With Valentine’s Day — and my 64th birthday — coming up, my thoughts turn to the fact that I have never been in love. I’m single, childfree, and asexual—although being asexual does not preclude me from entering into a romantic relationship. AVEN (The Asexual Visibility and Education Network) notes, “Asexual people can have romantic feelings and form romantic relationships around those feelings just like anyone of any orientation can.”
In eighth grade, I’d had my first date. We went to the movies and in the middle of the show, in the semi-empty darkened theater, he thought he was slick in how he dropped his arm behind my neck onto my shoulder. He let it rest there for what seemed like a long time; I lost track of what was going on in the movie. Then he slipped his hand inside my blouse and felt my breast. With a jerking motion, I wrenched myself free. Surprised, he yanked his hand away. For the rest of the movie, we sat frozen, not talking, not looking at each other. When I got home, I went straight to my room. I never told anyone what happened.
My first kiss was one Saturday night when I was 15 while I was babysitting up at the bungalow colony my family used to vacation at during the summer months. He was a boy every teen girl had a crush on.
I was sitting on the porch reading when he tapped on the screen door. I wasn’t one of the popular girls, so I was surprised to see him. We made awkward small talk for a couple of minutes, and then he leaned over the sticky tablecloth and kissed me gently on my lips.
“That was nice,” he said.
Then a minute later, “I have to go.”
I knew he had no intention of becoming my boyfriend.
In high school, I watched my childhood friends begin to pair off with guys. Whenever I saw one wearing a boyfriend’s leather jacket, I felt defective. I couldn’t picture myself in that jacket with his arm sliding down the pebbled leather, coming to rest on my ass.
Playing sports in high school with many gay teammates, I began to question my own sexuality, but I had no one I could talk to about it. My father, newly sober, had retreated into a severe depression and my mother had to go to work to support our family. Besides, things like this just weren’t talked about in our family. The same pattern repeated itself in college, where I played basketball and softball with many gay teammates. Still questioning my sexuality, still wondering why no guys showed an interest in me, I graduated at 21, still a virgin.
When I began working in advertising in Manhattan, I joined the company softball team. After games in Central Park, we’d head to a bar on the Upper East Side. Over the years, quite a few couples emerged from that league, and at least one marriage. Still, no one asked me out. I wondered why I was so repulsive.
Over the next four years, I developed anorexia and needed to be hospitalized. Needless to say, no man wants to make love to a skeleton. And that first hospitalization marked the onset of a three-plus-decades battle with severe and persistent mental illness. There wasn’t much time or energy to think about dating. Trapped in locked hospital units, with nothing to do to pass the time, I listened to stories of sexual prowess and conquests and was reminded that I was now 30 but remained a virgin.
Recent research on the challenges facing “Emerging Adult Virgins” (EAVs) reported that “compared to their ‘on-time’ peers, they are more likely to report distress, low self-esteem, loneliness, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and stigma. They are also more likely to devalue themselves, internalize stigma, and be perceived as less attractive than their ‘on-time’ counterparts. Adding to these difficulties is the decrease in the number of available partners as they age, as well as the stigma associated with non-normative behavior.”
I didn’t lose my virginity until well into middle age. He wasn’t my boyfriend, and we weren’t in a relationship. We had met online, and we were out on our first date. There were no fireworks, only a big sigh of relief. I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. That was in 2012. I decided not to bother any further.
Relationships Essential Reads
In 2015, I read the New York Times Modern Love essay “Asexual and Happy.” I’d never heard of asexuality before. I read the article over and over and it was as though pieces of a puzzle were finally fitting together. I brought the article into therapy with Dr. Lev, the psychiatrist I was working with at the time. We agreed that this could be me.
I suddenly felt relief, peace, contentment, and unequaled bliss. I had a name for who I was—and who I would be for the rest of my life. I didn’t have to worry about conforming to anyone else’s view of what normal is or should be. I finally knew where I belonged.
People who are asexual can and do engage in romantic relationships, but I have no desire to. I value my alone time enormously and would resent anyone or anything that impinged on it. I’m used to doing what I want when I want and in my personal life, and not having to compromise. I have family and a small circle of close friends whom I see often, but then I get to go home to my rescue dog, Shelby, whom I love dearly—and who can be demanding in her own way.
Do I still wonder what live might have been like if I had ever married? Occasionally. But I’m not alone in finding joy in living alone. Nearly 26 million Americans 50 or older now live alone, up from 15 million in 2000. It’s a group that has always included more older people than others, although today’s aging generations—the Baby Boom and Generation X—makes up a bigger share of the demographic than ever before.
Being single has its advantages.