pinkdiamondprince:Trying to figure out if you’re ace or aro can be so goddamn hard because it’s...

pinkdiamondprince:

Trying to figure out if you’re ace or aro can be so goddamn hard because it’s like, trying to find the absence of something. Imagineyou’re at a pond and you want to know if there are any turtles, or fish. Sayyou find a turtle and you’re like “great! Now I know there are turtles.” Or afish, now you know for sure there are fish. Or you find both, and now you knowfor a fact there are both turtles and fish in the pond.

But like, if you don’t find any turtles it might be that there are noturtles or maybe you’re just really shitty at looking for turtles and maybe youTHINK you saw a turtle over there or maybe it was just a stick. Maybe there areonly a few turtles. Maybe you need to do something special to find the turtles. Maybe a bunch of these rocks are actually turtles but you couldn’t tell them apart.Maybe there are no turtles. You have no idea. Meanwhile some people are saying “Ohthere have to be turtles! You’ll find them eventually ;)” or “How many turtleshave you found in your pond?” or “Try planting some vegetables at the shore toattract the turtles.” Or “Oh no! What disaster happened to your pond that thereare no turtles?” And you’re just standing there wet with an empty net and atired expression.

But whatever because whether there are turtles or fish or not your pond’secology works just fine without them because that’s what eco-communities dothey form a system around what they have. You aren’t missing anything if youdon’t have turtles you just have a pond system without turtles. If someonetried to change you by pouring a bunch of turtles into your pond it wouldprobably fuck something up.

So you don’t have to be entirely sure. You don’t have to search every inch of the damn pond before you can decide there are probably no turtles. If you want to take the aro or ace label because you think it fits go for it. And if you do find your turtles you can rename the pond. That’s fine.