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Is it hard for aces to be in a relationship?


Raine_

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I'm ace and a couple of people have told me that I won't be able to be in a relationship without sex unless my partner is also ace or 'really nice', but since the male ace population is around 2% (  along with the problem of finding someone my age who lives in my region ), the first option is really unlikely and the second is really unlikely too as there are tons of other people out there who would gladly have sex, so y'know why me? 

So yeah I was hoping for aces out there in a relationship to tell me how it's like, and what to expect.

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It's pretty clear that what was meant by "really nice" is someone that would stay with an asexual person even if that flew in the face of their sexual desires.

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A lot of it can come down to communication and negotiation. Being able to do both is an integral part of any relationship, particularly the more intimate ones. It's worth exploring what you/your prospective partner may be comfortable with, what you wouldn't mind exploring, and what's completely off-limits to you. There's a wide range of physical acts that can show intimacy and affection without necessarily being sexual, and that may change over time as you get comfortable with one another. 

 

5 hours ago, Raine_ said:

so y'know why me?

Don't sell yourself short, there are plenty of reasons people may want to date you! Shared interests and activities, common values and goals - there are a lot of threads that make up interest in another person, sexual interest is just one of these (admittedly a strong one for most). 

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lowLifeLoner

I thought male ace was 20%, is it only 2%? Either way we are rare, but it's not impossible to find one! Same thing goes for guys that aren't hypersexual or whatever. There are lots of success stories but as with even normal relationships finding the right person is gonna be hard. 

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Honestly, yeah. It's going to be hard. It's very unlikely that you'll find an allosexual person who will go without sex in a relationship, and male aces are few and far between... and having fewer options means it's less likely you'll find one who's compatible in other ways, not just sexually. 

 

I'm in a relationship right now with an allo person, and we compromise by having sex more than I would like and less often than he would like. It seems to work. There's just not that many options out there when you're ace and looking for a certain kind of relationship. 

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That's a yes/no question when there's no yes/no answer.

 

Some will find it impossible. Some will find it hard. Some will give it a shot and it works out fine. Some will give it a shot and it works out fine for a while until one of the people involved gets fed up. Then there are a bazillion other factors that contribute to how difficult a relationship is to navigate. Etc pp..

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anisotrophic

tbf male aces are real, most of the aces I know irl are cismale... but clearly demand issues eh? Sorry I took one, didn't mean to.

 

maybe there needs to be some site that's the reverse of the "males pay" model for dating sites -- where the male aces get free accounts and female aces pay to talk to them :D

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brAceyourself

I don't think there's a universal answer to that. I told my boyfriend about my asexuality before we started dating (before I even considered him as a romantic partner, to be honest) and it was pretty much the best thing I could have done. He did some research and asked some more specific questions. This led to us being extremely open about pretty much anything – even asking (seemingly) simple questions like "What does xy feel like for you?" has been crucial and eye-opening, not only enabling him to understand me better but the other way around as well. I went into the relationship not knowing if I would ever be ready to have sex (which he was aware of as well), but we ended up sleeping together a few months in because I felt (and feel) so comfortable and safe with him.

 

Of course I can't predict the future, but our respective sexualities have never been an issue so far. Relationships always take work, but this has easily been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

 

Tl;dr: While I do believe that it is harder for asexuals to be in a relationship with a sexual than with an asexual (just as I believe that it is harder for sexuals to be in a relationship with an asexual than with another sexual), I also believe that there are asexual and sexual partners that are more or less compatible (depending on their stances on sex etc.) – just as there are sexuals who are more or less compatible with other sexuals.

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Putting someone else's desires over your own is generally seen as altruistic which is generally seen as nice.  Because sexual proclivities are apparently a tough thing for people to negotiate on and/or sacrifice, being willing to do so for the sake of their partner/relationship can be seen as "really nice".  The exact same treatment can potentially be given to asexuals willing to make a sexual compromise in a mixed relationship, although this probably happens less often due to asexuality being lesser known (and sex being taken for granted more often than not in most relationships, but that's digressing)

 

I don't see what is really difficult to understand about that one.  True, it might be that basing someone's "niceness" on a single "nice" act might not necessarily be accurate, but people make these such evaluations on other people all the time.  You're probably been guilty of it too at some point or another.

