Demisexuality and demiromanticism

I think I discovered being demisexual within the last five years or so. Back when I was in high school, I'd have people tell me they liked me and I felt obligated to date them, even though I held no feelings towards them. The relationships never lasted long because I didn't reciprocate any touching and the feelings I thought would come with the relationship never came; I thought I was broken because of this.

Flash forward to senior year, I met back with one of my oldest friends, we'll call him M. We used to hang out a lot when we were kids and kept having the same classes and lunch periods, somewhere along the line we drifted apart for a bit cause of scheduling. Suddenly, we were hanging out again after so long and became good friends, then I caught feelings for the first time in my life, it felt like a warm glow in my chest, it's hard to explain. We started dating and it took me maybe five months into the relationship to start feeling sexually attracted to M which was incredibly scary since I had never felt that way before, but thankfully, he was patient and took things slow with me. I wouldn't say M 'fixed' me, but with him I didn't feel so broken any more.

I remember the moment when I discovered that I was asexual and it's a little stupid. I was looking through Instagram edits maybe 2–3 years ago when I came across a post of Todd Chavez from Bojack Horseman.

Bruh, to tell you I cried when all the things he said about not being allowed to fall in love or that he was nothing sounded so familiar and so much like myself, and when he was a little skeptical about being ace at first but came to terms with himself, I bawled my eyes out. I was unsure of myself too since I'm happy with M and never considered myself part of the LGBT+ community, but I looked up more about being asexual and saw a little footnote about what demisexuality is and have never felt so relieved to have a name for it.

I'm almost 24, M and I have been together for almost six years and I feel truly happy being demisexual. Sometimes I'll see some hate that plants some doubt in my head if my feelings are valid or not, but I get over it pretty quick; I'm proud to be myself.

– StilesTheGreat

I was asexual completely for 19 years of my life till I met someone online, we became friends and closer, after about 2 years he told me he likes me and I said "emmmm, sorry? I don't... feel the same." It took another year or so until I felt sexual attraction in the first time in my life. I honestly thought people were over exaggerating taking about sexual attraction and I was pretty sure I was straight by default, but it did feel great, my brain got blanked out of embarrassment a lot, I did feel hot talking to him, and my face actually got a bit pink (surprising since I'm vary brown), and I did like being touched by him (which was surprising because I really don't like being romantic it real life, I liked the thought of that and I wasn't repulsed by it as I was repulsed by sex, overall it was fun, lots of happy dopamine drag in the brain, lol.

– _The_physics_girl_

I was in my early 20s when I found out about asexuality through Tumblr (before the website went downhill :/). Doing the research made me realize that it almost perfectly explained my past experiences up to that point! It was a validating moment, but I still didn't feel sure if I could totally claim myself as asexual. I felt that there was something else I couldn't fathom yet but I stuck with identifying myself as ace.

Jump to my late 20s (present), and suddenly I experienced some very weird feelings when I met this one person. Legit, I was scared about these unfamiliar feelings AND the need to talk about my ace identity to this person, early on in our "talking stage". Thankfully they were understanding and open to hearing about my experience, which relieved a whole lot of pressure regarding intimacy and other things that come up in a relationship.

But the more I spent time with this person, those very weird feelings grew stronger, and I came to realize that I'm actually demi! Again, I looked to my past experiences to make sure that that was my truth. I had considered before if I was demisexual (based on a past experience with someone else whom I am now very distant from because it was a painful memory...). But at the time, hookup culture was a hot topic and people in my close circles weren't very welcoming or encouraging to the idea of emotions/emotional attraction. So this has been something I could never talk about with anyone until most recently.

– thenefariousellie

For the longest time I thought I was acearo and then BOOM the girl I had been talking with for 7 months and was great friends with became my first(and only, even to this day) crush. It was so confusing because excuse me what are these feelings of romance and omg I'm so whipped what is happening. I hadn't really looked into demiromanticism before and was questioning my romantic orientation because obviously it didn't seem to fit any more. I am now a proud demiromantic asexual! While me and that girl did date, it didn't work out and honestly I'm still completely content being single :D/p>

– SuzannaBananaV4590