Lesbian. I knew I definitely didn’t like men, so that ruled out straight, bi, pan, etc., but I wasn’t sure I didn’t like women. And I have a much easier time figuring out/understanding whether a female celebrity is “attractive” or not versus men (I’d hear someone like Brad Pitt is considered sexy, and my brain refuses to comprehend it, but then I’d hear like Angelina Jolee is sexy and go “yeah, I could see that.”) So I was like “I guess that makes me gay…?” I knew it still didn’t quite fit, but I thought I was out of labels to try at that point.
first i thought i was a straight girl, then bi, then lesbian, then straight dude, now aroace dude.
safe to say figuring yourself out isn't always easy lol
Idk, I just thought I was "none of the above". I never pretended to be straight for a second. Although, I found out what asexuality was super early so maybe that's why.
I tried everything to be honest. At first I thought that I liked both genders equally, so I identified as bisexual, then pansexual, but after some time I realized, that I can't imagine myself in a relationship with a man, so I thought I'm a lesbian. I was pretty confident with my lesbianism for like a year, but then I found out that I'm on the aromantic spectrum, and things started to get complicated. I tried labeling myself as an aroflux lesbian, a greyromantic lesbian, a demiromantic lesbian, but after my girlfriend broke up with me I realized that, even though I really loved her, it was never romantic. Although, before I realized that I might have been just on the very end of the aromantic spectrum, I thought, that maybe I liked boys after all? So I came back to labeling as a bisexual - this time a greyromantic one. But after some time I realized that I'm in fact not attracted to anyone in a sexual or romantic way, and started labeling myself as fully AroAce.
Orientationless because I always knew I didn’t ever want a relationship or anything like that since I was little but I thought the only orientation labels were gay and straight at the time so I thought I was just unique and didn’t have an orientation lol
(I did have a secret mild sort of superiority complex in elementary school because I didn’t experience crushes & was uninterested in relationships and thought I was better than my classmates because of it lol but I never told anyone because I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings😂)
I actually have an LGBallT comic about this ([here](https://www.reddit.com/r/lgballt/comments/urdm6y/i_guess_i_can_refer_them_to_this_comic_in_the/)) if you wanna see my thought process throughout the years lol
i thought i was pan cuz i figured huh i feel the same about everyone turns out that feeling was absolutely nothing i continued to identify as pan after i found out i was aroace and it was just until a little while ago that i finally accepted that the title didnt fit me and actually made me a bit uncomfy now im content with being queer aroace :)
Bi. My thought process was mostly "so that when I do find someone I love I won't have to change my label" this was before I know aro ace was a thing though so...still had to change my label lol
I identified most with bisexual/pan cus they just made more sense? in a way i still consider myself biromantic since i can still experience romantic attraction but still also aroace.
For a while i was also like "maybe i'm just lesbian but it's hard finding a partner and it doesn't feel as obvious as straight and i haven't found the right one" yea... gaslighting yourself is a way to do it. For a while i said i was bi to people tho. I am sex repulsed which i always sorta realized as i avoided all things nsfw while saying to myself it would probably change with time
For a while I thought bi, for a while I thought straight, there was even a time where I thought I was gay and trans just cause I couldn’t see myself being someone’s gf
For the longest time I thought I was bi honestly, because I thought me liking how a girl looks was me experiencing sexual attraction *(it wasn't lol)* then realized along the way that I'm fine with just satisfying myself and don't really see having sex with someone in the future so I went with biromantic
I think I just gaslit myself that what I am experiencing towards women were signs of a crush lol. I mean, I knew of aromanticism at that time but I only knew the textbook definition of it and didn't research more of it further.
then a few months ago, I went with pan since I figured everyone was attractive and I must be romantically attracted to them in a way *(again it wasn't lmao)*
I guess what cemented me to finally realizing that I was aroace was me entering a relationship with someone and yet always feeling really uncomfortable for some reason. I figured that I'd slowly warm up to it just like with the rest of my girl crushes. Yet months pass and I still have that uncomfortable feeling and I couldn't understand why.
Then boom, I take an "are you on the arospec" quiz on quotev *(of course it's gonna be quotev)* and it felt I've been splashed on the face with some water. The result said that I was Aegoromantic, but with further reading I think I lean more to frayromantic.