 

1 hour ago, Telecaster68 said:

and not wanting to stay with someone because of incompatible sexual orientation doesn't make someone not 'really nice'

Good thing that was never what was being said or insinuated, anyway.

 

It does not necessarily mean that anyone who can't do this in a specific area/circumstance must be a total asshole, as if that's the only other possible outcome.

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anisotrophic

I would distinguish between sacrifice and adaptation. I wouldn't encourage a mindset of sacrifice?

 

Some sexuals may be able to adapt to be happy in an unusual situation, many might not -- adaptation is probably fairly unusual, but possible.

 

Adaptation is not "really nice", it's just what something some people are able to do.

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17 minutes ago, anisotrophic said:

I would distinguish between sacrifice and adaptation. I wouldn't encourage a mindset of sacrifice?

That's fair.  My choice of term wasn't really set in stone, it was just the first one I thought of that fell in line with what most people would view it as.

 

I also was not trying to encourage or discourage that behavior, for what it's worth.

 

18 minutes ago, anisotrophic said:

Adaptation is not "really nice", it's just what something some people are able to do.

There's a lot of "nice" things people do that are like that, actually.

 

My spouse remarks all the time about the ways I'm supposedly nice and praises me for it, but I'm not specifically trying to be nice a lot of those times and I've openly wondered if it's really deserving of that praise if I'm not exactly going out of my way to earn it.  (She insists that it is.  Ah well)

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It's hard for anyone to be in a relationship, mixed or not.  

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1 minute ago, Sally said:

It's hard for anyone to be in a relationship, mixed or not.  

Dang, isn't it the truth. 

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14 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Harder to not be, research shows, in terms of mental health, mortality, etc.

I think some of  us have been innoculated by being in past relationships (good, in my case), and as far as mortality, I'm old enough to not worry about that anymore.    

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25 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Harder to not be, research shows, in terms of mental health, mortality, etc.

Well life would certainly feel like twice as long if I had to be in a relationship :D

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anisotrophic
2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

Harder to not be, research shows, in terms of mental health, mortality, etc.

It did not occur to me until right now, as I write this, to question the directionality of causal inference here from correlative data. (Which is to say: are people prone to those things not more likely to be single?)

 

One doesn't exactly RCT such things. Hm.

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Custard Cream

As an Ace married to a sexual , I find it really hard to answer as we are all so different and our experiences reflect that.  

 

I am romantic and not sex averse so I haven't actually found it especially hard, the problem for me is more one of mental disconnection.

 

I simply don't know if our relationship would have worked out without sex, especially in the early stages when everything is turned up to 11.

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greynonomous

 I would say that it would really depend on a whole bunch of factors, the big two (a) what are your expectations and willingness to compromise for a 'relationship'? and (b) how much energy are you willing to put into finding the right person so that you don't have to compromise at all?

 

Do you want a short term monogamous romantic relationship with zero sex? You could get one. A bunch of people do that all the time, specially folks that don't believe in premarital sex. Now, can you have one last long term with someone that does need sex? Well, that probably depends on how much you think you would be willing to compromise on your requirements. It could be doing sex (if you're able to), but if sex is a non-starter, would you be ok with some form of open relationship, etc etc. This is something you need to sort of decide before you're in the moment, and communicate it.

 

Otherwise you COULD focus on searching for an ace guy that would fit your criteria the best, but like you said, that reduces the pool of candidates. That just means you can't expect to just find them in a random bar, and need to simply be more purposeful in your search though. If you think about it, if we take that 2% of men number, against the amount of Men 18-44 in the US for example (I'm using that age range because I'm in it), and you still have over 1 million guys out there. In Australia that would be over 90 thousand guys (assumption since you say you're down under). With online, long distance being an option the potential pool becomes even larger. So the issue isn't that there aren't enough ace guys out there, it's actually that there is so many non-aces around that it's hard to find them in all the noise. It doesn't help that most likely a good chunk of them won't self identify or realize they are ace.

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