More Than Meets the Eye

By R C MacDonald

A memoir of an aromantic asexual agender Jew. Who's a clarinetist, writer, adores cooking and food, has dealt with numerous health issues, and is an animal lover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R C MacDonald
• Release date: Feb 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463634905

R C MacDonald

R C MacDonald is the author of Alliance, Alliance: Dawn, Sweet Endless Terror: An Anthology of Nightmares, and More Than Meets the Eye. They're a clarinetist, love to learn about cultures and languages, travels internationally through cooking, a blogger, amateur photographer, an animal lover, a lover of all things horror, mystery, humor, suspense; and more.

Book preview

More Than Meets the Eye

By R C MacDonald

Copyright 2018 R C MacDonald

Smashwords Edition, 2020

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Forward

My life's story started on November 7th, 1984. Read on to know what has transpired since. Find out what it's like to be an aromantic asexual agender person, how I figured it out, and learn more about what those parts of me mean. Judaism has played a huge role in my life, as well. It further shapes how I view the world. Family, friends, and pets are very important to me. Get to know some of them. Music has been my life. It stirs my soul. I've been playing the clarinet for most of my life. It's like an extension of who I am. Learn more about various health issues, both mental and physical, that I've had to deal with. Follow me through my previous travels. There's so much more to my story!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Aro Ace

Chapter 2: Agender

Chapter 3: Judaism

Chapter 4: Animals

Chapter 5: Music

Chapter 6: Cooking and Food

Chapter 7: Family

Chapter 8: School

Chapter 9: College

Chapter 10: Mental Health

Chapter 11: Physical Health

Chapter 12: IBD

Chapter 13: Travel

Chapter 14: Friends

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More Than Meets the Eye

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Chapter 1: Aro Ace

What does it mean to be aro ace? Ace is short for asexual. Being asexual means I don't experience sexual attraction to anyone. Aro is short for aromantic. Being aromantic means I don't experience romantic attraction. So, I don't experience either of these attractions. This doesn't mean I'm cold, emotionless, a robot, a plant, innocent, naïve, or anything else. I'm not into sex or romance. Some aro aces might be into those things, but it's aimless. There's no 'target' or type of person they desire to have that with.

Most aces are actually some form of a romantic. The prefixes normally used for sexuality are handy this way. They can be biromantic, homoromantic, heteroromantic, etc. Even sexual people can have a different romantic orientation. Most aros are actually sexual. So, I'm a minority within a minority.

In both communities, they use allo for people who aren't aro or ace. So, someone who isn't either of those would be an alloromantic allosexual. Someone who's aro and not ace, is an aromantic allosexual. Someone who's ace and not aro, is an alloromantic asexual. Some use zed instead, because apparently it might be considered an insult to some people who aren't in either community? Doesn't quite make sense.

Aro aces might also look into other attractions. Especially since they don't feel 2 of them, they might as well see which ones they do feel. It doesn't make their aro and ace identities seem less important, it's just learning more about other aspects of themselves. Many go by their platonic attraction.

There are 5 main attractions: sexual, romantic, platonic, aesthetic, and sensual. With platonic, it doesn't mean 'just' friends. It means that you desire someone to be really close best friends with. Society seems to encourage people to be best friends with people of the same gender. They automatically think that if you're best friends with the 'opposite' gender, then that will eventually turn romantic and then sexual. Many people don't even consider non-binary people. Some aro aces will add those same prefixes, like with the sexual and romantic orientations, to their platonic one. There are aplatonic people as well.

Many people explain aesthetic attraction as being attracted to people like their gorgeous paintings or sunsets. You can't take your eyes off of them. You don't necessarily want to do anything to them, but admire their beauty.

Sensual attraction is really a tactile type attraction. It's who you'd be attracted to by hugging, holding hands with, maybe snuggling, etc. It doesn't necessarily mean in a romantic or sexual way. Just having the urge to be touched. This could be by friends and family.

