Member-only story
When I was nineteen, I went on my first date. I was a late bloomer in some ways and even then, romance felt foreign and weird, something I didn’t want to be doing. I had dinner twice with the guy and then called it off. I barely wanted to hug him. We walked two feet apart from each other and I was deeply uncomfortable. Though we had been good friends, dating felt wrong and we never kissed.
Six months later, one of my closest friends texted me I was really important to him, we walked back from a cat cafe in Georgetown, and we said we loved each other. We were both asexual, so we didn’t know what it meant or if it was romance, but we met the next day and the day after, and eventually figured it out.
“Do I have a love life now?” he said.
I shrugged. “This is so weird.”
A lot of things didn’t change. We still chatted about grammar and movies and pedantry. We still went to law school together and met our mutual friends for board games.
Then, one day, he said: “Someday, I think I might ask to kiss you.”
I freaked out. “I don’t think I’d be comfortable…” I said, then stopped. “But like maybe? It seems romantic. I don’t know. Do you want to?”
