u/scared_user_

I’m a sex-repulsed asexual (although I believe if I met the right person who I felt 100% safe with and everything felt right, occasional sex may be on the table), and for the past year I’ve been trying the best I can in the dating scene.

Safe to say I’m officially at my breaking point and ready to just have a meltdown because I just have no hope by now, I feel so lonely. All of my friends are in happy relationships and I envy them because all I could ask for is someone to value and have a meaningful relationship with. I yearn for companionship, for chaotic arcade/clubbing/exploring dates, silly diy gift giving and bonding over special interests with someone I love. Even have nice makeouts with. Someone that I can spend quality time with that would mean the entire world to me. But after learning the hard way, apparently that’s “stupidly” too much for me to ask for.

Every attempt I’ve made on dating apps has gone worse than the last (to the point of police getting involved), everyone I’ve met and talked to organically has ghosted me because I didn’t hookup with them within like 2 days, and people only ever look at me sexually, nothing more. It’s mentally draining. I’ve tried to vent to people about it but the general response I get is that I’m “asking for something unreasonable”, my standards are “too high”, and even had someone tell me that if sex isn’t my priority then I’m “clearly not mature enough to even think about dating because you obviously want just friendship, not a relationship”. It’s really put me down and I feel like I’m just a silly child in a world of grown adults. I’ve lost a fair amount of my confidence in loving myself + being independent, and I don’t know how to get it back. I just wish I didn’t have to feel so alienated and undeserving of something that everyone else gets to experience.

Okay this is just sort of a brain fart concept I won’t lie, but it randomly came to me and then had me thinking.

I feel like being Ace could be compared to being anti-AI in the sense that: AI is this shiny “fix all your problems” tool that is just fucking inescapable, it’s everywhere and everyone seems to love it for some reason. Society implements it into their work, their relationships, their hobbies, everything they possibly can because they think it’s “crucial” and that they can’t function without it. Always talking about how “great” it is and acting like you’re insane for not wanting it in your life, and even getting offended when you express that it’s not something you’re grappling onto like everyone else. It’s the same treatment when it comes to sex.

I feel like there’s this parallel, because being against AI and being Ace are both looked down upon so much, we’re made to feel like aliens and yet to us it feels like we simply just don’t fall for the illusion of these “extraordinary” products that give temporary joy and (in this day and age) can only mimic real emotions. We don’t feel the need to use these things because we’re happy (if not happier) without it. And somehow the rest of society just can’t fathom that. Both parties are also pressured and told “just start using ChatGPT for everything/just start hooking up regularly, it’ll fix whatever’s wrong with you! It’s here to serve your needs so you don’t have to worry about feelings, it doesn’t mean anything!”.

I don’t need a soulless bot to imitate art and hard work for me, the same way I don’t need random dicks to imitate love and emotion for me.

This is pretty much just a rant and I guess I’m posting this for discussion because surely I’m not the only person who has experienced this and is tired of it. 😩

**(Background story)**
I’ve been trying my hand at dating for the past year, and the worst feeling experience I’ve had in that time was with this guy that a mutual friend set me up with. I figured that I wouldn’t have anything to lose in trying it because it was someone my friend liked and trusted so what could go wrong, from the short introduction the mutual friend gave it seemed like we would be a good match (both autistic, and he was apparently into alternative women which I am).

Immediately this guy was seriously off-putting. He took one look at me and was excited because I was supposedly “his dream goth girl” (I’m very clearly NOT goth), and he practically assumed that me letting our mutual friend set us up meant I had applied to be his girlfriend or some shit. It felt horrible. Even on the FIRST DAY OF TALKING he was immediately talking about all of the things we WOULD do, like how I was the perfect height for him to cuddle me, how I can sleep over at his house all the time, how he’s going to enjoy playing with my hair etc.. gross.

