There are two hours and four minutes of this drive according to my GPS and all of them will be spent recounting what happened. Here it is.
Vanessa was a friend I’d made in my first semester at college. We met in our intro English class. While I knew biology was my passion, Vanessa was undecided as to what she wanted to study. With her eclectic interests, her uncertainty made sense.
She knew a little bit of everything, which made her a very competent opponent when watching Jeopardy. It was also really nice because I like learning and facts. She knew so much unexpected trivia, from snippets of architectural details of our university to weird word definitions. I was a one trick pony with my passion for science, but she didn’t seem to mind that when I talked about Lamarck and the Schmidt Sting Index.
We studied together, watched shows, and explored the college town and surrounding regions as our class schedules allowed. It was exhilarating.
We ventured into little antique shops together and tried food at an Ethiopian restaurant where I introduced her to injera. She, in turn, showed me how to make brownies in a mug, crucial information for dorm life. We swapped playlists and explored various hidden spaces on campus. Pretty soon, we had our own designated table in the cafeteria.
As the days went on, we were also getting closer. Personal space boundaries shifted and I found that we’d sometimes hold hands when walking to our destination, or we’d lean on one another on one of our twin beds while watching something on a laptop. And it was nice.
That’s an important fact. It was nice. I liked it. I didn’t want it to stop, which is why when Vanessa leaned over during an episode of Downton Abbey to kiss me and I scooted back, we both looked surprised and uncertain.
“I’m sorry, I.. that was…uh..” What could I say?
Awkward silence and eye contact followed. I left shortly after that, and then it was time to pack up for Thanksgiving break. Damn timing.
I kept replaying that moment and various memories in an angsty mindset to the old mix CD playing in the car.
There was the driveway. There was the ceramic gnome I accidentally broke once, fixed with crazy glue. And there was Dad waving from the front of the house.
Having greeted him, I met Dad’s questions about school with distracted answers. He asked if something was wrong, so I guess his fatherly senses must’ve been tingling but I figured that, for all he tried his best, this wasn’t something I particularly wanted to discuss with him. For his part, he too was distracted with the various food he was preparing in the kitchen for the next day.
But my sister would arrive in a few hours and maybe I could talk to her. Jan’s graduate program meant she spent most of her time within her group of nerdy academic peers studying post-modern whatever, but it also meant she read a lot and had more years of experience from which to possibly draw helpful insights.
Thanksgiving dinner was going to be small, but Dad wanted to have time with us on his own, too. After picking Jan up from the airport Wednesday night, we had Thanksgiving: Part 1.
“Fakesgiving,” I whispered to Jan, whose lips pursed in a barely restrained smile, a sliver of sun about to peek over the hill at any minute.
While the night’s supper was simple, we got a peek of the holiday meal. Dad told us with pride and a slight flicker of mischief that he spatchcocked cornish hens (met with disturbed faces until he pulled up a clip on his phone of Alton Brown flattening chickens to cook them evenly). That was only the start.
He made mashed yams dotted with jaunty marshmallow puffs sticking up on the surface to be broiled at the last minute. The cranberry sauce was suspiciously not tin can shaped and smelled of ginger and orange. Stuffing, my favorite part, was to be displayed in a bowl almost as big as the one housing the hens. Green beans with a crunchy almond topping sat near a container of some kind of grain dotted with currants.
Dad was all too happy to talk about his new job, ask Jan questions about her dissertation, and show us the repairs he’d started on the house.
Dad went for a walk without us, as was his custom before ‘the big day’.
Now or never, I thought, and knocked on the door to Jan’s old room. When it opened, I strode in and plopped on her bed. “So, there’s something I want to ask you.”
“Sure. Shoot.” She looked a little tired, maybe from jet lag, but was still in her day clothes.
“I need some advice. Or listening. Or listening and advice, I’m not yet sure.” I took a deep breath and dove in. “So, I made a friend on campus and I like her. A lot. Problem is, I think I screwed it up.”
