The Romantic Mask

Paris, City of Love, where we lay our scene of adventurous study abroad college students. Me and the girls were out in a little bar late at night. The lights were cool, a featured musician was playing acoustic, and my friends and I were ready for some dessert.

Apparently, the musician was attractive. The waiter, too. The gals were checking them out, evaluating amongst themselves, Who was cuter?

I had nothing to contribute, so I waited until I did. The basics of what made men attractive, I always had to guess. All I could think about was how uncomfortable evaluations of appearance made me feel.

“Yeah, I never felt anything just from looking at someone, I don’t know,” I shrugged, hoping the conversation would shift.

“Wait, really?” gasped the girl in front of me, wide-eyed.

“Mm,” mused the other girl sitting next to her. “I’ve heard of asexuality, or demisexuality, before.”

Did she just say…? I don’t know how much my surprise showed on my face. I hadn’t heard it aloud like that before, so simply. There was respect in her nod as she regarded me.

“Wait, but I don’t think that’s what it is!” said the first girl quickly, as if to defend me from the label.

I neither confirmed nor denied, only considered. I hoped no one else in the group had heard; I didn’t want to be an unrelatable other in an already foreign land. Sometimes hearing someone else say a word aloud you’ve only read about in secret leaves you speechless.  

We enjoyed our drinks and ice cream and spoke no more of it.

Paris was amazing, and the study abroad trip was the first time I’d even thought of traveling on my own in the future. Previously, it had only been something I associated with honeymoons and family. When I wasn’t hanging with the gals, bonding over French chocolate and postmodern art, I enjoyed time exploring on my own. I felt like I was on an adventure, sauntering by the Seine, surrounded by architecture I had first seen in animated films. I felt animated, myself. Colored chalk beneath me, street music around me, the romance and passion of the city got to me. I fell in love with life.

This trip was where I also wondered if I’d better get used to being alone. Am I really asexual? I thought. Is it really that normal to love at first sight? That there’s a whole other label for people who don’t get it?   

There’s a poem by Shel Silverstein that remains one of my favorites:

“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through
Then passed right by—
And never knew.”

Since I was young, this poem gave me encouragement to be myself because somewhere out there was my match. Don’t hold anything back because it would make a significant other happy.  

For a while, I thought the mask was asexuality. And, (if you’ll pardon the irony) I was afraid of showing my skin. I was just suppressed. I was in denial. I just hadn’t met the right one yet. “Asexual” was just a word for holding back, while God had this whole soulmate set up for me. I still feared there wasn’t anybody for me.

“Oh don’t worry, you will meet a guy someday, and he’ll fall so in love with you,” my childhood friend said as we ate together beside an old favorite fountain. Her words were like a glimmer of light from a wishing well, sincere hope that I could inspire love with my existence. I didn't use the word asexual then because I liked the way the glimmer and shared hope felt.

I never dated in high school. I lived comfortably with “focusing on studies” and “purity” and “I’m not allowed” as excuses not to go on dates. I wasn’t exempt from admiring people, but all I ever wanted was friendship. It was never on account of appearance making me feel a certain way, either. I remember when a new kid came on campus. The girl-squad I hung out with at the time would gossip over how hot he was.

I was a blank. I didn’t get it. Why did people’s treatment of a newcomer have to depend on great hair or great other parts? Yet, it was always a big deal to everyone, at least when I hung out with girls. It was all anyone could talk about, even when playing games.

“Truth or dare. Truth? Okay, if you had to kiss anyone on Disney Channel, who would it be?” These games never quite reached their creative potential, I thought.

“Oh I wouldn’t kiss anyone,” I said.

“If you had to,” they insisted.

There was only one way out of this. Thinking of a fictional character he played, I said, “I guess Ricky Ullman?” I came up with something, some girls agreed, and we moved on.

Was I missing something?    

Never talking about sex in church made it interesting. I remember the mischief of randomly flipping to Song of Solomon with my best friend in the back of the room, stifling our laughs at what the heck these verses were describing. Eventually, the book would be redeemed for us as an example of positive sexuality in the Bible. So in that sense, if physical desire was one place a lot of Christians could finally understand the reward of waiting for God’s love, was I missing out for dreading the idea of mandatory marital sex? On the other hand, there was one time we youth took a quiz on what spiritual gifts we would have, and most of us got “celibacy” as one answer. I think, because we had been conditioned to see dating as a mature gateway to marriage, and sexuality as a secret, we shied away from talking about it. Though we all knew celibacy was subject to change once we really got out there as adults, I remember messing around in the church copy room with my friends muttering, “How is that a gift? That you’ll be alone forever?”

“I think it is,” said one of my friends. “It’s not being alone; it’s like something special between you and God, without needing anyone else.”  

