I’m gay, autistic & demisexual. Will I ever find love?

According to scientists, 95% of the population wants to be in a relationship. OK, OK. I’m just guessing. I’m not a scientist. But, in all fairness, it seems like that’s what everyone wants. Including me.

In addition to being autistic (which I’ve written about before), I’m also demiromantic. It’s taken me 10 years to realize that.

Being demiromantic (or demisexual) means that you can only feel romantically attracted to someone after there is a strong emotional connection.

In other words, I don’t fall in love easily.

I can be physically attracted to someone, but in order to feel drawn to them in a more meaningful way, I also need to love what’s in their mind and heart.

Even though I just recently realized this about myself, when I look back on my childhood, the signs were always there. The only truly strong connection I ever had was with another boy in middle school. I’ll call him Tyler.

Every year, our history teacher would take the entire eighth grade class on a week-long trip to the East coast. We were assigned roommates who we would share a hotel room with. Low and behold, Tyler was my roommate.

I was excited! I didn’t know why at the time, but I felt drawn to him. He had a charming personality and was always cordial. He was also a loner, like me. So I felt like I could bond with him.

After a long day of travel, we ended up at our first hotel of the trip. That night, we talked about our interests (my favorite point of conversation). At the time, I was really into theater and was always performing around Temecula, where I grew up.

He looked at me and said, “You know, I think it’s cool you do theater. I could never do that. It takes courage. I like that about you.” At that moment, I fell in love.

Sadly, he was straight, and we were only 14, so nothing ever happened. But it would take another 10 years for me to find another person like him.

For a few years now, I’ve been friends with a guy who I used to work with at a local coffee shop. I’ll call him Mike. We immediately hit it off, and we kept in contact even after he moved from Temecula to northern California.

About a year ago, Mike moved back, and we picked up where we left off. I invited him to a local brewery one night and we got into a lot of personal subjects–from life and career goals, to love and sex.

It was probably the most real conversation I’ve ever had with a guy. What stood out to me was his willingness to share. I never had a guy be so open with me, so I knew that our relationship had to be special.

As time went on, Mike and I ran into each other at other places around town and continued our open and, from my perspective, flirty relationship. I never could quite pinpoint whether he was interested in me, but my feelings for him grew stronger.

Once again, I fell in love.

Finally, I decided to confront it head on, which is something I never do. I invited him to a coffee shop one morning. After an hour of trying to find the right time to mention it, I told him Mike had feelings for him and asked him out. 

That’s when he told me he was straight.

I’m not going to lie, I was crushed. When I thought about it later, however, something clicked. Over the years, I never dated, but did have casual sex with various partners, none of whom I was ever romantically interested in. It was always just about the release.

As I got older, I started to notice what this was doing to me emotionally and spiritually. By only approaching sex with the expectation of an immediate result and nothing more, I was missing something.

Then a while ago, my best friend from college and I were talking about relationships and they said, “Weird question, but are you aromantic? I get that vibe from you.”

As I did the work on exploring this idea of demiromanticism, things started to make a lot of sense. I realized that the only times I had ever been open to love (first to Tyler, and then to Mike), were when I wasn’t having sex.

As a gay man, I’ve had to deal with living to heteronormative expectations, such as settling down with a family and having a traditional career. As an autistic man, I’ve had to live up to neurotypical expectations, like how to approach sex, love, and dating.

In my experience, it has taken me longer as an autistic person to grasp the concept of love. And combining all these facets can be exhausting. But I believe love will happen for me. I’m just waiting for my Prince Charming.

Even though I haven’t been in a relationship yet, I know he’s out there waiting to sweep me off my feet.

And I’ll be ready when he gets here.

Related:

I’m gay, autistic, and horny. Here’s what you should know before we date…

If you have a potential partner on the autism spectrum, here are some tidbits to take into consideration…