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How old were you when you first experienced romantic attraction?


NiTeLight

How old were you when you first experienced romantic attraction?  

  1. 1. How old were you when you first experienced romantic attraction?

    • 0-8
      32
    • 8-10
      20
    • 10-12
      30
    • 12-14
      42
    • 14-20
      65
    • 20-30
      12
    • 30+
      1
    • N/A - I have never felt romantic attraction
      68
  2. 2. What's your romantic orientation?

    • Hetero, homo, bi, or pan
      142
    • Demi, grey, or sapio (if this applies, please prioritize this over the above category)
      68
    • Aro
      60

This poll is closed to new votes


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NiTeLight

It seems commonly accepted that most sexuals start to experience sexual attraction at around age 10-12. I was curious if there is a correlation for romantic attraction.

The way I divided the romantic orientation section is that you have people who experience romantic attraction "normally", people who have limitations on when they experience that attraction, and people who don't experience romantic attraction at all. I know people can be/are both demi AND hetero (for example), but my purpose of the division is to determine if the responders to the poll have any restrictions on experiencing romantic attraction, which would thus likely make their first experience of it later than the average individual.

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TheBioNerd

I guess by romantic attraction, you could be talking about crushes? In which case, I started having crushes on girls when I was about 3 or 4. My sensual attraction really started kicking in when I was 13 or 14, which might have enhanced my romantic attraction a bit. Which...now that I think about it...was only directed to one particular girl. I had no crushes between the ages of 10-12. Honestly, I really might be demiromantic even though I answered homo. Sorry if that skewed your results...:/. Now that I really think about it, I don't get crushes very often and when I do, it's usually with someone I've gotten to know. I think I just had an epiphany...

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Excandesco

My first experience of romantic attraction would have been around the age of 14. Which is really interesting considering I had been experiencing sexual attraction for around 2 years before that.

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Cimmerian

I was 5 or 6 when I first experienced romantic attraction.

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Purple Heart

About a month or so before I turned 12.

With a boy I had become friends with when I was 9-10 and we were sat next to each other in class at primary school ^_^ It was when I learned that he was moving to the same secondary school as me after the Easter break of year 7 - butterflies suddenly stirred inside me :lol: My new feelings for him made me feel totally unable to speak to him though. Then he moved overseas with his family at the end of term :(

He's engaged now... He's married now with a baby on the way...

Probably more than you needed to know :ph34r:

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Philip027

I'm demiro to the best of my knowledge. I can feel *something* that goes beyond friendship, but not very frequently, and it's only ever happened for people that I already regarded as close friends.

It first occurred with me right around the time I turned 17, but the circumstances were unusual. Long story real short, I developed the feelings for this person primarily out of gratitude, because she stopped me from doing something drastic when I was in a really dark place.

It never happened again until many more years down the line, when I was 25 and I discovered this place, and have since been able to come across people that I feel more in sync with, with regards to matters of sexuality and romanticism. As of fairly recently, it actually has resulted in me developing a relationship with another AVENite :D

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TheKindredSoul

I am an aromantic who has never experienced a crush before. I cannot even understand the very concept of romance. It makes no sense.

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JaySexual

I've never dated or been close to anyone or truly/romantically attracted or anything along that line

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I was 18 years old (just thought I was a slow developer), when I had a crush on a girl in gym class. I think I talked to her once.

As a teenager, I remember friends asking me who I had a crush on, but I would try to avoid the question or make up a name. I didn't want people to know I didn't care about dating or crushes because that wasn't 'normal'. Just thought the sex thing would kick in sometime. But here I am.

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15 years old. I have experienced it three more times ever since.

The person I liked back then was a friend of a friend's, whom I "met" online after said friend opened a multiple conversation with other friends of his (including the aforementioned person). Good ol' MSN times. :D

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The first crush I can recall was at 8 years old (3rd grade). I remember writing about it in my diary. >.>

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littleheartsofjoy

I voted 14 to 20, because that sounds about right. Younger than 14, I thought that some boys (and a teacher, ooh scandalous!*) were cute, but that was as far as it went for me. After turning 14, I have had a number of them, but they came and went very fast. I don't know how many times I have since then, because that's too many to count :lol: I identify as heteroromantic.

