I didn’t know there was a word for people like me, so I never looked for one. I didn’t think there were people like me. I only thought there was me, alone and different and not like anyone I knew.

And I was okay with that. I was okay with not having a word for myself.

But I always knew I was missing one.

I went through a few different words, different identities. Straight, of course, when I was young and easily influenced. Then I thought that no, I must be a lesbian. I didn’t want to kiss the boys, you see. But I still thought that some of them were cute, so bi and pan were picked up and discarded one after the other, until I realized neither was right for me.

None of the words I had found were right for me.

I never saw myself on websites or in pamphlets. High school taught me nothing except how gross kissing was. So, eventually, I figured there was no word for me. And I was okay with that. I think it hurt a little, to be unlabeled, but I was alright.

I was alright.

I learned about other things. Perhaps I could have learned better, learned faster, if I knew the right words to search for. But no one had ever taught them to me.

I had to find them on my own.

And one day, I did. One day, deep in the tag forests of AO3, I read the words “homoromantic asexual.” And then more. Demisexual. Aromantic. A world of words I had never known about, all for me.

And I found out. That I could choose to love or not. With my body or my heart. Or neither at all. And still have words to call myself.

That there were other people like me.

That I was valid. (That I had always been.)

High school never gave me that. But one day…

One day, maybe it can give some other child that. One day, we can all find ourselves in books and pamphlets and not think we don’t have words because we don’t know them. Because no one taught us how to speak and how to ask and how to listen.

And one day, they say, we won’t need words at all to just be ourselves.

I don’t know if I believe that. What I do believe is: we need asexual education. We need every education. For the children who don’t have a word for themselves, and who don’t know how to look for one.

For the children like me.

For the children like you.

And for everyone who ever wondered.

Why am I so different?