{"id":245,"date":"2019-06-15T12:35:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-15T16:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/?p=245"},"modified":"2019-06-14T16:40:32","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T20:40:32","slug":"soulful-saturday-dad-and-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/15\/soulful-saturday-dad-and-pride\/","title":{"rendered":"Soulful Saturday: Dad and Pride"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Good afternoon, and welcome back to Soulful Saturday! Today, I\u2019m going to be getting pretty deep. I\u2019m going to be talking about two things that are important to me and are getting celebrated this month: the LGBTQIA+ community and fathers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I get into the nitty gritty, first let me come out bluntly and tell you, I\u2019m not straight. I myself am part of the elusive asexual spectrum. I identify as demisexual and demiromantic. And, if you don\u2019t know what that is\u2026 Well, don\u2019t feel too bad. It took me years to come to terms with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My journey to figuring myself out has been long and dizzying. I\u2019m lucky, as my father has been supportive of me the entire time. In fact, when I first came out to him\u2026 He was more surprised I thought it wasn\u2019t obvious. I\u2019ve always been easy to read, though, I suppose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, there\u2019s one thing you have to keep in mind: at the time, I came out as lesbian. I had never found a male attractive to me, and was only interested in the girls around me. Thus, I thought lesbian was the right role\u2026 until suddenly, it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found myself falling for boys just as often as I fell in love with girls. It made me a confused mess- I didn\u2019t understand my criteria that lead me to want to be close to someone. It wasn\u2019t like I didn\u2019t notice attractive people as attractive- even now, a hot girl is a hot girl, as is a hot guy a hot guy. But no matter how attractive someone is, I never feel aroused by them. I wouldn\u2019t want to touch them at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s when I finally figured things out: I didn\u2019t care about gender, but I wasn\u2019t pansexual either. I wasn\u2019t bisexual, I wasn\u2019t anything. Because for me, the only way I can feel aroused is if I\u2019m in love with someone- and that only happens after I\u2019ve come to trust them an exuberant amount, along with some unknowns still playing in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demisexual, as I noted, is a part of the asexual spectrum. To be demi means you\u2019re only attracted to people you have a strong emotional tie to, essentially. For me, \u2018friends first\u2019 isn\u2019t just a motto my parents pushed in my head- it\u2019s the only way I can love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, throughout this entire ordeal of finding myself and my orientation, my father would listen and has always supported my realizations. He\u2019s so wonderful and open-minded, and he\u2019s always cheering me on. That\u2019s why, this Father\u2019s Day weekend, I wanted to give a shout out to the man that\u2019s always been open-minded and protected me from bigotry, my understanding father. My dad\u2019s the first person who saw me as I was and never judged- and when others did, he\u2019d confront them and comfort me at the same time. He\u2019s seen all my pain and all my joy, and has always been on my side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So thank you, dad. Thank you for watching over me as I walk down this confusing road known as life. I\u2019ll never be able to thank you enough for all you do. I love you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To my readers, I thank you as well- both for reading this long wall of text and for sticking with me so far. I hope I can continue to count on you again and again, and that maybe once in a while, you\u2019ll find yourself able to rely on me as well!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good afternoon, and welcome back to Soulful Saturday! Today, I\u2019m going to be getting pretty deep. I\u2019m going to be talking about two things that are important to me and are getting celebrated this month: the LGBTQIA+ community and fathers. Before I get into the nitty gritty, first let me come out bluntly and tell…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[33,2],"tags":[72,70,68],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8uAZQ-3X","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jrolik.caludin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}