After that it very quickly got worse, I had an entire long conversation with him about boundaries and made it clear that I was only comfortable with building slow and meaningful relationships, and that things like love bombing and regular/too much PDA made me really uncomfortable. His response was “Oh well I can’t do that at all you’ll just have to put up with me cause I’m going to be all over you all the time”. Just immediately dismissing my fucking boundaries like they were out of the question. Day later I was going out with some friends and he SERIOUSLY expected me to send him a photo of what I was wearing, the address of where I was going, the names of the friends I was going with, and regular updates of what I was doing. I refused to do any of which and told him that he seriously needed to slow down, we literally just met. This fucking guy had the nerve to say “oh well okay I was already going a bit slow but sure we can go slower if you need” (wtf). And of course as you can guess, he DID NOT slow down.

After not even a week, I messaged him to make it clear that I don’t want him to contact me any further because it was just NOT it at all, and that I felt uncomfortable. At first he took it well, saying “Oh okay, no worries” and I was relieved, but then like an hour later he came back to beg me. “Just keep talking to me I seriously like you! We can go slower I promise! I really want US to work out!!” (WHO THE FUCK IS ‘US’ WE’RE STRANGERS YOU DON’T KNOW ME???). He only acknowledged my boundaries (barely) when I made it clear that I was cutting him off. So I immediately blocked him. After that I found him lurking around all of my social media (pretty sure he even saved one or two of my posts from my work portfolio) and I found out from the mutual friend that he was sulking because he was excited to go out with me and “planned to impress me”, and had already talked about me and showed pictures to his family and friends like we were dating, which was lowkey DISTURBING.

The whole experience made me feel SO ICKY and I couldn’t put a name to how I felt until afterwards. He was objectifying me, putting me on a pedestal. Trying to shove me into a mould and not giving a single shit about my feelings or getting to know me. The most frustrating part of what I felt from this experience is that it’s not even the first time a guy has done this to me, and I just can’t even wrap my head around how guys think this is okay. It’s NOT flattering.

**NO PERSON feels comfortable with being treated like “Yeah you seem like you could match my fantasy enough, okay I choose you, you belong to me now”.**

I’m not a fucking doll for guys to just pick up and take home like a glorified trophy to display. I’m not a pet for them to pick out and dump their feelings onto without any say in it. I AM NOT YOUR DREAM GIRL MADE SPECIALLY FOR YOU THAT YOU JUST PRE-ORDERED ONLINE OR SOME SHIT. I AM A PERSON WITH FEELINGS AND BOUNDARIES AND MY OWN DREAMS AND YET YOU FEEL ENTITLED TO BRUSH THEM ALL AWAY FOR THE SAKE OF POSSESSING ME YOU SHITHEAD.

I’m in my second year of college, and every moment of it has been perfect until this year when 2 girls who hate me transferred here.

I went to high school with these girls, they were my “friends” until one day they stopped talking to me, started constantly glaring at me, making purposeful comments for me to hear, and told me to piss off every time I asked what I had done and tried to apologise. I asked mutual friends and apparently they never told anyone the reason, they just hated me now.

I eventually found out that one of the two had been spreading rumours about me, making public comments about me in the school changing rooms about my body, and romantically talking with my (at the time) boyfriend all behind my back. When I found out I was incredibly upset and didn’t know what to do.

When I moved on to college I was finally able to forget about it and build my dream life with great people around me, but when I came back for my second year I found out that they had transferred here, and ever since then I’ve had to deal with them constantly glaring at me and my mates, talking about me to their new friends, and very recently discovered that they had gotten someone to keep tabs on my social media for them to judge over the last 2 months.

My friends are sick of me bringing it up and tell me to “just stop being bothered by it” every time they make me uncomfortable, but I can’t help it. It feels like a parasite in the back of my mind and when they show up around campus it puts off my whole day. At times I wanna go up to them and beg them to just get off my ass and drop whatever grudge they have against me because I’m tired of having to watch my back, but I know that any confrontation will just make things worse.

Is there anything I can practice myself to stop it weighing on me?