A little girl, gap-toothed and vivacious, sits in a classroom. She is no older than eight, mind not yet plagued with impurity, still oblivious to the world. The girls of the class crowd together, giggling. She joins them.

They spoke of the grade’s boys — who was cute, who they liked. The word confused the girl. They said it with such a strange tone, plummeting her into unfamiliar territory. Where were the days when all they talked of were playground games?

They asked her, “Who do you have a crush on?” She did not have an answer. She was not sure what that answer should be. Should she feel something, like the rest said they did?

“Him.” She pointed to a black-haired boy in the back of the class. She could tell he was somewhat conventionally attractive: He was thin and his hair was nice. The girls oohed and continued their conversations. The girl took her seat, unsure how to feel about the exchange.

Years passed. Gone were the times where all girls of the class were friends. Life became more complicated. And her understanding of crushes had not advanced since that third-grade day.

At 11, she learned where life was sourced: What adults did behind closed doors, while the children slept. She was disgusted, and wondered why anyone would ever want to do such a thing. “You’ll like it one day,” they said. “It’s a natural part of life,” she heard. It did not feel natural to her. Every time she looked at someone, the only thing she could think of was what they could have done before. Where their child had come from. She knew it was a thing of intimacy, a thing of love, but it still instilled a strange uneasiness in her.

She observed, and noticed that the world around her was so different than she had thought before. Turn on the radio, and all that could be heard are songs of love, with undertones only recognized now. Every piece of media focused on romance. All the jokes made online and in school were inappropriate. The world was obsessed with love and sex. And she did not understand why.

She learned what was desired in women. Boys wanted large hips and chests, luscious lips. Layer upon layer of makeup. She wondered why they would care about such things. If he truly loved her, why would the size of her butt or the look of her face matter? She had never valued someone as a potential romantic partner based on their body, besides the basics of what she knew to be accepted as attractive.

She became a teenager, and her friends began to explore the world she feared. They gave themselves labels: hetero, lesbian. They told of their crushes. She smiled blankly and listened, too scared to ask for an elucidation.

The people around her, along with adopting new vocabulary, began to bring intimacy into conversations. Once while playing Categories (ironically, of course — they were too old and cool for a child’s
game), the topic of boys to smash came up. The table erupted in laughter. The girl was glad she was not playing.

She wished she could understand this desire she had seen, heard, and read about thousands of times. Both sexual and romantic love confused her, though one she wished she could understand and possess.

She was in love with the idea of love. She enjoyed reading about innocent romance, or watching it on television. She wanted that special someone that so many talked about. The person who would walk with her through all her troubles. The one who would do anything for her, the one she would do anything for. The Orpheus to her Eurydice. Yet every time she tried to imagine herself being with anyone she knew or knew of, holding hands with anyone, kissing anyone, she could not. The image turned sour in her mind. She did not understand how she could admire love so much, but not like it for herself.

Many times before she had called an anxious attempt to make friends a crush. It was similar to the way a crush was supposed to feel, she thought. So it must be. The boys she felt this way about were thought to be so cool by her. She wanted validation from them. But, when she considered the idea of dating them in any way, her stomach turned unpleasantly. She wanted them as friends, and she knew this. Friends were few and far between for her, and making new ones felt like such an ordeal that she often mistook the natural awkwardness for romantic feelings. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she did not dwell on these people’s appearances, that they did not make her feel any different from how her other friends did, and that she didn’t want to do anything couple-y with them.

She wanted to know what she was doing wrong. Not wanting simple teenage romance? Impossible. The kids around her talked about crushes or sexualities. They seemed to have it all figured out, while she was still drowning in a sea of unsureness, trying to determine if she had ever even had a real crush before.

On a late night, she decided to consult the internet for answers. She typed in the question that
had haunted her for years. She pressed enter.

Asexual. She stared at the word on her screen. Below it read Aromantic. She scrolled and read. Someone who did feel sexual or romantic attraction, or fell somewhere in between those two.

Part of her wanted to believe that this was who she is, to accept that she would never find herself in a relationship. Part of her was assured that she was too young, that this was just some made-up internet identity, and that feelings would come later. All of her wished to know for certain what she was, and now.

She was scared to say what she thought she was for fear of being wrong. She didn’t want to seem different from the others. She wanted the love shoved down her throat by the media. She wanted to be normal.

And who knows? Maybe soon, she would be this strange idea of “normal” that she so desperately wanted to be. She stared down at the book in her hands she had been reading. Philtatos, a character called the other. Most beloved.

She sat, feeling isolated, impatient, and angry at the world, wanting to know if she would ever find her Philtatos.