Romantic longing, sexual incompatibility, and the search for reciprocal intimacy among alloromantic asexual people
Abstract
Asexuality is increasingly recognized as a heterogeneous sexual orientation rather than a uniform absence of intimacy, desire, or relationships. Yet research and community discourse have often insufficiently differentiated sexual attraction, romantic attraction, sexual desire, and relationship preference. This distinction becomes particularly important for alloromantic asexual people—people who experience romantic attraction while experiencing little or no sexual attraction. Although some asexual people are aromantic and may prefer non-romantic forms of intimacy, a substantial proportion experience romantic attraction and desire romantic partnership.
This article examines a relatively underexplored problem: the potential relational isolation of highly romantic asexual people within asexual and aromantic dating environments. Such individuals may experience intense romantic attachment, longing for partnership, affection, emotional closeness, physical tenderness, commitment, and a desire to be romantically chosen, while simultaneously experiencing little or no sexual attraction toward their romantic partner. This creates a distinctive compatibility problem. With allosexual partners, they may fear that they cannot adequately reciprocate a partner’s sexual desire. With aromantic asexual partners, they may experience the opposite mismatch: the relationship may provide companionship and platonic intimacy but lack the reciprocal romantic attraction they themselves seek.
Drawing on contemporary research on asexuality, romantic orientation, intimacy, loneliness, relationship satisfaction, and amatonormativity, this article proposes a conceptual framework of romantic reciprocity mismatch. It argues that the difficulties experienced by some romantic asexual people should not be understood as evidence that they are deficient, incapable of intimacy, or inherently incompatible with relationships. Rather, difficulties can emerge from a structural mismatch between different dimensions of attraction and intimacy. The article concludes by identifying areas for future empirical research, particularly research specifically examining alloromantic asexual dating experiences, sexual compatibility anxiety, perceived inadequacy, and relationships between romantic asexual and aromantic asexual people.
Keywords: asexuality; alloromantic asexuality; romantic attraction; aromanticism; sexual attraction; intimacy; dating; relationship satisfaction; loneliness; amatonormativity; sexual compatibility
1. Introduction
Asexuality is commonly understood as experiencing little or no sexual attraction. However, contemporary research increasingly demonstrates that asexual people are not a psychologically or relationally homogeneous population. Some asexual people experience romantic attraction, some do not; some desire romantic relationships, some prefer queer-platonic or other forms of intimacy, and some engage in sexual activity despite not experiencing sexual attraction.
This diversity creates an important but insufficiently examined question:
What happens when an asexual person’s need for romantic love is strong, but their experience of sexual attraction does not correspond to the sexual expectations commonly embedded within romantic relationships?
This question is particularly significant for alloromantic asexual people. An alloromantic asexual person can experience romantic attraction, romantic longing, attachment, infatuation, desire for partnership, affection, tenderness and a wish to build a life with another person while experiencing little or no sexual attraction.
Research by Antonsen and colleagues found that approximately 74% of the asexual participants in their combined dataset reported some form of romantic attraction. Romantic asexual participants also reported greater relationship experience, more past romantic partners, more kissing, and greater desire for romantic relationships than aromantic asexual participants.
Therefore, the assumption that “asexual people simply do not want relationships” is empirically inadequate.
The problem is more complicated.
For some romantic asexual people, the difficulty is not the absence of desire for intimacy. It is the difficulty of finding a person whose romantic orientation, sexual orientation, relationship expectations and preferred forms of intimacy align sufficiently with their own.
2. Beyond the Binary of “Wants Sex” and “Doesn’t Want Sex”
A major conceptual problem in discussions of asexuality is treating sexuality as a single continuum.
Romantic attraction and sexual attraction do not necessarily coincide. Research examining asexual adults has found substantial divergence between sexual and romantic orientations. One study found that only 37% of asexual participants had concordant sexual and romantic orientations, illustrating how frequently these dimensions can differ.
Consequently, the following experiences can coexist:
- “I desperately want to fall in love.”
- “I want someone to choose me as their romantic partner.”
- “I want cuddling and physical affection.”
- “I want emotional and domestic intimacy.”
- “I want commitment.”
- “I want romantic dates.”
- “I want to hold someone’s hand.”
- “I want to kiss someone.”
- “I want a life partner.”
- “But I do not experience sexual attraction toward them.”
These are not inherently contradictory.
The distinction between sexual attraction and sexual desire is also essential. Philosophical and psychological scholarship has emphasized that asexuality cannot simply be equated with celibacy, abstinence, or an absence of every form of sexual desire or behavior. Some asexual people participate in sexual activity for different reasons, while others do not.
This heterogeneity means that “asexual relationship” cannot be treated as a single relationship model.
3. The Romantic Asexuality Paradox
Romantic asexual people can occupy an unusual position within dating cultures.
In conventional dating environments, they may encounter allosexual people whose romantic and sexual attraction are closely connected. In specifically asexual spaces, they may encounter people whose romantic needs differ substantially from their own.
