An I’m The Decoy Guide To Chatting Up A Stranger

So I just came across a post I drafted five years ago, back before I realised I was asexual.  At the time I had a ‘crush’ on a guy at work but found myself incapable of interacting with him so I wrote this jokey guide to get some use out of my ineptitude.  (It actually now reads more like a ‘how to tell you are asexual’ guide!)

HOW TO CHAT UP A STRANGER:

1. Be Casual

2. Be Gallant

3. Be Complimentary

4. Take Advantage Of Any Opportunity To Get To Know Each Other

5. Make Conversation

6. Be Honest

*

Of course, now I know that the reason I am so incapable of ‘making a move’ on anyone is because I was trying to be a sexuality I am not.  It’s a lot more fun on this side of coming out.  Back then I felt trapped and broken and baffled all the time and now I feel relaxed, happy and ME. I used to try to force feelings into existence where none were present because I thought it was what I was meant to do.  Funny how one tiny ‘ohhh’ moment can make your entire perception of life completely flip in a moment.  When I thought I was allosexual**, I tricked myself into thinking I was attracted to people and then ended up feeling scared and frustrated because there was some kind of barrier in the way (one part of me was like ‘this is normal, this is what you want’, and another part of me was like ‘nooooo, what the hell are you doing?! I don’t want this!’).  Now I know I am asexual, it never even crosses my mind, because I don’t have to be anyone other than myself and I damn well love myself.

*Most of my pre-ace ‘crushes’ weren’t even squishes (which is a ‘friend-crush’).  Instead they were my confused subconscious flailing around desperately trying to work out what this ‘attraction’ that I was ‘supposed’ to experience was, so I would fixate on anyone who looked, sounded or acted like a character I liked on TV.  And those characters I liked on TV – I liked them because they were funny and/or I felt sorry for them.  At no point did sexual or romantic attraction enter in to it.  And yet I thought that was what it was, because it was the nearest I could get to mirroring what I thought was ‘normal behaviour’.  Once I actually discovered my sexuality, my subconscious immediately stopped tricking me like this.

**Allosexual is the opposite of asexual, i.e. anyone who experiences sexual attraction (straight, gay, pan etc).