Jan’s brow quirked down into a furrow of concern. She asked, “What happened? She didn’t reciprocate?”
“That’s the thing, Jan. It’s kind of the reverse. I mean, we’ve cuddled before when, like, watching movies and stuff. That was okay for us both, I think. And, uh, we’ve held hands before. But when she tried to kiss me… I pulled away.”
“So you like her but don’t like her?” Jan rolled her desk chair closer to the bed. “Can you give me any other details? I don’t think I get it yet.”
“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever liked anyone as much as I like her.” I said, “But when she leaned in to kiss me I knew I didn’t want to, even with her. But I do like her!”
“Huh. I mean, you’ve probably considered the obvious, right? That it’s a same-sex attraction you are experiencing, and perhaps it’s weird for you because of that?”
“No. That’s not it. I have friends who aren’t straight, so I wouldn’t think it’s weird. I mean, Uncle Gary has been bringing Conrad over for family events since I was in diapers. It’s not that, I don’t think,” I surmised.
“Good point. I guess I was wondering about that because sometimes it’s different when it’s you, not somebody else. But you sound pretty convinced that your friend– what’s her name?”
“Vanessa,” I answered. Sigh.
“Yeah, convinced that Vanessa is someone you like and it’s more than an infatuation or, um, a girlcrush. But you say you also didn’t want to kiss her? I’m assuming it’s not because she has awful breath?”
“Hah, no, not at all. She smells amazing. It’s… I considered it and, uh, I don’t think I’d want to do anything more with her than what we’ve done so far. Like, in my earlier relationships, I wasn’t super interested in anything too physical but I figured, ‘I’m in a relationship, that’s what I’m supposed to do!’ But I really like her, and I’m still not interested! And it’s not a Katy Perry fake lesbian thing for show either, I swear.”
Jan pressed on. “So you’re not interested sexually, or in anything physical with anyone?”
“It’s like, I’m not grossed out by thoughts of sex or anything, but I’m just not interested. Sort of how I can appreciate someone cooking a delicious meal.” I struggled with words. “I enjoy the aroma and spices, and how much attention and care goes into making a good dish. I just might not want to eat it once it’s done. If that makes sense?”
Jan tried to follow. “I think so? Sort of, at least. I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to walk away from a good homemade dinner, so to speak. I mean, there’s even room in that analogy for going back for seconds.”
“Har har.”
I knew Jan was treating this like an academic brain teaser as she said, “Let’s review. You have a crush on a girl but that part isn’t weird. You like her and have a good connection, which you appreciate. You enjoy being in close proximity and spending time together but don’t want it to be sexual. But! You’re attracted to her in a way that feels more like romantic interest than ‘ooh, shiny new friend’ fuzzies. Is that right?”
I nodded. “Got it in one, Jan. I’m screwed. We haven’t talked about the kiss since it happened, but then, it was right before Thanksgiving break. I just… pulled away. Am I abnormal? Is something wrong with me?”
“Carly, what’s your major again?”
Sudden topic shift. What? I hesitated. “Biology?”
“That’s right. And as a biologist you intend to study all sorts of living things. There’s bound to be a ridiculous amount of diversity, right? What works for one species doesn’t work for another. Some creatures pair up and raise offspring. Others mate and go separate ways. Others don’t mate with others of their kind at all.”
“You just compared your own sister to inferior life forms. Thanks.”
“Being my younger sister, you are.” Jan grinned. Hey, just kidding! Seriously, I think you’re looking at this from too narrow a lens. I could talk with you about this all night, but you’re probably better off looking it up for yourself. There is a tremendous amount of variety in terms of human desire and relationships. Want the gory details?”
“Uh, thanks, I think I’m going to call it a night. …Thank you.”
Jan gave me a warm hug and tightened her hold as she yawned. “Any time. You got a relationship or life crisis, you know who to go to.”