Some aro aces would like a relationship of some form. Many prefer to be in a qpr or queer(quasi)platonic relationship, and it's based on emotional/platonic attraction. Some have a hard time with using 'queer' (which is understandable), so they use 'quasi-' instead. They go by their platonic attraction for this relationship. It's a very close one. It can rival romantic/sexual relationships. Without knowing about this relationship, some people that see them might assume they're a romantic couple because of this closeness. The partners might live together, get married, and even have kids together. Instead of boyfriend/girlfriend, partners are often referred to as vegetables. Zucchini seems to be used the most often, but pumpkin's a close runner-up. Since I hate zucchini, I'd rather call them my pumpkin. It sounds cuter, too.

I would love to be in a qpr. My platonic attraction is pan. Meaning, no matter the gender, there's potential for me to be attracted to them this way. So, in that type of relationship, my partner could be of any gender. My love is strong for this one. Aesthetically, I feel that I'm attracted to men. They can look amazing, and I seriously can stare at them all day. Again, I still wouldn't feel like having sex with or dating them. Don't know about my sensual attraction, and don't really care about that one.

Being aro ace has shaped how I view the world. I didn't have the words for these orientations for most of my life, and felt out of place. As early as when I was about 8 or 9, girls my age were talking about things like crushes. Some were even joking about sex stuff. (Although, the boys seemed to joke about it more.) My dad introduced me to sexual-type jokes earlier than that, and I thought some of it was funny. Over time, I used her template for those jokes, and it made me blend in more. I blended in so well on that, people thought I had the dirtiest mind. It felt alien, though. Feeling like I was masking a part of myself.

There are many different types of aros, and they use similar terms as aces. Romance-positive, means you are for as much or as little romance as possible. This could mean dating, into romance in general, etc. Romance-favorable means you enjoy romance. Romance-indifferent means you really don't care about it. Romance-repulsed means, like sex-repulsed, it can actually make you feel sick. There are other types, just like with aces. These labels help with both. Some aros like to date. Some like it for the experience, getting to know others, so they can find another allosexual partner, they like the idea of it, and more. I'm slightly romance-repulsed. Not as bad as with sexual stuff, but it's still there. Part of my repulsion to it is feeling like I'm being smothered to death, suffocating, crushed, etc. along with feeling slightly sick to my stomach. It is a different feeling overall for me than my sex-repulsion. I'm positive for my friends, family, and if they're done well some fictional couples. I'm not very fond of talking about it. Unless it's done right, and isn't all the time in media, I like it.

When I was little, I would actually say that I hated romance. I also felt like it was fake, and still kind of do. It was everywhere, and girls were told that they should be into it. Or, it was considered 'normal'. I couldn't blend in with this. As I got older, some of my friends thought I was keeping my deep love for romance quiet and hidden. I couldn't really understand crushes. I was told it was someone you had a huge urge to date, kiss, makeout, hold hands, and maybe even sexually fantasize about them. I thought I did have crushes at one point, but I didn't feel like that towards them. There's a name for it now, which is a 'squish'. It's basically a platonic crush. I had an immense urge to get to know them more, thinking they're an amazing person, share similar interests, have deep conversations for hours, do fun friend-type things, etc. I think I remember telling some of my friends about my first couple of, what I called, 'crushes' back in junior high. The first being when I was 9. They said I was weird for thinking like that. Those weren't real crushes. Made me even more confused and alienated.

Eventually, I thought someday I'll be like everyone else. Maybe if someone fell for me, I'd feel the way they felt. That never happened. I was also clueless about a few guys that apparently had a thing for me back in high school.