This can create what may be conceptualized as a Romantic Asexuality Paradox:
The person may find greater recognition of their asexuality inside ace communities while simultaneously finding fewer people who reciprocate the particular kind of romantic attraction they desire.
This should not be interpreted as a universal characteristic of ace communities. Rather, it is a hypothesis concerning one potentially important experience among a subgroup of alloromantic asexual people.
Tessler’s research is particularly relevant here. Her study of a-spec singles found that alloromantic asexual people were substantially more likely to express interest in romantic relationships than aromantic asexual people.
This difference matters.
4. The Pain of Romantic Attraction Without Sexual Compatibility
One particularly difficult experience occurs when a romantic asexual person develops strong romantic attraction toward an allosexual person.
The romantic attraction may be genuine and profound.
They may think:
“I love this person.”
But simultaneously:
“I cannot give them the kind of sexual attraction they experience toward me.”
This creates a potential asymmetry.
The allosexual partner may experience sexual attraction as an important component of romantic intimacy. The asexual partner may experience romantic intimacy through affection, emotional closeness, companionship, physical tenderness, shared experiences, commitment, or other forms of intimacy.
Neither person’s experience is necessarily wrong.
The difficulty is compatibility.
A romantic asexual person may consequently develop a painful perception of inadequacy:
“What if I am not enough for them?”
“What if they eventually become frustrated?”
“What if they need something that I cannot naturally provide?”
“What if they find someone who can give them the sexual relationship they want?”
These concerns may become particularly intense when sexual activity is perceived as evidence of romantic desirability or relationship adequacy.
Research has already identified sexual-performance concerns as particularly relevant among romantic asexual participants. Carvalho and Rodrigues found that romantic asexual participants reported greater concern about sexual performance than aromantic asexual participants, alongside greater interest in romantic relationships.
This finding provides an important empirical foundation for examining the phenomenon of sexual-compatibility anxiety among romantic asexual people.
5. “I Am Not Good Enough”: From Compatibility Problem to Internalized Inadequacy
A crucial distinction should be made between:
“We are sexually incompatible”
and
“I am inadequate.”
The first is a relationship-compatibility statement.
The second is a statement about personal worth.
When social norms repeatedly imply that sexual availability is an important component of romantic partnership, an asexual person may internalize incompatibility as personal deficiency.
This can produce what might be termed asexual relational inadequacy: the perception that one’s inability or unwillingness to provide a partner’s preferred sexual experience makes one an inferior romantic partner.
This is not a diagnosis. It is a proposed conceptual construct for future research.
The psychological sequence could potentially look like:
Romantic attraction → desire for relationship → discovery of sexual mismatch → fear of disappointing partner → comparison with allosexual partners → perceived inadequacy → anxiety about abandonment → self-suppression or relationship avoidance.
Such a process could make dating particularly emotionally demanding.
Importantly, this does not mean that allosexual partners necessarily demand sex, nor does it mean that allosexual–asexual relationships cannot be successful. Research demonstrates considerable diversity in asexual people’s sexual behavior and relationship arrangements.
The problem arises when partners’ needs cannot be mutually negotiated.
6. The Opposite Mismatch: Romantic Asexual × Aromantic Asexual
An especially interesting problem occurs when a romantic asexual person dates an aromantic asexual person.
At first glance, this pairing might appear highly compatible.
Both people may:
- experience little or no sexual attraction;
- understand asexuality;
- have less expectation of conventional sexual relationships;
- understand ace-spectrum experiences;
- value non-sexual intimacy.
However, sexual compatibility does not automatically produce romantic compatibility.
An aromantic asexual person may experience profound affection, loyalty, companionship, tenderness and intimacy without experiencing romantic attraction.
The romantic asexual partner may need something different:
to be romantically desired.
This difference is crucial.
A romantic asexual person may intellectually understand aromanticism while emotionally struggling with the absence of reciprocal romantic attraction.
They may begin to feel:
“I know that you care about me, but I do not feel romantically loved by you.”
The relationship may therefore provide companionship without satisfying their need for romantic reciprocity.
7. The Problem of Forced Platonic Satisfaction
This produces another potential phenomenon: forced platonic satisfaction.
This occurs when an individual attempts to persuade themselves that a deeply meaningful platonic relationship should satisfy a desire that is specifically romantic.
This distinction is important because platonic intimacy is not inherently inferior to romantic intimacy.
Queer-platonic relationships, intimate friendships and other non-traditional relationships can be deeply meaningful. Research on a-spec people increasingly challenges the assumption that intimacy must follow conventional romantic or sexual structures.
However, celebrating platonic intimacy should not require denying romantic desire.
For an alloromantic asexual person, the statement:
“Platonic love is equally valuable”
does not necessarily answer:
“But what if I specifically want romantic love?”
The two propositions can coexist.
A person can respect aromanticism while recognizing that they personally need romantic reciprocity.
8. Romantic Attraction as a Relational Need
One potential conceptual mistake is treating romantic attraction as merely an optional preference.
For some people, romantic connection may be deeply connected to their understanding of intimacy, attachment, partnership and life planning.
