Will I be alone forever?
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Help me, Hera!
I’m a 20-something-year-old asexual woman based in Wellington, and I am facing something of an existential crisis. The more time that passes, the more I think my fate might be sealed…
I’m sex-repulsed, meaning I’m not interested in sexual relationships, but I’m still looking for romantic love and companionship in my life. Perhaps naively, I still dream that one day I will meet “the one” who makes me feel like I belong and accept me in a partnership as I am, even if that means having a relationship that’s a bit unconventional. I’m a very social person, I go out every weekend, I have lots of hobbies and spend a lot of time getting to know a lot of wonderful people… but nothing has ever really happened in terms of a more intimate or committed relationship. I’m very open about my identity, and “dating me = no sex ever” is understandably a hard sell.
(Side note: I am also cursed to like men, which is unfortunate because not only are less than 1% of people asexual, but the majority of asexual-identifying people are women. Statistically, the chances of even meeting an ace man in the first place are incredibly low – let alone one that I like!)
It was tolerable in my teens and early 20s when nobody around me was dating seriously, but now that things like marriage, kids and mortgages are on the table? It’s starting to get veryyy scary. Up until this point, I have figured that if my sexuality means I can’t date, I can at least focus on building strong friendships and having a good community around me. But it seems even that will inevitably fade from my life, as partnerships or family obligations increasingly take precedence over spending time with friends for the vast majority of people.
So what do you think? Does friendship really die at 25, or can it be kept alive? Is it possible to break the mould? Does love without sex exist, or am I doomed to play the lonely third wheel to an ever-increasing number of couples, forever??
Regards, An Anxious Asexual
Dear Anxious Asexual,
I get a lot of letters about people worried they will never find love, and I always wish there was something more useful I could offer them, in terms of concrete hope. I’d love to say, “drop by the Levin service station at 10am on the 22nd of April, drop a carton of strawberry milk, and love will come, bearing a miracle mop.” But making bold predictions about the future is a fool’s game.
The fear is real. You’re staring down the barrel of a statistically niche romantic orientation, worrying if you’ll be alone forever.
In love, there are no guarantees. But of course, love exists without sex. There are plenty of long heterosexual marriages that can attest to that. It may be harder to find, but that doesn’t mean it’s futile. While your criteria will automatically disqualify you from a lot of potential partners, knowing yourself is a powerful and commendable thing, which will save you a lot of heartache along the way.
What I can offer you, in terms of anecdotal hope, is that the older I get, the more I see my friends building bizarre romantic niches for themselves, where none had existed before. From my perspective, almost everyone I know has gone through astonishing and unexpected transformations and invented idiosyncratic and groundbreaking varieties of happiness, which nobody would ever have predicted. Some of the wildest and most unconventional people I knew are happily married with several children, while others, who were shy and retiring individuals, have profoundly complicated romantic lives that would take several PowerPoint presentations to adequately explain.
My point is that your 20s are not necessarily a good template for what the rest of your life will look like, and trying to draw future conclusions based on your current status quo, is about as useless as drawing a photorealistic portrait of Sandra Bullock with your eyes closed. Whether or not life turns out as you hoped, what I can promise you is that it is by no means over, and that life will continue to confound your expectations and challenge your preconceptions, usually for the better. Even the most outwardly conventional relationships are never one-size-fits-all, and if you can’t find a default Microsoft Office template that suits you, it is absolutely possible to invent your own.
The numbers may not be in your favour. But love runs deeper than statistical probabilities. I’m not saying it will be easy for you to find someone who ticks all of your boxes, but a wider range of options doesn’t always translate to maximum happiness and freedom of choice. Sometimes it’s better to truly know yourself and be confident in your own wants and needs. For some people, romance is all about variety. Other people only need to get lucky once.
If what you really want is a monogamous ride-or-die, you might have to think outside the box. Maybe it means eventually moving to a city with a bigger population. Maybe it means getting more involved in the queer community and building a wider network of asexual people. Maybe it just means biding your time and trying to find a great group of friends to carry you through the lonely patches.
Which brings me to your second question: Does friendship die at 25?
On this point, I can confidently say: hell no!
Some people will drop off the face of the planet when they partner off and have kids, and this is a natural part of life. Often, this isn’t permanent. Many of the friends you lose contact with will return later, once their relationships fall apart, or their kids are old enough not to swallow loose batteries they found in the park. But it’s never too late to make new friends.
My best advice is to leave the door open to those who drop out of contact, and keep welcoming new people in. The best way to find friends that don’t simply partner off and then retreat into hermetic coupledom is to intentionally seek out people with a similar level of social energy as you, who are happy to drop everything and come over for a last-minute movie or a hike to a waterfall. There are plenty of people out there, both single and in relationships, who live for the society of others. These people are usually excellent at maintaining friendships because they’ve learned how to put in the work. In my experience, they tend to be older couples who’ve had a gutsful of solitary monogamy, are fully committed to the bit, have an eclectic repertoire of friends of all ages and subcultures, and will continue to host one party a week until they keel over and die.
Perhaps, in your 20s, you haven’t encountered many of these types of people, but the older you get, the more common it becomes to stumble upon these secret factions, who have built a vast social nexus around them. Where do you find such people? In the queer community, in volunteer groups, in niche subcultures, in small towns. They are the party throwers and the community organisers and the people who always seem to have friends-of-friends from Liechtenstein crashing on their sofa. Cast your net far and wide. Make friends with those older and younger than you. Accept and reciprocate invitations. Go to places where people care about other people, like hardcore shows, knitting circles and community gardens. Get a dog or cat (seriously, though).
If your one goal is not to live a lonely life, as long as you have the enthusiasm and are willing to keep putting yourself out there, you will 100% find your people, even if it takes you a while to stumble upon the perfect social configuration. Life does not end at 25. For most of us, life has barely even begun.
Hang in there. It’s easy to believe that the die has been cast, and the rest of your life will be a shadow of your supposedly formative youth, but in my experience, the exact opposite is true. I can’t promise you’ll find the asexual man of your dreams. But a life full of love and friendship is entirely within your hands.