being asexual and trying to find a partner...

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You are my sunshine
Part of my sunshine
You make me happy
When you're not drunk on your pain
You don't care any-thing about any-one else
So please stick - some cake in - your gob.

Well, um, if I can just say something quickly, I found reading this thread to be very therapeutic. I'm a gray-a myself. I usually call myself asexual, but it's really just that I'm hyper-sensitive to touch, especially from the opposite gender. The overwhelm kind of repulses me, but I still sometimes get crushy emotional feelings. I've been really conflicted recently about a guy I have a crush on, but couldn't stand ever physically touching him. It had me feeling really down and calling myself immature. And I need to meet that person tomorrow, making me feel even worse about myself, since it focused me back on those unresolved issues. But seeing other people dealing with similar issues made me feel a little bit better, since I'm not the only person dealing with it. Now, I think I can go to hang out tomorrow without being as nervous, so thank you very much.

I do hope that everyone else manages to find what they're looking for too. Marshall, perhaps you might want to consider a local AS support group? Aces tend to be more common among those on the spectrum, so you may be more likely to find someone your speed there.

The claim that everyone experiences the same amount and degree of emotional pain in life is an obvious and insulting lie. It's also incredibly insulting to tell me that I want to use people. I could say you want to use men to bolster your self-esteem. You need to be sexually desired to love yourself. That's not normal even for people of normal sexuality. Also, why would you stay with a man who only makes you unhappy for 15 years? If he treated you so bad you have no obligation to be that loyal. Why did you have a child with someone who makes you unhappy? I think you were mentally ill before you ever met your husband. I'm not talking down from some pedestal because you know I have my own issues. I'm not some unfeeling robot because I don't sexually desire women to the same degree as a normal man. That hurts like HELL. I want to love and be loved as much as you do. That is "immature" to you. As "immature" as all the guys here talking about "bad boys", "nice guys", and PUA BS while complaining that they can't get laid.

So, let me summarize: You're wondering about the difference between non-sexual ("platonic"?) love and friendship?

I'm very confused about this, too. I don't know if I meet the criteria of asexuality, but I think I'd prefer a non-sexual relationship over a sexual one. In terms of being attracted to someone, I'm heterosexual, and I can't imagine any kind of relationship with a man (not even a non-sexual one), while I can certainly imagine friendship with a man. Also, I can't imagine a "non-sexual relationship" with a woman who is in a sexual relationship with someone else, while friendship is, again, no problem. So I think there is is difference.

When I use the term "relationship", I associate it with some kind of commitment based on sufficiently strong emotions. And I guess that for heterosexual (heteroromantic?) men, such emotions are only possible with women. For example, I notice that I have a lot more empathy with women than with men, while I'm much more likely to perceive other men as "hostile" (more masculine → more hostile).

So is "platonic love" just an expression for a very committed and emotional friendship, supported by the romantic orientations of the partners involved? I have no idea.

Well, the idea that people should exist as isolated beings with no strong emotional bonds. You have "friends" to have fun with on weekends, but don't you dare ever ask for any support, emotional or financial, ever. This just seems utterly unreal and unnatural to me. I have no extended family that's part of my life at all. When my parents no longer exist I will be totally alone. The way capitalistic western society is set up is just utterly cold and cruel. Nobody is required to care about their neighbor, so basically they don't. I wish I was one of the happy robotic aspeis that seem to be happy driving to work and coming home to an empty place to pursue their special interest. Unfortunately I'm not that type. I'm not resilient because I'm not cold or robotic enough. I need emotional closeness. I need people. Yet everywhere I go people just aren't really there. Work takes up so much of their life that they have nothing left. I'm simply not built for this. I will not survive. Eventually I'll be considering suicide. I don't see life as an adventure. I see it as an utterly meaningless void.

It's true that not everyone experiences the same levels of pain. But everyone experiences emotional pain in this life. Everyone. I'm very grateful I've never experienced the pain of seeing my children starve to death, say. The competition of greatest emotional pain is not one I want to win.

Look Marshall... I'm certainly not saying you don't want to be loved and love. I'm simply saying that if you get into a relationship where there is a great mismatch in libido it will not end well.

Why am I still with someone who makes me unhappy? Life is complicated. I don't just have myself to worry about, I've got my son to worry about. And to be honest, he wasn't so bad before we had our son. He's not able to cope with the messiness of family life. He reverted to negative behaviours that he'd learned in his family of origin. Believe me, when I can leave, I will. But my husband is not making it easy for me to go. He would rather 'have someone around' than let me go to find someone else.

Mental illness? Yep, I'll hold my hand up. I suffer from clinical depression. I've been in an awful rut since my marriage turned abusive...about the time I got pregnant. Nice, eh? And yes, I had suffered from depressive episodes before I got married. It's true.