With one of them, he was taking biology with me. There was a project we had to do with a partner. I think ours was a model of a eukaryotic cell. He would invite me to his place so we could work on it together. Then, he wanted me to stay longer and have dinner with him at his place. After that class, he wanted to hold study sessions at his place. Mind you, we didn't have the same classes anymore. He would invite me to his parties, too. I still thought he just wanted to be best friends. I felt a little weirded out when I was invited to one of his summer parties, and was the only 'girl' there. I had a lot of fun, though. We played video games like Street Fighter, picked berries, talked with some of the other guys, had dinner, and played board games. I told a few of my friends about all this, and they said he definitely was trying to give hints that he was interested in me romantically. (Many people group sexually in with that too, which isn't always true.) I felt awkward around him after that. At our 10-year reunion, I went over to him to say hello. He blurted out: I'm married now!, and basically ran away. I just wanted to see how he was. It surprised me. Not that he was married, but that he thought he had to say that and only that. I'm happy for him, of course. Maybe he still felt something...It was weird to me.

Another one joined band, but never played an instrument. Not that I can remember, anyways. He had choir right beforehand. He always tried to sit next to me in band. He would hold the banner up during parades. He begged me to have him as my +1 for the band dances. He seemed to hate when my other friends would sit next to me, or even just talk to me during lunch time. It was bizarre to me. Seemed more stalkerish. I didn't care who I was paired with for the graduation ceremony. We were the biggest class in our school's history at the time, so they wanted us to go in pairs for getting our diplomas. Thinking it'll speed things up. He wrote me in as his partner for it. He also invited me to his birthday/graduation party. I had invited him to my graduation party before that. However, just before going to his party, I had my wisdom teeth taken out. I was really pumped up with heavy painkillers. That ended up being weird. Had to gum everything to death, talked almost like I was drunk, tried to play basketball with him, etc. I was a mess. I don't think I saw him after that. I did warn him beforehand about my teeth being taken out. People told me later that he definitely had a thing for me. On facebook, people were urging him to go to the 10-year reunion. I half thought about friending him at the time. He said high school was too painful, and didn't want to be around the people that made it more difficult. He had been suicidal after we graduated. I had no clue. I hope he didn't feel bad because of me. I thought of him as a good friend, although I was honestly weirded out by some of the things he did. Still, I treated him with respect. If I contributed to it because I was clueless about how he felt, that's not really my fault. He didn't come out and say it. I think that would have been the only way I really would know.

Flirting is weird to me. Half the time, I'm completely oblivious to it. Sometimes I suspect it, but am proven wrong. Sometimes it's so forward, there's no questioning it. People think I flirt when I don't really know how to or want to. I just try to be as polite, kind, and respectful as I can be. Since you never know what somebody is going through. Some people see this as flirting. I find this really bizarre and sad. Treating people decently is apparently a romantic thing...I really don't get that.

I have had a romantic relationship before. It was while I was in college. I was probably around 19 when it started. About a month before it started, there was a guy who would join my friends and I at the closest cafeteria for dinner. For my group of friends at the time, not including this new guy, there were about 5 or 6 girls and 1 guy, usually. All from the same dorm floor. It was a coed floor. A rather sizeable group. We all had pretty much the same interests, too. He only wanted to talk to me. When he didn't contribute to the conversations, he stared at me. Made me feel really uncomfortable. He eventually told me that he loved talking to me, and wanted to talk more in my dorm room. My friends kept giving him dirty looks. I agreed, but those friends urged me to keep the door open while I talked to him. It was cool that they were so protective. He didn't try anything during those long talks after dinner, which was good. At some point, while hanging out with him, it gave me the impression that we were becoming really close friends. I loved that.

After that month or so, he made an ultimatum. Either I tell him I love him, or I'll never see him again. Not wanting to lose a close friend, I said it. I also, secretly, wanted to know what a romantic relationship was like. I thought I'd finally feel 'normal', and not so alienated anymore. So, in many ways I was suckered into it.

It was extremely suffocating at first. The bruising kisses all the time, the hand holding, the bone-crushing hugs, making big deals out of going someplace, showering me with gifts, picking me physically up from the ground, monopolizing most of my time, making out, etc. I eventually started to like some of it, but some things I never learned to like. He didn't like that I never initiated any of it. Society, including him, seemed to think women are supposed to be more into it than men. If the woman isn't, then that means she's not into you or something? My friends from before started to drift away, and eventually they seemed to give up on me. They already had a thing going where if one of us were to go into a romantic relationship they'd cut ties with that person. Kind of cruel. Especially, because friends are extremely important to me.

