let a few go, including her). She was a very successful career woman with an advanced college degree. She was at one point a college instructor. But she always felt like a failure in life. She was very open about this.I always felt like she was out of my league. This wasn’t in a negative, self deprecating, insecureway, just a matter of fact kind of way. She was successful, educated, driven. I was just an undergraduate college girl with average grades and then after college, a food server/cashier at a food serving place where I worked for many years while living at home with parents. She was warm, compassionate, understanding, humble, never in any way arrogant or judgemental of other people’s jobs, living/financial situations. She never saw anyone as inferior. This is not why she rejected me. She even dated men who were less educated and less successful than her. (She’s bisexual but mostly into men and mostly only dated men)
She was r*ped many years before I met her, and it devastated her life & mental health. She struggled with aging. Each birthday, especially milestone ones (like 40 years old) put her at risk for a s*icidal depressive episode that could result in hospitalization. She could not stand getting older.
Since I am now able to think about her, my concern for her got the best of me. I was terrified of what I would see if I looked her up. My body turned to jelly the same way as if it was a close friend or family member I was concerned may have died by s*icide. I was surprised about that. While I care equally about almost everyone, it’s different when it’s someone we know, personally or are close to. It hits harder usually or a different way or has more emotion involved. I haven’t communicated with or seen anything by her on social media or in person in over seven years. At some points I rarely even thought about her. So it was surprising to experience the impact she still has on me all these years later.
She’s popular enough that she is the first person who showed up in the search engine when I put her first and part of her last name in. She’s an editor, writer, public speaker, journalist…
My finger hoveredover her name in the searchbox (there was a very small thumbnail picture of her next to her name, I could see she was smiling in it, which was comforting). My heart pounding. I wasn’t sure I could or would go through with it. I asked myself if I really want to do this. I had no idea what I would find or what emotion would overcome me. But I had to know, if I did not look her up again, thoughts that she may not be alive today, that maybe she died by her own hand, would be eating at me and were getting stronger & stronger. I had to know. I had to click her name.
So I did. I clicked her name to see endless search results. (She’s very well known within the writing/editing/blogging community in Philadelphia, so there’s decades worth of stuff about her).
I desperately hoped she’s alive.
Not only is she alive.
She is doing SO well these days!!! She is happy and healthy and thriving in what seems like every aspect of life. She has her life on track, has close lifelong and new friends (some of the same ones she had back then! I did not see him though 😆 anyone who read my other post {linked below} will know who I’m talking about 🤣😂 I dedicated Ceelo Green’s song, “F*ck You” to him for stealing my woman 😭). She has a job she loves. She’s in the same line of work. She’s so successful. She is continuously evolving professionally & personally. She has fulfilling projects and goals she’s working on. She’s well loved in her workplace, community, circle of family & friends. I skimmed back through posts for a while, a few years worth, and she has been doing well for a while now. Again, my body is overcome in so much emotion that feels it can bring me to the ground but now in a good way. It’s so heartwarming to see how much progress she has made with her mental health and self esteem and how successful she still is, how she has been able to maintain her career even with severe mental health issues and debilitating recurring headaches.
She is still so loving and compassionate, still the same girl I knew and loved so many years ago. She has that same smile, and that same heart of pure gold. She posts the exact same photography of hers as years ago, pictures of the rain and Fall leaves. She still loves all the same stuff, humans, animals, books, writing, intellectual conversations. She has all the same views as before. She still lives in and loves Philadelphia, like me! We’re still the same!!
She has her same Instagram account with all the old photos I remember! I saw some of the ones that triggered me back then. Now they just stirred a slight wistful, nostalgic feeling, nothing intense.
And omg!! She is as beautiful as ever. I was so curious about what she looks like today. She’s 55 years old and doesn’t look a day older than she did when I last saw her pictures 7+ years ago. Omg, she’s STUNNING!! She looks exactly the same. Like she doesn’t age! Only thing that changed physically is she is rocking some gorgeous grey hair that suits her perfectly. She still has the same wavy brown, shoulder length hair I remember but now significantly grey (and just as beautiful!) She has the biggest smile. I am so moved and overwhelmed and inspired by her beauty exactly as I was then, but unlike all those years ago, it doesn’t make me want her. It just makes me smile. I could stare at her all day long, day after day, and never get tired of it.
She does still have depressive episodes here & there, but not almost chronic like before and has better self esteem and a great support system of friends and family and colleagues. I’m beaming as I write this. This is as great as I have ever seen her! I couldn’t be happier if it was myself!
Words cannot express the joy I am overwhelmed in, seeing her doing so well. Her smile is so big. Her eyes have a spark in them. She looks so healthy.
And seeing her current pictures, reading her recent blog posts, seeing her in pictures with close friends, even ones she knew back when I knew her, does not hurt me in any way! No old emotions came flooding back. Or almost none. There was a brief sense of nostalgia surging through me looking at some of her recent pictures, seeing her face, the one I knew so well all those years ago. There was also a hint of longing, but I realized it was just reliving memories of old emotions, not a current longing. Nothing came back to haunt me or drown me.
I was afraid it could. But my fear that she may not be alive or may be suffering regularly of the depression was worse than the fear that I may crumble at the fact that I cannot have her.
There is one thing, her talking about her lifelong depression and me completely understanding so intimately in a way that most couldn’t possibly because most never have depression lifelong like we do. Many people experience depression, but usually an episode or as a response to a current difficult situation. We have recurring lifelong depression that has sometimes been almost chronic and sometimes like not having depression at all. I experience a deep close connection to her through this. I just know. This briefly provoked me to wish we could be friends even now. Our experience with depression is so much a part of us that it can’t be separated. I wouldn’t be the me that I am without it. It finds its way into many casual conversations even with strangers. We have depressed days and not depressed days because of how frequent it can be. On any given morning we can wake up depressed out of nowhere or feel it creeping on slowly for no reason or triggered by something. This is something most people wouldn’t truly understand.This is a reason I have always felt a deep connection to Joan Rivers who also lived a life of s*icidal depression.
I will admit there’s one recent post of her and a group of her girls where she wrote something like “best friends for 30+ years, some people are meant to be in your life forever” where I felt a brief surge of that feeling all over again that I experienced years ago, that insecure feeling like why does she love them and not me, what made her reject me, I would have been so happy just to be an acquaintance of hers. Why them but not me? What do they have that I don’t? What made her choose to have them as friends and maintain those relationships for decades but not choose me? Why were they meant to be in her life forever but not me?I confess, I felt rejected all over again. It felt like she slapped me in the face with that post. An automatic, uncontrollable thought or feeling ran through me. What am I lacking that makes me not good enough? If I was in a fragile state of mind, as I sometimes am when my depression is flaring, if I was still so attached to her, this could have pushed me over some edge. But I wasn’t in a fragile state, and I’m not attached to her any longer.
I realized it was just some egoistic thing, me being self important, and was able to let it go almost as quickly as it came, and look at the much more important thing, the only thing that matters, she is happy, healthy, loved, has people to love. It does not matter why she rejected & ghosted me. It doesn’t matter why she doesn’t love me but loves so many others. It’s not about me.
This is the best gift to me, I can’t even put it into words how so happy I am for her. It’s similar to that feeling I express in my other post about her, that joyful feeling years ago where it’s like walking on air, skipping along the streets, frolicking about, wanting to sing & dance. But now it’s not because I’m hoping she’ll ever be mine, it’s a completely detached kind of joy that is only for her, about her living her best life.
If there’s one thing I could say to her it’s I love you, I love you, I love you my sweet, but in a detached way, a way that is only selfless, no expectations, no coveting. I want nothing but the best for you, nothing but happiness and love. And I no longer yearn to be the source of that happiness & love.
She still posts regularly just like years ago. I’m not going to make a habit of looking at her social media account and blog. We’re just not going to be a part of each other’s lives even though it’s what I so desperately wanted for so many years. Our lives briefly crossed, touched, and that forever changed and marked me. And that is enough.
This once is enough for me. It’s all I needed. Now I can truly put it to rest. I found my closure. (I will continue to write dark love poetry inspired by her though just because I love dark love poetry, and real experiences make for the best poetry lol)
I am also thankful that this experience shows me how healed and mentally ok I am, myself. There was a day it just k!lled me, triggered depression, even s*icidal thoughts in me, triggered insecurity in me, feelings like I’m not good enough for her or anyone, to see pictures of her and posts by her knowing she rejected me and not knowing why. There was a day her beauty was so tantalizing to me I couldn’t live without it. I couldn’t live with the pain of knowing someone so beautiful exists and will never be mine. Now her beauty is still just as mindblowing, but I can just bask in it and move along.
I was also mortified, humiliated about the sappy, clingy messages I sent her and then being rejected. I’m still embarrassed today. I was concerned that seeing her again, even if just online, would trigger me to be humiliated all over again to where it was interfering with life. I spilled my heart & soul, my guts to her all those years ago and so deeply regretted it because I would have been happy enough just being social media friends, but she unfriended me because of my messages, and also regretted it because of the embarrassment that plagued me. I wondered if she showed anyone my messages to her and if they judged me. I was afraid that would come back. But that did not happen!
I am so glad I looked her up. 😁
And oh yes, I mentioned in that last December post that I can’t believe I forgot the color of her eyes. I zoomed in on one of her recent pictures 😆 They’re dark, they look brown. It’s a bit hard to tell. I was afraid I would slip when I was zooming in and like one of her pictures. That’s all I need, I would seriously just die. I can imagine her thinking “Oh, her again.” Or “is she going to come back every decade?” 🤣😂
I was also afraid I would see a screencapture of my messages I wrote years ago. Like if she shared any parts of them to comment (she wouldn’t post my name or ridicule me, she’s not like that, but she may just to critique or share her thoughts on them, I’m still embarrassed and slightly more than I have been the last ten years now that I been thinking of her more lol).