Research supports the importance of distinguishing people according to romantic orientation rather than treating asexuality as a single category. Antonsen et al. found meaningful differences between romantic and aromantic asexual participants in relationship experience and partner-oriented desire.
Tessler’s work similarly demonstrates that alloromantic asexual singles have substantially different relationship interests from aromantic asexual singles.
Therefore:
Asexuality does not eliminate the need to study romantic compatibility.
It makes that compatibility question more complex.
9. Loneliness Does Not Necessarily Disappear Inside a Relationship
An important emerging area of research concerns the relationship between romantic involvement and loneliness among asexual people.
A 2026 study by Zoppolat and colleagues examined whether romantic involvement provides the same protective benefits against loneliness for asexual people as it does for other groups. Using data from the BBC Loneliness Experiment, the authors reported that asexual participants did not benefit—or did not benefit as strongly—from romantic relationship involvement in the same way as heterosexual and other sexual-minority participants. They also reported lower relationship satisfaction among asexual participants in their sample.
These findings should not be interpreted as evidence that romantic relationships are inherently unsuccessful for asexual people.
Rather, they raise an important question:
What kind of relationship actually satisfies an asexual person’s particular intimacy needs?
A relationship may technically exist while failing to provide the specific form of intimacy a person seeks.
Thus:
Relationship status ≠relational fulfilment.
And:
Being partnered ≠experiencing reciprocal romantic intimacy.
10. Amatonormativity and the “Default Relationship”
These difficulties also need to be understood within the broader concept of amatonormativity: the cultural assumption that everyone naturally seeks a conventional romantic partnership and that such a relationship should occupy a central position in adult life.
Asexuality can disrupt this assumption because it demonstrates that sexual attraction, romantic attraction, intimacy, partnership and desire do not necessarily move together.
At the same time, asexual people should not be forced into the opposite stereotype—that they do not want romance.
The two stereotypes are equally problematic:
Stereotype 1:
“Asexual people secretly want conventional sexual relationships.”
Stereotype 2:
“Asexual people do not want romantic relationships.”
Both erase substantial parts of the ace spectrum.
The research instead suggests heterogeneity. Some asexual people want romance; some do not. Some want sex; some do not. Some want physical affection; others have stronger boundaries. Some desire partnership; others prefer friendship or non-romantic intimacy.
Conclusion
Romantic asexuality occupies an important and comparatively underexplored position within research on sexuality and relationships.
For some alloromantic asexual people, dating can involve a distinctive double bind. In allosexual dating environments, they may experience anxiety about whether they can meet a partner’s sexual expectations. In aro-ace environments, they may encounter partners who understand their asexuality but do not reciprocate their romantic attraction.
The resulting loneliness is therefore not necessarily a consequence of lacking opportunities for connection. It can emerge from a lack of specific relational compatibility.
The romantic asexual person may be able to find affection but not romantic reciprocity; sexual compatibility but not romantic attraction; romantic attraction but not sexual compatibility; or companionship without the particular experience of being romantically desired.
This suggests a need to move beyond the question:
“Can asexual people have relationships?”
The more important research question is:
“What forms of romantic, sexual, sensual, emotional and platonic reciprocity allow different asexual people to experience relationships as genuinely fulfilling?”
Recent scholarship is beginning to move in this direction. Research on asexual dating has documented the complexity of romantic, sexual and platonic relationships, while emerging work on “expansive intimacies” argues for understanding intimacy as multidimensional rather than as inherently romantic or sexual.
For romantic asexual people, however, one dimension deserves particular attention: the desire not merely to be cared for, but to be romantically loved in return.
Recognizing that desire does not diminish platonic intimacy, aromantic relationships, queer-platonic partnerships or other forms of connection. It simply acknowledges that different people require different forms of relational reciprocity.
Asexuality does not eliminate the human desire to be understood.
And for an alloromantic asexual person, being understood may include being understood as someone who can experience profound romantic love—even when sexual attraction is absent.
References
Antonsen, A. N., Zdaniuk, B., Yule, M., & Brotto, L. A. (2020). Ace and Aro: Understanding Differences in Romantic Attractions Among Persons Identifying as Asexual. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49, 1615–1630.
Brunning, L., & McKeever, N. (2021). Asexuality. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 38(3), 497–517.
Carvalho, A. C., & Rodrigues, D. L. (2022). Sexuality, Sexual Behavior, and Relationships of Asexual Individuals: Differences Between Aromantic and Romantic Orientation. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 51, 2159–2168.
Tessler, H. (2025). Aromanticism, asexuality, and relationship (non-)formation: How a-spec singles challenge romantic norms and reimagine family life. Sexualities, 28(1–2).
Zoppolat, G., Barreto, M., Qualter, P., Crosbie, J., & Doyle, D. M. (2026). Does Romantic Involvement Benefit Everyone? Testing a Foundational Tenet in Relationship Science Through the Case of Asexuality. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
The Nuances of Intimacy: Asexual Perspectives and Experiences with Dating and Relationships (2024). Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Expansive Intimacies: Celebrating the Intimacy of Asexual and Aromantic People (2026). Journal of Sex Research.
