My school had them for free and I was like uhhh yes please I want a free flag. And I expected it to be tiny but it was actually a full size flag. I had about 3 minutes of well that’s unexpected what will I do with that and then posted it to my wall and haven’t looked back xD

That's amazing and I am super jealous LOL

I hope flags will rain upon you at some point (or at least one for display fun anyways)

hehe Ideally I want 3... Ace flag, queer flag, and genderqueer flag (possibly also genderfluid flag, but I think it's ugly so probably not)

I’m contemplating the aro flag but it’s so similar to the ace one it seems silly to have both. There is also some ambiguity as to whether I’m aro or just pan romantic and non-hierarchical poly (or I suppose hierarchical poly would be fine too I just refuse to be a primary partner. Secondary or below for me thanks) It is a bummer when flags are ugly though.

I really wish I knew what any of that you were saying meant. I'm so out of the loop on this stuff.... o.o I'm mostly around older people so I don't know any of the lingo or what most of it all means. ._.

I did use a few too many acronyms. Been hanging out primarily with knowers of the lingo so I forget that it’s basically a code. Asexual is for me just not sexually attracted to anyone. That makes defining romantic relationships squishy confusing and ambiguous. Because it’s very hard for me to define a romantic attachment that would be both meaningfully different from my friendships and desirable to me I consider myself also aromantic (not interested in romantic attachments). With that said loneliness is very real and needs to be avoided and I really enjoy intimacy such as cuddling with people I am intellectually and emotionally engaged by so the alternative explanation is that i do like romantic attachments I’m just polyamourous (because the idea of only being allowed to me emotionally attached to/cuddly with a single person sounds sad and terrible to me that would make me poly). For some people polyamory has lots and lots of rules/structures “hierarchy” such as you can have sex w/lots of people but only be emotionally involved with me the primary partner. I find that structure fundamentally incompatible because I don’t care who other people sleep with and really only want the emotional intomacy. With that said I’m not a fan of being a primary partner because I don’t want where I move or my career to be limited by needing to plan for another person. I’m not the person to follow people places nor do I want them to follow me because I’d never want someone to do something for me I wouldn’t consider doing for them. Flags being sexuality pride flags. I’ll leave genderfluifidy to thetruthbetween who actually is and can almost certainly articulate better than I can.

Thank you for explaining, starlit, I do understand better now. ^^

Now I gotta follow that well-worded explanation with one for genderqueer and genderfluid and man... that stuff isn't eloquent at the best of times LOL

So genderqueer is basically an umbrella term for "not cisgender" (cisgender meaning identifying as the gender you were assigned at birth) and is usually considered a synonym of non-binary. Personally I don't like the term non-binary, tho I do sometimes call myself an enby (enby = NB = non-binary). Genderfluid means that your gender identity can change. For me I go between male, female, and neither (actually now that I'm thinking about it, I think my most common state is closest to agender, without gender identity, but as I haven't researched agender at all, I'm not totally sure).

Isn’t humanity super complicated and squishy and fun!? (Also fistbump Nic. Here’s to explaining a collection/subset of words in a reasonably understandable way)

Humanity is definitely super complicated LOL Especially when it comes to gender and sexuality

Yes, things have definitely gotten more complicated. Too complicated for simple ol' me

I do thank you both for explaining.

No problem

Same here weezee. 😉

I just think like this: We are all just people who love other people. It doesn’t matter to me who loves who or what gender and I don’t understand why it all has to have a different name...

Well labels (or if you don't like that word, adjectives) help people find others like them, which can help you both understand yourself and find support. Before I realized I was asexual/aromantic, I thought there was something wrong with me, that I was broken in some way. But once I discovered what ace/aro is, and that there are others who have the same type of sexuality as I do, I stopped feeling that way.

Plus I have OCD and probably undiagnosed autism, and having the ability to quantify things is extremely important to me, because it gives me a framework for how to relate to people and situations. It gives me a basis on how to read people. For example, if a woman gives me an extra long hug, how I'll interpret that differs depending on whether she's straight, ace, or bi/pan/gay. That's just a small example, but it's actually incredibly helpful to me in social situations to know a person's gender/sexual identity. At the very least, it can give some kind of common ground if the person isn't cishet (cisgender heterosexual/romantic) because I'm both queer and genderqueer.