Would I love to have her as my friend? Yes!! But I am completely ok loving her at a distance and accepting she was never going to be mine. I can’t say I’m 100% over it or healed, it may be one of those things that leaves a light scar forever, but a scar that is completely ok and just part of who we are.
I will probably always wonder, though the question doesn’t plague me like it did back then, why she rejected me to the point of ghosting/unfriending instead of ignoring my messages but staying social media friends. I understand not wanting to respond, maybe she felt awkward telling me she’s not interested in me. I understand if she did not want a close relationship with me. Not everyone is emotionally attracted to everyone in a way that makes them want that level of closeness with someone. Not everyone wants to be personal, active friends with everyone even in a way that isn’t close. There are people I like but am not interested in being friends with them but wouldn’t mind having them as online friends and definitely people I like but not in a way I want to be super close, emotionally. But to this day I do wonder why she did not even like me seeing as how so very similar we always were. And she had no problem with me in the first place. She never showed much interest in me, but she kept me around. Until the love confession. I never explicitly asked her to be anything to me. I came to the conclusion years ago that I must have come on too strongly, we were barely even acquaintances, she never even showed the slightest interest in me, never initiated communication with me, and I’m gushing all over the place about how much I love & have always loved her, how great we could be together, and sharing my entire life story in paragraphs & paragraphs. Lol Maybe it was too much, maybe she was creeped out. Who knows? And it’s mostly to the point where I can even say who cares. But I probably always will wonder why, maybe even wonder with a pang.
Just another random pic of me lol I like to add a few photos to my posts ♥️ This sweater is SO comfy & warm & soft, I love it!! The leggings are too, they have fake fur inside them.
I don’t currently have close friends. And that brings me so much pain & loneliness off & on. I am happy I have a group I occasionally meet up with and have fun with hanging out. But I haven’t made any deep connections yet since my college friends and me drifted apart (their choice, not mine) some years ago. It’s important to have deep friendship (for the average person, some don’t need it), especially with depression. I know the pain of that lack, so I’m so glad that she has that.
I am just so happy!! I am so happy that she is so great and surrounded by so much love and is fulfilled in life. I couldn’t ask for a better gift to me today.
Not only am I happy for her, it gives me hope for others in a dark place. What an inspiration! To see how she was able to turn her whole life around.
And omg, she’s so lovely!! ♥️♥️♥️ I’m so happy I got to see what she looks like now. So intoxicating. Gave me a big energy boost. Dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin or whatever lol
She looks similar to Tina Fey (people have always told her this, and I do see the resemblance). She has the sexy librarian, smart girl look. She still wears the same glasses that I have always thought she looked so adorable in!
Tina Fey ♥️Tina Fey
Just for some eye candy and an idea of what she looks like, here’s Tina Fey lol
Here is my post this current post is referring to. It’s super long!!
(If any words are censored, like “wh!te,” it’s because I may share this on FB where we can get our accounts suspended for it lol The word wh!te has gotten people suspended, something to do with racial issues, and FB doesn’t detect context, also I censor common trigger words for people with tr@uma history, don’t think there’s any here though)
This morning, I saw a woman (or fem presenting person) standing alone on a street corner who was so beautiful, she took my breath away and almost gave me butterflies. I was struck. I was out walking and casually looked over then saw her. I stopped for a second just to look. It was a kind of breathtaking beauty that is physical but also runs deeper. Like an inner beauty was making her physical beauty even more beautiful. It was like her inner beauty just existing there made her extra lovely. It was nothing she did, nothing she said. Just existence.
It was love at first sight. Truly.
I love everyone in a universal sense, but this wasn’t that.
Instantly I felt a kind of fluttering in my chest. It did almost feel like large butterfly wings hitting against my ribcage over & over for a minute after I first saw her. It’s so rare for me to experience that, but I have before when I see/encounter a woman I have some sort of inclination for. It was in the chest, not the stomach. I don’t think it was my heart. It made me laugh in giddiness. It was thrilling. I was thinking if we got to know each other and became close, I could tell even in ten+ years I would still get this feeling upon looking at her. I can still feel some of it lingering as I write. It was the most briefest encounter but with long lasting effect.
I’m an aromantic woman and don’t get butterflies exactly but have some sort of emotional & physical reaction (not physical arousal lol) sometimes to other women, it’s not romantic or sexual but has some of the “ingredients” or nuances of romantic. It’s not less intense or less pleasant, just doesn’t involve everything that sexual/romantic attraction does but involves “more” or is a bit different than typical platonic. It’s often referred to in the aromantic/asexual community as alterous attraction/love or queerplatonic attraction/love. It can be more invested or intimate (non sexual for me) than usual platonic. Sometimes I experience a head to toe full body tingling (again, not arousal lol) or tingling in the fingertips upon seeing a woman, only masc women for that though. A fluttering in the chest. Sometimes a racing heart, not because of anxiety but because of thrill. I don’t get that rollercoaster feeling in the ab that the romantics speak of or a feeling that’s drawing me to them like a magnet or a feeling like I have to be all over them constantly or I’ll explode lol I also have no desire to ask them out or be asked out on a date and no desire to “build a life/future” with them. But would love to be each other’s “person,” if that makes sense. It does to us aces & aros lol It’s an intense emotional attraction that can turn to love, a kind of love that is more prominent than typical platonic, not more valid or better, just more invested. It can inspire us to want someone as a non romantic life partner. It makes me want to be each other’s most important person (though I can settle for me being second lol not someone’s second choice if they couldn’t have someone else but second love if they have a slightly more important relationship to them, I can’t be someone’s lover, but I can be a very invested/intimate friend/non romantic partner, possible “cuddle buddy” or friend with sensual benefits if I have that sensual & emotional inclination together, I usually just have the emotional aspect).
She looked to be around fifty years old, maybe slightly younger. An attractively thin wh!te woman, at least as tall as I am, possibly slightly taller. Dark brown, wavy shoulder length hair. Well put together. She looked youthful and like she could still be considered a young woman than “older woman” even though her age seemed to be what society considers “older.” She had a large shoulder bag over her shoulder and was holding a phone and looking around completely oblivious to anything around her. She looked somewhat distracted, possibly a bit anxious, almost in a vulnerable state. If I had to guess, I would say something wasn’t going as planned and she wasn’t sure what to do. Probably why she was holding her phone and looking around the way she was with wide eyes. Looked like she was waiting for someone who wasn’t showing up. Who could stand up such a beautiful woman is beyond me. Couldn’t be me. lol
She was wearing classy but casual, comfortable, but dressy looking clothing. A tan dressy jacket over a white shirt and tan capri pants. I don’t remember her shoes. I was more focused on her stunningly beautiful angelic face. She had a gentle smile at some points.She seemed like a professional/career woman. Not sure why, but I got those vibes. Something about the way she moved/stood and her dress style. It was like a kind of professionalism carried over into personal life. But of course I could be wrong.
She reminded me of another woman I used to know, this other woman was extremely beautiful inside & out, and looking at this woman was almost like looking at her. She looked very similar and had a gentle kind-hearted face. The feels that came over me just seeing her. Just thinking back, I can feel that fluttering and giddiness, like walking on air or like I just won the billion dollar lotto, just by catching a glance of her. Lol If I did not know this other woman I knew, I would still have some sort of reaction to this one, but it was much more intense because of how she reminded me of the other one. It was like a small part of my brain mistaking her for her, but I still knew she isn’t her. I don’t know this woman’s personality like I knew the other woman’s. So the memory of that personality in combination with seeing her physical appearance looking so similar to the other woman’s was driving this very intense experience. I imagined being near her would be like being near her. The second “her” being the other woman. It was a super intense yearning.
She was surrounded by so many strangers walking around and attending events at the nearby park. But all I saw was her. It was like the world came to a sudden standstill and froze on her. I’m too shy to approach a stranger, and even if I did, what would I even say? Will you be my friend forever, my queerplatonic love, you’re so pretty, let’s get together for a friend date? 😆 Actually that should be normalized but would have probably creeped her out lol What I experienced for her was platonic based but stronger or different than typical platonic. Just seeing her inspired me to want to get to know her with the intention of becoming bff’s, possibly platonic life partners to an extent. Nothing physical except friendly platonic hugs. If she was a masc woman, kisses & full on cuddles. She’s probably heterosexual and so probably couldn’t develop a very invested certain level of intimate emotional attraction to another woman like a lesbian oriented aromantic woman could, but I would still love to be close regular platonic friends/bff’s lol
She was a fem girl, so I did not experience sensual attraction (non sexual cuddling, skin to skin contact..), I mostly only have that for masc women. Less often, I can experience a hint of it or a very limited sensual attraction to fem women. Also, sometimes I can experience sensual inclination for women that is more rooted in affection than actual attraction, though not common for me. For this woman, there was none of that. But I did experience a kind of instant emotional attraction, mostly inspired by the fact that she reminded me of someone else I knew and had that emotional connection to, and just her face was so kind and so so pretty. I could have stood & stared all day. But I walked away.
There’s no doubt in my mind the woman I saw today is kind and sweet and compassionate and soft and gentle. I know that’s judging just by one glance and people would say just me projecting or creating her in my image. And that’s technically true. But I believe it’s true that if I got to talking to her, my judgement would be correct. My judgementabout the other woman I met years ago, who I often thought of as my soulmate, was correct. Some would say that’s just a coincidence. But I say it’s a knowing.
