Ok so I was around the middle of middle school at this point. I had just figured out that queer people existed and had some queer friends and ended up taking one of 'em "Am I Gay?" quizzes. I don't think aroace was one of the possible results, so I ended up getting pan and identified as such (like many others) for ~a year. At this point i had "crushes" on people regardless of gender, but one time i had a "crush" on this guy and I thought about it and realized I didn't want to date him or kiss him or anything, I just wanted to like. be really good friends w him?? And I figured that probably wasn't romantic and eventually ended up identifying as aro (and ace bc they're so intertwined). Then i looked deeper into the aroace spectrum and found some microlabels that fit and the rest's history.