1/31/26 - very confusing feelings
i've considered myself aromantic since about late 2023. all my life, i never cared about romance, nor felt any compulsion to start caring. i figured if i was ever gonna fall in love, it surely would've happened at least once by now, but across the hundreds of people i'd met over the course of my then-16 years of existence, it never happened, and i really didn't care. i found the concept of romance uninteresting, and that even extended to things like music; i generally found love songs a bit boring and enjoyed when songs talked about friendship instead. towards the end of 2025, though, something odd happened.
in june 2025, i met a dragon that (currently) goes by third, and over the next few months, it would proceed to change my life beyond anything i could've imagined. the things it's done for me are not things i could ever describe properly with words, hence why i made an album about it. anyways, i think it was early december when i realized my feelings for it probably went beyond just being Good Friends. throughout early december we had some pretty intimate conversations that kinda helped me realize how important it is to me. that along with reading the a-spectra to see what romantic attraction actually Feels like made me realize: i was in love.
with my best friend.
who's also aroace.
oh dear.
i tried to deny it; surely it could just be my attachment issues or sensual attraction or just my immense gratitude for everything it's done for me, right? i didn't want to admit i had feelings for someone that, as far as i knew, physically could not love me back, on top of the Weirdness that comes with the fact that i'd considered us just friends for months, as well as genuine confusion as to what romantic attraction actually was. i went back and forth between thinking i was in love and thinking it was just a combination of various other things. it was so, so confusing and strange, especially when you remember i was pretty sure i was aromantic. i mean, i was never 100% confident, but i was pretty sure. i didn't even want to tell third how i felt because i didn't want to make it uncomfortable. i didn't want to think i was obsessive or weird, (although, in my head, it might not have been wrong to think that,) to a point where i was a little nervous how it'd react to my fire's gone cold. our relationship means the universe to me, and i didn't want to risk jeopardizing it even the slightest bit. eventually, though, in late january, after it had listened to and loved my fire's gone cold, i figured i had to say Something. i decided to just give it the whole spiel of how confusing it's been trying to figure out if i'm romantically attracted to it or not. that way, the realistic worst case scenario is that it gets a bit weirded out, but is still willing to talk about it, since attraction is something we've talked about before. a tiny piece of me had hope it would like me back, since from what i remember, it didn't seem entirely confident when it told me it was aromantic, but i went into it expecting nothing; in fact, the reason i even sent that message was more just to vent how confusing it's been navigating these feelings, rather than to see if it liked me back. but uh. have you ever had a tiny, naive hope of a perfect outcome you knew full well could never happen actually come true?
because let me tell you, it is magical.
what the fuck, no. this doesn't happen to me. what the fuck do you mean we both transcended aromanticism and had a demiromantic awakening for each other?? that's not a thing!!! i'm not this lucky!!! i'm just not!
ok, let me tell you how many things had to go right for us to meet. so, i just happened to check a channel i don't use in a discord server i don't use for a game i barely play these days, and just happened to see the modding collab it was hosting and just happened to join it, and its pfp just happened to be a patricia taxxon pfp, who just happens to be one of my favorite musicians, and therefore just happened to be a good conversation starter. then, third just happened to try to get the other people in the collab on board with a cc by-sa-nc license, and i just happened to be feeling edgy then and mention how the idea “profiting off someone's work” doesn't make sense, which happened to be another good icebreaker. additionally, it just happened to be outgoing enough to where i didn't really need to be the one to start most of our early conversations, which is good because i Suck at starting conversations with people i don't know very well, and it just happened to have like 4 billion things in common with me. so maybe you can see how i'm still in such disbelief that any of this is real, especially now that we're... partners????? god, all this feels so weird. i've never felt like this for anyone, ever, much less engaged with those feelings. i had no idea i was this goddamn mushy, but you know what? i'm revelling in it. figuring myself out has been a very strange and confusing journey, but there's an immense comfort in knowing i don't have to navigate these feelings alone. really, there's just an immense comfort having third around in general. every day it gets harder to believe any of this is real, but i'm so, so glad it is, because having third with me has made me so incredibly happy, happier than i've been... maybe ever?? gahh i love it so muchhhh.
(tw for talk about being suicidal)
i recently remembered something i did when i was 13. it must've been around late 2020 or early 2021, at the lowest point of my life. a big move had rendered me incapable of going to the school i'd gone to for years or seeing the friends i'd known for years, and to say it made me feel isolated would be an understatement. i was incredibly depressed and lonely and engulfed in self-loathing. the main things that kept me barely sane enough were talking to people on discord, growing a hyper-obsession with charizard, and, perhaps most of all, finding my passion in music, though that came a little later. even despite those things, though, there were still times i fantasized about suicide, thinking about what the least painful way to kill myself i had easy access to was, thinking about what people's reactions would be if they found out i'd died, etc. one day, i remembered we had a gun, and i thought that'd be a relatively quick and painless death if i did it right, so... i asked my dad where the gun was. i think i said i wanted to know in case i needed it for self-defense, but the reality was i wanted it so i could shoot myself if things got too unbearable. i wasn't quite at the point where i would've actually done it, but i was at the point where it felt comforting to know there was a way out if i couldn't handle things anymore, and thank God for that, because if i recall correctly, my dad actually told me where it was. looking back on this five years later, it is so, so fucking crazy and kind of scary to think i could've fucking died before meeting third or finding my passion in music or becoming a furry or getting a job editing videos for JMA or any of the other incredible things that have happened to me in the past five years. i'm happier now than i've ever been, which is kinda saying something considering i was pretty happy before that big move in 2020, and i'm so, so incredibly glad i didn't kill myself. to you, third, thank you so much for everything you've done for me. knowing i've done for you even a fraction of what you've done for me makes me so, so happy. i love you more than words can express, hence why i made an album instead. joining that celeste collab in june 2025 was the best thing i've ever done. and to you, reader, if you're going through a hard time, trust me when i say i understand. i know how hard it is to go through life thinking nobody cares or that you're a bad person. it sucks, it sucks so bad, and i hate that anyone has to go through it, but it does get better. the relief of the ending of the pain is worth the pain, i promise.
i promise.