As a strictly asexual woman, I don’t experience sexual attraction (no desire for sexual contact, seeing them in the nude and stuff, no physical arousal/libido triggered by looking at anyone, no sexual thoughts or fantasies about anyone, nothing like that even crosses my mind, and I don’t mind that, I’m naturally just not interested) or even know what that feels like, but I experience powerful aesthetic attraction in its place, to women/women aligned/fem presenting people. Aesthetic attraction is something experienced by many asexual people and usually not experienced by non asexual people, though it can be. It’s more than just thinking someone is good looking. It stirs something in me and is a deeply moving experience. It intoxicates me. It’s like being drunk on beauty. It’s one of my favorite things in life. I used to sneak playboy magazines in my dad’s office as a teenager and hide in the work closet with them when I visited his work,just to see the beautiful women and feel drunk. Lol It can even lift layers of a depressive episode sometimes if I’m in one and see a beautiful woman. It’s possible for it to be an orientation on its own. Homoaesthetic, heteroaesthetic, biaesthetic… I’m homoaesthetic, but all my attractions are to other women. So I just identify mostly as a lesbian oriented asexual woman. Sometimes lesbian oriented aroace, but that’s less easy for people to understand. They don’t understand emotional attraction without the romantic aspect.
Aesthetic attraction plays a part in my non regular platonic emotional attraction to a woman (I don’t exactly experience romantic attraction but some aspects of it). Just like sexual attraction, my aesthetic attraction can make me want to get to know someone, though I can also experience it and not care to get to know them, usually that’s the case. I experience aesthetic attraction to many many women/fem presenting people everyday, all day. But on rare occasions there’s something more to it than just wanting to stare, something deeper and even more inspiring. Something that brings me such joy & happiness and reminds me something is missing, something I have longed for all life long. It’s a beautiful longing, mixed with pain & hope, thrill.
I’m sharing this just because I’m inspired and also to share some of what it’s like to be an asexual aromantic woman with “lesbian leanings” as it’s known in the aro/ace community. We’re not all oriented, but many of us are. We experience what are known as tertiary attractions, attractions that are not romantic/sexual but strong and prominent enough to feel they warrant a lable next to our asexual/aromantic one (lesbian/bi/gay/pan/hetero… oriented aro/ace) and inspire us to want some sort of relationship with someone that isn’t romantic/sexual but more prominent or closer than typical platonic usually is. Tertiary attractions include aesthetic, emotional, alterous, sensual, intellectual…most people experience all their attractions together. But those of us on the A spectrums experience some and not others.
What I experienced for this woman and others is rare, or maybe slightly more common than rare but not common,but recurring throughout life since I was a little girl. My longing for emotional closeness to a deep extent and craving for physical/sensual touch isn’t rare, but my actual attractions to specific women are. I wish I experienced it more frequently. It’s pleasant when it happens lol But I can relive it in my memories. It’s not rare that I love and want to be friends with certain people. I love people of any genders and can want to be close friends. It’s rare when it happens a certain way like here. I’m glad for the experience when it does occur!
I hope you’re having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are!
If you could read my mind, love What a tale my thoughts could tell Just like an old time movie ‘Bout a ghost from a wishing well In a castle dark or a fortress strong With chains upon my feet But stories always end And if you read between the lines You’ll know that I’m just trying to understand The feelings that you lack
content warning ⚠️ brief mention of s*icidal inclination
Something reminded me of this experience of mine recently, but I can’t remember what. But it inspired me to share. I don’t regret it as I don’t believe it was really my fault. But I do admit it was wrong or at least that my actions brought an innocent person deep pain & confusion. Or I guess it was my fault to an extent, but I truly did not get it or know any better back then.
One thing it seems no one ever talks about is how hearing
“I’m in love with you”
Can be just as painful as
“I want to be just friends.”
This is because “I’m in love with you” often entails the end of or end as we know it of a truly cherished platonic friendship. Or it can seem to imply that friendship or platonic love is not good enough. This can be particularly painful to those who cannot experience romantic love.
When romantic feelings get involved and only one feels that way, it often complicates the friendship. It doesn’t necessarily have to. But in many cases it does. It seems this is particularly true when it’s a woman and man. It’s different when it’s just attraction. But when it’s real romantic feels, it can be challenging for someone who feels them to remain friends with a person who doesn’t return them. I did not understand that. I knew it because of what I have always heard but could never grasp it. I thought it was selfish and always entitled and invalidating. Sometimes I still struggle with this but am more understanding than I was before.
I remember hearing those words and feeling my heart sink so deeply into my abdomen. It was like a punch in the gut then a sinking feeling.
“I’m in love with you.”
The words I never wanted to hear.
When I was around 21 years old, I met a young man around my age. It was one of those cases where we instantly clicked as if we have known each other forever. The moment we met was like a feeling of home or familiarity. It was a “soulmate” connection. I thought of him as my platonic soulmate. It was a beautiful blossoming friendship that just kept getting stronger. One of our first experiences together was deep bellylaughing in a line at a cafe waiting for coffee. And still laughing as we were walking out almost spitting out our coffee. He was telling me something about his roommate “falling on her butt” when there was a fire in their apartment (no one was hurt, thankfully). He had a way of making everything funny. I still remember that conversation today and remember how that was the beginning of our friendship when I realized I found a keeper and thought for sure we would be lifelong friends. It still can make me laugh.
I still remember him holding his gut keeling over in that cafe, through fits of laughter “and” (hysterical laughter) “she, she” (laughing uncontrollably) “fell” (trying to talk but laughing too much) “right on her butt!” I thought he was going to fall to the floor laughing. I was laughing so much I couldn’t talk. This made him laugh even harder as we walked out the door with our iced coffees. His poor roommate. Lol
He was truly hilarious, and my sense of humor was so compatible with his. He would make me laugh so hard then my bellylaughing would make him laugh even more, and we would both be in the throes of hysterical uncontrollable laughter everywhere we went together. We got each other’s jokes and just had so much fun together.
We would give each other hugs & laugh together hysterically. One of the main things we connected through was our sense of humor. When I think back to the people I have connected most with in life and have felt the closest to, sense of humor is usually one of the things we have had in common. I love lighthearted people and those I can bellylaugh with over the most trivial things.
He was HILARIOUS, silly, playful, kind, no red flags of any kind. Definitely one of the good ones. We began hanging out together frequently. We attended the same university and would meet up during class breaks. Sometimes he would sit in lectures with me when he had a break just to be in my company. He would come to my workplace after work to hang out. We became inseparable. We would have lunch together and walk around campus talking and checking out different events together. He made it a point to support and become interested in the things I loved. I was a big advocate for LGBTQ community. He would attend the events with me to show his support. One day he showed up to meet me wearing a T-shirt with a big rainbow flag! I was so heartwarmed. Even today that warms my heart. He wasn’t one of those heterosexual men who cared if people mistook him for gay. He became involved with our LGBTQ group where I was the representative on the allocations committee and began volunteering at our events. He wasn’t just pretending to like the things I did. He was truly making an effort to show he cared and develop similar interests so we could relate. I understand that now.
He was like the brother I never had. I loved him.
The only problem is, unbeknownst to me, he certainly did not think of me as a sister. He liked me in that other kind of way. I had no clue. I thought we had this beautiful platonic friendship that was getting stronger. His feelings were definitely getting stronger. But they weren’t the feelings I had.
One day we discovered my closest friend back then was an acquaintance of his. My close friend and me were walking together and ran into my newer friend. He yelled to me “You know my friend M?!?!” We all knew each other and shared a group hug. It’s a sweet memory even though my friendship with both of them eventually ended not on good terms (and their friendship with each other ended too), one after about a year and the other after around fifteen years. I still grieve because at one point the love & friendship we all shared was real, and we were all genuinely good people. It wasn’t a case of fake friends or fake people or backstabbers or anything like that. Sometimes, unfortunately, true love or true friendship can end, fizzle out, people can change or outgrow each other and just go their separate ways. But that doesn’t have to taint the sweet memories of what was.
I don’t remember how long exactly my new friend and me were friends for before it ended painfully. But I think it was around a year.
One day our mutual friend walked up to me, and he handed me a handful of something and said “Here are some condoms so you and C can f*ck.” (C is his first initial as I don’t want to say his whole name!) I dropped them back into his hand.
“What the…WHAT?!” Was my reaction. He said “Yeah, C wants to f you, and he’s going to tell you tonight.”
News to me.
I was confused and then shocked and then this other emotion that is less than devastated but beyond disappointed. He wants to WHAT?!
It isn’t like that. Or….is it? Surely it’s not like that. He’s a good friend. I thought he loved me like I love him. We have this special bond, this beautiful friendship. We connect and laugh together and have true love for each other. It can’t be like THAT.
But it was true. It was like that.
C walked up to me that evening and broke the news.
But it was way worse than just wanting to f me. He had actual feels. You know the ones.
He was trembly and extremely anxious like I have never seen him before. He was typically a very laid back, calm person like me. He was a clown, not very serious. So it was unusual to see him like this. He kept rubbing his hands over the back of his head and down his face, looking at the ground, shifting his weight to each foot. He looked clammy and pale. Then he looked right at me. He had something to tell me.
“I’m in love with you.”
Oh, gross!
He wasn’t joking. I could tell. He often “joked” that he had a crush on me. I guess it wasn’t a joke. I have had man friends (and boy ones when I was a girl) all life long who “caught feels,” which eventually ended our friendship (it doesn’t necessarily have to, but in my experience it always has). So I knew where this was going. He was good at covering it up for so long, but it was finally coming out.
Now the devastation sank in. I shook my head no, what seemed like over and over and took a step back. I was grossed out. The thought of it being like that. I told him I had to leave. It was gutwrenching. I felt like our beautiful friendship and his love for me was all one big lie.
It was only romantic.
I thought we were soulmates. But it’s only romantic. I felt like it was a big downgrade.