Since I wasn't into the sexual stuff either, he luckily thought that meant I wanted to wait until marriage. He also thought it might be because I was scared (according to him), or since I've been assaulted in the past. He even thought seeing a doctor about it would help. He sat in during those appointments, and it was an extremely uncomfortable thing to sit through for me. It made me feel like there really was something wrong with me. More so than before. There was no mention that maybe I was ace or to look into it. (Or, even to look at other sexualities.) The doctor encouraged me to 'become' more sexual. Sex is natural, supposed to be enjoyable, and everyone has that urge. There's a pyramid that has the things humans absolutely need to survive at the bottom rung. She said sex is right next to the need to eat, drink, and sleep. You need it to be healthy. Boy, was she wrong...Things might have changed at the wellness center at that college, but this is the way it was back then. Really damaging. Somewhat on the same level as telling a gay person that they're not healthy unless they have sex with the 'opposite' gender. They'll die if they don't. It makes absolutely no sense when people see it this way.

Anyways, I thought the other parts of our relationship were amazing. Something deeper than being close friends. That's partially why, I think, qpr's sound awesome to me. We were together for 2 ½ years. He broke up with me over the phone, while I was sick at home. He was back at school on the other side of the state. It was also Valentine's Day. His friends had told me he was looking for a ring. So, everything pointed to something else. It was one of the worst ways someone could dump you. Even though I'm aro ace, this really crushed me. He was too scared to tell me why. Towards the end of the conversation, he said he felt like throwing up. I was glad about that. It came out of the blue. I could kind of see if we were talking face to face, it wasn't on the holiday he made such a big 'romantic' deal out of, I wasn't recovering from an illness that sent me to the hospital, and he hadn't told his friends he was thinking of proposing. I think I would have understood, if all those factors weren't in play. It simply didn't make sense, and he deserved the backlash that went along with it. I still cared about him immensely in an emotional and platonic way. During the conversation, he asked me if we could still be friends. I refused. It would have hurt to see him after that. I did see him once when I went back to college, but immediately ignored him and went about my business. Never heard about what happened to him after that, either.

I've read stories about how happy some aro aces are when they are dumped out of a romantic relationship. I wish I had been. I don't think it's that way with many situations. I learned a lot about myself, though. Also, how much of a jerk he truly was. I was blind to it. My friends and family saw it, and tried to warn me. I think just having that relationship made me feel pseudo-'normal', or like it was a sign to other people that I was. I felt like I took up a role I was supposed to play, but did it poorly. It wasn't the real me.

About the whole sex thing, there are many different types of aces out there, like I mentioned with aros. I'm sex-positive. Meaning, I'm for people having as much or as little sex as they want, as long as it's between consensual adults. Have at it. As long as people are happy, then that's awesome! It also means I'm very much for learning about it, discussing it, and sometimes even joking about it. I'm sex-repulsed when it comes to the idea of me having sex with someone; and if people talk about it or show it in graphic and crude detail. I feel sick to my stomach, dizzy, a weird sense of danger, etc. It's a very visceral feeling. The other side of this is I'm honestly very curious about actually having sex. What's it really like? Does it really feel that great? It's like I have a morbid curiosity about it. I think I'm more curious about the feeling, not necessarily the action. All this doesn't mean I'm scared of it. I'm not repressing it, either. I just am the way I am about it.

I should mention that there's both an aro and ace spectrum. Those are people that are essentially in a grey area between aro/ace and alloromantic/allosexual. They seem to have a lot more in common with the aro and/or ace community than with alloromantics/allosexuals. Demiromantics or demisexuals are people who don't feel those attractions until a strong bond has been formed. They're essentially ace or aro until then. With grey-asexuals or grey-romantics, they feel those attractions extremely rarely. Maybe they'd feel it a few times in their lifetime. For them, it might be a very weak thing when it happens. With fraysexuals or frayromantics, they feel those attractions, but as soon as they form a strong bond with someone, those attractions fade away. It's like the opposite of demi. There are many more identities in this grey area, and I thought I should at least mention some of them. I also think it's very interesting to learn about. Humans are a lot more complicated than some people think.

