In Japanese, there is an expression “koi no yokan,” which roughly translates to “the premonition of love.” It is not love at first sight, but rather a deep and unshakable sense upon meeting someone that one day you will share a very special relationship with them.
I felt this the night I met Sadiyah—that a profound emotional connection was inevitable with her. Mere moments into our first conversation, I knew I wanted her in my future. But if I’ve learned anything from my past attempts at dating (when my asexuality was still neatly tucked away in the closet), it’s that relationship scripts centred around sexual attraction do not work for me. And rather than performing what I think falling in love is supposed to look like, at the pace that it is supposed to happen, I need to be up front about this.
“It takes me a long time to develop romantic feelings for someone,” I explain, sitting on a cushion in front of Sadiyah’s couch as she braids my hair. “Physical intimacy needs to be an extremely slow burn for me. I have to fall in love platonically first.”
We’ve been seeing each other, as friends, for nearly six months. I’m not ready to kiss her, or hold her hand or ask her to be more than friends yet, but I know one day I will be. Until then, all I can do is show my love in the best ways I know how and trust it’s enough and that our relationship will evolve as it’s meant to.
But isn’t that my deepest fear? That the way I show love, as someone on the ace spectrum, isn’t enough?
As Angela Chen brings to light in her 2021 book Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, asexuality is still deeply misunderstood and under-represented in pop culture. We tend to think of it as a lack of something; a deficiency, or, worse, a disorder. Believing I’m not broken can be really hard, especially when I’m trying to date.
In past relationships, partners have treated my lack of interest in penetrative sex on a regular basis as something wrong with me that we needed to fix. They’d tell me that if I really loved them, this wouldn’t be happening. Saying no for longer stretches of time made me feel guilty so I’d sometimes say yes for the sake of our relationship, even though I was uncomfortable. It became etched into my brain that I “owed” my partner sex.
Like everyone else I’ve ever dated (or fallen for while firmly in the friend zone), Sadiyah is allosexual—in other words, not ace. She knows what sexual attraction feels like; she wants to feel desired. Since I don’t experience sexual attraction, I don’t project sexual desire, therefore it can be difficult for others to recognize when I like them as more than friends. But just because I’m ace doesn’t mean I don’t experience other forms of attraction.
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I think Sadiyah’s strikingly beautiful, inside and out. I adore her brain and the people we become when we’re together; the way it feels like time ceases to exist. I fantasize about cuddling and falling asleep next to her, but that’s as far as my brain naturally goes. I desire closeness, but I really don’t think about sex unless I’m having it. And even then I don’t exactly know how I feel about it or what I like.
This is the first time I’m fully opening up and letting the person I want to be with into my ace way of thinking. It’s vulnerable; I fear being this honest is shattering any chance we might have at being together. But I’m tired of performing and I refuse to rush into another relationship where I feel pressured to have sex.
Sadiyah asks amazing questions but my answers are often messy. There’s still so much I don’t understand about this part of myself. I only came to realize and accept that I’m ace a year and a half ago, at 32 years old. It’s not something anyone in my life ever taught me how to be, so finding the right words to articulate my experience is a struggle. Still, with Sadiyah, I feel safe enough to try. We’ve established the level of trust and emotional intimacy I need in order to imagine a future with someone. It’s in the deep conversations at 2 a.m. that romantic feelings begin to emerge.
However, since we’re not physically intimate with each other, it can be difficult to know where friendship ends and romance begins. Our relationship exists in the grey zone—in the space between platonic and romantic.
Sadiyah and I are sitting under a blanket on her couch with another friend joining us over a video call. We’re in the middle of a conversation about crushes and flirting. Sadiyah tells us about someone who slid into her DMs on Instagram. “I don’t understand,” I blurt out. “How come when other people send a message asking someone they like to hang out, it’s presumed to be a date, but when I do it, it’s not?” I ask desperately, unsure whether tears will accompany my words. They don’t, thankfully, but it’s clear that I have big feelings about this.
This is not the first time I’ve found myself floating somewhere in between friendship and romance with someone I love. I don’t want to stay here—it’s too confusing—but I’m unsure of how to get out.
“Flirting is just the process of trying to learn about someone new and their inner world,” Sadiyah explains, gently and matter-of-factly. “It’s paying really close attention—asking lots of follow-up questions and giving lots of compliments.”
Isn’t that what I’m already doing?
“Body language is also a big part of it,” she adds.
Aha! This is where I really struggle; I’m not in on the code. When is it the right moment to lean in more? To lightly touch someone’s shoulder? Should I take my hand away quickly or leave it there for a moment? How long am I meant to hold this hug? What are my eyes supposed to be doing?
These are the questions that flood my mind when physical intimacy feels rushed. I’ve tried copying what allosexual people do, but it feels inauthentic to me, like I’m operating myself from the outside with a remote control. My body just doesn’t naturally do any of the things it’s expected to when I want to attract someone.
I remember being five or six dates into seeing a person I really liked when they told me things were moving too slow. “We haven’t even kissed yet,” they said, implying that I wasn’t interested. I tried to explain I just needed more time for my feelings to manifest physically, but I knew they were getting impatient, so as we were parting ways that day, I asked if I could kiss them.
I walked away from that first kiss feeling awful because it didn’t come from inside me; it felt painted on. I promised myself I’d never do that again. I’d rather be single forever than force my body to “prove” what my heart is feeling.
I used to think I needed to do relationships a certain way in order to be in one. I’m no longer in this place. Falling hard and fast—like characters do in movies—is what I’ve been conditioned to want, but it’s not something I’m capable of. Friends first, lovers later. It has to be in that order. This makes me difficult to date, or at least that’s how it feels.
“There’s a difference between being difficult to date and needing a specific person to date you,” a close friend says to me on a night when I’m feeling small.
I hope she’s right.
I’m back at Sadiyah’s place for a writing day. I’m sitting cross-legged against her couch with my laptop open in front of me. Her bird, a green-cheeked conure named Fizzy, is perched on my lap. Slowly but surely, he and I have developed our own special bond. Fizzy starts nuzzling into my hand for the first time. I’m unsure what to do, so I just sit there, head over heels in love but frozen.
Sadiyah chimes in: “This is so adorable because he’s trying to cuddle with you but you have no idea how.”
We both start laughing. My ace heart has never felt so seen.
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