Ace/aro people in relationships, how'd you find your partner?

[osseousaquarium]

I love hearing stories about how people met their s/o, so I wanted to hear some stories from you guys !! (I'm also curious as to how they might differ from the usual stories I hear from allos, if at all) 

[ei-hvað]

Mine is pretty simple. I joined a (now defunct) Discord group named Ace Date Space which served as a dating space for people on the Ace/Aro spectrum. The first person I started dating seriously turned out to likely be on the aromantic spectrum, so I suggested we stay as friends. At that point, I was living in a different country and rejoined. After a few days I messaged another ace who lived somewhat near me and we started dating. We have now been together for about a year, and she is planning on visiting and staying with me for a few months (as I have since moved back).

Personally speaking, I strongly recommend deliberately searching for a compatible partner over hoping to hit the jackpot on mainstream allo dating sites, but I know it can be tough. It would have been difficult for me to find another romantic ace up for dating in my home country. I have been in a sexually incompatible relationship (as well as a romantically incompatible one), and it's honestly very tough.

[Flowerychildd]

2 hours ago, osseousaquarium said:

I love hearing stories about how people met their s/o, so I wanted to hear some stories from you guys !! (I'm also curious as to how they might differ from the usual stories I hear from allos, if at all) 

Me and my boyfriend (online ofc) met each other completely randomly in this online group in an old site I used to use. It was like towards Christmas I think. I noticed they had a profile picture of a character I liked, so I decided to be brave and initiate a conversation. Ever since then we talked almost daily and ended up getting closer and closer, forming a big emotional bond (we're both demiromantic). We've also known each other for 2 or 3 years. I developed a MASSIVE crush on him, leading to falling in love with him, if not already having had a crush on him and having only then acknowledged my feelings. We've been together for 4 months now, going on 5, and I'm absolutely sure he's the one I want to spend the rest of my days with.

[Blaiddmelyn]

Short story: dating app

 

Longer story: I'd tried ace dating sites and found them terrible. Then I had a murky friendship/relationship with an Allo woman which ended poorly (not due to sex). She made me think I could potentially meet another allo person who would be able to compromise so once I was over the heartbreak, I tried a dating app called Her and was open on my profile about my orientation. Had a few lovely convos and just hit it off with one person so asked her on a date. Turned out she knew exactly what asexuality is as her best friend is ace, and she'd already considered whether she could have a relationship with an ace person so was open to trying. So far, it's working for us.

[Philip027]

Found them here

 

Obligatory disclaimer: AVEN isn't a dating site and it is against the rules to use it like one.  Doesn't mean that they can stop connections from forming in a more casual/natural way, though... (as a demiromantic, the dating "scene" really isn't for me, anyway)

[TormentDubz]

On 9/19/2024 at 9:27 AM, ei-hvað said:

I joined a (now defunct) Discord group named Ace Date Space

ADS is gone? That sucks

[ei-hvað]

13 minutes ago, TormentDubz said:

ADS is gone? That sucks

Yeah, it closed down in January as the admin team was under a lot of stress, but a lot of people from there joined the AceSpace.love Discord. It isn't really the same however as the point of that group isn't really to serve as a dating hub, since the website already serves that purpose.

[Sally]

My partner's office in an academic department of the local university was across from my office, and we both were in dying marriages.  He started coming over to talk, and one day he asked me to put a gold earring in his ear, and our closeness somehow convinced him he was interested in a relationship with me.  At first I thought he was gay so I didn't respond immediately.  He thought that was hilarious, and I soon learned that it was.  It took many years for me to realize that I was aesthetically and romantically attracted to him, not sexually.l

[cinnabon]

Short version: Facebook dating.

 

Long version:

I had a profile picture in my gallery of pidge from voltron with the asexual flag and space doodles. Although I hadn't written I'm asexual directly in my bio bc ppl know me I tell ppl of interest if it comes up and are interested in me romantically which have been like 4 surprisingly. I don't like people romantically or the standard courting rules which I later found out was demi-romantic. 

Anyway after about 3 months of talking my partner confessed she liked me from the start and I told her there's no guarantee I'll return her feelings romantically but considered her a best friend and want her to be happy. After a few more months I told her I'd consider having a relationship if she's the same as she'd portray herself online. Over the summer I went to visit for a week since my family is close. After spending time with her in person I asked her to be my girlfriend. It's now been a year and 2 months. She ofc is very accepting of me being asexual and more than willing to be understanding on differences.