It's great that it doesn't matter to you, the world needs more people like that! But until it doesn't matter to everyone, it's gonna be important to the people who choose to take on labels.

(Also once you know all the lingo, you can get to know someone's romantic expectations, or lack thereof, pretty quickly just by giving them the shorthand)

I'm pretty solidly female and lesbian, but technically, both of THOSE identifiers should only be of interest to my girlfriend because I'm also quite definitely monogamous.
That doesn't mean that I wouldn't hug around the world if given the chance - the only thing that stops me from doing that is usually people's body odour.
So, what does that make me?

My friend flederdalle! Glomps! (Luckily for you virtual hugs have no BO)

But yeah like Nic said, pretty much didn’t realize that my definition of date and everyone else’s didn’t match for a long time (I thought date/liking was just “I think you’re a cool human and would like to hang out with you outside of class in addition to in class which did not quite match other people’s) then I felt super duper broken forever. Then I found ace and felt like I wasn’t ace enough because I still had people I liked spending time with. Then I actually interacted with other asexual people and went oh not broken, just in this group! I’ve found my people! And also (in the right context is a very convinient shorthand for going “not sleeping with you even though I seem flirty thanks!”) But also it definitely shouldn’t matter except as a personal identity/convinient communication shorthand and while it has gotten ridiculously complicated to the point that I certainly don’t know all the terms and that is probably true of a lot of people, it starts a conversation and if finding that word that fits them brings other people the same peace I found when I found my words, I’m all for it.

I must be very sheltered because I've never had anyone ever (other than online) tell me their gender/sexual preference etc. I mean, that just isn't something that's done... maybe it's just cuz I'm old? LMAO

and I'm of the mind that I don't like being labeled. I am me like me or don't, ya know?

It's an interesting balance. Usually I'll only self identify to people who need to know (because they seem flirty or have expressed interest in dating directly) or people who seem to from other conversations seem to be the same. I knew a person who that was literally one of the first things they would tell people like "hi i'm X and I'm a lesbian" which I found kind of offputting because it's really not something I care about (she was using it as a test to like see if it got a rise/judgy reaction) but also it was weird that was in the first information category to me. Like hi I'm interested in these 5 nerd shows is way more interesting to me. And I think the difference for me is that I labeled myself (if someone else had given me a label I would have been like no you're wrong bug off (which is exactly what I did when one of my mother's coworkers correctly labeled me within about an hour of knowing me but before I had really picked a label because I was in the eww labels are stupid mood)). And not wanting to be labelled is totally valid! It's just as valid and wanting to find labels and categories and subcategories. As a scientist I love labeling things because once I label things I can put them in a box and file them away nicely organized. I just like sorting ideas. And honestly I cycle a lot. There are months where the label is really important to me and then entire years where I stop identifying with the label at all and am solidly in the I'm me deal with it camp. I'm still a bit on the label train recently because I broke up with a longer term partner (it was like a year ago now but since it was a 2.5 year relationship and really my first actual relationship it's taken some time to get over it) so that triggered a what even am I what do I want to be oh no life is scary existential crisis of sorts.

AeonFlux

I just think like this: We are all just people who love other people. It doesn’t matter to me who loves who or what gender and I don’t understand why it all has to have a different name...

This is exactly how I feel.

weezee

I must be very sheltered because I've never had anyone ever (other than online) tell me their gender/sexual preference etc. I mean, that just isn't something that's done... maybe it's just cuz I'm old? LMAO

and I'm of the mind that I don't like being labeled. I am me like me or don't, ya know?

Not just you! I've experienced the same thing. But, I for one, tend to be more open and "me" online than in person. I'm afraid I'm too weird for real life, the only RL person I'm fully me around is my hubby. So I'm betting a lot of the reason more people aren't as open about their gender/sexual preference etc. IRL is that it's harder to be honestly you face-to-face. Especially when it comes to something as controversial as this - never know who is going to accept you or bash you.