Friends and dying alone.

Hello. This feels weird. I went on google to search up a place online to write out my thoughts, as my brain suddenly wouldn't shut up about getting something out there. I'm already second guessing why I'm on this random site I just found in a google search when I don't actually have any idea what to write about. I'll just blab I suppose.

I sometimes don't feel like I have any friends. I do have people whom I talk to almost every day. The conversations are friendly and I have fun talking with them, but at the same time I still feel like a bit of an outsider. Maybe it has to do with the fact I don't live near any of them. They live on the other side of the country and most people would probably refer to them as 'internet friends', but they are all I have. I've never been great at making friends, so I hang on to the ones I have for dear life.

I had a best friend once. You know that kind of friend you grow up with? You play all the time, sleep over at each other's houses and are basically inseparable. Yeah, I had a friend like that once. Then came the time when I had to move away. I was only gone for a year, but when I came back, I no longer knew the person who was once that friend. She had changed. Maybe I had changed too, but at the time, I felt the exact same as when I left and it was a shock to me that the friend who had once been like a sister to me, was now a completely different person.

That's about when things got bad with my depression, which I wont detail here, since that's a whole other can of worms which I've thankfully managed to tackle as best I can.

I felt alone. Abandoned by my friend. People in my class didn't talk to me and I didn't talk to them. I experienced loneliness for the first time at age 12.

Middle school came and went like that. Some days I would come in and just try to slug through the day, while other times I wouldn't leave my house for weeks. No one asked where I had been when I came back to school after those weeks. And so I went on for a while.

10th grade came along and I found a place to belong for a little while. It was like a beautiful pause in the darkness. I met 2 people who I very much considered to be true friends. One was wonderfully complicated and the other, my first kiss. It was one of the few times in my live I actually looked forward to school. But as always, when school ends, people go separate ways.

I lost touch with both of them and while they moved on toward bigger dreams, I once again felt left behind by myself. High school came along and I didn't fit in much with my classmates, many of which had loads of life experiences I missed out on all that time I hid away at home. I didn't feel I had much in common with any of them.

It was then someone very important to me come into my life. It was a girl I had known from earlier in life. We had gone to the same school for many years, but never really talked. We bonded over our mutual disdain of the rest of the world. We were loners, but we had each other. We shared many things; secrets, childhood stories of loneliness and our love of books. We didn't even need to talk some days. We would sit down together just to read quietly next to each other and we were fine like that.

Together, we created the tale of the black hole which forms in the middle of your chest and pulls everything in; emotions, self worth and hope. It would slowly destroy you as a person if nothing was done to it. I've struggled with it for a long time, but I'm honestly thankful to say I'm getting better.

Whatever, but to the present. I underhandedly just came out to most of my current group of 'friends'. I don't know why I find it hard to honestly call them friends. I like them and I'm assuming they like me too. Some days I feel like the just tolerate me and have to remind myself that's not true. We are friends. We are friends. We are friends. I need to get comfortable saying that.

Anyway, I'm asexual. (For those who don't know, an asexual individuel, in broad terms, doesn't feel sexual attraction to other people, no matter the gender). I've come to terms with that a few years ago. I've always felt a little different with regards to getting a boyfriend or whatever. When I hit the teenage years, everyone around me started to develop interest in the opposite sex and I never knew what the big deal was. I convinced myself I might just not be grown up enough for such things, since I still felt like a kid and all I wanted to do was play.

Hitting the older teens I knew something was up, but I never thought it was a sexuality thing. I'm introverted and at times socially awkward, so I honestly just thought it was a psychological issue that kept me from being interested.

That being said, I did get myself a boyfriend at around 17, mostly cause I felt I had a crush on the guy since he was nice to me and, looking back on it, I thought it was what a girl that age was supposed to do. I wanted to fit in, be normal for once, talk to other girls about boyfriend things.

I didn't really like touching him in a romantic way or having him touch me that way. I kissed him with he wanted to kiss and cuddled when he wanted to cuddle. I lied and told him I loved him when he told me he loved me. I wanted to feel that way, but I just didn't. I feel guilty about it to this day. He wasn't a bad guy and he never pressured me into anything I didn't agree to. I just don't think I should have agreed to those things when I look back on myself. I'm still questioning whether I'm aromantic too (lack of romantic attraction to other people).

Needless to say, he broke up with me after 7 months. Back then I was convinced it was because I didn't want to have sex with him, but now I see it was probably because I didn't put as much effort into the relationship as he did and I started dreading having to see him when I felt so complicated about myself. I was confused why I didn't get anything positive out of having a boyfriend, not like the other girls, who always wanted to be near their SOs. I was sad for a little bit when we broke up, but I think I was also somehow relieved.

It was only when I watched a character on TV talk about not feeling the things other people felt, that I suddenly related to something. I had never gotten the whole females drooling over a hot guy with no shirt moment and it felt foreign to me when those moments were depicted in media I consumed. So, watching this character describe a little of how I usually felt, made me feel stunned somehow. I didn't know asexuality existed until then and when I looked it up on the internet I could see myself in the identity so much I felt lifted. There were other people like me. I wasn't psychologically damaged or missing some fundamental hormone or something. I was just built different I guess, different like how a homosexual was different from a straight person and that was a calming thought.

The first person I told or came out to I suppose, was an old friend of mine, who seemed confused, but eventually supportive, even if she started out telling me I just hadn't met the right person yet. Then came my mom, who wasn't very understanding at first either. She was concerned I'd been traumatized by something in my childhood, which is not the case. She has come around, even thought I don't think she still fully understands. If I'd told her I was gay, she'd have been okay with it, I know. Some times I think it would be easier if I actually was gay.

Then I told my current best friend, who also lives really far away like the others. He's the most supportive person yet. We talk and joke about how weird we both are all the time, so my sexuality, which arguably is pretty rare, was just another quirk to me in his eyes, I think.

Which brings me back to the group of friends I first mentioned. I've never hidden my sexuality from them and if they'd ever asked I would have been completely open about it, but they never did, which I suppose is fine in itself. But we casually got to talking about pride the other day and I just let it slip casually. I don't think any of them minded in a negative way, but I'm not sure they even know what asexuality is and I didn't explain any further that day. For some reason I feel odd and slightly regretful that I told them and I don't know why. I don't think they would reject me, but the air was slightly strained for a moment and I got it in my head they think I'm weird now.

I don't have many friends and I fear losing the ones I have. I've resigned myself to never getting a boy or girlfriend. I'm not going to have sex with anyone and that, I feel, is a dealbreaker for most people. I'm probably never going to get married or have kids, not that that is a desire of mine, but eventually the friends I do hold onto are going to want those things and while I know that shouldn't effect a friendship, I feel like it will anyway. I'm gonna be that loner friend who ends up alone with 5 cats and no one to spend my life with. The thought scares me, but I am probably going to die alone.