volume eighteen
it doesn’t take a scientist to understand what's going on, baby
Ahhh my dear friends, I have terrible news. It has been a long, long time coming, and my friends have known for a while, but this week I finally faced it. The thing is, is that I have a (non-celebrity) crush and it is the worst.
When word vomiting all the details to a friend as we cooked brunch on Sunday, she stopped me and asked me “so do you have a crush on them or do you like them?”... WOW. Very good question. I often refer to my feelings as crushes. I never thought to think more of it because as you will soon discover as you read on, crush is just an easier word for me to get my head around. The reason is, that as a demisexual, the truth is scary and I am an eternal teenager. Thinking back on past crushes I sat and asked myself:
Was it a crush?
Did I like them?
Had I already planned out how hot of a couple we would be (to me), how my friends would love them and we would all get along so well, how they would be infatuated with me and me with them, pictured a montage of us happily laughing doing all the things together, how we would spend our time, especially the most magical part of each week — Sunday afternoons — together?
Either way, regardless of how it panned out in the past, I am so fucked because this is who I am now — a person with a crush, for the foreseeable future.
This is awful. I cannot accurately articulate to you how overwhelming the calamity of a crush is as a demisexual. I am reeling. How do I focus on anything else? How do I act when all of sudden this huge, giant, inconvenient thing is taking up important brain space that I have spent long periods of time not having to share? I write about it of course.
For you to understand how this isn’t just me being dramatic (which would be a fair assumption) is to go a little deeper into demisexuality for you. In particular my experience in demisexuality because that’s the only one I can speak for.
I spend ninety-nine percent of my time blissfully unaware of potential suitors. I live my life, I socialise, I go out, I stay in, I create and work and relax all completely and utterly not thinking about what any of those activities would feel like if someone else was there. Never once feeling like what would be different if I was in a relationship, my eyes never wandering to glance at cute strangers in a bar or restaurant, never picking up on signals from people my friends will tell me later were obviously flirting with me, never getting jealous of my friends in love or wanting what they have — ever. Completely and utterly asexual, independent, riding the waves of my life as it is, never once thinking about bringing someone else, or multiple others, into it. Demisexuality is on the ace spectrum. So you can basically narrow it down to that I am asexual... that is until I am not (?) but technically I am so… look I am figuring this out as much as you are.
In fact, if someone shows the slightest hint of having feelings for me I panic. The thought of hand-holding is totally terrifying, not to mention dates, intimacy or a relationship. And I don’t mind it. Not at all... when I am in these stages, living my life unbothered and content with my hobbies, pursuits and delicious circle of friends that fulfil every need my soul could possibly want. I want for nothing romantically, practically ever.
To be clear this is not a choice. I don’t think “I don’t have time” or “I don’t have the energy” or “I just haven’t met the right person” or any other very valid reason that someone might behave this way. Demisexuality is there whether I like it or not. It’s not just that I want to get to know someone before pursuing things with them — sexually or otherwise, it’s that I have to for there to be a chance of anything else to follow. Just like the rest of you, it is always without giving myself any consent to feel the feels that might develop, mine just take far, far longer and require so much more to appear, so that when they do it is like being hit with a tonne of bricks.
It is when a crush develops that all hell is raised and I realise I am taken from one end of the ace spectrum to the other and I am not equipped to handle it. Suddenly I want something I hadn’t considered for a long time and I feel as though I will stop at nothing to get it. It takes so, so long to get to that point of considering another living, breathing human as no longer just a person in my life, but a person I have feelings for all the way to my fingertips. Sometimes there are literal years between feeling it, that I quite honestly have the rug pulled out from under me as soon as the crush reveals itself. Years. People change so much in months, imagine years of emotional maturity, life lessons, growth, pain, loss, gain all slowly but surely morphing you into a higher version of yourself, but this one element known as romance remains stunted. There I am, minding my own business, doing my own thing, living my damn life when BOOM. Someone who has been an active participant in my life, enough so, that unknown to me I have formed an emotional bond of sorts with them, suddenly gives me chills, my toes are tingly, my head is light, they are on my mind a lot and when they are, I smile like a giggling teenager. Weak at the knees is a literal occurrence. I talk about them any chance I get, to the point I am mad at myself wishing I would shut up.