I felt like he was using me for romance. He did not ever try to get in my pants. He wasn’t sleezy or entitled like many men. He wasn’t trying to get a quick lay. He did not want me only for my body.. But I still felt used.
For context. I am an aromantic woman. I have never been in love, never been on a date. I am single & celibate since birth. I have never had a kiss. I have no desire. I was born this way.
I realized that I have a little bit of post traumatic stress about growing up this way. It was difficult, so difficult. It was constant pretending to be normal but not even understanding what that normal is. Trying to go with the flow and mold myself into something I never understood, just caught glimpses of here & there, heard references and understood vaguely, enough to latch onto and appear normal to a point. But people always sensed something was off about me. I think like me, they just couldn’t quite put their finger on it. But they knew something. Sometimes I was called a prude, innocent, spinster material. Lesbian?
I’m no longer anxious and mortified. In fact I’m very ready to tell people about my asexuality. But whenever a conversation in person or on tv begins to turn to the topic of dating and sexuality (been watching the old TV show “ER” again and recently felt this when they were sitting around asking each other what age they lost their virginity, I felt my body reliving old trauma & pain), I have a physical feeling. The same old physical feeling I always got when that happened. Body tenses, heart races, mouth dries. I feel threatened. Fearful. Back then I knew I would either have to make up a lie and lose part of myself and feel empty inside or tell the truth and be mortified, maybe even face ridicule and being the laughingstock, which has happened. In most cases I told a lie. The lies were getting out of hand. It was hard to keep track of what I was telling who. Once in college I made the mistake of telling one friend I had sexual experience, that I gave a boy a handjob & a blowjob in a school closet. Then another day a while later I told a mutual friend I had no experience but wanted to. Both were lies. I had no experience and wanted none, but I wanted to be seen as normal. I realized my mistake and lived with the anxiety that they would talk to each other about me and realize, probably figuring out I had no experience and wondering why at 20 something years old I never even been kissed. I had no idea myself. I never wanted to kiss anyone. Never felt that pull. But I had no idea how to articulate that or what it meant. And the thought was just too mortifying to entertain. I couldn’t keep track of my lies anymore. The lies weren’t for thrill but to protect me. I had neighbors who picked up on it and told my mom and sister and me that I was on my way to being an old spinster, I always heard people ridiculing and pitying friends or family members of theirs who haven’t been getting any or worse never have in the first place and judging & ridiculing religious abstinent or celibate people, calling them pathetic, boring, unfulfilled. I have even heard people who said they were done with dating and sexuality but still glad for the experience they did have, ridiculing and feeling sorry for those who never have. It was my deepest darkest secret.My asexuality that has been with me & haunted me since birth. My body relives the trauma of the threat of ridicule.
Growing up asexual in a s*x/romance crazed society has brought me nothing but pain, embarrassment, fear…I would never change my asexuality even if I could. But there has been nothing easy about it except not getting sti’s and pregnancy scares. And I guess not getting into trouble/making d*mb decisions based on attraction. It has always brought me such deep pain knowing I can never be truly loved because romantic love is considered the best love, and I cannot love someone back that way so they will move onto someone who can. I can only experience “second best” love and have “second best” relationships.
When I got to be over thirty years old and still did not understand what a crush is and what horny is even when I looked it up online, my s*icidal thoughts and urges began to become stronger. It got to the point where I knew I was going to have to end it because I thought I was the only one like this, and I couldn’t keep up with the facade any longer. I just couldn’t. It was too empty feeling and too fake. I was afraid people would eventually catch on, probe too deeply and find out, put it all together once & for all and realize I’m this. But what this is, I couldn’t quite say. But I was still afraid they would know and that I would be the freak of the world. Until one day I got up the courage to explore my own identity and understand me and that there is a word for what I am, and there are more like me. Asexuality is a spectrum, and I am hardcore thoroughly ace. Some do have those feelings just rarely. I have them never, no sexual attraction, no sexual desire, no sexual interest. No trauma or illness. Born like this. I can remember hints of it even in elementary school. I remember my little friends at five years old asking me when I want to get married and me thinking “Ugh! Never!” One day my 5th grade teacher explained sexual activity to us (we had parental consent), and she told us one day we would all want to do that with someone. I remember thinking “Ugh! Never!” Other girls and boys were giggling and saying they couldn’t wait. I refused the hpv vaccine at twenty years old (I wouldn’t now because it wouldn’t hurt to have, I totally don’t recommend refusing it, I actually regret it because while I won’t ever be sexual, I do have a body that technically can get hpv, and hpv can result in cancer, it’s rare this way, but even sharing a towel can transmit it) because I knew I would never be sexual so wouldn’t get hpv. I remember the doctor asking if I want it in case I become sexually active (she knew I wasn’t yet, but I never told her I don’t have those feelings, I was too mortified to tell anyone and did not even know how to put it into words), and I remember thinking “Ugh! Never!” Just like at ten years old. At thirty years old, I was still thinking “Ugh! Never!” And now at 37 years old, still the same.
I do not know what romantic feelings feel like. Let’s just say for simplicity’s sake that I only experience one kind of love or love everyone the same way, just some more than others (I have homoromantic leanings, I can be especially close to other women, emotionally in a way that is akin to romantic but isn’t). I have never experienced a crush and only understand it as a concept. I don’t get butterflies or feel that rollercoaster feel or chemical surge that the romantics speak of. I don’t pace floors waiting for my love to call (though I can certainly light up upon seeing the name of someone I adore on my notifications and can’t wait to see them again, I can get giddy) or go insane if I love someone and don’t see them for a while. I don’t experience new relationship energy/infatuation and have never wanted to “build a life” with anyone or live with anyone as a couple. I never wanted to date anyone I ever knew or looked at. I went to high school Prom alone and danced with friends. No interest in having a date. When I was a little girl, my Barbie & Ken dolls were sister & brother. I loved playing baby dolls. I played with boys & girls. The girls would always pair off with a little boy to be Mommy & Daddy, wife & husband. I would think of the boys as my brothers and my baby dolls’ uncles. I was a single mom to my baby dolls. I always imagined growing up and living with a girl bff or a gay man as my roommate. I imagined us having separate bedrooms and sometimes having sleepovers in each other’s rooms, watching movies, eating snacks, painting each other’s nails and doing each other’s hair and makeup, them bringing their romantic interest over sometimes and all hanging out together. It never occurred to me to grow up and live with a life partner. When I tried to imagine it, I would always imagine it with a man, and that felt so unnatural. Now that I understand my identity, I can imagine having a woman as a life partner but without any sexual aspect and no romantic feels on my part. I’m very loving and can return affection.
I knew I am different even then but couldn’t say how. In romantic movies, I thought it was a downgrade when two friends fell in love. I never dreamed of my wedding day, and romantic love songs always made me think of people I love platonically. “My Endless Love” makes me think of my pets 😆
While I have always thought romantic love looks beautiful, I still saw it as inferior to platonic and found it offensive when men friends liked me that way. I wondered why people cry over romantic breakups. It’s just romantic. That’s all. I did not understand even at 30+ years old. No one explains it because everyone thinks we all feel it and know. I knew something, just not what.
Because I never experienced romantic love, I never fully understood how beautiful it is to those who do and how very painful it is to lose or be rejected that way. I always wondered what all the fuss was about. I knew I don’t experience it, but I did not consciously know or know how to articulate it.
I have never had low self esteem. But even as a little girl I knew I could never be fully or truly loved. Because I cannot experience the love that everyone else can and that society says is the best kind of love. I have struggled hard with feelings of inadequacy as a human and as a woman knowing I cannot feel what everyone says is the best feeling in the world. It is a painful struggle sometimes to know that I lack these feelings that society places so so much emphasis and importance on. The lack itself does not hurt me. While I’m curious what it must feel like, I don’t particularly wish to experience it. But society’s invalidation and sometimes just being so different in that way, does bring pain. It also brings pain knowing I likely cannot have my special person as I lack sexual inclination, which is important to most.
I can love deeply, and I have longed to be someone’s everything and someone to be mine. But it cannot be romantic/sexual. I have been pained to know that I likely will never have the importance to anyone that a romantic partner holds. It’s something I generally have learned to live with. But it flares up and crushes me on occasion. Some aromantic people are ok with this. I admit though I am not quite there yet. I do want to be someone’s everything. I want to be someone’s person, the first one someone calls when they have happy or sad news, someone to do life with, though not as a couple, someone to hug in a way we only hug each other, I want good morning beautiful, and good night love, texts sent to each other (I can only have this with another woman though, I only have that inclination for women). But I am aromantic and asexual (they are not the same thing, I’m both though), and most people will never value me the way they value a romantic partner/s. It’s possible, just not likely. That brings me pain.
When C told me he was in love with me, I knew what that meant. It was over. Our friendship was over. A friendship I cherished.
He sent me a long e-mail that night telling me everything he loved about me, my smile, my laugh, my sense of humor, my compassion and playfulness, the way my eyes light up when I speak of my passions. He called me beautiful inside and out and told me what an amazing woman I am who anyone would be lucky to know. And many more things on his list of amazing things about Kim. The truth is, it grossed me out so much. It repulsed me. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t see him that way. I saw him as brother, friend, platonic soulmate. I couldn’t imagine that kind of emotional intimacy with or investment in a man (I can experience some kind of emotional and non sexual but sensual attraction to some women/women aligned people that I can’t to men, but not romantic) or his hands on me the way I imagined he wanted. It grossed me out. I ignored his e-mail.
The next day I was having lunch alone at our favorite place on campus when he walked in and saw me. He walked over to me looking emotionally hurt. I felt disgust. I shook my head to express that. He sat at the table with me, and I saw that doughy romantic look in his eyes, and it disgusted me even more. I was angry. I felt betrayed and used. He asked me if I hated him. I just scoffed and got up and walked away.