Soon enough, college at a Christian university happened, and while I immediately loved my school, I remember the absolute shock of finding out the culture of “ring by spring” was not a joke. Suddenly, as if I’d lost all the cards up my sleeve, I lost my excuses not to date, unless I really wasn’t interested, despite gravitating toward a mostly male group of friends.

You’d think it’d be easy, not having to worry about achieving anything “more.” But what I yearned for felt so specific, and either misread or underappreciated. If I rejected the romance zone, I feared losing friendship over it.   

“Wow. I just find it funny how most girls around here are wishing for boyfriends, and you have the opposite problem!” a gal friend told me in the safe space of her dorm.

It was funny, especially as I thought it was something I would want once I was in the new chapter of college. I had come into school knowing I wanted cross-gender friendships just like I grew up with, but I didn’t anticipate being so different for it. I think I was the only one actually anxious and surprised when friends who had only met that year started dating and people would comment, “Finally!"

I knew I was supposed to be happy for what everyone else saw as the inevitable, but I felt more cornered into the idea that sex and romance was the ultimate way to experience love. I felt anxious that my dating friends wouldn’t need me anymore. Once they married, they’d be family without me.

This was the age the magic was finally supposed to happen, the desire supposed to awaken, and I still didn’t get it. The romantic love of fairy tales, which I’d always fantasized about as something I would someday understand, suddenly became a stranger to me in adulthood. I could make-believe, but I felt like I was losing not only a fantasy, but relatability.

The more I researched asexuality, the more I knew I wasn’t crazy for valuing friendship that much, more than anything in the world. More than flowery valentines, I just wanted with all my soul and being to prop my feet up beside friends for life, toasting and adventuring into uncharted travels. That was the blue skin I hid, on this search for friends like me who’d understand.

If I wanted that closeness, I had to live authentically, and take off the mask of romantic expectation.

I remember the unexpected way the words caught in my throat before a couple of other queer friends. I was shaking, afraid of breaking their perception of me, afraid of becoming this unrelateable other in a community I loved. Then, when one friend said the word asexual out loud, that opened it up for me.

Sometimes hearing someone else say the word out loud brings your voice back. “Guys, I’m asexual.”  

“GO YOU,” was the immediate response followed by me talking way too fast as if the floodgates had opened, in front of friends I trusted, smiling at each other. And it was different from the way people had smiled before, teasing me for resisting romance. This was empathetic and real. This was love.   

I remember the sweet sense of wonder I felt going into winter break, immersing myself in ace positivity online. It was like the childhood glee of finding magic and keeping it a secret.  

I carried that glee over into the new year, slowly coming out in different spaces. I enchanted myself into a dress of purple, black, white, and grey, feeling like a sorcerer with a shiny, black ring on my middle finger. I was comfortable in my blue skin, having named it for myself at last.

One day, in musical theatre class, we did a scene from Beauty and the Beast. To my surprise, I got cast as Belle. I was giggling on the inside as the characters talked about getting her to love the Beast in order to break the spell. I lightheartedly told my friend later, “That would really suck if she’s not straight!”

But then my friend said something enlightening: “Well, I don’t even think it’s about physical attraction, because the beast is not physically attractive. It’s about influencing each other, growing to love each other mindfully, intellectually, spiritually…” The Beast isn’t punished for not falling in love in the first place, but for not actively loving people around him. The lesson he has to learn isn’t how to force attraction, but how to be empathetic and inspire love around him.

While the Beauty and the Beast story we know is a love story, it could have been romantic yet asexual love. It could have been intentional, platonic love. Or unconditional, altruistic love, helping one another out of a mess. Maybe even demisexual love, if their physical attraction develops after they’ve gotten close enough for the spell to be broken.

So, if I ever get caught under a magical spell that can only be broken by true love, I’m not doomed for life. I’m not as outside of fairy tale love as I think. I have the love of my friends, my fellow travelers, my crazy writers, my rainbow community, my theatre troupes, my newfound church, my inspiration. As I saunter down chalk-colored streets, laughing, kissing absolutely no one at the top of the Eiffel Tower, who knows, I might even find another with blue skin.

Happily ever after? With how much I love my life, I’m just getting started.

-Ellen Huang

*This piece has been previously published on As I Am, a blog on Diverging Magazine.

Ellen Huang holds a BA in Writing & a minor in Theatre from Point Loma Nazarene University. She is the retired Managing Editor for Whale Road Review, where she continues to haunt as Peer Reviewer. She is published in 50+ venues, including Moonchild Magazine, Yes Poetry, Rogue Agent, Enchanted Conversation, Aze Magazine, and Amethyst Review, among others. She also writes original skits, progressive devotionals, children's lit, fairy tales, horror comedy, and blog posts on movies she feels on a spiritual level. Follow her creative work here: worrydollsandfloatinglights.wordpress.com.