I pretend I’m straight just to avoid aphobia and explaining myself

Honestly, I’m getting tired of it.

People ask me why I’m single, why I never date, or why I don’t just download a dating app. I tell them that I value my freedom a lot, but even when I explicitly say I’m not interested, they keep pushing.
And if I ever try to explain myself… well, you know how people respond by now. The aphobia, the “you just haven’t met the right person” comments, or worse. It gets genuinely exhausting having to deal with it.

Unfortunately, I’ve found myself dating people or enduring other stuff I did not want to simply because of the constant noise surrounding me, telling me that this is what I should be doing.

So, most of the time, I don’t even bother explaining. I mask. I pretend I’m straight. I tell people I’m not looking for anything right now because I’m busy, which is true, considering I’m working full-time while studying full-time.

But my gosh sometimes it feels so lonely. Not because I don’t have someone in my life, but because I constantly have to hide parts of myself just to avoid having to explain or defend them.
And I think that’s what hurts the most: it’s not necessarily the absence of a relationship, but the loneliness of having to mask who I am in a world that seems to assume everyone is the same and wants the same things...

https://redd.it/1x525gp
@asexualityonreddit