by Alice Oseman
I needed to know whether I would always feel uncomfortable with this part of myself.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Well, firstly, I can have children whenever I want. Adoption exists.’
‘But what about having a partner?’
She paused.
And then she said, ‘Yes, I do feel like that occasionally.’
Oh.
So maybe I was always going to feel like this.
Maybe I would never feel comfortable with this.
Maybe –
‘But that’s just a feeling,’ she continued. ‘And I know it’s untrue.’
I blinked up at her.
‘Having a partner is what some people want. For others, it’s not. It took me a long, long time to figure out that that’s not what I want. In fact …’ She hesitated. But only for a moment. ‘It took me a long time to realise that it’s not even something I can want. It’s not a choice for me. It’s a part of me that I can’t change.’
I was holding my breath.
‘How did you realise?’ I asked eventually, my heart in my mouth.
She laughed. ‘It’s … well, are you in the mood for me to condense my entire life into one conversation over a Christmas Day McDonald’s?’
‘… Yes.’
‘Ha. OK.’ She took a spoonful of ice cream. ‘So … I never had any crushes when I was a child. Not any real ones, anyway. Sometimes I confused friendship for them, or just thinking a guy was really cool. But I never really fancied anyone. Even celebrities or musicians or whatever.’
She raised her eyebrows and huffed out a sigh as if this was all a minor inconvenience.
‘But the thing was,’ she said, ‘everybody else I knew got crushes. They dated. All my friends talked about hot boys. They all got boyfriends. Our family has always been big and loving – you know, your parents and my parents and our grandparents and everyone else – so that was always what I saw as the norm. That was all I knew. In my eyes, dating and relationships were just … what people did. It was human. So that’s what I tried to do too.’
Tried.
She had tried too.
‘And this continued into my late teens, and then into my twenties. Especially when I got into modelling, because everyone was getting with each other in modelling. So I would force myself to do it too, just to be involved and not be left out.’ She blinked. ‘But … I hated it. I hated every fucking second of it.’
There was a pause. I didn’t know what to say.
‘I don’t know when I started to realise that I hated it. For a long time, I was just dating and having sex because that’s what people did. And I wanted to feel like those people. I wanted the fun, exciting beauty of romance and sex. But there was always this underlying feeling of wrongness. Almost disgust. It just felt wrong on a fundamental level.’
I felt a wave of relief that I had never let myself go that far.
Maybe I was a little stronger than I thought.
‘And yet, I kept trying to like it. I kept thinking, maybe I’m just picky. Maybe I haven’t met the right guy. Maybe I like girls instead. Maybe, maybe, maybe.’ She shook her head. ‘Maybe never came. It never got here.’
She leant back into the driver’s seat, staring ahead at the soft glow of McDonald’s.
‘There was the fear too. I didn’t know how I was going to function in this world alone. Not just alone now, but endlessly alone. Partnerless until I die. You know why people pair up into couples? Because being a human is fucking terrifying. But it’s a hell of a lot easier if you’re not doing it by yourself.’
I guessed that was the crux of it.
I could, on a base level, accept that I was like this. But I didn’t know how I was going to deal with that for the rest of my life. Twenty years from now. Forty. Sixty.
Then Ellis said, ‘But I’m older now. I’ve learnt some things.’
‘Like what?’ I asked.
‘Like the way friendship can be just as intense, beautiful and endless as romance. Like the way there’s love everywhere around me – there’s love for my friends, there’s love in my paintings, there’s love for myself. There’s even love for my parents in there somewhere. Deep down.’ She laughed, and I couldn’t help but smile. ‘I have a lot more love than some people in the world. Even if I’ll never have a wedding.’ She took a big spoonful of ice cream. ‘There’s definitely love for ice cream, let me tell you that.’
I laughed and she grinned at me.
‘I was hopeless about being like this for a long time,’ she said, and then shook her head. ‘But I’m not any more. Finally. Finally I’m not hopeless any more.’
