My Affliction Called Introversion
Asexuality, homo sapiens, and private thoughts that are hard to share
This is the hardest journal entry for me to publicly share. It is deeply personal and where I hold a lot of shame. With 2023, I will embark on a personal year of 7. Those of you who follow my content on numerology know what I’m talking about. For me, this is a year of seclusion, deep reflection, and questioning faith. In light of this, I would like to share what moving through this can be like internally.
I’ve always preferred the company of animals because they will simply be there with you. They will eat, sleep, live out their general existence alongside you, and that is enough for them.
With people, this is not the case. The resource-guarding homo sapien has a lot of demands. This shit-throwing primate has such a long list of conditions that come with each individual that for me, it’s not even worth trying to engage with it. I already know I’m not enough for a person and let’s leave it at that.
A part of this cynicism comes from arriving here like this. I was a very quiet, sensitive, and concerned child. I felt and knew deeply of the raw, bottomless hurt of this world and did not want to add to that hurt. Very early on, I saw that other people were not like this. To my peers, this world existed for them and their demands only, with only knee-jerk robotic behaviors of civility taught by their parents who wanted them to have surface-level manners. The human is a communal animal with complex social constructs where appearances dictate their social standing, and ultimately how their life will transpire. Whether or not someone possesses genuine virtue is inconsequential.
Naturally, this made me retreat. I felt I needed to do what I had to to protect myself from others. Often, this meant disengaging. People were, and still are, monsters to me (or at the very least, an animal merely an eighth step higher than a chimp on the evolutionary tree). I didn’t come out of this until later on in young adulthood where I learned wearing a mask could get you friendship, which is what I deeply desired after what felt like a lifetime alone. I discovered I was good at wearing the mask. No one suspected me. When people want a shallow checklist of conditions, that can actually be given quite easily. Undercover, I did all the normal kid things, for the most part anyway. This was followed by many years of depression in college as I am not one who can live inauthentically. Putting down that persona meant finding myself in a world I didn’t belong in, and knew I never would.
What I think is most cumbersome about introversion, the part that some introverted souls would agree with but is not vocalized, is that the underlying cause of our introversion derives from how the depth of existence that we know and feel internally is not mirrored in our external reality.
Some introverts find solace in their romantic partnerships. They consider their romantic partner their best friend and the person they can retreat to when other people are exhausting them. For me, this is where it gets problematic. What compounds my introversion is that I identify as someone who lies somewhere on the spectrum of asexuality, and yes, it a spectrum. For those of you who don’t know, asexuality is when you aren’t capable of being physically attracted to people. Many people who identify as asexual range from being entirely sex-repulsed to simply being indifferent about it, where it is not perceived as a necessary condition in a relationship. I identify with the latter, and this is where I find myself in an awkward position as a female 20-something.
Whether I am happy about it or not, I too am a homo sapien in need of some level of affection, whether that be sharing an afternoon with someone, holding a hand, embracing another or even being held. But with men, that comes at a cost. You, reader, might disagree with what I’m about to say, which is understandable as it is a strong statement. But please believe me when I say that my complete experience has been that men only give affection when you’re seen as a sexual prospect. The only way I’ve been able to receive any kind of affection, or even basic attention for that matter, is when I could one day be an object of sexual gratification. On dates, it has been my overall experience that men do not want to get to know someone who will not be physically attracted to them, or who is unwilling to satisfy them physically all of the time. I think that if you sleep with a man, they just might care about you. The depression I had in college partially came from, and still comes from a deep seed of knowing that my asexuality makes me worthless to others. This hurts.
You might think, but wait! There is friendship, can’t you simply do that with the people you love platonically? The answer is yes, and this has sustained me for some time. Especially amongst female relationships, where we are often each other’s mother, sister, and best friend. Thankfully, holding hands and being close platonically is much easier with women than with men. I think that the closest I’ve ever come to being unconditionally loved was with the female friendships I’ve been fortunate enough to have. However, as you get older, you move away, friends get married, have kids, and generally develop a life where their romantic relationship is the cornerstone of their existence. It’s in this way that being asexual is incredibly lonely, as you are left behind and become a lower priority. This is at no fault to others who are simply living their life in the way they are meant to.
I realized something was wrong with me when friends would yearn for men at bars and public places when I generally found all of them unattractive. My psyche subconsciously and instantaneously probes into a person’s heart and mind in the same manner we notice facial features and body types. This is where the concept of demisexuality emerges (there are too many labels now if you ask me) where someone is not considered attractive until a mental and emotional connection is made. With how complicated we’ve made human relationships, what I’m saying might be hard to understand. If sexuality were a rainbow, I suspect that I reside somewhere where the color of asexuality and demisexuality blends into one another.
To me, sex is a happy accident, a byproduct of when you’re alone with someone and have strong feelings for them. It’s not something I ever think about on my own or something that I desire. Occasionally there are carnal urges (approx. every 1-2 weeks) in which I use things (let’s just say) to offset frustrations. I consider this self care and find it more satisfying than intercourse. That’s also a key difference here. I use things as things, not people as things as we have learned to do in human relationships. It’s hard to accept, and no one wants to admit it, but that woman portrayed in the video on pornhub does not have thoughts or feelings. In that moment, that is a thing being used for carnal desire, and nothing else. Having the external perspective of someone who is asexual, I am able to make the observation that objectification is what invokes arousal in most, and that is what most men primarily want, whether they’ll admit it or not. We have been conditioned in this way and we are not fully aware of it. Because sex has nothing to do with being loved or appreciated for most humans, I don’t see that I’m missing out on anything.
When you have love in your heart, actual love, and nowhere to put it, there is suddenly a surrender to this dystopian reality. No one is going to actually love me (perhaps just for what I do for them) but I can give love anyway the only way I know how to. I think this is honestly the best any person can do in life no matter their sexuality or their worldview. If I can accept that I am merely loving the only way I know how to, then I can accept that in others too.
Companionship feels like a lifetime away. It would be nice to live with someone, to come home to a person that cared about whether I was dead or alive based on the person I am, and not because of how I made their genitals feel. It would be nice to sit in a room full of people and share life with them in that moment. For now, living amongst the human race, I will eat, dance, sing and exist alone.
I too am an introvert, and I see that as a profound strength. Sure, extroverts are the majority, but they can not feel powerful without others, so that is a deceptive trait. An introvert is self sufficient, yet extroverts rule the world because they move and work en masse. You're sexuality and desire, or the lack of, are not fixed. Or perhaps you already do know where you truly stand. If you were born 150 years ago, you would never feel the need to explain your level of sexual desire to all the people who adore you and you offerings. Maybe you are an introvert sexually. You do not need the approval of anyone other than yourself. SIDE NOTE: I loved the post where you when out to a remote spot in a vast open area alone, to give us your offering. It was so perfect. You are exactly as you are, perfect in that!
I am so sorry you feel like that, I really do hope and pray that you find a loving partner to call home. Who doesn’t want you for what you can do for them, but for who YOU🫵 are.
Love and prayer, A.M. Radio.