He yelled after me “You hate me, don’t you?” I heard the desperation and pain in his voice. I did not care. I saw him as a traitor. Just like every other heterosexual man I have had a friendship with.
We never spoke again.
I would see him around campus, our eyes would meet, I would see the hurt and confusion in his. And I would look away and go about my day.
I was grieving too. I told all my friends and coworkers that he was a terrible friend who was using me for romantic purposes and was pretending to be my friend all along. I wasn’t lying, this is how my inexperienced and young brain interpreted it. My friends basically thought he was one of those a-holes just trying to get in my pants and was trying to manipulate me. They loathed his guts on my behalf. One day when one of my friends saw him on campus, she flipped him off. She told me later. Another day I got to work and one of the girls I worked with said “That pr!ck came by looking for you yesterday, I sure told him off, the creep.” My other friend wanted to punch him. My neighbor’s boyfriend and her ex boyfriend threatened to kick his @$$ when they saw him near my house. The fact that he was coming to my work and house and trying to contact me seems stalkerish when viewed through the lens of the picture I painted of him. But we were good friends, and I never gave him closure or verbally told him to stay away. Though my actions clearly did. But he probably thought our friendship was strong enough that it was ok, it wasn’t like he was just some creep I was dating or whatever. We had a solid relationship for a while, just weren’t on the same page.
He’s everything you want
He’s everything you need
He’s everything inside of you that you wish you could be
He says all the right things at exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don’t know why
He was probably so confused. Because he did nothing wrong. But I did not realize that. I made him out to be a creep. I thought he was. I thought that romantic/sexual love is inferior and that he liked me in some shallow way that would benefit only him when I loved him in the real way. The platonic way. The genuine way. My love was real. His was only romantic. And there was something carnal about it that grossed me out, something I did not understand then but understand now as sexual attraction, which usually accompanies romantic love.
I was a 21 year old aromantic asexual girl who did not yet understand my own identity or sexuality as a whole.
Was I wrong for how I acted?
Yes, it was a big @$$hole move for sure. It was. It was immature and whatever else. But my youth along with my genuine lack of understanding of how sexuality works as someone who was born without one, I truly felt used, lied to. I likened him to those men who truly do try tricking a woman just to get in her pants. But I understand now he wasn’t. He was just a boy who fell for a confused girl who couldn’t love him back that way. We both did not understand. I did not understand my fullblown asexuality, which in my case includes aromanticism. I have no sexual feelings at all or romantic ones. I can only imagine what they must feel like. I always felt the lack but could never explain and was too mortified at being different to try.
At the risk of this sounding like a humblebrag, men have always fallen for me, and it has brought me pain. Even in a group of girl friends/coworkers where some liked a man friend, the man would always go for me. I saw this as them loving the other girls more. Platonically. While they only liked me romantically. Why was I only worthy of romantic feelings while the other girls were seen as sisters? Sometimes it was hard not to feel so low. Like why I’m only good enough for romance but other girls are valued as cherished friends. Even now as I remember that pain, my body recoils. It tenses. It feels physical pain. But I understand better now, intellectually, that romantic isn’t necessarily less, just different. Sometimes I have to remind myself.
It wasn’t until somewhat recently at 30 something years old that I began to understand some things better after a couple conversations with my mom and sister and an online friend who explained to me when I was complaining that when a person becomes very emotionally close to someone they can be attracted to, they will very likely catch feels and that it’s not their fault and explained some other things that it all just clicked, and I felt like a total @$$ for not understanding all along. I was embarrassed to not have understood something so basic and nearly universal. But I was born this way with no firsthand experience to reference to understand all the things I hear/witness around me. And sexual education is a joke. When we don’t grow up heterosexual, we can be totally lost and even if we do grow up heterosexual we can be lost as sexual education often is inadequate even for heterosexual youth.
Society values romantic/sexual relationships and love way more than platonic.
But platonic love is love too. And we (anyone, not just aromantic people) can grieve hard over the loss of a friendship. To many strictly aromantic people, platonic love/relationships is all we have, all we are capable of, so where all our attention goes, so it may hit especially hard to lose a close friendship. It’s not overshadowed by romantic feelings or longing for a typical romantic relationship (many want a close relationship, often a platonic best friend).
Even today I am thankful for our friendship even though it ended. I still cherish the memories, especially the bellylaughs. I love knowing a connection like that exists. I just love having that experience.
I can totally be friends with a man who likes me like that as long as he knows how to act and now that I understand sexuality better and my own identity. I understand now that romantic love isn’t less than or shallow, I just don’t experience it.
This title is not completely accurate as I totally can love. But in terms of romantic it’s true. This is the title of a story about another aromantic girl that someone else wrote. I stole the title. Lol
In case anyone doesn’t know, aromanticism and asexuality are identities, not disorders. Those of us who are this way are born this way usually. We grow up not understanding what is driving everyone else to want to date, kiss, do sexual things, get married, everything associated with sexuality. When everyone around us develops serious romantic & sexual feelings, we just never do. Some of us wait and wait and it just never happens. Others of us don’t know what to think and don’t know what is going or not going on with us. Some of us confuse other feelings for sexual/romantic then years later realize all along it wasn’t romantic/sexual. I always felt like I could be a gay girl but that something crucial to being gay was missing so knew I’m not fully gay. I could very much identify with gay women but not enough to feel that the term “lesbian” is applicable. I identified as hetero since society gave me that label. But it always felt off and wrong. At 30 something years old, I discovered the truth. It was liberating but also made the unpleasant feelings more defined, knowing it’s a real thing and has a name and basically set in stone.
random pic of me recently! ❤️
This experience is just one of quite a few that I’m thankful to have experienced even though it’s not all pleasant.
just a random great song lol ❤️
I hope you are having a beautiful day & night wherever you are! ♥️
Never underestimate the difference YOU can make in the lives of others. Step forward, reach out and help. This week reach to someone that might need a lift ❤️
I’m inspired to share my experience of a very brief but sweet friendship that took place nearly 20 years ago.
What inspires me to share this is a comment in a somewhat recent social media thread I saw. Someone said if a very young couple is happily married or in a romantic relationship for only a couple years and one of them dies, the other will eventually forget about them by middle or old age and hardly be able to remember them and lose all feelings for them, and it will be like it never happened. I don’t know if it’s that person’s actual experience or just an assumption. Recently I saw another comment similar to that sentiment about how relationships lasting of a short duration don’t ultimately matter. For some reason that brought me pain even though I have never experienced this myself. I just found it sad that someone can be so easily forgotten, especially someone who at one point was so much a significant part of someone’s life. At one point they were each other’s everything and now it’s like that person and that love never even existed?
And I realized it’s not true, at least not for everyone. Even a very fleeting relationship, romantic or other, can have an everlasting impact or inspire lifelong memories.
When I was eighteen years old I met another eighteen year old girl named Asheen. We had a college class together. We were both quiet girls. She sat in the back of the class, and I sat in the front. One day after a class ended, she walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to have lunch with her. I said yes and was very happy for the invitation. I was very shy but very social and always up for having a new friend. I currently had no friends except high school friends who I rarely saw or talked to after graduation and a couple acquaintances I met over the Summer but did not see them often after Summer ended. It wasn’t enough socialization for me.
She bought me lunch that day. We chatted for a while, and she told me about her religion and beliefs. She was a Muslim girl who wore a burqa. I never saw her without it. She was born in Syria, and her family moved to the U.S when she was younger. She had no problems with people of other faiths or no faith at all. She told me homosexuality was against her religion, but she personally had nothing against it. After that, she would frequently surprise me with lunch that she would buy me. It would make me laugh because she was not permitted to eat certain food and would always adhere to her religion and her family’s wishes, but she would buy me the food that she wouldn’t eat. She would say “I can’t eat this because of my religion, but you can.” We would both laugh at it. I loved how she was so religious but so laid back. She never judged anyone or anything even though she took her religion seriously for herself.
We connected over the fact that at 18 years old we both never been on a date or kissed a boy. In her case it was because of her religion, in my case it was because I secretly never liked boys like that. I was usually so embarrassed to tell people I never been kissed or been on a date. Most people I lied to about it and said I did have experience with boys. But with her, I felt I could tell her anything. She was a safespace. I did not tell her I never even like boys, just that, like her, I had no experience. She did not judge, feel shocked, or require an explanation like many/most people when finding out someone has little to no dating experience.
The thing we connected most through was our sense of humor. We could just laugh and laugh at everything and nothing.
Everyday we would talk and have lunch together and laugh together. She was my only consistent friend.
The memory I love most is one day when we were walking up a street together laughing hysterically, belly laughs so deep we could hardly talk. It was the kind of laughter and joy and silliness only an 18 year old or someone in that age bracket can experience. That’s not to say older people can’t laugh hysterically and be joyful and silly. I’m still like this today! But it’s different when you’re eighteen years old. I can tap into that memory and feel it still.
After that college semester, Asheen transferred to a different university, and we lost touch.
Our friendship was very brief, but I remember it vividly. I probably wouldn’t recognize her today if I saw her. But I remember her well back then.
My friendship with Asheen reminds me that out of the blue when we need it most, someone can reach out to touch us for the better. It reminds me that someone can be thinking of us and we don’t even know it. And it just gives me the gift of sweet memories to always cherish and smile at. In general I don’t think of Asheen or our old friendship very often. But when I do remember, it fills me with warmth. Sometimes I even miss her and having a friend like that. We were so different in our upbringing and culture and beliefs, but at our core we were so similar, and the differences only made our friendship unique not challenging.