And you may think I'm alone in feeling down because I'm not desired by my life partner. But I'm not. It's actually a pretty normal reaction. Google up "I live in a sexless marriage" and see how tens of thousands of people like me find it to be a soul-crushing situation. That's exactly the language they use and yes, that's exactly what it feels like. Believe me, I've read tons of books, surfed the Internet constantly trying to find ways to fix my marriage. Trying to find ways to gain sustenance without sex, trying to find a way to change me, trying to find a way to change him. I've read hundreds and hundreds of testimonies from people in marriages like mine. Not one of the denied partners said they were happy - all of them had aching voids in their lives. (Rare exceptions from people whose partners had a life-threatening or terminal illness, say - obviously they were unhappy for other reasons and they did miss the sex, but they didn't feel unloved by their partners)

It doesn't feel that way to me anymore because I no longer seek to have a sexual relationship with my husband. Frankly I got tired of initiating and being turned down. Again and again and again. And I would have been happy enough with a few times a month (the marital average is about twice a week) - but that wasn't what I was getting. We were having sex fewer than 10 times a year on average - that's technically sexless.

For people of a normal sexual bent, there's a fantastic hormonal bonding surge with partnered sex. It's needed to keep the partnership strong. And yes, when your partner doesn't desire you it is a blow to the self-esteem. But most of all it makes you feel less-than, unloved, undesirable. When all of the the advice you get (as a woman) is to dress up in lingerie and all your partner can tell you is that the color doesn't suit or the fit isn't perfect - yeah, it's a blow to the old self-esteem. When I can see the light in the eyes of my current sexual partner when I'm wearing a nice bra, yep - it's a boost. It also makes me feel good to make him feel good. That was the toughest part of being married to someone with a low sex drive (he's not completely asexual) - not pleasing him with my touch. And I'm a good lover.

For sure, I've made some mistakes in my life. One of the biggest was not understanding how important sex was in a normal, healthy relationship. The in-love hormones cover that up for a while... and I ignored the red flags early in the relationship.

Yes, it will be harder for you to find a compatible partner. That's tough. You can try to fake it for a while with a sexual person... it won't work out. I promise you, it won't. And yes, if you do try to be something you're not to avoid being alone - then yes, you're using someone.

You clearly don't want to accept my advice. That's fine. I sincerely hope you find someone compatible and you'll never have to see that I was right about going into a mismatched libido partnership.

Who says so?

Many people don't need close friends so badly because they can have fun in other ways, like going to a bar at night.


Yes, that's the way it works for me. Having friends has a few practical advantages, and seeing them is a temporary cure for loneliness. But the fact that we are incapable of stronger friendships doesn't mean they don't exist.

I doubt that if for some (hypothetical?) reason, someone was willing to join a romantic relationship with me (sexual or not), that would fix things. You don't automatically get the mutual emotional bonding. I know so many people in superficial relationships – they usually break when the initial sexual attraction fades. And the fact that people trust each other when they're in a relationship often makes them do stupid things and get hurt.

They are extraverts who are secure and have little struggles in life. They don't seem to need deep emotional connection, just superficial "stimulation" through trivial chit-chat.


I'm not incapable. I had much stronger friendships as a child. The trouble is once you're past college age, people tend to be become too tied up in their lives to invest in deeper connections outside family. It's a basic fact of modern existence. When people must rely on each other for survival much deeper bonds develop. People who experience life or death struggles together develop a deep bond.


Which is why I'm not interested in superficial sexual relationships. I can imagine what it's like to become infatuated with someone for superficial reasons and then feel bored and dissatisfied when the spark wears off. Being asexual makes this somewhat less likely, but I still have an emotionally obsessive personality so I can relate. The issue is I'm unhappy as things are now and don't see that changing if I stop trying out of fear. There has to be people out there who will accept alternative lifestyles and/or relationships. So far I've at least found some potential friends.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. They have dozens of friends, they can talk very spontaneously, and they immediately draw happiness from that. It's an admirable skill.

It's hard to measure that "depth"; myself, I need at least one year until I will use the word "friend", and I have never really felt any emotional connection at all. Maybe extraverts don't need that much "input" to emotionally perceive someone as a friend. I think I scare people away because I don't reciprocate friendliness quickly enough.

I can talk at times, but not when I'm troubled, distracted, or depressed. I need an outlet/catharsis for my emotional crap before I can be spontaneously happy. I can't simply jump directly from point A to point B when I'm not in the right spot emotionally. I need people that can appreciate that. The presence of people I can't trust to not be judgmental, trivializing, or invalidating forces me to bottle things up until I explode in rage.


Yea. Sometimes I'm not emotionally well - tired, preoccupied, depressed, etc.... I don't have a simple switch that I can flip on to become more social. To try to hard literally makes my brain hurt. I start to feel fuzzy-headed and slightly agitated. It's like running up against a brick wall. Other times I don't trust people enough. I'm a warm person to people who seem in need of support. I'm cold to people who seem arrogant or threatening in some way. I really need someone I can be around without all these pressures and insecurities. That's my definition of a "friend". Someone I can be completely comfortable around. It's hard to find that spot with people I only see once a week or less in person. Too much time between meetings pushes me back into that insecure spot where feel like I don't know where I really stand.