The thing is, I am non-binary but i am also a girl. I am aroace but I am also pan. The second, deeper part of each is the scary one to embrace and contemplate and perform, even for my own benefit and familiarity—but to do so is necessary to be a whole, unashamed, self-loving person. For me it’s this big fucking leap in each case, and I just have to trust in my knowledge of what I know to be true about myself—and in the patience and kindness of the people I choose to assemble.

I don’t know if there’s existing terminology or theory around this, but my efforts to square the circle of my sexuality lend me to think in terms of internal and external attraction. I want to make loose parallel to gender identity versus expression, as point of reference.

It is simultaneously true, I am finding, that I am aggressively and proudly aroace, and that my well-being is tied up in embracing this—and that I am also obviously, confusingly pan. I can and have whittled this down to all these granular modes of attraction, and fine, yes, but. Really what it seems to come down to is outer and inner identity. In theory I can be attracted to anyone, gender being no particular issue, and in creative terms have been kind of melting over this realization. but in reality…I don’t. I won’t. I can’t. It’s not how I’m wired. And I don’t want it.

This is, I sense, a thing many aces struggle with. There’s the real and practical side, then there’s this breezy theoretical side that finds its outlet in art and literature, that is genuine and valid and important—but there’s this boundary. It’s appreciation, with no desire to act. That appreciation is equally valid and important and true, and both that and the internal side are parts of who I am.

I feel like I am invisibly growing queerer and queerer inside my head, burning up with all this baffling new insight and appreciation and potential and dying to explore it creatively or whatever. But in practice, expression? Just. no? I will never be attracted to a real person. Never mind the active aversion, sensory issues, trauma, and all of that. Don’t feel it, don’t notice it, don’t want it, kinda freaked out about it, find it super unpleasant.

As for the nuances of the internal side… whee, uh. There have been a lot of realizations there. but they feel so weird to talk about, and it seems to create the wrong impression when I try to put it all into words, so I’m gonna have to stew on that a while longer, I guess.