My Mom’s Been Reading The Invisible Orientation (Part 2)

Here is Part 1.

Ever since my mom started to actually talk to me about asexuality (which was about a month and a half after I returned to North America) she has been very focused on dating. She told me I could start an asexual dating website as a business – I pointed out to her that asexual dating websites already exist. When she asked me about them, I told her I never bothered to register at any because I am not interested in dating. My mother interpreted it as ‘not interested right now’ rather than ‘not interested at all’, and I wasn’t prepared to have a long serious discussion with her about it, mainly because I’m not entirely clear what I want. She also seemed to think of me going to ace meet-ups as a way of *ahem* shopping for asexy dates, and she usually asks me if I met anyone I really like after a meet-up.

Fast forward to my mother reading The Invisible Orientation.

She came to me, and said that the most striking thing she found in the book is that asexuals can date non-asexuals, and that the writer does not recommend that asexuals only look for asexual partners (note: I have not read that section of the book, so I do not know whether my mother is accurately representing what Julia Sondra Decker says). I replied ‘Well, of course’. It turns out that my mother was under the impression that a) of course I’m interested in dating and b) that asexuals can only date other asexuals. She said that internet dating is a wonderful thing for niche groups, and that I would have to find an asexual partner through the internet because it would be too difficult otherwise.

This is where I had to say straight out to my mother that I do not want to date.

And I don’t. I’d like to form some kind of chosen family at some point. I’m not sure how I’ll try to do that, but it won’t be through ‘dating’. I have never felt any inclination to date anybody, except in circumstances when the word ‘date’ is being used very, very loosely (I had a friend who I would go on ‘dates’ with, but a ‘date’ was simply anything we decided to do in advance together at a specific time, like go to the Wanhua District of Taipei. She is heterosexual).

Even though I’ve told my mother before that I don’t want to date, I don’t think she actually understood what I was saying until just then. Maybe she still doesn’t understand. We’ll see.

She also said that one of the most interesting parts of the book is the list of novels with ace characters. She asked me if I had read any of them. I have only read Quicksilver. My mom went ahead and got a bunch of these novels from the library, but I think most of these books are not her cup of tea (she hasn’t said much about them).

The Invisible Orientation has been a helpful book. It is a lot easier to hand it to my mother than to try to educate her about asexuality myself. It has also sparked dialogue, especially about this issue of dating where she had some misconceptions about myself and I avoided talking to her about it because it was easier to avoid the subject and I only had a vague notion of the misconceptions she had. I am very glad that this book exists.