Even a brief relationship at a young age with someone we never see again can have a lifelong impact. There may be someone you touched for the better many years ago sitting here today remembering how your made their life better even in just the briefest encounter.
If you have an experience with a brief relationship many years ago that still has a positive impact today, please share!
Sending love to all and hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are
I don’t want some pretty face to tell me pretty lies 🖤
Trigger warning: ⚠️ body image/mental health/s*icidal ideation…nothing very graphic, just briefly mentioned, that’s not what this post is about, there is quite a bit about body image/talk though that could be very triggering to some, I would suggest not reading it if you’re someone with serious body image issues because it’s nothing positive or inspiring and is not even my experience, just me mentioning someone else’s experience with it
Censored words are in case I share on FB where we can get our accounts suspended or because the words can be triggering for someone with trauma history.
If I could go back, do it again, I’d be someone you could call friend, please, please believe that I’m sorry. 🖤
It’s a confession session!
This is one of the more unpleasant things about me most people don’t know about. I am APPALLED with myself for this.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I feel I want to put it “out there” for some sense of something, not sure if it’s to cleanse my conscience or whatever. Lol It is something that nags me on occasion. It’s something that was wrong on so many levels or in so many aspects. It’s something that I wish never happened and I feel guilty about when I think of it. It’s only when I think of it, not a general thing, and I don’t think of it a lot. But unfortunately I still have much of this fake relationship in writing online. I haven’t looked at our conversations for years after we ended our friendship and rarely thought about it. But one day a few years ago, I went back and skimmed through our old conversations and was APPALLED with myself. There have been occasions shortly after I revisited our conversations where it kept me up all night. After this, this experience has stuck with me and resurfaces in my mind now & again. I forgot so much of what I did til I read our messages. I cringe so hard.
Once something is out there, it’s out there. I wish I could delete the whole thing, the whole relationship and all evidence of it, not because it’s unpleasant or unkind or whatever but because it’s so fake and was never real. I don’t mind that my cruel messages are still out there because I felt that all sincerely when I wrote and sent it. The cruelty was real. But the fake stuff I wish was gone. Lol She told me she kept everything, screencaptures and all, of my cruel messages, and that she would keep it forever to remember what kind of person I am. I don’t think I would say I was a cruel person. But I did choose to be cruel in the moments I was. What I regret more though is the fakeness. The false flattery, the empty I love you’s, I need you’s, the meaningless gifts, the whole show I put on for ten years…
Don’t fear the enemy who att*cks you, but the fake friend who hugs you.
I was that fake friend.
I’m embarrassed about who I chose to be back then. But it was ages ago. It was 10+ years ago, and I was 20 something years young.
I recently was looking at writing prompts while in a creative mood, and one was to share something that could make us look like a bad person or something unpleasant/unkind we once did.
I thought of many years ago when I was in a ten year long ongoing frenemy situation with a girl I met as a teenager.
When I met her, I currently had no real friendships. I had kids to talk to at lunch in school and chat online with, once in a while walk around with after school. But they were casual friends, not really general friends or anything of substance, and never anything that carried out of the context of school. I longed for a real friend. I did have good friends for a while and loved them, but we had very different lifestyles, and I felt we were incompatible. At fifteen years old I chose to stop being an active friend to them. We talked online once in a while and saw each other around, giving each other hugs here and there, still, but no longer hung out in person. They were into drugs and criminal activity (but were the kindest people you could ever meet), I wasn’t into all that and just felt our friendship wasn’t going to really work out. I never judged them or anything, just couldn’t be involved with that. I was into watching movies and going to restaurants and shopping, playing board games and cards. My friends were into alcohol, other drugs, stealing, breaking into soda machines, cutting school, sneaking out at night, being delinquents….I did not care, but I couldn’t relate.
At sixteen years old, a casual acquaintance of mine introduced me to her new friend. We instantly clicked and became good friends. She was funny, outgoing, bubbly…and she was a “good girl” like me, never touched alcohol or a cigarette or cut school or anything. She loved clothes and makeup and shopping like me. We were almost identical in personality except she was outgoing and bubbly while I was quiet and reserved. She also cursed while I did not. She said things like hell and sh!t and damn and called other girls b!tches and s*uts (I began to do this just to impress her, and it felt so unnatural and wrong to me). She wouldn’t say f*ck though. She was religious and pro-life, she knew I’m an atheist and judged me for it. I did not use the word “atheist” back then but did not believe in the whole god stuff. She judged me for not going to church and not praying. To her, I began to pretend like I did believe in it to a point, so she wouldn’t think less of me. As adults, I pretended to be pro-life so she would think more of me. She did eventually have kids but at one point was told she may never because of health conditions and weight problems that could affect her heart and stuff. She said it wasn’t ok that women who are lucky enough to be able to have kids can just “k!ll them.” I pretended to agree. I would sign up for Pro-life stuff and make pro-life arguments to impress her, she said my debating skills for any topic absolutely amazed her, and she couldn’t imagine being that good at debating and writing. (I have been told this by teachers and professors and others all life long, so I believed her) She said sexual activity outside of marriage is wrong and judged women for it. She said it goes against “god.” I disagreed with her on all this but just played along. She wasn’t homophobic or racist so there’s that. Lol She liked girls too.
At sixteen years old, we quickly became best friends and already after only a couple weeks of knowing each other said we would be close friends forever, never losing touch. We made plans for a future together. I remember us sitting on a bus together planning on taking each other out to celebrate when we got our first grownup jobs, she planned to have me in her wedding as her bridesmaid or maid of honor with her sister (I never planned to get married but told her she would be my maid of honor if I did along with my sister) and to tell me first when she had her first kiss. We even planned to be roommates in the future. At this point I genuinely believed we were friends.
We hung out together for hours after school and took the bus home together everyday. We had the same sense of humor and interests. We met up on the weekends, often with other girls, going to movies and shopping malls. I loved it and felt like I finally had a true friend, someone I could relate to. I loved our sister-like friendship. Something about her always rubbed me the wrong way though, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I was able to just brush it off for a while because she was a lot of fun, and I could call her friend. But there was a resentment brewing beneath the surface. She was extremely judgmental and jealous just in general.
After not very long, I began to see some red flags but ignored them. My mom noticed before I consciously did. She told me the girl wasn’t a true friend. But she was my closest friend and so much like me, I wanted to overlook anything wrong she did. She was so fun. And she’s the one who held our whole friend group together. We were all friends but more friends with her, she was the “leader.” (I have had a few friend groups like this, and unfortunately if we have a falling out with the “leader,” the rest tend to take that person’s side. ) The problem was, I wasn’t genuinely overlooking the red flags, I was taking notice and secretly harboring resentment. I wasn’t genuinely letting it slide but tucking it away and keeping inventory.
That resentment began to seep into my words and actions and gestures and saturating my motives, in discreet but still destructive ways. Gradually, it molded me into someone else when I was interacting with her, someone who looked like me but wasn’t. Even in the encounters where we just talked about our mundane day or whatever mood we were in, even in my most honest moments, there was an underlying fakeness, a secret agenda. Even my truths were laced with deceit, fabrication. I saw it all as I looked back through our years worth of conversations. No one else would notice, but I know. I saw the show-offy underpinnings, the secret selfish agenda, the exaggeration, the shock value…Even when everything I said was true, none of it was really true. It wasn’t genuine.
She struggled with body image and low self esteem while I did not. Her body was her biggest insecurity. And I think this is why our friendship ultimately did not work out. I noticed how her attitude relating to me would change for a while if I wore a short shirt while we were out together or if I wore short shorts during girls movie nights. She would tell me as adults not to ever be alone in a room with her husband and not to ever hug him (her husband never looked at me that way, and I am not into men{she did not know this back then, I never told anyone til many years later}, even if I was I wouldn’t go for a man who is already taken, I chose to sink low back then, but even I wouldn’t sink that level of low lol). One day the girls and me were in the kitchen with her man while she was in the living room, the girls all walked into the living room while I stayed helping with food in the kitchen (before she told me not to be alone with him), and she ran so fast into the kitchen and escorted me into the living room. She would ask how I got my body to look like it did. I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. I never did anything, it just looked that way naturally. She wore loose large clothes trying to cover her body and said she felt unsexy in clothes like that but that she felt very self conscious if she wore more revealing or tight clothing. She was also very jealous of my long hair. Her hair wouldn’t grow longer than her shoulders or it did but looked unhealthy or something and had to be cut. Basically she couldn’t have hair much longer than her shoulders and wanted it very long. She frequently told me I don’t know how lucky I am to be able to show my whole body in pictures and have hair almost to my hips.
Throwback to when I was young and my hair wasn’t damaged by the sun – I work outside now for seven years, n it takes a toll on my lovely locksAnother throwback! 💕Throwback 🖤 I look mostly the same now (see first picture of this post above) but a bit older and hair not as long because of weather damage working outside
She would look at me in disgust when I wore short shirts or shorts and then make remarks about something not looking good on me, a certain color not being my color or an accessory not looking right. Back then, belly chains were a thing, thin chains that would go around the abdomen and hang down a little bit, with like a cute butterfly or heart or flower charm almost like a necklace but around the waist. I wore those with belly shirts, and was told by her they don’t look right on me. She tried to wear one, but it wouldn’t fit around her waist. So she tried to make me think they weren’t good on me. It did not work and only provoked resentment in me for her. But I suppressed it because I wanted her as my friend. I also had my bellybutton pierced at sixteen years old, and she told me I did not have the personality for that and that people would get the wrong idea of me. She said only a certain kind of girl had a belly ring, and I wasn’t that kind of girl. In school and when we would hang out right after school, she would only see me in my school uniform. But on the weekends and evenings if we hung out, I wore my regular clothes and stuff, and it would trigger her. My mom said she was super jealous of me just by what I told my mom. I never believed my mom til I saw years later. With my intuition, I knew something wasn’t right though, all along. She wasn’t a friend.