Do you remember being around the eleven to fourteen years of age range and having a crush so strong that everything else took a back seat? Well to put it in perspective, when I have a crush, I become that fourteen-year-old version of you. Think about that version of you now. That is me as a thirty-one-year-old woman. The worst part is that being a demisexual means there can be no sexual (and in my case also romantic) attraction without an emotional connection. So that means each and every crush I have is someone I really like having in my life. Way to blow things up in your own face Lauren.
It might take months or years to form this feeling about someone, so you can imagine it is no small thing when I get there. It is not like I shrug and move on, my whole subconscious and sex drive made a plan and executed it over time without me having a say and now I am here to face the consequences. I didn’t plan it, and I have no control over it, I didn’t choose for it to arrive and it wasn’t a gradual realisation that I could have helped it, backed away even. It is so foreign to me I never could have seen it coming, and so I cannot choose for it to leave, either. It has no rhyme or reason — it is not like every person I get close to I become attracted to, it’s just that that is the pre-requisite if I will. There is no way out, only through.
Please, keep me in your thoughts because here my brain goes again.
I love you,
Lauren xoxo
Three things I struggled with this week:
Do you know what I realised this week? That I have just gotten used to being alone a lot of the time. That is so special in so many ways, but it is also the reason I am struggling to make plans. This is now the normal for me and that is not okay for my mental health, so I need to create a new (or rather the previous) normal and incorporate more socialising as well as (more in my goals) use my alone time in a better way than doom-scrolling.
I am looking after a beautiful dog, Monica, this week. This was a struggle that turned into a blessing. She is super shy and scared and took a huge use of my practising patience this week. I had to take it slow, give her her space, keep my distance — when I of course just wanted us to be best friends right away. We got there, we went from her cowered in the corner of the bathroom avoiding me, jumping at the sight of me, to now enjoying long walks and belly rubs. But even still, only if she trusts me and I move very slowly. Where is my H*llm*rk movie about the single queer woman and the lifelong friendship she forms with an emotionally scarred dog, that ultimately teaches her the art of patience in life?
Know what I want and say what I want. People are not mind-readers.
Three blessings from this week:
As mentioned last week I have begun my Christmas movie watching already. Among my selections was, of course, The Holiday and Kate Winslet’s character, Iris, is a demisexual. JUST SAYIN’!
I am romantically involved with the snow. The first snowfall of every year is the most magical feeling that I always forget until the next year, but never, ever get over.
Two-hour phone call catch-ups with a friend who I haven’t spoken to in a long time. There was a while there I was so fatigued that catching up with friends was too exhausting to think about, but I did it anyway until I became burnt out. Now I set boundaries of “let’s have a phone call instead of a zoom” which is always so well received, I only offer times that work for me and don’t creep into my sleeping hours as most people I catch up with are in different time zones (with of course no expectation of them bending either) and I make sure I do not book a call on my one and only night to relax as was the case for so long. As a result, wouldn’t you know, I am a better friend for it.
Three goals for the coming week:
Do you have a question about (my) demisexuality that you want to ask? Nothing is off-limits (be respectful, though). Hit that “ask me a question” button and I will answer it in a future post. I want to know what you want to know. Plus — you can ask anonymously if you want!
Thanks to the advice of someone who helps me out in these areas on a regular basis, I have scheduled me-time into my calendar each week (again because I have attempted this before and failed) for face masks, baths, reading, drawing, writing… one night a week where I promise to relax and by relax I mean do something for me, not doom scroll. Please do not ask for me on Mondays.
I started this week by limiting my IG usage to fifteen minutes a day, setting the timer and making use of my Forest app. I have so much free time and free headspace so my goal is to keep this going. A huge reason I feel lonely when alone is because I am consuming so much content of people’s highlight reels and it is not healthy. This all ties in with my goal of self-care nights of actually doing things that bring me joy, having time for phone calls and deciding that being used to being alone doesn’t have to be a bad thing, remember?
What I am enjoying this week: One of my best friends in the world Skye Portman is also one of the most talented people I know — how lucky am I to be in her orbit? She photographs her travels, documents important gatherings and events, takes phenomenal portraits and along with all that, has a project called A Day In The Laugh where she photographs comedians and improvisers before, during and after their set. It’s such a cool idea and obviously myself being in the comedy industry, it is one very near and dear to my heart. Skye captures the behind the scenes and the core of the world so perfectly and brings it to life through stunning stills. Check out her website and give her a follow on social media.
If you feel inclined to say thanks for this post, please like or comment (it’s free and means so much!), forward it to a friend or you can buy me a slice 🍕