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My asexual relationship experience


Joshua

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Some people who know me may be surprised to read of the below, as I didn't widely discuss this. I now want to share this with what I may consider to be some helpful tips based on my experience.

When I joined AVEN I immediately knew that I'd never find anyone in the asexual community suitable to embark on a relationship, and so I didn't even look. I met many who were scared of social interaction, nervous, suffer from anxieties, prefer to interact on-line and prefer being alone. This is my experience based on what I have seen and my interactions, but of course, others may feel differently based on their own experiences. I don't think any less of people with these qualities, but for a companion or close social buddy I want someone with ambition, someone socially adept, stylish and interesting. I love exciting days out, and I have not met anyone who can put together an exciting day out when out socialising one-to-one. I have met plenty of people who do the same thing or visit the same places or amenities - I still socialise with these persons and recognise that habits and preferences will differ, and for some the preference is to stick with familiar pastimes.

Last year, I arranged an AVEN meet, which I did so every 2-3 months. I met a new person; I shall call her "Jodie". At meets I aim to speak to everyone for at least 5 minutes, and I spoke to Jodie briefly, perhaps no more than 5 minutes. She stood out - stylish, good looking, interesting and socially confident. When she left I don't think I noticed or even said goodbye. I didn't even think of her as a dating prospect.

It so happened that an asexual friend was visiting me the following weekend and we were going out for dinner, and I thought that Jodie would find meeting the friend interesting, so I texted her an invitation, knowing that she would not cite social awkwardness, shyness or being frightened and was likely to accept.

She accepted the invitation and within hours we were having a conversation by text and in the first day must have exchanged close to 30 messages. That grew to 300 daily in the next few days, there was a definite 'chemistry' between us. She texted one evening to say that felt concerned that we may not get along well in person as we had nothing in common, so I suggested that we talked on the phone as a tester. We talked on the phone almost every other day and the calls lasted over an hour in each case.

I felt very excited as well as very scared and talked to some close asexual and non-asexual friends for advice, and my question was very much if I should allow this to progress. I was frightened of committing to something I was new to, and really wanted to get to know her better. I also did not know what I wanted from a relationship - though I knew that I would never meet someone like her in the asexual community. I knew that I wanted a companion, someone to go places with and share experiences and perspectives with, but felt that to call this type of arrangement a 'relationship' was not apt. Friends asked me to consider carefully before walking away, emphasising that she was exactly the type of person that'd suit me, and they were right. I guess I wanted companionship leading to a relationship in time, if I felt comfortable with the progression, but she wanted a relationship and was certain of what she wanted. She wanted a firm commitment.

We met up virtually every weekend and even held hands and cuddled. I feel irresponsible and guilty to an extent for allowing things to develop when I clearly was not sure and I was arguably leading her on. Though she did to an extent 'pressurise' me, I have great admiration for her, for being a girl who knew what she wanted and bold enough to lay her cards on the table. Though I use the word 'pressure', she seemed to know how to handle me and knew my limits but she wanted a decision from me. She was never unkind, demanding or inconsiderate towards me.

As the days went by, I began to feel like wanting to swim back from the deep end, but I felt that I was in it too deep to just walk away. These were not comfortable times for me. Fortunately, she was very understanding and we went to being friends and we still socialised, and the transition from what we were, dating prospects to friends was a surprisingly easy one. This was something we both were happy with.

A year later, we are still friends and we often discuss what we've seen and interesting places to go to and I invite her to off-AVEN social events which I hold and there is no resentment or ill feeling or unresolved issues from our past. We don't send 300 texts a day but maybe 8-10 or so a month and consider her a person to talk to if I needed someone to talk to something about.

Why do I write this? Well, several reasons.

  • First, there are lots of people looking for relationships here and I wanted to show that opportunities present themselves suddenly when you aren't even looking.
  • Second, there can be a huge conflict between the desires of being in a relationship and being presented with the realities of one and this can be very frightening and also hard to think rationally when faced with the prospect.
  • Third, leading someone on when uncertain is not a sensible thing to do, though in my case, there was no lasting adverse effect. I still feel guilty today for wilfully flirting with her and giving her hope.
  • Fourth, in my case, it was possible to be friends even though we walked away from the initial stages of a relationship.

I do hope this helps some people, especially the second point I make. Please excuse me if my any of my perspectives are disagreeable, I only based the contents of this post on my own experiences and each of us may have differing perspectives.

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Wow, thank you.

Your honest frank story has given me some perspective on things.

Thanks again for posting this, and I hope more people learn from your experience.

Have a beautiful day.

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Thanks for sharing :). I'm glad to hear that the two of you still keep in touch and remain friends, considering that what you initially wanted from each other was different (she wanted a relationship, you wanted more of a companion). It's an uplifting story.

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