If I would tell her something unkind someone said to/about me, she would say “Well she has a right to her opinion/can say whatever she wants.” Not long after we first met as teenagers, we brought Christmas cards/gifts to school for each of our friends. She gave them each one except me then claimed to have forgotten to get me a gift or write me a card. She pretended to feel guilty and kept saying sorry. I kept saying it was ok. I believed her back then but years later realized the truth after stuff like that continued to happen frequently through the years. I was disappointed back then but not angry. It’s not that I wanted a gift or card but disappointed that she wasn’t thinking of me. I remember the feeling, a feeling of her not caring about me enough to remember but caring about all our other friends. None of the others were left out, and we were even closer to each other than to them, she always said she felt closest to me than anyone, even closer than her actual sister. As adults she told her husband everything important first then me second then everyone else, even her own family found stuff out after me. I would have felt so honored, but my intuition told me something just wasn’t right all along, and I ignored it. An honest mistake is ok, it happens, and in some cases it truly doesn’t mean someone doesn’t care, someone can slip and leave someone out, I probably could. But she intended for me to have this feeling. And that is a big red flag. When a friend or family member intentionally tries to make someone seem unloved, not cared for, abandoned, forgotten, that is a big red flag. That was probably the first red flag. And I did not see it. I totally believed she meant well. In fact, I actually felt sorry for her because I truly believed she felt guilty and sorry, and I thought my card and gift to her probably added to that guilt.
She wouldn’t let me in pictures when we all took pictures together. She would stand in back of the other girls and not let me in at all. She would tell me she was embarrassed by her appearance/weight especially when people saw us together. As adults, she shared many of her wedding pictures online, and I was in none of the ones she shared. The only wedding pictures of hers I was in were ones that family/friends of hers shared. There was a group photo of us all hugging that someone took with her phone, then she asked me to take one of her and the girls all hugging, basically the same photo but with me not in it. That’s the one she shared on her own account, the one I took, without me in it. She wrote something about being thankful for her best girls and thanking them for being a part of her big day, tagged them all in it, leaving me out. There were also pictures of her hugging each of her closest friends/sister/sisters in law, individually, and she put each picture on except the one with her and me hugging. I was not one of the bridesmaids, just received a very last minute invitation as an afterthought. So it makes sense that some pictures would just be the girls who were in the wedding. But not one picture had me in it even pictures with others who were not in the wedding. (And I graduated college that year and spent all my cash gifts n gift cards to me by family as graduation gifts on her and her man, bought them house gifts, bought her jewelry, and gave them cash because they were poor, they would have me paying for all the food ordered during hangouts at their house, n my money would go missing out of my handbag during sleepovers and even at mutual friends’ houses, but that never happened at the mutual friends’ houses when she wasn’t there)
I did not see this in a compassionate understanding way, I made it about me. That she wasn’t including ME, that she was being a terrible friend to ME, that I was left out, poor ME. I do think it’s toxic to a friendship how she handled it, she could have communicated and straight up said she’s sorry but too self conscious to share pics of us together. Even if she did though, I probably wouldn’t have handled it well and still felt abandoned and excluded and angry. If I had a friend who did this today, I still would see it as toxic and cannot say for sure if it would put a strain on our friendship. It would look like she cares more about image than friendship. But I would understand to a point and not make it all about me. I wouldn’t passive aggressively post pictures of me in skinny jeans with low cut shirts and captions like “Thin girl with big boobs” just to get at her like I did back then. I would consciously try to feel compassion more than resentment even if I chose to distance or I would communicate and say how it affects me and our friendship and see if we could work it out or have to distance or even if I could just s u c k it up and still be close friends but with proper communication. I can see both sides, it has to be really challenging to have such low body image and be around women they see as much prettier. But it also s u c k s to be on the other side and not be included by someone supposed to be our friend all because of jealousy, image, and appearance. There is an adult way to handle it, and communication and boundaries are crucial. The problem by that point though was that I already stopped liking her ages ago, our friendship wasn’t worth salvaging. All these little things added up and culminated to me having no positive feelings for her at all, just wanting her to allay some lifelong insecurity, like when someone doesn’t love someone but loves the idea of them or their relationship with them.
She frequently told me that I was the “hott one” of the group and that she wished she had my body and my confidence. I would reassure her she was beautiful just the way she was. One Summer day at seventeen years old, a group of us girls were clothes shopping and trying on clothes in the changing room, we would all come out and show each other what the clothes looked like on us. There was this really skimpy outfit we all liked, made really tight and small, a one piece outfit with the back exposed and boobs showing a bit and cooch!e cutter shorts. I don’t completely remember it but something like that. She said this outfit won’t fit any of us so don’t even try. She said none of us had the body for it. We tried it anyway except for her. It couldn’t fit any of them in any size but did fit me, and I did in fact have the body for it(still do). I came out and showed them it on me. They all said it looked really good on me. But she said I looked like a s*ut and that people would get “the wrong idea” and that I shouldn’t buy it. So I put it back. After that, I noticed more subtle remarks she would say to/about me that were meant to get at me but could easily be brushed off as a joke or as her trying to “help” me. I always let them slide. She made remarks frequently that I look like a wh*re in my clothes and make-up (this worsened as we became adults) and that no wonder men flirt with me everywhere, that I seemed like I was “asking for it.”
Whenever we knew/met a man who liked me, she told me it’s only because I look like I easily put out. She constantly told me I should “cover up” and not post pictures with my full body showing. She claimed it was for my own good. She would also tell me she wished she could dress like me and not feel self conscious. One day she did wear tight revealing clothes, and her own mom told her she did not have the body for it and shouldn’t dress like that. It made her feel even more low about her body.
She made comments that my hair was ratty looking, that my nail polish was always cracked and I was in desperate need of a manicure… If I would get a manicure or fix my hair up or anything, she would make a remark like “Finally” or “I see you finally decided to fix yourself up…” Then follow up with something like “You know I’m only playing” or “Just saying. Our friendship is strong enough so I can be honest when it’s needed.” I totally agree that true friends should be able to be honest when necessary even if it’s not pleasant or is awkward, and I can totally take a real joke. But this wasn’t like that. It was intended to undermine my self confidence and make me self conscious or think I don’t look presentable to others. This may seem obvious like why still be her friend, but it was done in a subtle way thrown in with a bunch of “I love you so much like a sister, you’re my closest friend, I tell you everything more than anyone else…” Sometimes I would stop contacting her for a while when I was really ticked off, and she would send me a bunch of messages all day saying please don’t be mad at her. So I would write back that I wasn’t angry, just busy.
She would frequently host girls nights out, sleepovers, movie nights all kinds of stuff with girls we both knew and not tell me til it was over then act like she forgot. Just like with the Christmas card in high school. It carried into adulthood. Sometimes this would trigger depressive episodes in me. Her and her husband were big horror fans, like me. I saw a horror movie back then that is not very well known but really good. Don’t remember it now. I knew they would love it and sent them it in the mail as a surprise gift for their wedding anniversary. She sent me a thank you message, and we mentioned how we’ll get together and watch it even though I already saw it. We loved watching movies together and commenting on what we were watching throughout the movie. Next thing I’m getting messages about a girls movie night where the girls got together to watch the movie I bought her, and it was so fun. Without me. Rubbing it in how much fun they had and how much they loved it. There were a few occasions I bought them a movie or let them borrow mine (back when dvd’s were a thing) and they had movie night at their house watching those movies without me. I frequently mentioned that I would love to be part of their get togethers more often and was always told I would be invited to the next one. And wasn’t. I admit that this is something that still affects me now, emotionally. It can be difficult sometimes not to internalize it, particularly because I have had this happen at different stages of life with different friend groups, even as an almost middle aged adult. It’s not about me personally, just how people are, it’s unfortunately common, bullying, ghosting, breadcrumbing, exclusion, at all ages. But it can be easy to take personally. I’m not perfect, myself. I haven’t been the perfect friend. But I’m not someone who is generally toxic and don’t do anything that warrants this.
When I went to college, the other girls still saw each other frequently. We lived close enough that I could have easily met up with them. But she wouldn’t invite me then would call me and tell me all about the fun they were having together. She knew I had an insecurity about being excluded and stuff because it happened to me as a younger teenager by other girls (this is what triggered the initial onset of my depressive disorder). When I first went to college I had no new friends yet so it was important to me to keep in touch with her. She rarely called me or responded to my messages/phone calls to her. Eventually I got new friends who were actually friends, not fakes. But I still wanted her because she was my longest friend and the closest I had to a childhood friend, also I always wished I had a sister-like friend. Most of my new friends were men, which is still enough to fulfill my social desires/needs, I just wished I had a best girl too. I had women friends, just not exactly like that. I have had this insecurity about wanting a friend since we were kids. I thought that would make me more whole and mean I’m more loved. So even though I loved my newer friends and knew she wasn’t a real friend, she could fulfill something in me that they couldn’t. And my new friends all had childhood friends they still kept in touch with. I felt excluded like I wanted one too. I was the only one in our friend group who had no real friends outside that group. So I tried to force a friendship with her that just wasn’t.