‘I wish I could be like that,’ I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Ellis raised a curious eyebrow at me. ‘Yeah?’
I took a breath. OK. Now or never.
‘I think I’m … like you,’ I said. ‘I don’t like anyone either. Romance-wise, I mean. Dating and stuff. It’s … I just can’t feel any of it. I used to want it – I mean, I still think I do want it sometimes. But I can never really want it, because I don’t feel that way for anyone. If that makes sense.’
I could feel myself going redder and redder the more I spoke.
Ellis said nothing for a moment. Then she ate another spoonful of ice cream.
‘That’s why you got in the car, isn’t it?’ she said.
I nodded.
‘Well,’ she said. She seemed to realise the magnitude of what I’d admitted. ‘Well.’
‘It’s a real sexuality,’ I said. I didn’t even know if Ellis knew it was a sexuality. ‘Just like being gay or straight or bi.’
Ellis chuckled. ‘The nothing sexuality.’
‘It’s not nothing. It’s … well it’s two different things. Aromantic is when you don’t feel romantic attraction and asexual is when you don’t feel sexual attraction. Some people are just one or the other, but I’m both, so I’m … aromantic asexual.’
That wasn’t the first time I’d said those words. But every time I said them, they felt a little more at home in the air around me.
Ellis considered this. ‘Two things. Hm. Two in one. Buy one get one free. Love that.’
I snorted, which made her genuinely laugh, and all the nerves that had been constricting my chest eased.
‘Who told you about those, then?’ she asked.
‘Someone at uni,’ I said. But Sunil wasn’t just someone, was he? ‘One of my friends.’
‘Are they also …?’
‘They’re asexual too.’
‘Wow.’ Ellis grinned. ‘Well, that makes three of us.’
‘There are more,’ I said. ‘A lot more. Out there. In the world.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
Ellis stared out of the window, smiling. ‘That would be nice. If there were lots out there.’
We sat in silence for a moment. I finished eating my chips.
There were more of us out there.
Neither of us were alone in this.
‘You’re … very lucky to know all of this,’ said Ellis suddenly. ‘I’m …’ She shook her head. ‘Ha. I guess I’m a bit jealous.’
‘Why?’ I asked, confused.
She looked at me. ‘I just wasted a lot of time. That’s all.’
She chucked her empty McFlurry pot into the back seat and turned on the ignition.
‘I don’t feel lucky,’ I said.
‘What do you feel?’
‘I don’t know. Lost.’ I thought of Sunil. ‘My friend said I don’t have to do anything. He said all I need to do is be.’
‘Your friend sounds like a wise old sage.’
‘That just about sums him up.’
Ellis started driving us out of the car park.
‘I don’t like doing nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s boring.’
‘So what do you think I should do?’
She gave this some thought for a moment.
Then she said. ‘Give
your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they’re just as important. Actually, for us, they’re way more important.’ She glanced to one side at me. ‘There. Was that sage-like enough for you?’
I grinned. ‘Very sage-like.’
‘I can be profound. I am an artist.’
‘You should put this in a painting.’
‘You know what? Maybe I will.’ She raised a hand and twinkled her fingers. ‘I’ll call it Platonic Magic. And no one who isn’t like us – wait, what was it? Aro …?’
‘Aromantic asexual?’
‘Yes. No one who isn’t aromantic asexual will understand it.’
‘Can I have it?’
‘Do you have two thousand pounds?’
‘Your paintings are selling for two thousand pounds?’
‘They sure are. I’m pretty good at my job.’
‘Can I get student discount?’
‘Maybe. Just because you’re my cousin. Student cousin discount.’
And then we were laughing as we reached the motorway and I thought about the magic that I could find, maybe, if I looked a little harder.
Magic was not what I found when I returned to my college room on the afternoon of January eleventh. What I found instead was most of Rooney’s possessions scattered around the floor, her wardrobe wide open, her bedsheets several metres away from her bed, Roderick a worrying shade of brown, and the aqua rug inexplicably crammed into the sink.