When I was 16, a fellow classmate came out to me as asexual. The only reference I had in my head at the time was 'asexual reproduction'. I think I internally laughed. Feel kind of bad about that now. Asexual reproduction isn't used anymore, and I can't remember what terms they use now. (If people specifically use the terms like that, then they're outdated.) Anyways, obviously asexuality has nothing to do with reproducing. We can't suddenly clone ourselves, although that would be an interesting thing. I looked it up, and there wasn't much info online at the time. AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) had just been created. Maybe that's how he knew. From what I did find, it scared me. Again, I wanted so bad to be what was considered 'normal', as in straight. I had no problem with others not being straight, but for myself it felt like I had to fit in no matter what. So, I denied it and eventually forgot about it. I'm somewhat glad that classmate had the courage to come out to someone he barely knew. I don't know why he chose me. I don't think I was in the right mindset at the time to fully realize it. Had a lot going on. That doesn't invalidate other people who realized back then. It's just that it wouldn't have been a good time for me.

Around the end of May 2016, when I was 31, people were talking about Pride stuff. I was an ally (didn't realize I was a member of that community, too) of a local trans group that my dad started. She's a transgender woman. Eventually, I don't know how it ended up in a conversation, but someone brought up asexuality. I looked it up, and after a while, I fully realized I was ace. I felt guilty and horrible about denying it for so long, though. There is so much more info and more of a community out there online now. It seems to have really blossomed. It also felt awesome to know that I'm not alone.

I came out to my dad first. She seemed to be cool with it and supportive. I don't think she knew much about it at first, but it was nice to get it out there and not have a negative reaction. I told a couple more people at the local Pride picnic that year, next. They were apart of that trans group. Had an interesting discussion about it, and I think one of them told me they were demisexual or on the ace-spectrum. That was cool to hear. I told some more members of that group after a meeting. One of them ran up to me and gave me a big hug. It felt good to tell people and feel like they accepted it so much. Next, I came out on facebook. That's where I keep in touch with most of my friends and family. I'm not sure if most people actually knew what it was about, but I mostly had a very positive reaction. Lots of hearts, and a few people saying they'd like to know more. Some of my more religious friends and family didn't react at all. I don't think they really approved of it. At least, they didn't respond with any negativity. I think one person unfriended me because it might have made him feel uncomfortable when I started posting ace stuff. I think they were the only person that did.

I started thinking about my romantic attraction. This was a little harder to figure out for me. Probably, because I never thought about separate attractions before realizing or coming to terms with being ace. At first, I hoped I was heteroromantic. That's basically being straight romantically. I thought I'd feel more 'normal' if I was. After a while, I realized that really wasn't me, either. Then, I thought maybe I'm on the aro-spectrum, that being demi-heteroromantic. I thought this because I had a romantic relationship in the past with a guy, and liked some of the aspects eventually. I really really didn't want to be aro. I thought that would be another out-of-the-norm type of orientation. Then, I thought, why was I trying to conform so much? What if I really was aro? Why do I have such a reluctance to look into it? Once I read more about it and other people's experiences, I realized, yeah, I really am aro. I'm about as aro as it gets. I should be proud of this. Why would I treat it like I did with the possibility of being ace?

I think I had a lot of internalized acephobia and arophobia before all this. Some people call it aphobia, but being into language, it doesn't quite make sense if you just look at it. Fear of A, basically. It could also be looked at as 'without fear'. There is a lot of ace/arophobia out there, whether people 'believe' it or not. It's not just saying mean things. Aces have also been forced to go to conversion therapy, because their families didn't like that they were 'different'. Many end up being raped in order to 'fix' them (also referred to as 'corrective rape'), or some people see it as some sort of challenge. Some people go through hormone therapy, thinking it's a hormone issue when their hormones are perfectly fine.

