I still couldn’t tell you how it exists; it shouldn’t exist. Yet, somehow, through almost three years and 5000 miles, its life support continues to beep away.
I started an ace meetup. Even with an ocean between me and the desperate passion project, it somehow lived on- if only on the screen like Ladonia- growing from 5 to 20 to 80 (almost) faceless members, all because I could never quite bring myself to pull the plug. Even as $60 was taken out of my account at times almost faster than the yen could roll in, even as the pandemic was in the end the only thing keeping it active at all as I hosted digital meetups from a different time zone…
To think I nearly gave up a thousand times.
When I crept into my first queer space in my very last year of college, I already knew I had to be the one. Somehow, as everywhere from Seattle to New York to any forgotten city in between nursed healthy meetups with thousands of members and dozens of organizers, in 19 years of community building there still was no official ace space in the state of Hawaii. Hawaii, the place I got to know as “rainbow island” in every sense of the word. Though Oahu only had one true queer club, though it could only beat rinky-dink Tokyo pride by a few onlookers (some of those protestors), the state steeped in LGBTQ+ history is exactly as queer as my ex San Francisco wishes it was.
Why, then, had the purple and green in the rainbow just never come together- was everyone just too far apart? Unlike in the bay area, we couldn’t simply hop in our car or on the BART a few hours; if you’re on another island, it just isn’t that easy. Is it that the ace community is just too “shy?” I’m not the first to observe what seems a distinctly ace spec tendency to hide in the deck and keep to oneself, and it’s no wonder- it was all I could do to drag my social anxiety to my first ace meetup. With the tales I’d read of rainbow spaces guarded by fire breathing dragons, it was only a world of heteronormative nightmares like I’d never known with not so much as a rainbow in sight that sent me running for that cave in the hopes of refuge. Yet, this doesn’t quite explain why even among other aces we’ve seemed to cling to the internet since long before the pandemic; it doesn’t explain how a classmate spotted the ace aro pride badges on my bag every day for an entire semester, never getting the nerve to say something until months later when introduced by her new ace roommate who happened to be my own ace friend.
Whatever the reasons for this isolation, my desperate posting in AVEN forums, acebook, anywhere I thought we might gather told me quickly that we EXISTED… it was simply that no one was quite willing to take that first step. And why should they? Devoting the time and energy to try and cobble together a community from zero, possibly for nothing?
Yet, I had to do it. Knowing even one ace existed not only on the same island but in the same college, just as afraid to be without a community… I waltzed into my first queer alliance meeting, hands shaking, poised for attack… Only to see four familiar colors hanging proudly next to the rainbow, trans and pan flags. I could have cried with relief- and that was merely my beginning with a community that would open its arms to me.
Two uncertain classmates turned into seven strangers on Discord brought together by forum pleas and campus posters. I wasted no time in trying to piece together a real ace meetup. Two were supposed to come to that very first little gathering. One showed. And again, that was enough- I was frankly amazed that it wasn’t just me sitting there alone in the Japanese food court.
The second time, it was. Having rushed out when I should have been getting ready for the college’s long awaited “Masqueerade” ball, it was more than disheartening as I questioned for only about the thousandth time what the hell I thought I was doing. Where did I, introverted, bad at life, socially anxious and inept as I was, think I could get away with hosting not only a meetup group but essentially holding the weight of the entirety of the nonexistent Hawaiian ace community on my shoulders? Presiding over an uncooperative public library “Otaku Club” for a senior project and habitually fading into the background of San Francisco’s ace meetups, hardly able to get a word in edgewise, did not exactly qualify me for this kind of leadership.
With nowhere else to turn, I immersed myself in the queer alliance. Maybe I didn’t have that ace meetup group, but I found acceptance- not only of my asexuality, but of me– everything that had always made me feel like an alien suddenly, inexplicably, not weird but charming. Honestly, I wanted to give up on the meetup almost every week; it just didn’t feel like I had it in me- not the strength, the charisma, certainly not the mental health. I couldn’t have done it all alone. Just the want of a friend for support in life in general made me weak at the knees.
Yet every time I stumbled, the queer alliance made me feel seen and accepted and supported enough to keep staggering on. They gave me a community I hadn’t even known existed, let alone known I needed like sunshine and air. And it was there, miraculously, that I found even more aces. Though it took a semester, I even found my one and only consistent member and someone I still call my friend. While it lasted, she even fought to be my successor. And it was there that I finally understood- no matter if there were inevitably occasional frequent meetups where it was just me alone in the food court, the group was important to people. Very important. Even if studying with two jobs and a hellish commute usually made it impossible for them to attend.
Throughout the year, I held a handful of meetups, some more formal affairs on our overpriced homepage when I finally bit the bullet, most simply a call into the void on Discord. Looking back, it’s nothing short of a miracle- and a testament that we really do need this community- that those ramshackle “meetups” once upon a time attracted anyone at all. It’s a testament that even now a handful of those 80 members have shown their faces on screen- and have sent message after message expressing gratitude even when they couldn’t attend.
And so I drag this group, weak but still kicking, through its third anniversary. Now that I find myself seeking refuge in rainbow island yet again, seeing an ace or two step off the screen once again, I am so infinitely glad I never let go.
The story of my first and only attempt to not just lurk in the corners of AVEN or the local meetup isn’t exactly a story of success or failure, it just is. But if anyone reading this is afraid of taking a leap to engage with the ace- or rainbow- community, just know that most of us are afraid, and that doesn’t mean you won’t make a difference. Know that if you’re not ready to try and herd even a few college aces let alone a state’s worth into the same room, that’s more than valid. In the end even the smallest gesture, so much as telling that classmate with the ace badge that you’re two of a kind before the semester is over, is making a difference in the community. In two years in Japan I’ve found that it is often the smallest gestures (or lack of) that really decide how much acceptance you’ll find. It is these gestures I so took for granted, from the smallest to the greatest, that have not only brought me back to the US, but made me think that maybe, just maybe, this rainbow colored garbage fire may actually be my “homeland.”
Life Through the Looking Glass 