[Autumn ace]

AVEN 😁

[kelico]

Also AVEN.  

[Jelle]

I met him at work. First a workmate, then close friend, then husband. Pure coincidence that we're both aros

[yumanna]

Met my partner on Boo :]

 

We just started talking and ended up clicking well! We dated early but it felt more like a friendship before it actually started picking up.

 

What's funny is that they're aro but romance postitive and I'm Ace and sex-postive so it's funny how sexuality works 😌✨️

 

We've been dating for 7 months now and I love them very much <33

[Simply Canadian]

My wife messaged me out of the blue on PlentyOfFish.com in January 2016. We met in person a month later and I fell in love with her from that very minute. We dated long-distance (including Canada/USA border hopping) until I immigrated to the US in June 2017 ahead ofnour wedding the following month.

 

More of my background story can be found in the Welcome/Introduction section.

 

I am happy to say that things have improved the last few weeks since I came out as Ace. Communication has improved, and our general happiness has as well, now that we've been able to move past a major crux in our relationship.

[mythweaver]

i met him at school and he was one of my best friends for two years. we went on a holiday with our other friends and that’s when we started to like each other. we started dating a couple of weeks after that. it’s a ridiculously storybook-like story but i love it.

[apollyon]

We were friends for a year, very very close. Then we had a falling-out (partially as a result of another friend, partially because two mentally ill people have too many issues to be compatible). When we started talking again, I eventually asked her out. I didn't realize I was asexual until later, but had already realized I was probably demiromantic/greyromantic. 

 

At this point, I'm wondering/worrying that I may be aroace. I do love her, but I don't know if I love her the right way, if that makes sense. I've talked about this before here.

 

I also am not sure if she is acespec or not. We haven't talked about it, although I eventually plan to. We have a lot of shit to work through if I'm being fully honest, but now that we're freshmen we go to different schools so don't see each other as often, and I hate having serious conversations over text. I'm getting over that, though.

 

Edit: we broke up a little over a month ago. Amicable but my friend says they think she lied about being over me

[keletkezes]

University, at a hobby society

 

The end of Freshers' Week 2002. Saturday. I'd been to the medieval reenactment society that afternoon, it wasn't for me (this was so long ago that women weren't allowed to fight in the events :S). I attended Roleplaying Games Society's (RPGSoc) Live Action Roleplaying (LARP) that evening, and someone turned up with their own kit, the only new member to do so. He was shy, awkward, a bit weird for a LARPer, not that I knew much about it then. I fell in love with LARP there and then. Pretty much all the freshers that evening became really good friends  We played wargames together (we basically restarted the wargames bit of RPGSoc). We went to SFFS (scifi-fantasy society) together. We were all Star Trek, Buffy etc. fans. I introduced them all to my Star Trek play-by-email roleplaying group, Awkward-LARPer (who was a lot less awkward by now) introduced us to his friends from home. I kinda started an online relationship with his best mate who was a year younger than us (like most of my mates in the PBEM group) in, uhh, December. We met up in February school half-term and it was my first real relationship thing. He met up with Awkward-LARPer and found out he really liked me, so broke it off because he wasn't really that into me, and me and Awkward-LARPer got talking. It all happened over MSN Messenger and he came over to visit me that evening, drunk enough to sleep in my (single) bed in halls despite his shyness 😜

 

That was 3rd March 2003. We were 19. We're still together. We got engaged the following year (03/03/2004). We got a civil partnership in 2021 (when the UK allowed heterosexual couples to get them). We just had our big celebration for that in September (Covid lockdown in 2021 meant we could do it all casual like ;P), along with ending our 40th birthday year, and paying off our mortgage this year

 

We're both on the aroace spectra. We've both moved along those spectra. We're also both neurodiverse. We're best mates. We have the same hobbies but I have more. We've been through some tough times but I only walked out on him once for 12hrs, then we talked. We don't really talk about sex or relationships etc., unless we have to, it's awkward and weird for us. We do talk about D&D, wargames, boardgames etc.