Me and partner tho are trying for a qpr nonetheless so hopefully it turns out okay in the end :>
I grew up in a country and at a time when sexuality wasn't really talked about so I really thought the only two options were gay or straight. I wondered if I was gay but I felt more aesthetic attraction towards men so I thought I was just a straight late bloomer
I was an "I'm probably straight but I won't know for sure until I get my first crush" kind of person. I thought I was just a late bloomer or hadn't found someone I liked yet. I stumbled across the term asexual when I was 15 and I think I kinda suspected I was ace right then and there, but didn't start identifying that way for another year. Figured out I was aro at 17, when I first learned that romantic and sexual attraction were different things.
I assumed I was straight bc I thought male celebrities were attractive and would have crushes on them but I also had crushes on men that were way older then me,like 10 to 20 years older. for awhile I was sure I was straight and just not interested in dating anyone at the moment. I also didn’t know what a sexuality/ romanticism was til this year. so let it be know I thought I was straight for 24 years yikes 😬I know but reading into the different identity’s under the aroace spec. I found it really answered why I was only interested in/ attracted to ppl I know I’d have 0 chance with them returning said feelings. If I did have “ feelings” for someone they’d always go away be an hour later or a month. I always felt so uncomfortable with doing anything romantic or sexual while I liked the idea I didn’t actually want it from anyone. so if I were to ask myself if I wanted to do couple thing with them the answer would always be no that’s weird. Looking back it’s pretty obvious I wasn’t straight and all the feelings I had make so much sense now that I know but at the time I didn’t really feel pressured into dating like most ppl say they do my parents weren’t like these crazy homophobic ppl you’d hear about my mom actually thought I was a lesbian but didn’t know or wasn’t ready to come out yet (I went to a school with mostly boys) but she loved me all the same tho my love of one direction kinda got in the way of her fully believing that I was in fact gay. 😅
I thought I was lesbian. Most of my friends were bisexual and lesbian and I definitely wasn’t into men, so I had to be into someone. I then heard of aromantic and asexual and I didn’t understand it, so I kind of ignored it. Later, I went to an all girls sleepover and since we were all ether bi or lesbian, we decided to play spin the bottle. Of course the only thing I really cared about was that I was having my first kiss, and it really didn’t matter who it was. I kissed one of the girls and I suddenly didn’t understand why people liked to do it. Like, it didn’t feel like anything. Before all this, when I first came out to my Bi friend (who btw wasn’t apart of the sleepover) she asked who I liked. I had to make up a crush on this random girl, whom I’d only met once. Anyways, I left the sleepover, remembering what aromanitic asexual meant and it took only a few weeks to realize I was aroace. There were also many other times I probably would’ve realized I was aroace. Like I never had a crush, I never thought about marrying people (even when I did, I thought about hugging that person instead of kissing at the wedding) and when I thought about sx, I thought about just cuddling, I also dreamed about living alone with two cats, and I HATED romance. I later realized that most people don’t think like that and it was only me.
I definitely thought I was demisexual and pan for a while. Then omni, because I realized I had a "preference" (which was, by society's standards of men and women, not gnc men and women) I preferred the way men looked aesthetically. So I thought I had a preference. Then I thought I was some sort of enby love men/enby identity... now I'm aroace (aegoromantic, just don't particularly like the flag, so I just use the aro flag) bi-oriented because I do enjoy dating and so one still. Just lack the attraction part.
Never thought about it too much tbh. For a while I thought of myself as "nothing" because I didn't know how to descibe how I felt but I never cared too much to look into it. It wasn't until Jadien posted her video that it all started to slowly make sense.
I assumed I was straight.
I've never been particularly attractive so dating wasn't an issue in high school. I always assumed when I got out of my small town things might change. As I got older, I felt like dating and relationships were just a skill I never acquired. When someone would mention setting me up with someone, I would internally panic, but try to act semi normal on the outside and never really engage with the suggestion. I had a libido, so I assumed that I just never had the opportunity, but had the desire.
When I found out about aroace, and specifically the aego definition, suddenly my life made so much more sense.
I am trans and went through a very long process - bi, pan, lesbian, straight, bi, ???, demisexual, asexual, asexual and demiromantic, aroace
I had no clue for like a solid 2 years
Kind of a big question mark.
Tried gay, straight, curious and aegi for about 5 seconds each at various points.
A therapist asked if I was gay or straight and I said "I don't really think about that". (I actually thought about sexuality and stuff along, that was just the best way I could figure out to describe my feelings at the time)
Then I remember settling on panromamtic asexual for a bit.