I had just unzipped my suitcase when Rooney entered wearing pyjamas, looked at me, looked at the rug in the sink, and said, ‘I spilled tea on it.’
She sat on her bed while I tidied her possessions, squeezed the water out of the rug, and even snipped most of the dead bits off Roderick. The photo of Mermaid-hair Beth had fallen on the floor again, so I just stuck it back on the wall, without saying anything about it, while Rooney watched, expressionless.
I asked about her Christmas, but the only thing she said was that she hated spending time in her home town.
Then she went to bed at seven o’clock.
So, yeah. Rooney was clearly not in a great place.
To be fair, I understood why. The play wasn’t going to happen. Her unspoken thing with Pip was not going to happen. The only thing she really had was – well, me, I guess.
Not a great consolation prize, in my opinion.
‘We should go out,’ I said to her at the end of our first week back at uni.
It was the early evening. She glanced at me over the top of her laptop screen, then continued what she was doing – watching YouTube videos. ‘Why?’
I was seated at my desk. ‘Because you like going out.’
‘I’m not in the mood.’
Rooney had made it to two of our six lectures that week. And when she had come, she had simply stared ahead, not even bothering to get her iPad out of her bag to take notes.
It was like she just didn’t care about anything any more.
‘We could … we could just go to a pub, or something?’ I suggested, sounding a little desperate. ‘Just for one drink. We could get cocktails. Or chips. We could get chips.’
This prompted an eyebrow raise. ‘Chips?’
‘Chips.’
‘I … would like some chips.’
‘Exactly. We could go to the pub, get some chips, get some fresh air, then come back.’
She looked at me for a long moment.
And then she said, ‘OK.’
The nearest pub was packed, obviously, because it was a Friday night in a university town. Thankfully we found a tiny beer-stained table in a back room and I left Rooney to guard it while I procured us a bowl of chips to share and a jug of strawberry daquiri with two paper straws.
We sat and ate our chips in silence. I actually felt very calm, considering the fact that I was technically on a ‘night out’. All around us were students dressed up for the evening, ready to spend a couple of hours in a bar before heading out to clubs later. Rooney was wearing leggings and a hoodie, while I was wearing joggers and a woolly jumper. We probably stuck out quite a lot, but compared to the hell of Freshers’ Week, I was extremely relaxed.
‘So,’ I said, after we’d sat in silence for over ten minutes. ‘I’ve been sensing that you are not having a great time right now.’
Rooney stared at me blankly. ‘I enjoyed the chips.’
‘I meant generally.’
She took a long sip from the jug.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Everything’s shit.’
I waited for her to open up about it, but she didn’t, and I realised I was going to have to pry.
‘The play?’ I said.
‘Not just that.’ Rooney groaned and leant over the table on one hand. ‘Christmas was hell. I … I spent most of it meeting up with my school friends and, like … he was always there.’
It took me a moment to realise who she meant by ‘he’.
‘Your ex-boyfriend,’ I said.
‘He ruined so many things for me.’ Rooney started stabbing the fruit in our cocktail jug with her straw. ‘Every time I see his face I want to scream. And he doesn’t even think he did anything wrong. Because of him, I – God. I could have been a much better person if I’d never met him. He’s the reason I’m like this.’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I wanted to ask her what happened, what he did, but I didn’t want to force her to revisit bad stuff if she didn’t want to.
There was a long silence after she spoke. By the time she spoke again, she had successfully skewered all of the fruit in the jug.
‘I really like Pip,’ she said in a very quiet voice.
I nodded slowly.
‘You knew?’ she asked.
I nodded again.
Rooney chuckled. She took another sip.
‘How come you know me better than anyone?’ she asked.
‘We live together?’ I said.
She just smiled. We both knew it was more than that.
‘So … what are you gonna do?’
‘Uh, nothing?’ Rooney scoffed. ‘She hates me.’