[knerd.knitter]

I met my husband in college. We've been together now for 21 years. I only realized I was ace 2 days ago... but it explains a lot about our relationship. In a lot of ways, our relationship has been very traditional; we waited until we got married to have sex, we got married in a church... we're straight and monogamous. But we've had a lot of issues with our sexual relationship, and it all sort of makes sense now, and I think it will be better because we've talked and are able to be more honest now and will probably both be able to be happier. ❤️

[Ace girl]

On 9/19/2024 at 7:36 PM, Philip027 said:

Found them here

 

Obligatory disclaimer: AVEN isn't a dating site and it is against the rules to use it like one.  Doesn't mean that they can stop connections from forming in a more casual/natural way, though... (as a demiromantic, the dating "scene" really isn't for me, anyway)

How?

[Frameshift07]

Welcome, @Ace girl 

 

10 minutes ago, Ace girl said:

On 9/20/2024 at 12:36 AM, Philip027 said:

Obligatory disclaimer: AVEN isn't a dating site and it is against the rules to use it like one.  Doesn't mean that they can stop connections from forming in a more casual/natural way, though... (as a demiromantic, the dating "scene" really isn't for me, anyway)

How?

Organically. When we say using it as a 'dating site', we mean using it for the express purpose of dating people. If you come here to use the forums casually and you just happen to like someone here enough to date them, we can't stop you from doing that.

[Philip027]

7 minutes ago, Ace girl said:

How?

Through just normal interaction, really.

 

Someone here reached out to me when I was going through a difficult time.  We started to communicate over our shared experiences in depression and isolation.  We quickly became friends and it didn't take us long to grow particularly close.  Neither of us went into this wanting a relationship; it just sort of happened that way.  We met in person for the first time in Canada a year later (I was from Hawaii, they were from France), and three years later, we were married.  We've been living together in Canada ever since.

 

This started ten years ago.  That difficult time of mine was more or less detailed here; not that I particularly want anyone to read through that as it was not one of my finest moments, but just putting it here both to show it actually happened and to emphasize that sometimes good things can happen as a direct result of bad things.

[Ceebs]

@Philip027 Your guys' story always makes me smile. So glad you found each other. As you know, I know the feeling.  

[Fangorn]

I'm not fully aromantic but on the aromantic spectrum and got into a relationship recently. We met on another site (not a dating site, just regular social media). I saw a picture he had posted and wanted to message him but figured I have no chance with him anyway. I don't even mind the way I look but I still think he's out of my league. Then I kept thinking of him and wanting to message him and decided it can't do any harm to just try. He responded to my message and it turns out we get along very well, at least so far. I'm hoping that will last.

[ninjasta]

In my case I met my late partner in my 20's whilst living in student halls. I dropped out and got close to home, whereas she followed work sales and marketing. She'd invite me birthday events and travel down to see especiallyif wrote or saying broken her latest boyfriend.

Long story short in late 20's she'd not in relationship for while and was thoroughly unhappy. So I went console her and essentially was overcome by immense desire to enfold, protect and make her happy. Which I guess worked cos proposed and married her.

It turns that unbeknownst to me she seriously fancied me as guy but thought I was gay or something as didn't interested in her. It sort came when moving together and realised I spent as much time as her Cosmo and Vogue as i did car magazines.

Having found a way to interact her at a romantic level I couldn't bear the thought of losing her and was prepared to expose my very soul to keep her.

Having been, what I now understand to be, genderfluid in a male body. My experience as pubescent "boy" surrounded by other boys in an all male English public school was very harrowing and frightening experience for my femme ego. Exposing the essence of my duality was a major leap. Thankfully she took me face value and intrigued enough to let both sides me of charm and romance her. 

 

 

 

[prpis]

I was reading this by off chance and I related to it - why do I relate to it?? Omg I wonder if I’m ace. 

[Guest]

I met my partner through a Discord server for aros, we ended up being friends and then queerplatonic partners, and then realized pretty quick that our feelings for each other felt more romantic than anything else. First and only relationship I've had since realizing I was asexual so I feel pretty lucky to have found someone who gets both that and the aro stuff (we're both arospec and ace lol).

[Aha]

Trial and error, almost to much trial and error.

In my twenties and thirties i did not know anything about the ace spectrum. I was brought up by my VERY conservative grandpa.

It is nowadays even likely, that he was also an ace but this might lead to far to tell about that. Thinking that my needs coped with the needs of "common sexuality", some relationships ended very frustrating, either by me or by the partner.