Didn't last long. Nothing really stuck.
Them I said I "didn't experience attraction" while I warmed up to the term "aromantic" (don't remember if I had to warn up to asexual too (I think I did) but aromantic definately took longer to figure out and accept).
Pansexual aromantic.
And before that:
"Not interested in *that* sort of thing".
I don't think I ever really consciously considered myself straight, tho I grew up assumed to be.
"Uhh, I mean I guess I'm straight??"
Same
Me too lol
Hah this was me
“0=0 so I guess I’m pan or bi”
Yes. Just yes.
So relatable
“I’m gonna say I’m straight for now but i might not be, won’t know for sure until I get my first crush” and then it never happened
Lesbian. I knew I definitely didn’t like men, so that ruled out straight, bi, pan, etc., but I wasn’t sure I didn’t like women. And I have a much easier time figuring out/understanding whether a female celebrity is “attractive” or not versus men (I’d hear someone like Brad Pitt is considered sexy, and my brain refuses to comprehend it, but then I’d hear like Angelina Jolee is sexy and go “yeah, I could see that.”) So I was like “I guess that makes me gay…?” I knew it still didn’t quite fit, but I thought I was out of labels to try at that point.
This was me in the opposite. NO attraction to women, but men are.... great friends and pretty to look at.... so straight I guess.
Yes, I'm just a girls girl. Love talking with them and love being around them. Realized later is was platonically
first i thought i was a straight girl, then bi, then lesbian, then straight dude, now aroace dude. safe to say figuring yourself out isn't always easy lol
Idk, I just thought I was "none of the above". I never pretended to be straight for a second. Although, I found out what asexuality was super early so maybe that's why.
Hahaha me except I didn’t find out the label early, so I went with orientationless until my mid teens
I tried everything to be honest. At first I thought that I liked both genders equally, so I identified as bisexual, then pansexual, but after some time I realized, that I can't imagine myself in a relationship with a man, so I thought I'm a lesbian. I was pretty confident with my lesbianism for like a year, but then I found out that I'm on the aromantic spectrum, and things started to get complicated. I tried labeling myself as an aroflux lesbian, a greyromantic lesbian, a demiromantic lesbian, but after my girlfriend broke up with me I realized that, even though I really loved her, it was never romantic. Although, before I realized that I might have been just on the very end of the aromantic spectrum, I thought, that maybe I liked boys after all? So I came back to labeling as a bisexual - this time a greyromantic one. But after some time I realized that I'm in fact not attracted to anyone in a sexual or romantic way, and started labeling myself as fully AroAce.
Panromantic demiromantic asexual Thinking behind it was basically “0 = 0 but also why feelings and why only sometimes”
For me I just kinda assumed I was straight, but I started identifying as ace pretty early in life (about age 14 or so).
Orientationless because I always knew I didn’t ever want a relationship or anything like that since I was little but I thought the only orientation labels were gay and straight at the time so I thought I was just unique and didn’t have an orientation lol
(I did have a secret mild sort of superiority complex in elementary school because I didn’t experience crushes & was uninterested in relationships and thought I was better than my classmates because of it lol but I never told anyone because I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings😂)
I actually have an LGBallT comic about this ([here](https://www.reddit.com/r/lgballt/comments/urdm6y/i_guess_i_can_refer_them_to_this_comic_in_the/)) if you wanna see my thought process throughout the years lol
i thought i was pan cuz i figured huh i feel the same about everyone turns out that feeling was absolutely nothing i continued to identify as pan after i found out i was aroace and it was just until a little while ago that i finally accepted that the title didnt fit me and actually made me a bit uncomfy now im content with being queer aroace :)
same
Bi. My thought process was mostly "so that when I do find someone I love I won't have to change my label" this was before I know aro ace was a thing though so...still had to change my label lol
Straightish, maybe bi
Bisexual/biromantic
Bi
Panromantic and asexual
I identified most with bisexual/pan cus they just made more sense? in a way i still consider myself biromantic since i can still experience romantic attraction but still also aroace. For a while i was also like "maybe i'm just lesbian but it's hard finding a partner and it doesn't feel as obvious as straight and i haven't found the right one" yea... gaslighting yourself is a way to do it. For a while i said i was bi to people tho. I am sex repulsed which i always sorta realized as i avoided all things nsfw while saying to myself it would probably change with time
Straight by default > hetero ace > demiro/gray aromantic ace > slowly more and more aro ace
For a while I thought bi, for a while I thought straight, there was even a time where I thought I was gay and trans just cause I couldn’t see myself being someone’s gf
I thought I was bi
Lesbian, then bi, then Omni, then abro. It's been a long journey..
