For you - 8. Chapter 8

We arrived at the motel comparably early, but soon after, there’d be the border, so we decided, we didn’t want to cross it in the late evening and try to find accommodation thereafter. The motel room had a TV, so we squeezed up on the bed together—this one was smaller than Rhys', yet they insisted on it being a double bed—and Rhys logged into his Netflix account.

As with most people who aren’t watching shows on a regular basis together, it took us quite some time to figure out what each of us liked, and we finally settled on a sitcom, since that usually is common ground. The music of The Big Bang Theory’s theme song started playing, and we watched the episode until the scene, in which Sheldon first confesses his love to Amy.

“Wait!” I exclaimed. “I haven’t watched this show for a while, but wasn’t he supposed to be … asexual and aromantic?”

“Well, now, he isn’t anymore.”

“But … how?”

“I don’t know … They sure have their reasons. Maybe, he is healed or the like.”

“Healed?” I must have sounded like a parrot. “Do you mean, that’s possible? Wouldn’t that make it an illness or disability of sorts?”

“I don’t know.” At least, I wasn’t the only one sticking to a pattern. “Of course, monks don’t have sex either … but they decide not to. They still have … urges. But with people, who say, they don’t have these natural sexual instincts like … at all … you have to admit, that this is … at least a bit … unusual.”

“Aren’t we gays unusual, too?”

“Yeah, sure. We don’t make children, but we love differently. We just love the male body.”

“You might be right.” I fell silent.

But Rhys felt obliged to add something: “Look, I personally hold nothing against these people. In the end, this is, what the queer community is about: Live and let live, no matter how weird one is. And it undeniably is a bit strange. I don’t know why people deviate from common sexual behavior.”

I decided not to resume the thread of conversation.

While we continued watching the episode, I tried to picture myself as Sheldon, but I couldn’t. I was so unlike him. Not a genius, not quirky and hopefully not as annoying. But could I really be asexual then? What Rhys said about asexuals, for a moment, I thought, it would be not as bad I was afraid it would be if I were and came out to him. But the immediately following sentence made me unsure again.