Even though I don't know how many times I have experienced it, it's very random for me. I can go a whole year with just experiencing it once, or twice, or some years, not at all. This is probably going to sound weird, but if I come across people who I wouldn't be attracted to, a crush wouldn't happen.

(*Points if anyone gets the reference.)

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24, guess that makes me a late bloomeromantic

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AceTiff12

Demiromantic; officially experienced romantic attraction for the first time at age 22.

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HardToComeBy

Demi-bi. I was 18. Really strange and felt a little scary at the time. It felt like all of a sudden my brain was doing/feeling strange things that I didn't know were possible to feel/do. As a result, it was very difficult to try to catagorize my feelings for myself.

After that year, I didn't experience attraction - or even shades of attraction - again for about 7 years.

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iamphoenixfire

i recently kind of figured out what romantic attraction... was, i guess? I'm demi-panromantic, and i feel like that goes pretty well. i was 14-15ish when it first happened. i'm 17 now, and it's happened.... like 4 or 5 times i think since then? I tend to ignore it though. it's usually pretty weak. but sometimes... bam. very much bam.

and then sexual attraction... that's only happened once... and it had to be the person i live the furthest away from... oh well, can't have everything!

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NiTeLight

It seems like a decent chunk of people fall into the 14-20 category... Would anyone like me to edit the poll to subdivide that into chunks of two years? I might loose the votes people have participated so far (I'm guaranteed to lose them for whoever voted in that category - currently 14 people).

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littleheartsofjoy

It seems like a decent chunk of people fall into the 14-20 category... Would anyone like me to edit the poll to subdivide that into chunks of two years? I might loose the votes people have participated so far (I'm guaranteed to lose them for whoever voted in that category - currently 14 people).

I think it's fine the way it is, since it is teenage years to very early adult years. I don't remember the exact age I was when I first experienced it but it surely was between 14 and 20. I probably wouldn't have voted otherwise if you split it into two.

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Around 12 or 13.

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Janus the Fox

Under how it's described around the Internet... I can say I've never experienced any form of romantic feelings for anyone on any level.

But still... I keep a keen eye and an open mind of things to come. :) I don't even mind if I find I'm homo or Bi beyond the realms of feish.

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WhenSummersGone

I think I was 9 when I got my first crush.

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Light and Dark

I first had romantic attraction when I was 13, but it was amplified a lot when I was 14-15. Never really had sexual attraction though.

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15 and I'm heteroromantic.

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8-10.

I had no idea what it was, I'm still not sure what it was, but there was something for a girl I knew. For about two days. And then I became bored. She would pop up from time to time and I think I just "liked" her. I have often wondered if this time of life, when people begin to feel certain things for certain people, is as difficult for hetero/homosexuals, etc. as it is for ace's?

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Well, I had a crush/squish when I was 7 years old... not sure if it even counts 'cause I don't remember how exactly it felt, but had to go with 0-8 years because of that :wacko: (and I chose the demi- etc one, even if I'm nowadays practically aro)

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I voted 8-10, but I'm not really sure actually. In 4th grade I had an intense interest in a girl... in 6th grade.... I had a much much much more intense interest in the same girl (I was at a different school in 5th grade and was not interested in anybody that year).

In 6th grade I was attracted to both her and a boy in the class.

I generally considered myself grey romantic. I'm really sure that the attractions I felt for people when I was aged 11-18 were romantic in nature- not more and not less. They were intense.

I am now 25. I have not experienced an intense attraction to anybody in a lot of years. The little bits of attraction I have felt, I don't know what they are. Are they even romantic? Not really sure. They're not bigger, I don't think, than what I felt when I was 9.

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