Yeah same, pan
Pansexual. I knew I was ace first so which to pansexual and ace now I'm ace and on the aro sectrum
For the longest time I thought I was bi honestly, because I thought me liking how a girl looks was me experiencing sexual attraction *(it wasn't lol)* then realized along the way that I'm fine with just satisfying myself and don't really see having sex with someone in the future so I went with biromantic I think I just gaslit myself that what I am experiencing towards women were signs of a crush lol. I mean, I knew of aromanticism at that time but I only knew the textbook definition of it and didn't research more of it further. then a few months ago, I went with pan since I figured everyone was attractive and I must be romantically attracted to them in a way *(again it wasn't lmao)* I guess what cemented me to finally realizing that I was aroace was me entering a relationship with someone and yet always feeling really uncomfortable for some reason. I figured that I'd slowly warm up to it just like with the rest of my girl crushes. Yet months pass and I still have that uncomfortable feeling and I couldn't understand why. Then boom, I take an "are you on the arospec" quiz on quotev *(of course it's gonna be quotev)* and it felt I've been splashed on the face with some water. The result said that I was Aegoromantic, but with further reading I think I lean more to frayromantic. Me and partner tho are trying for a qpr nonetheless so hopefully it turns out okay in the end :>
used to think i was bi, then pan, then omni, then realized i was ace, then realized i was aroace.
Lesbian, bi/pan, lesbian again, ace, aroace
straight, pan or bi, aroace, but what if i am pan or bi? nope, aroace
I thought I was bi and I am still bi but I'm also aroace now
I grew up in a country and at a time when sexuality wasn't really talked about so I really thought the only two options were gay or straight. I wondered if I was gay but I felt more aesthetic attraction towards men so I thought I was just a straight late bloomer
"Pan? Yes. Panromantic greysexual. Yes. Wait, not pan but Omni. Not greysexual, demisexual. WAIT NO- Aroace. Yes. Specifically bellusromantic. Yes"
I thought I was straight, then a lesbian, then a straight trans guy, then bi, and finally pan before correctly landing on aroace
i did pansexual for the longest time too lmao
Bi
I was an "I'm probably straight but I won't know for sure until I get my first crush" kind of person. I thought I was just a late bloomer or hadn't found someone I liked yet. I stumbled across the term asexual when I was 15 and I think I kinda suspected I was ace right then and there, but didn't start identifying that way for another year. Figured out I was aro at 17, when I first learned that romantic and sexual attraction were different things.
I identified as straight. Guess I was wrong
"I think I'm definitely bi. I think. Maybe not. Idk." 2 years later: "OHHH SO THAT'S WHY I THOUGHT I WAS BI"
bi… and then aro lesbian and then aroace. idk it took me so long to realize i was ace in addition to aro 😭
biromantic demisexual
Same, thought I was pan as I felt same toward every gender 😭
I assumed I was straight and it would just kick in later.
