My disinterest in boys was noticeable pretty early. In elementary school, a friend will tell you who she has a crush on and then ask, "Who do you have a crush on?" If you say "No one," she'll believe you the first time. Even the second time. But by the third or fourth time, it becomes suspect. She'll believe you don't happen to have a crush right now, but not that you don't have crushes ever. And so then your friend will think you're lying to her. The lack of reciprocity becomes a slight. "I told you who I like; why won't you return the favor? Don't you trust me?"

So I knew by the time I was 9 that crushes on boys weren't a "thing" with me. I conceived of myself as asexual long before I actually heard the word. I never tried dating boys because dating is hard, and I'm shy and lazy, and I can't possibly be bothered unless I really want it.

The closest I got to dating a guy was a male friend in college who had a crush on me, and I was like, "Well, if I'm ever going to try dating, this is an ideal chance. Going out and trying to date someone would be wrong and leading them on, since I'm pretty sure I'm asexual. But if the opportunity fell in my lap, maybe I should take it?" So I half-considered that for a bit. He was a good friend. I recognized something of myself in him, and I humored the possibility that maybe that could be attraction. Our neighbors in the dorm were shipping us, and even I sort of shipped us, in a hypothetical, "in another universe" kind of way. Like we would've made sense together. But then one time we were hanging out — and I guess he thought we were having a moment? — and he asked if he could kiss me, and I was just like, "...no." If you'd asked me half an hour before, I'd have said I should do it, just for the life experience. But when it actually came down to it... just no.

In contrast, my interest in girls slipped under the radar for a long time. When you're in elementary school, obsessive all-consuming relationships between best friends are normal, so I didn't think much of it. Then in middle school, I was too depressed to have crushes for a while. The classic hallmark of depression is disinterest in things that would otherwise interest you. Then in high school I was lonely a lot, and so when I was disproportionally into a friend, I was like, "It's because you've been so lonely and now someone's being nice to you." Also: "Girls are really pretty. It's not my opinion; it's just objectively true. All beautiful things invoke aching longing in my chest — so does the starry night sky, and Italian villas, and Gypsy Vanner horses, and I'm not into any of those. That aching is just the nature of beautiful things, it doesn't mean anything." When I was a toddler, there was a lesbian couple who lived next door to me, and so I've always known lesbians exist and are fine. So there was also an element of, "You're not actually gay, you just want to be gay and so you're trying to talk yourself into it. You don't like girls enough to actually do anything with it. If you went and got a girlfriend, you wouldn't be into her enough to make it work, and you'd end up hurting her." Throw it some asexual community discourse where attraction is defined very narrowly, and that compounds it.

So I was 19 before I realized that I was actually gay for girls. And even then, at first I said something like, "You always hear people say, 'I am gay. I am so so gay.' But I'm not 'so so gay.' I am only a little bit gay." And I think that was an honest expression of where I was at at that point. I used the word "gay" then rather than "lesbian" because I conceived of lesbianism as serious somehow, and having a higher threshold of homosexuality than "gay". But I think my gayness has leveled up since then.

I'm 21 now, and still working on the "getting a girlfriend." Sometimes with family or friends who I know aren't going to scrutinize me for it, I phrase it as, "The current lead theory in the field is that I'm a lesbian, although more research is needed."