“Hey Siri.

Am I demisexual?”

As a person who has always had crushes on boys since the 3rd grade (sorry dad), I never thought I'd be typing that question into the Google search bar. I never really knew what that was. I somehow managed to snatch up my first “boyfriend” as a 12-year-old and was obviously, and easily, fitting into the social norms. I was a blue-eyed, blonde, white girl who fell for the brown eyed, messy haired, middle school class clown.

I was normal.

I felt normal.

I joined Tinder as a joke about 6 months ago. I basically just wanted to sit with my friends and make fun of people who had too many emojis in their bio or too many heavy filters on their photos. It quickly became more than a joke to me. I found a weird kind of fascination in it by being able to just tell people about the good parts of me and dislike all the people who wrote “420 friendly” in their captions.

I liked that I could quickly get rid of anyone who did something I didn’t like or agree with. After a month of two of carpel tunnel in my right thumb, I am embarrassed to admit, but I was actually pretty addicted. I didn’t tell my parents because I grew up as a very privacy-oriented person, and even at 18-years-old, I was convinced that they’d judge me for my trend-following dating choices. I went on a few dates through Tinder, met some super awesome friends, and never really had a terrible, scary, or unsafe experience.

The event that changed all of this was when I eventually casually mentioned my recent app download to my mom. As someone who has always been VERY involved in my dating life, this case was no different. While I mostly expected her to get angry at me for being involved in something unsafe, she did the completely opposite and enthusiastically announced that she wanted to join in the swiping with me. Hesitantly, I explained everything from fake accounts to Super Likes and we were on our way to Swipetown. I asked her why she got so excited, and she simply said:

“Well, you never know what could happen.”

And that stopped me in my tracks.

Until this moment I never actually thought that Tinder would deliver me my soulmate. Come to think of it, I never want to go on a date with someone I’ve never met before. I don’t truly feel attracted to any of these people I’m swiping on. I don’t have an actual, real desire to start a relationship with any of these faces.

Once I realized this, I realized a lot of other things. There are a few friends I know who I would love to start a romantic relationship with. I’ve known them for a few years, they know a lot about me, and I know a lot about them.

I realized that starting a relationship with someone I haven’t known for years is absolutely terrifying to me. A new person won’t know about my weird birth defect, how many years I had braces, my unexplainable phobia of repeated tiny holes, the day I almost died in an airplane emergency, or the way my right eye squints up more than my left when I smile really hard. My close friends know these things and I trust them and would much rather be in relationships with them, not some new person who doesn't even know my middle name.

That was the moment when I realized I was a demisexual.

I am someone who is not romantically or sexually attracted to someone until I have a deep emotional connection to them.

Ever since then, my fascination with Tinder has exponentially declined. I noticed that even if I matched with someone and they messaged me first, there was no excitement and I had no real motivation to continue a conversation with them. I still have the app downloaded mainly for the fact that I like to look at cute guys without necessarily having to talk to them. But who knows! Maybe someday I’ll match with a guy who turns out to be just like me, we start a great friendship, and it blossoms into something more.

I am in no way trying to say that demisexuals aren't normal (I mean, I'm not but I can't speak for everyone else *wink wink*). I just realized that I am not as quick to jump into romantic relationships as I used to be and I think that is a very important, healthy realization for me to have about myself.

Obviously, I do understand that every relationship has to start somewhere. I'm not guaranteed to marry someone that I currently know at this point in my life. I just hope that all of my future relationship partners understand how my mind works and why my actions are what they are.

But remember, just like my mom said, you never know what could happen in the future.