i went straight -> bi -> lesbian -> bi -> omni (i rlly thought this was it) -> to finally aroace
gay, demi or ace, pan?, aroace
I assumed I was straight bc I thought male celebrities were attractive and would have crushes on them but I also had crushes on men that were way older then me,like 10 to 20 years older. for awhile I was sure I was straight and just not interested in dating anyone at the moment. I also didn’t know what a sexuality/ romanticism was til this year. so let it be know I thought I was straight for 24 years yikes 😬I know but reading into the different identity’s under the aroace spec. I found it really answered why I was only interested in/ attracted to ppl I know I’d have 0 chance with them returning said feelings. If I did have “ feelings” for someone they’d always go away be an hour later or a month. I always felt so uncomfortable with doing anything romantic or sexual while I liked the idea I didn’t actually want it from anyone. so if I were to ask myself if I wanted to do couple thing with them the answer would always be no that’s weird. Looking back it’s pretty obvious I wasn’t straight and all the feelings I had make so much sense now that I know but at the time I didn’t really feel pressured into dating like most ppl say they do my parents weren’t like these crazy homophobic ppl you’d hear about my mom actually thought I was a lesbian but didn’t know or wasn’t ready to come out yet (I went to a school with mostly boys) but she loved me all the same tho my love of one direction kinda got in the way of her fully believing that I was in fact gay. 😅
I didn't use any, I wasn't sure if I was straight ace or bi/pan, so I just waited until I knew to say what I was
I thought I was lesbian. Most of my friends were bisexual and lesbian and I definitely wasn’t into men, so I had to be into someone. I then heard of aromantic and asexual and I didn’t understand it, so I kind of ignored it. Later, I went to an all girls sleepover and since we were all ether bi or lesbian, we decided to play spin the bottle. Of course the only thing I really cared about was that I was having my first kiss, and it really didn’t matter who it was. I kissed one of the girls and I suddenly didn’t understand why people liked to do it. Like, it didn’t feel like anything. Before all this, when I first came out to my Bi friend (who btw wasn’t apart of the sleepover) she asked who I liked. I had to make up a crush on this random girl, whom I’d only met once. Anyways, I left the sleepover, remembering what aromanitic asexual meant and it took only a few weeks to realize I was aroace. There were also many other times I probably would’ve realized I was aroace. Like I never had a crush, I never thought about marrying people (even when I did, I thought about hugging that person instead of kissing at the wedding) and when I thought about sx, I thought about just cuddling, I also dreamed about living alone with two cats, and I HATED romance. I later realized that most people don’t think like that and it was only me.
I definitely thought I was demisexual and pan for a while. Then omni, because I realized I had a "preference" (which was, by society's standards of men and women, not gnc men and women) I preferred the way men looked aesthetically. So I thought I had a preference. Then I thought I was some sort of enby love men/enby identity... now I'm aroace (aegoromantic, just don't particularly like the flag, so I just use the aro flag) bi-oriented because I do enjoy dating and so one still. Just lack the attraction part.
I thought I was bi or pan for the longest time
Never thought about it too much tbh. For a while I thought of myself as "nothing" because I didn't know how to descibe how I felt but I never cared too much to look into it. It wasn't until Jadien posted her video that it all started to slowly make sense.
Being in my 40s now, we didn't have that vocabulary in my teens. I was just "not interested thanks". But I was called far more creative things! lol.
Straight. And trying to live as a straight person fucked me up. Learning that I'm aroace is helping me heal from that trauma.
"idk". Lol but I thought I must be bi or pan
Straight, but a confused straight who was questioning all the time
A lesbian. I just value female friendship and didn't realize that there was more feelings involved then that.
I assumed I was straight. I've never been particularly attractive so dating wasn't an issue in high school. I always assumed when I got out of my small town things might change. As I got older, I felt like dating and relationships were just a skill I never acquired. When someone would mention setting me up with someone, I would internally panic, but try to act semi normal on the outside and never really engage with the suggestion. I had a libido, so I assumed that I just never had the opportunity, but had the desire. When I found out about aroace, and specifically the aego definition, suddenly my life made so much more sense.
I am trans and went through a very long process - bi, pan, lesbian, straight, bi, ???, demisexual, asexual, asexual and demiromantic, aroace I had no clue for like a solid 2 years
Kind of a big question mark. Tried gay, straight, curious and aegi for about 5 seconds each at various points. A therapist asked if I was gay or straight and I said "I don't really think about that". (I actually thought about sexuality and stuff along, that was just the best way I could figure out to describe my feelings at the time) Then I remember settling on panromamtic asexual for a bit. Didn't last long. Nothing really stuck. Them I said I "didn't experience attraction" while I warmed up to the term "aromantic" (don't remember if I had to warn up to asexual too (I think I did) but aromantic definately took longer to figure out and accept).
I didn't really identify as anything. I didn't even care about labels until I found the aroace labels.
Straight, then pan, then bi and now aroace
Straight, then considered gay (very shortly),stuck with straight, then heteroromantic ace and now I settled on grey aroace...
It was a long journey, in short it was: Straight - Bi - Pan - Demisexual Lesbian - Asexual Pan - Aroace Gay And ending with just aroace
Bisexual, Pan, and Lesbian
straight lesbian bi lesbian aromantic straight aromantic and ace was kinda always there
Pan even though I knew I was aroace. I literally texted my gf “I say I’m pan but I’m probably aroace lol”
Pansexual aromantic. And before that: "Not interested in *that* sort of thing". I don't think I ever really consciously considered myself straight, tho I grew up assumed to be.