“Yup. Uncle Gary.”
Her light punch to my shoulder belied the attached smile.
That night I slept easier, and even managed to make some progress in the morning on my homework before we started setting up for Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice, the kind of family get-together we wouldn’t have been able to have when the divorce pangs were still fresh.
Over Mom’s slightly too custardy pumpkin pie, I thought about how this arrangement seemed to work much better for everyone than the cramped, constant arguing their years together were like. My parents mellowed out tentatively–as if still trying to see if such a thing was possible–then with more deliberate steps, and reached a reasonably friendly truce on their own terms along the way.
On their own terms. Huh.
I liked Vanessa. I knew it. But maybe I wanted to have that on my own terms? The trouble would be figuring out what that meant.
The next morning we took Jan to the airport and said our good-byes. Her flight wasn’t for another couple of hours but she had waged bitter battle with airports over the years, losing luggage as casualties of war and dealing with flight cancellations like a general learning the grim news of the loss of a battalion. Jan didn’t take any chances when it came to flying.
I still had a couple of hours before I’d need to head back myself. My college was only two hours away. Jan must’ve been thinking about our conversation while she waited for her plane in stoic determination because I got a text from her not a half hour after we dropped her off.
“Thought about our conversation. Ask Google?”
Okay, I hadn’t thought about that. “What would I search for?”
A few minutes later, I had at least a partial answer. “Try long ways and type how you feel. Something like ‘romantic but not sexual feelings.’ Or non-standard relationships? I’d say look at Boston marriage but that’s not exactly a current phenomenon.”
Boston marriages? Non-standard relationships? It was a start.
And, woah, the internet had a lot to say about it. Most of the top entries were about loveless marriages or straight people in love with their gay friends, or else pop-psychology cautionary articles about sex without love.
I won’t recount to you my entire search history so let’s simply say one ought to take the internet with a grain of salt. Wikipedia was an inverted black hole of information, constantly spitting forth links and resources. The Boston marriage article felt closer than any of the other search queries, so I clicked on links from there and started to get warmer when looking at the page on romantic friendships. The description certainly fit. And from there, after forays into bromance, courtly love, myriad Lord of the Rings entries and back again to the others, I stumbled on gold.
The Wiki page on asexuality was both familiar and absolutely intimidating, but the more I read the more familiar it all was. I wanted to keep looking but it was getting late. After saying good-bye to Dad one final time, I drove back to my dorm with this revelation on my mind. I was also going to have to face Vanessa. Besides, it was too late to drop that English class, so I was either going to have a horridly awkward time there for the rest of the semester, or have one potentially bad conversation for a much shorter duration. The odds looked better for the band-aid approach, just getting it over with.
It took another couple of hours of research into the links I found, including forums with other people talking about similar scenarios, before I felt ready. Vanessa was going to be back, as I recalled, so I texted her a simple message. “Hey, we left off on an awkward note. Come over so I can explain please?”
She messaged back, “Roger that. Meet at 9?”
When she came over, we didn’t hug like we usually did. But she did sit next to me.
“Okay, you said you had an explanation?” Vanessa said, “I can live with mortification and embarrassment and not mentioning last Friday ever again if it means we’re going to remain friends, because you’re the closest person I have. I’m listening.”
First I apologized for how poorly I responded. Then, I explained that the kiss caught me off-guard. I told her how I talked with my sister over Thanksgiving, with it leading to the internet search.
Deciding not to share the various odd pages and my newfound knowledge of Hobbit lore, I simply said that one of the pages I came across really closely described the way I felt. She cocked her head, and put a hand on my leg. I smiled in encouragement and asked if she might take a look at the pages with me.
She was game. So I opened up my browser to links to the Wikipedia page on asexuality, and the AVEN website, including another saved tab with a forum user talking about a similar experience and one about being panromantic. Vanessa leaned in to look at the first tab on the screen and, putting her hand by mine so our pinkies overlapped, started reading with me.