‘I mean … yes, but she misinterpreted the situation.’
‘We made out. There’s not much to misinterpret.’
‘She thinks that we’re a thing. That’s the reason she’s angry.’
Rooney nodded. ‘Because she thinks I’m taking you away from her.’
I almost groaned at the stupidity. ‘No, because she likes you back.’
The look on her face was like I’d taken a glass and smashed it over her head.
‘That’s – that’s just – you’re just wrong about that,’ she stammered, going a little red in the face.
‘I’m just saying what I see.’
‘I don’t want to talk about Pip any more.’
We fell into silence again for a few moments. I knew Rooney was smart about this sort of thing – I’d watched her effortlessly navigate relationships of all kinds since the first day I met her. But, when it came to Pip, she had the emotional intelligence of a single grape.
‘So you like girls?’ I asked.
The scowl on her face dropped. ‘Yeah. Probably. I dunno.’
‘Three wildly different answers to that question.’
‘I dunno, then. I guess … I mean, I questioned whether I liked girls a bit when I was younger. When I was thirteen, I had a crush on one of my friends. A girl. But like –’ she made a shrugging gesture ‘– all girls do that, right? Like, that’s common, having little crushes on your female friends.’
‘No,’ I said, trying not to laugh. ‘Nope. Not all girls do that. Example A.’ I gestured to myself.
‘Well. OK, then.’ She looked to one side. ‘I guess I like girls, then.’
She said it with such nonchalance, it was as if she’d realised her sexuality and come out in the space of about ten seconds. But I knew her better than that. She’d probably been figuring it out for a while. Just like I had.
‘Does that make me bi?’ she asked. ‘Or … pan? Or wha
t?’
‘Whatever you want. You can think about it.’
‘Yeah. I guess I will.’ She was staring at the table. ‘You know, when we kissed … I think I did that because there’s always been this part of me who’s wanted to … um, you know. Be with girls. And you were just a safe option to try it out because I knew you wouldn’t hate me forever. Which was a really shit thing to do, obviously. God, I’m so sorry.’
‘It was a shit thing to do,’ I agreed. ‘But I can relate about accidentally using people because you’re confused about your sexuality.’
We’d both fucked up in a lot of ways. And while our sexuality confusion wasn’t an excuse, it was good that we both realised our mistakes.
Maybe that meant we’d make less of them going forward.
‘I never had any gay or bi friends at school,’ Rooney said. ‘I didn’t really know anyone openly gay, actually. Maybe I would have figured it out sooner if I had.’
‘My best friend has been out since she was fifteen, and it still took me years to figure myself out,’ I said.
‘True. Wow. Shit’s tricky.’
‘Yup.’
She snorted. ‘I’m at uni for three months and suddenly I’m not straight any more.’
‘Mood,’ I said.
‘Love that for us, I guess?’ she asked.
‘Love that for us,’ I agreed.
I got us a second cocktail jug – cosmopolitan – and nachos.
We were halfway through the jug when I told Rooney my plan.
‘I’m going to get Jason and Pip to come back to the Shakespeare Soc,’ I said.
Rooney crushed a particularly cheesy nacho into her mouth. ‘Good luck with that.’
‘You’re welcome to help me.’
‘What’s your plan?’
‘I mean … I haven’t got quite that far yet. There will probably be a lot of apologising involved.’
‘Terrible plan,’ said Rooney, chomping down on another nacho.
‘It’s all I have.’
‘And if it doesn’t work?’
If it didn’t work?
I didn’t know what would happen then.
Maybe that would be it for me, Jason and Pip. Forever.
We finished the nachos – it didn’t take long – and the cocktail jug, before heading towards the pub door, both of us feeling a little bit fuzzy. I was ready to sleep, honestly, but Rooney had fallen into a chatty mood. I was glad. Alcohol and chips definitely weren’t the healthiest solution to her problems, but she seemed a little happier, at least. Job done.