Asexuality was once listed as a disorder, and some therapists see it this way even though it has changed. They would get it confused with hypoactive sexual desire disorder or HSDD. That's when you lack sexual desire, and there's distress about it. The person most likely had the desire or need for sex, but that changed. It might have changed due to the medications they're on. There's still debate about the wording of this one, and it's rather controversial. Many orientations were once thought of as disorders.

There are also asexual chasers. Yes, people who actually chase aces. The more harmless ones, although still creepy, only seek out relationships with them. Even though they're allosexual, they prefer aces. I can't get my head around this one. The others seek out aces in order to 'fix' them, and take it as a challenge. Also, there are people who hate and want to kill anyone who isn't a heteroromantic heterosexual cis person, or what they would say is 'normal'. Scary stuff.

My internalized acephobia had more to do with feeling like it was weird, wanting to conform so much, being ignorant about it, etc. It wasn't 'normal', and I wanted to be like everyone else. I would have probably felt this way if I realized I was gay or other orientations, too. I never thought poorly of others like this, but for some reason, when it applied to me it was a different story. I think I also thought at first that I'd never experience having a relationship. With what little representation I might have seen, the characters were too out there for me. For the arophobia, the first thought I had was that if I am, I must be a sociopath, have no real feelings, be cold, robotic, must not be since I had a romantic relationship, and it goes on. That wasn't true at all. Again, I think it was ignorance roaring its awful head. Reading about it changed that.

I came out again as aro on facebook at the end of November of 2016. (Right before Thanksgiving.) It didn't have as much of a response, but the response I did have was positive. People probably were even more clueless about this. I posted a status about the 5 main attractions, and where I fall on them after that. I think it was a way for people to get more of an idea of what being aro itself means, and that there are differences within attractions. I thought people wouldn't care about it, and even warned them what it'll be about at first, saying that they can just keep scrolling. I don't know why I felt embarrassed about educating people about this stuff. Turns out, I had more of a reaction with that post than I did for the aro one. Even people who were friends of my friends were reacting in some way. All of it was positive. It was a good thing to see.

I did have 2 negative reactions. The first one wasn't all that bad, although really annoying. It was someone from the trans group, and we were getting ready for an event in November of that year. She was saying things like: You must have had a bad relationship. Did you ever get your hormones checked? You must have been abused as a child. It was the first time I was confronted with this stuff in real life. It was comical, yet disturbing at the same time. I had seen something going around online called Asexual Bingo. It's still going around, but there are altered versions of it. It has all the acephobic things that people commonly say. She was just rattling off many of those word for word. At least, she wasn't saying the worst stuff. I tried to educate her, but I don't think she really got it. She seemed slightly embarrassed when a couple of the other members decided to sit closer to me, and wanted to talk about ace stuff. One member, at the time, was new and sat next to me while that other person was saying that stuff. He butted in too, wanting to learn more. Made me feel a lot better.

Another negative reaction was during Thanksgiving that year. There's a couple who invites us to their place for Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Passover each year. They're friends of the family. Or, really, they feel like family. Anyways, after most of the people left, and it was just Dad, me, that couple, and an older woman; I came out. It was mainly to that couple. They thought it was really interesting, and wanted to talk and learn about it. They're very open people. The older woman is very set in her ways. I think she has an issue with many people who aren't like her. She said worse things than the woman from before. Saying it's just a phase, someday I'll find the right man, don't give up, and just wait a little longer. So much wrong with what she was saying...I didn't even know where to begin. If it's a phase, maybe someday she'll be lesbian, bi, ace, etc. Straight would be just as much a phase. Saying I'll basically find Mr. Right...What about Miss Right? It's assuming things with that, too. And, who is this magical and magnificent person? Why haven't they shown up yet? I know I look younger than I am, but at the time I was 32. How long should I 'wait'? When I was explaining what a qpr was, she blurted out: So...just a friendship? No. Not 'just a friendship'. It was frustrating. We had to drive her back home, and eventually on the ride back, she did say I opened her eyes. I was glad she said that. However,