I hear “it’s just a phase” a lot. I’m panromantic asexual, and almost everyone I meet feels the need to weigh in on my romantic and sexual orientation, ready to tell me all the ways in which I am not valid.
My number one answer, every time, is “so what.”
SO. FUCKING. WHAT.
All I see is people rushing to assure people that it’s not just a phase, but even if it was, that doesn’t make it any less valid. People are fluid. Orientations are fluid. When I was 15, I preferred dating boys to dating girls. Now, at 23, I prefer to date girls. When I’m 35, I may find myself, however improbably, actually wanting to have sex.
None of that makes what I am going through right now- who I am right now- any less valid.
Do you know what else is a phase? Childhood. I don’t hear anyone telling their eight year old that they aren’t actually eight because by this time next year, they will be nine. That would be ridiculous.
In five years, they’ll be about to start high school. That doesn’t mean I’ll be making that child read Catcher in the Rye and doing calculus.
When I was 8, I was going to going to be the first female president. At 10, I ate nothing but pasta. When I was 12, I thought Naruto was the coolest thing ever. These were all phases, all ones that I grew out of, and no one ever told me that, because those things wouldn’t be true in another six months, they weren’t real.
The present is what matters. What you feel now is what matters. Who knows what you’ll feel tomorrow. It’s no one’s fucking business.
Go through your phases. Feel free to change. You grow. You learn. You adapt.
And nothing that you feel is invalid.
