The first time I remember hearing the word gay was in fourth grade. We were singing deck the halls for a winter concert. 

"Don we now our gay apparel". The class laughed, mostly because we didn't get it. I knew what being gay meant. I wasn't laughing at the word. I was laughing at the idea of dating. In forth grade, dating was a joke. As I grew older, I learned a bit more about sexuality.  In middle school I learned about bisexuality. And in freshman year I began to understand the concept of transgender. And that was it to the acronym.  I didn't think too much about it. I wasn't attracted to girls, so I couldn't be lesbian or bi. By default, I must be straight. I didn't think much about it after that for a while. 

During that learning period of my life (4th-8th grade), I was slightly homophobic. 

"It's okay if you're gay, as long as you aren't gay in front of me. "  and then, "Its okay if you're gay, I just don't understand it". Also, at the time, I had really religious friends. So we never talked about these things.

 In sophomore year, I started actually paying attention to the  lgbt community. I stopped ignoring it, and started trying to learn more about it. I had joined tumblr freshman year soon learned more about the lgbt community. This is when I started to question myself. I realized that I felt the same way I felt about guys, as I did girls. Holy shit, did this realization scare me. I was straight!  If it came up in a conversation I would say, "I don't care about labels. I'm 100% straight , but if I met the perfect girl..." It was my way of saying, "I'm hella confused, but I don't want anyone to know." 

In junior year, my best friend got a girlfriend. They were the first not-straight friend who did something about their not-straightness. I was so proud of them for being who they are, but at the same time, I was freaked. I started thinking, "Could I  hold hands and kiss a girl? Would I be okay with it?". My answer was yes. So I must be bisexual. 

Then my friend and their girlfriend started getting more serious, which meant more sexual. This made me question again. I was a junior in high school and I still wasn't interested in sex. I rarely got turned on. But there was no word in the now five letter acronym to describe that. So, maybe I was wrong about being bi. Maybe I'm straight after all. 

I first read the term asexual in the summer before junior year. I had started following more lgbtq+ blogs on tumblr and learned about pansexuality and asexuality. I didn't have that magical moment when I read the word and it just clicks. I just read the word and moved on. A month later, I was sitting in the break room before work and was scrolling through my dash. I stumbled across the term asexual again. I read it, and then froze. I think that describes me. Everything started to make sense. But I didn't want it to make sense. I wanted to be straight.  The word asexual was floating through my head all day at work, making it very difficult to concentrate at work.  Later that I week I told my friends that I had to tell them something, but it wasn't something I wanted to say in the parking lot of McDonald's. 

"You're pregnant" they joked and I was really grateful for that. 

"Kinda the opposite." I replied. 

I told my friend a week later at a sleepover. I couldn't get the words out. I was so ashamed of them. After five minutes of stuttering, I managed to get the words out. They were totally supportive of me, as I knew they would be, and we talked for hours about it. That was the moment I realized I could trust them with anything. I told my other friend about it, and she didn't get it. She was supportive, but we don't talk about it at all. 

I was still focused on being straight. So I used the term demisexual, because that was the closest to "normal". I said I was a heteroromantic demisexual. When school started, I joined GSA. I became okay with not being straight and I started being honest with myself. I am asexual.  

Suddenly, things started making sense. In fourth grade, love is weird. I never really felt different. It wasn't until high school that I realized that not wanting sex wasn't normal.  But I am okay with not being normal. I'm learning to be comfortable in my sexuality. 

Now, figuring out my romantic orientation? That is a story for another day.