~ June 10th: asexual pride day ~ Definition: a person who experiences very little or no sexual attraction to anybody
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It was a warm, sunny afternoon. Olly was at his friend's, Jake's house with a boy named Percy he didn't know before. Apparently, he was from a club Jake frequently went to. Olly was never a social person, but it turned out Jake went out almost every weekend to get drunk and dance to meaningless techno songs among several other sweaty bodies. It was legal for him to do that – but Olly would have never thought he was like this. He really started to feel awkward here how. He had nothing to do with two people who could think about nothing else but bullshit.
A girl was passing by outside the fence. Olly didn't spend much time looking at her, he just saw her and that was it, no interest. She was only a stranger, after all. However, Jake and Percy were watching her for long moments, as if they wanted to eat her up with their glance.
"Man, she was so fine" Percy said after she got out of sight.
"Yeah, dude, totally. She was so hot." Jake agreed, and they both laughed. Olly understood nothing of the situation. It was just a random girl on the street. They didn't even know her name. And what was "hot" supposed to mean? She was quite far, so they couldn't feel her body temperature...
"What are you even talking about?" he shook his head in confusedness. "Do you often randomly stop and stare at strangers?"
"Of course." now Percy looked confused too. "Do you never appreciate people's beauty?"
But Olly had a strong feeling that the boy's thoughts about the girl were more... he couldn't even find the correct word.
"Don't tell me you never think someone's hot" Jake stared at him dead seriously.
"I have to?" Olly asked back. "Are you guys okay?"
From that moment, he couldn't get this conversation out of his head. He was constantly worrying. Is something wrong with me? He tried to calm himself down by convincing himself only these two boys were strange, but he had to find out that most people in his environment were actually very similar to them... meaning they were different from him. "You're an 18-year-old teenager boy. If you don't feel this way, that is unnormal."
One day, he couldn't hold it in anymore. He didn't want to, but he ended up crying all his problems and concerns to his older sister, Victoria. He talked about how he couldn't understand other people and how they called him strange. She didn't interrupt, she let Olly get everything off his chest.
"You know, you're not alone." she said quietly when Olly stopped. "There are many other people out there who feel just like you. They call themselves asexual. This means they don't feel sexual attraction towards anybody, but they can still fall in love, and want romantic relationships."
Olly looked up to her, his eyes opened wide.
"There is a word for how I feel?" he asked astonishedly.
"There is." Victoria hugged him. "And they often say ace for short. So don't ever be ashamed of who you are. Because you're just as ace as your identity."
*****
2024. 06. 10.
I think this is my favourite yet. I had fun writing this :-)
