Around the time of puberty, it becomes strangely acceptable to start making presumptions about children and their sexual and romantic orientation.
Well-meaning adults would ask whether I’d started dating yet, or whether I had a boyfriend, as casually as they would ask about my hobbies. That’s when I’d have to come up with creative ways of avoiding the elephant in the room, because sometimes saying that you’re aromantic-asexual is just too much effort.
Asexual people don’t experience sexual attraction to others. On a spectrum of sexuality – not from straight to gay, but from ‘sexual attraction’ to ‘no sexual attraction’ – you can fall under the asexual umbrella if you’re closer to the latter end of the scale.
I worked out that I was asexual at 15 – around the same time as my school mates were proving they were definitely not asexual by fancying each other and then ‘going out’. I simply had no interest in any of that.
But I’m also what’s called ‘aromantic’, which means that as well as not being sexually attracted to anyone, I don’t experience romantic attraction either. I understand romance in theory but I can’t empathise with it any more than I can empathise with people who feel the urge to climb mountains with their bare hands.
Romance has always seemed like a weird game to me – one I didn’t want to play. Someone can tick every box under the sun and be the ‘perfect person’ for me yet I’d still turn them down if they asked me out because I have no ‘romantic’ box to tick.
Some people have taken this as an insult. I’ve lost friendships with men because I haven’t let it turn into something ‘more’ – which would have been ‘less’ to me, because platonic love is the only thing I want.
Other people react like I’ve told them that I’ve been afflicted with an illness, one which makes me say random things that aren’t true or means I’m doomed to a sad, unfulfilled, incomplete and lonely life.
‘Don’t put yourself down, you’ll find the right person,’ they say.
‘No kids for you, then.’
‘You’re a good looking girl, you don’t need to be aromantic.’
‘You can still date and fall in love, though, can’t you? You can’t just do nothing.’
The way I am isn’t a condition – it’s as innate for me as heterosexuality is for others. It isn’t an issue that needs to be worked around. It isn’t the result of insecurity or thinking I’m too unattractive to find love.
But every reaction like this is symptomatic of the limited way we are taught to understand human sexuality and relationships in our society.
The received wisdom is that romantic attraction is part of what makes us human; that being in love is the most fulfilling and affirming experience you can have with someone.
For this reason my aromanticism is sometimes treated as being an added layer of strangeness. The general assumption is that asexuality is a physical issue, but that if you are aromantic, there has to be something wrong with your soul.
They think that if you’re incapable of that kind of love, you’re missing out on something no other success matches up to – only, I’ve always found reason to doubt that.
While being completely uninterested in dating, I’ve found romantic relationships interesting to observe from the sidelines. It can be as fantastic as it is fleeting, and as addictive as a drug.
I have watched my peers search for relationships, get upset because they’re not in them, feel validated and ‘complete’ because they’ve found a partner, get stressed by trying to maintain their relationship, feel devastated when it’s over, feel insecure while trying to pursue the next relationship, compete with their ex for relationship success…
It’s painful to see sometimes. It’s hard to watch my beautiful female friends look in the mirror and say, ‘There must be something wrong with me if no man wants me,’ or hear a great male friend with a successful career and tons of adoring friends say, ‘I need a girlfriend because my life is so empty.’
I want to knock some sense into them but I can’t because it’s just the way their minds are wired. Mine is wired completely differently – and still, I’m the one with a weird way of thinking.
These attitudes also reflect how platonic relationships are seen as secondary and lesser than romantic ones. It doesn’t matter if platonic relationships are built on stronger foundations, or if they last longer, and have far less rules attached. Even legal rights are attached to romantic ties over platonic ones because of marriage.
People will throw away friendships for partners, or dismiss them if they don’t have an added sexual side. But platonic relations are more than enough for me. As long as I have someone who can entertain me, who I can have interesting conversations with and someone I can rely on…I’m good.
I aspire to have friends that are like family with that same type of strong, familial love. I’ve always said that I want the ‘Sam to my Frodo’ – the kind of friend I’d go to Middle Earth and back for.
I don’t believe there is any such thing as ‘true love’ because all love is true. Isn’t that the point in love? No version of it is fundamentally better than another, or more significant or important by default.
Romantic love in the way I know most people think of it isn’t the epitome of love, and finding it isn’t a life goal.
Being happy, having good relationships, passing on knowledge, being able to learn, explore and help others – that’s enough for me.
Last week in Love, Or Something Thing Like It: Being a divorce coach taught me that some relationships have to fail
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