Through the years, after high school, sometimes we would see each other frequently and sometimes not much at all. But we never lost contact completely. I was the one reaching out to her much more frequently, and she would say she was so glad to be back in touch after months or sometimes almost a year. She knew about my insecurity about feeling I need an old friend since we were young and would rub it in that her and the other girls we were friends with still see each other frequently since high school and are like a group of sisters. She knew this would just k!ll me inside. They were not in on this with her, she’s just like the one who kept the friendship group together. We were all more friends with her than each other, and most of the hang outs were hosted by her and her husband at their house. Her husband also had nothing to do with it. He was very quiet, meek, socially awkward, introverted, she “wore the pants” in the relationship, and he just went along with everything. I always knew me being excluded and all the remarks and insults and all were all her, not any of them. None of them saw it like I did. Sometimes they even asked me why I wasn’t at some of the friend gatherings. Or they would ask me if I was going to one coming up that I never even knew about and would tell them I wasn’t asked to go, and they would say “You never told Kim,” and she would say something like “oh I’m sorry, I forgot, of course you’re invited!”
I developed resentment for her through the years. It was building up all along, but I just ignored it. I wanted the image of a sister-like friendship since childhood/adolescence. Our friendship became even more passive aggressive on both our parts. We mostly kept in touch by e-mail and phone through the years, but eventually I decided to find her on social media and contact her after almost a year of not seeing/talking to each other except a phone call/hang out here and there. I sent her a message on FB saying something like remember me, we used to be friends. I was saying it in a passive aggressive way but in a way that could also come off as me being friendly and playful.
I remembered her years ago saying she needed to be needed by a man and friends. So I pretended to need her, pretended she was all I had, just because I wanted a girl friend since we were young. Even though I currently had true friends. I did not have a long-term friend or a sister-like friend and tried to force her to be both. Not “force” like control her, she went along with it, just tried to force something that just wasn’t real.
I acted like someone I wasn’t with her. I used language/words/cursing/phrases that I don’t naturally use and acted so clingy and needy just to keep her as my friend and impress her. I have many old conversations with her that a while ago I read through after not talking to her in years and throughout reading I would think “Da fuq did I write?, Da fuq did I just read?” 😆 I cannot believe how fake I was just to get someone I did not even like to like me. I trash talked all my true friends to her, trash talked my family, my coworkers back then (she did the same with hers), everyone I knew, just to make it look like she was all I had. I told her any problems I had and often exaggerated them to look needy. But at the same second I wanted her to be super jealous of me. So I also often would rub stuff in to try to make her jealous. When I would see her post about hating her body and wanting to lose weight, I would post pics of myself right after in a short tight dress or swimsuit. One night she posted that she ate too much and felt so bloated and ugly and was getting ready for bed, I told her she was so beautiful (I was faking the kindness and was secretly taking great satisfaction in her ordeal, I suspect she knew the truth, we knew what each other did), and then after she went to bed, I got all dolled up and posted a picture of me in a little black dress with stiletto heels so it would be the first thing she saw when she woke up in the morning, I knew her biggest insecurity was her body like she knew my biggest insecurity was not having a true long-term girl-friend). She did stuff like this to me too. She would frequently post about her group of girls who were like sisters and her childhood best friend she doesn’t know what she would do without and how often they all see each other. I knew them all and was rarely invited. One day I posted about an argument with my mom, and she posted about the amazing day she had hanging out with her mom. Another day I posted that I wished I had an IPhone but did not have the money. Next thing she was posting how much she loves her iphone and how she uses it all day to text her best girls, who also all had one, who are like sisters. So I took pics of myself in a bra and tight low pants and posted them. 😆 We knew exactly what each other was doing. One day I told her my closest friend other than her was on vacation and I was in a depressed lonely mood (this was true), and she said something like aww I’m always here for you, I love you so much like a sister. Then later that day all the girls were together for movie and game night all loving each other like sisters, and I wasn’t invited. So I asked my dad for his credit card to go shopping and posted something like “Going shopping with Daddy’s credit card” and then posted all pictures of me in my skimpy new clothes & heels for her to see. She commented on some of the pictures with her subtle insults saying my hair can use a comb or be careful because men will love those s*utty clothes. And next thing I had trolls (her using different accounts) calling me an ugly s*ut and stuff.
We would write statuses about each other but act like it wasn’t about each other, we both knew it was though. I would write about “this jealous b!tch who is so jealous she can’t see straight,” and she would write about this “stup!d stuck up b!tch who thinks she’s something,” or we would write about fake friends. Then we would ask each other “Is this about me?” Then our responses would be something like “Omg, no! It’s not about you! Omg, I love you like a sister, you’re the best friend I have…! How could you think it’s about you?! It’s just some girl at work.” 🤣
She also did creepy things online, making fake accounts and sending strange e-mails under different addresses, there was this thing back then to play a joke on people where it looks like a different e-mail address/phone number sent an e-mail/text, but for some reason the person’s real e-mail address/phone number would show up at the end, it made no sense since the point was to pretend someone else sent it. They never said that would happen. My sister tried to play a silly joke on me before, and I knew it was her because her real contact info showed up. My sister never knew that would happen. My sister and me would receive strange texts and e-mails with links to spam and viruses by an unknown number/e-mail address, but the friend’s real e-mail/phone number/name would show at the bottom, she never knew this would happen. I would also get strange messages by people online I’m sure were her. She would use names very similar to hers. I was always getting trolled and called a s*ut on my pictures by people who talked how she did, with names similar to hers. Sometimes she as herself would argue back with them saying “Stop talking to my friend like that!” Then ask me in person if I saw her defending me online. Lol She would even remember the names of the strange people trolling me when I wouldn’t even remember. One day in person, I said I have two new trolls now, and she automatically knew their names, both of which had the same/similar initials/names as her name. She also made an anonymous Twitter account to trash talk her family and friends. She used a fake name and told my sister what name she used. It was a name with her real initials. Just like the trolls on my account.
We would write some very messed up things to each other, she would write that she’s getting ready to cut herself with her razor blade, and I would write that I’m getting ready to drink bleach. We were messed up lol I admit it gives me a good laugh thinking back 😂
We had a falling out in the end and stopped communicating for good. I sent her the most vicious insults I possibly could come up with, drawing on her deepest insecurities and worst fears, including that her husband was going to leave her for a more beautiful woman (this was her biggest fear of all, she was obsessed with it, she told me she couldn’t stand summer because all the women were out in revealing clothes and she knew he saw).
I said something like get off your @$$ once in a while and take a walk to somewhere other than the fridge (she frequently complained that all she did was sit on her sofa all day and eat and get bigger and bigger)…and a bunch of other toxic stuff, it was mostly just regurgitation of her own criticism of herself. It’s a vicious thing for a woman to take another woman’s insecurities that she shares with her and throw it in her face later. This was very uncharacteristic of me and not something I have ever done again. We tried to drag each other down as low as we could take each other. And maybe one of us won. Maybe one of us was lower in the end than the other. Maybe one of us was sitting around lonely and depressed feeling like a loser who who has no real friends, a loser who always gets excluded because of being unworthy of sisterly love, and maybe one of us was sitting around self loathing feeling like an ugly hag whose husband is going to leave for another woman, a more beautiful woman. And maybe today, there are remnants of those insecurities lingering about, hovering in the distant corners of our minds, tucked away, just waiting to resurface at any given moment. Yay us, we succeeded. And what did we accomplish? What did that make us? A wonderful amazing person because one of us made the other feel like an unworthy friendless, loveless loser and one of us made the other feel like a hideous slob?
A rat is a rat is a rat.
I only did all this because of what she did first. But there is no justification. A better person wouldn’t have done what I did. A more evolved person would have proacted, would have communicated or distanced and set healthy boundaries, not reacted by sinking even lower. I held the philosophy “When she goes low, I go lower.” An emotionally healthy, emotionally intelligent, mature, well rounded, honest person would not have done that. A true safe person would have been true and safe even in that situation, not allow someone else’s actions to influence who they choose to be. My youth contributed but was no justification. Today, I am not that girl. Since then, I have had other friends who have done similar things to me, and I had the chance to react like I did back then. But I chose not to.
All the years of resentment that were building up all along that I kept bottled up exploded and overflowed. A while later she came back and tried to get back in touch, but I ignored her.
After cutting her off for good, my mental health became so much better. While it was going on, I did not realize the extent to which it was affecting me having her in my world, not just what she was doing but my reaction to it. It was unhealthy me pretending to be something I’m not, trying to always make her jealous, trying to always put on a show for her. The whole thing was just toxic. I began having less depressed moods and became happier overall after ending contact with her. She convinced most of our mutual friends to unfriend me also.
Every once in a while through the years, even now, something happens that really seems like her. Someone tries to hack my accounts or sends me weird messages. Stranger women who I can tell are fake write to me on all my pictures and stuff and friend request me. They’re all the same kind of women, conventionally beautiful, dress in revealing clothing, don’t have many FB friends or much content. I just have a sense that it’s her, using photos of other people, and know she did do stuff like that before. I’m surprised that she’s still playing games at nearly forty years old and with kids of her own now.
I think she really did love me, but her jealousy and mental health problems got in the way. I was only like that because of how she was to me first, but I think I was even more fake than her. I couldn’t stand her, just wanted the image of that friendship. I was even fake sometimes with other people if I knew she was watching, just so she would be impressed or whatever. I think she really wanted me as a friend but did not know how to show it. I was 20 something years old back then, still old enough to know better, but my youth influenced me to act that way.
It’s definitely not something I would do again. I could not imagine having that toxic relationship now or being that toxic to others and myself. Ten years of that nonsense. Wasn’t worth it. I’m embarrassed about how I acted.
I no longer have resentment for her and hope she’s doing well in life, but I wouldn’t be her friend again or respond if she ever messaged me. It was never a genuine friendship. It was built on insecurity and fakeness and neediness and clinginess. It wasn’t a friendship gone wrong but never one at all. Even if we are both all grown up now and much more mature and would never do that again, I have no interest in her. I just think that all is better left in the past.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
I hope you are having a beautiful day or night wherever in the world you are!
Xoxo Kim 💕
Is this your new site? Log in to activate admin features and dismiss this message