My one and only most wonderful man and husband, I have mentioned him already, fell in love with me when he was still married and I was a student. He was the father of two students who lived in the same  hostel like me. Ten years went by and he got out of sight.  Then we met in the coffee house he was in the process of getting divorced. His wife initiated the divorce.  After that, he got out of sight again. At that time I didńt know that he had fallen in love so many years ago. 2 Years later we met again and finally he started dating.  I think luckily he was as high sensitive as me although not being an ace but maybe closer than other former partners to that spectrum.  Sometimes I think, that he loved me more in the traditional sexual-romantic way than I did. The bond I had was deeper than that.  I am sure that he felt that.

[Doctor]

On 9/19/2024 at 4:27 PM, ei-hvað said:

Mine is pretty simple. I joined a (now defunct) Discord group named Ace Date Space which served as a dating space for people on the Ace/Aro spectrum. The first person I started dating seriously turned out to likely be on the aromantic spectrum, so I suggested we stay as friends. At that point, I was living in a different country and rejoined. After a few days I messaged another ace who lived somewhat near me and we started dating. We have now been together for about a year, and she is planning on visiting and staying with me for a few months (as I have since moved back).

Personally speaking, I strongly recommend deliberately searching for a compatible partner over hoping to hit the jackpot on mainstream allo dating sites, but I know it can be tough. It would have been difficult for me to find another romantic ace up for dating in my home country. I have been in a sexually incompatible relationship (as well as a romantically incompatible one), and it's honestly very tough.

I have a very similar story to you, from the previous sexually incompatible relationship, difficulty finding another asexual in my home country to date, to meeting my SO on Ace Date Space 

 

I also recommend the same about deliberately searching for a compatible asexual partner in spaces designated for that. Being in an ace-ace relationship has spoiled me to the point where I'd rather never be in a romantic relationship again if it wasn't naturally sexless or at most close to sexless.

 

But I admit, even on asexual dating sites or even gathering places, finding a compatible* asexual romantic partner feels like hitting the jackpot. On top of trying to filter mainstream sites, I was browsing any and all asexual meeting sites on-and-off for a good 5+ years, and I was one day away from leaving Ace Date Space out of resignation before my SO joined and shared his picture. My couple of asexual friends haven't been able to find compatible romantic partners; one of them has been single for about 20 years, although I think he's just given up in the last few.

 

*Although, ngl, the extreme numbers game has changed my definition of compatibility, at least in comparison to what is considered compatible when compared to non-ace acquaintances of mine.

[ei-hvað]

2 minutes ago, Doctor said:

I have a very similar story to you, from the previous sexually incompatible relationship, difficulty finding another asexual in my home country to date, to meeting my SO on Ace Date Space 

 

I also recommend the same about deliberately searching for a compatible asexual partner in spaces designated for that. Being in an ace-ace relationship has spoiled me to the point where I'd rather never be in a romantic relationship again if it wasn't naturally sexless or at most close to sexless.

 

But I admit, even on asexual dating sites or even gathering places, finding a compatible* asexual romantic partner feels like hitting the jackpot. On top of trying to filter mainstream sites, I was browsing any and all asexual meeting sites on-and-off for a good 5+ years, and I was one day away from leaving Ace Date Space out of resignation before my SO joined and shared his picture. My couple of asexual friends haven't been able to find compatible romantic partners; one of them has been single for about 20 years, although I think he's just given up in the last few.

 

*Although, ngl, the extreme numbers game has changed my definition of compatibility, at least in comparison to what is considered compatible when compared to non-ace acquaintances of mine.

Congratulations on finding someone! And I agree on feeling spoiled in an ace-ace relationship and not being able to imagine being in a relationships with someone non-asexual again. It just feels really great, comfortable and natural. It's nice not needing to "make it work", because it just does. Besides that, she's just an amazing person.

[GothTeddyRoosevelt]

On 3/5/2025 at 4:53 PM, Doctor said:

But I admit, even on asexual dating sites or even gathering places, finding a compatible* asexual romantic partner feels like hitting the jackpot. On top of trying to filter mainstream sites, I was browsing any and all asexual meeting sites on-and-off for a good 5+ years, and I was one day away from leaving Ace Date Space out of resignation before my SO joined and shared his picture. My couple of asexual friends haven't been able to find compatible romantic partners; one of them has been single for about 20 years, although I think he's just given up in the last few.

So, so true. Sigh.

 

I've been on IRL dates with a couple aces. One of them wasn't really interested in anything serious, the other one rejected me after one date. Sure makes it hard to get in the "plenty of fish in the sea" mindset.

 

Anyway, I have no story to share, I have had a few relationships but never with another ace person, and they've all ended on some level because of the ace thing.