How ‘Heartstopper’ Propelled My Own Self-Discovery

By Sara Clements | TV | September 25, 2023 |

By Sara Clements | TV | September 25, 2023 |

Let’s be real, no one tells us the things we need to hear growing up. No one tells us it’s okay not to have everything figured out. There’s this expectation that once you become an adult, you should know who you are and what you want to do with the rest of your life. The latter is easy enough, I guess. If you want to be a journalist, go to school and study journalism. But no one tells you that in 10 years, AI is going to threaten your job and make it obsolete. If you do get laid off for external factors like AI or budgetary cuts, you suddenly have to change what you established so long ago and are forced to try to find a new career path. Life doesn’t flow in one straight line. There are many curve balls, so why do we learn that so late in life?

I speak like “late in life” for me is 29, but society does make you feel like if you’re over 18 and just figuring things out then there’s something wrong with you. But there is no time limit on discovery, and that’s what I finally learned on the precipice of 30. “Discovery,” in this case for me, is my sexuality. Now, as a millennial, the options I had to learn about the topic were slim. I did have movies and TV, though queer representation was more subtext than text. I remember I loved going to my aunt’s house because she had more TV channels than I did, and I got to watch Xena: Warrior Princess. I didn’t realize until I was much older how gay that show is, and thinking about it now, it’s an early sign that pinpoints my attraction to women.

When I was growing up, there were only two sexual preferences: gay and straight. It was a very binary world with only two boxes to check, and even if you checked the “wrong” one, you were just confused. The topics of gender and sexual identity and the differences between romantic and sexual attraction were foreign. I learned everything from the media I consumed at that time. Media is a powerful force when it comes to exploration. I don’t think I would have clued into the fact that I was a lesbian if I hadn’t watched Jennifer’s Body when I was 14. TV and movies were all the millennial gays had. We couldn’t discuss the topic with anyone. We couldn’t even take out queer movies from Blockbuster over fear that our parents would be suspicious. We had to sit in our darkened bedroom with our illegally downloaded copies from Pirate Bay and pray our parents wouldn’t walk in during a sex scene. We never had streaming. We never had so much “content” at our fingertips. While there’s always room for more representation, there’s much more now than when I was younger.

Media discusses sexuality now in a way that I needed back then. Honestly, the topic breaks my brain and it’s still difficult for me to understand it all. I feel behind in my knowledge of all the spectrums and the terms, and it’s frustrating because it makes me feel like I don’t know anything about a huge part of who I am. In an Opinion piece for The San Diego Union-Tribune, Kelly Grace Finney says, “If we let go of the expectation that we must be ‘sure’ of our sexual preferences, we open up doors to more satisfying sexual and relational experiences.” I had to be sure. That was the expectation. You had to be sure of everything by a certain point. But I only realized recently that I never have been sure. Societal pressures and the lack of education on the topic of sexuality have led to a lot of shame and confusion in my life - until the queer media of a new generation made me realize something new about myself.

Last month, while watching the latest season of Heartstopper, I found myself connecting with the show’s asexual character, Isaac (Tobie Donovan). A brief synopsis, it’s a British series on Netflix, based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novel of the same name, that follows Charlie (Joe Locke), a gay schoolboy who falls in love with classmate Nick (Kit Connor). It also explores the lives of their friends. It’s a happily queer group. Some are very open about their sexuality or just beginning their coming out. Most of them are very sure in terms of who they like and what they like, but one friend, Isaac, sits on the outside. I also feel very much on the outside when it comes to dating. While most in my friend group are in relationships, I’m content with being alone. My excuse has always been, “I don’t have the energy.” And, like, true. I’d rather watch a movie alone in solitude than go out and meet someone new. Every day is being gay in theory and not in practice.

I saw myself in Isaac’s contentment being alone, always with his head in a book, but I also saw the inescapable feelings of shame and confusion that would show up unannounced. He stares around at his friends like a fly on the wall — an invisible spectator unable to play on the same field. But when the time comes when Isaac is asked out by another boy at school, there’s nothing but anxiety on his face. When they kiss, he pulls away, unsure if he likes it. He relatably says that he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel when he has a crush on someone. He brings up the excellent point that we watch all these romance movies and are fed this idea of what love and relationships are supposed to be like, and when you find difficulty in achieving that ideal you start to question if there’s something wrong with you. Like Isaac, I know this feeling too well.

Each character in Heartstopper goes through a coming-of-age. For Isaac, it revolves around his journey to discovering his asexuality. Not only is Isaac’s arc this season incredibly refreshing to see, but it also pushed me to explore the possibility of my own asexuality. In one scene from season two, Isaac is looking at a piece of art when the artist explains that it’s about the experience of being in a world where “romance and sex are prized above everything else.” It’s refreshing to see a show that explains that you don’t have to care about either of those things, and that’s OK. It’s also teaching youth about the many facets of sexuality while emphasizing that there’s no deadline to establishing which one you are. But if you figure it out, you don’t owe that information to anyone. As Nick says, “You don’t have to understand your feelings completely.” And, “You don’t always have to have figured everything out. You can just feel.” I needed to hear that when I was younger. It’s frustrating not having people around you who understand, but Heartstopper came with a reminder at the right time: I’m not alone.

At the end of the season, Isaac picks up a book with the title ACE on the front cover. He finally has the words to describe how he feels. While this realization came to him at a much younger age than me, the journey to finally feeling the euphoria of everything making sense and freeing yourself from pressures and expectations has no age limit. Now, I can finally just feel and see where I go from there.