You’re Not Weird, or Even Rare, if You Haven’t Dated Anyone in 10 or More Years

Singlehood stigma, heteronormativity, and aphobia are three peas in the same rotten pod. And it’s time for some debunking.

There’s this thread popping off on Twitter at the time of writing. If you’re on the aspec (meaning that you fall somewhere on the asexual and/or aromantic spectrums), it’s as bad as you can imagine:

The OP alleges to know a man who’s handsome, articulate, wealthy, fun to hang out with, and he happens to be both well-endowed and he’s not some misogynistic weirdo who goes off on women.

Yet he “gets no bitches”. He’s chill about being single. So chill, that he never even swiped his life away on a dating app trying to meet someone! The horror!

Since I want people who aren’t on the aspec to read my take on this just as much as people questioning if they might be on one or both lines of the spectrum, it’s time to ask some questions.

It goes way beyond this one guy in particular. Rather, it speaks to a widespread phenomenon I’ve seen on Twitter, TikTok, and life in general. There’s even some gendered dynamics here that could be a whole essay on their own, but I want to narrow the focus to the hundreds of people who chimed into the thread concurring that they thought this was weird.

First and foremost: why do you think this is weird?

Ultimately, that’s what I’d like to get to here. Regardless of where you are in terms of sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual proclivity, romantic orientation, or life experience in general, please ask yourself this question and answer it honestly.

Why do you think it’s weird for someone not to date for years at a time?

I even asked this question to myself, as someone who’s definitely been subject to similar judgment. Why DO people think it’s weird not to date or have relationships for long timeframes?

Speaking from an American perspective, teaching critical thinking to kids met the same fate in this sinking trash empire as the economically stable middle class. So, I’m going to ask you, dear reader, to think REALLY hard about this. Even if you personally haven’t spent years at a time single (whether you consider that to be by choice or not), think about someone you may have known in your life who has. No matter what they looked like, their income, or even if they were a good or shitty person. Could be a friend, family member, coworker, or someone you’ve known off social media for ages.

You maybe thought they were a little odd because they didn’t date at all, never mentioned a partner, and you never saw them crushing on anyone. But you find it even more enigmatic if they’re attractive, nice, and at least seem financially well-off.

Once again: WHY do you think this is weird?

Do you think it’s weird because society has often given the message that you’re simply lesser as a single person, and stamped this idea into your head your entire life?

Is it weird because you can’t comprehend willingly being by yourself for extended timeframes? Even if you’re a friendly and nice person who has friends and community?

Do you find it weird someone would go several years without dating because the thought of being single that long just plain TERRIFIES you? [Author’s Note: I wrote this a month before I came out as demiromantic. Oh, you can JUST see I’m piecing the last of the puzzle together in this one!]

That perhaps, it confirms a fear that you are inferior and not lovable? That something must be irrevocably wrong with you?

A decade or longer is certainly a long time. It feels like it’s a century away when you’re young, but 7–10 years passes like nothing in your thirties and forties. Maybe you find it weird someone would spend their “prime” years doing something other than attracting a mate, starting a family, and all that jazz? That it’s something to be pitied if they wanted to but did not, but strange if done purely on their own volition?

Or does it seem weird because it must mean that this person is either so misanthropic or so horribly traumatized by past relationships that they’ve completely shut themselves off from the world?

All of the above is what I inferred upon braving the replies to the thread.

And guess what they all have in common.

Projection of personal fears and insecurities coupled with society’s expectations that you have to get married by a certain age, or you’ll die alone and miserable.

It’s honestly saddening to see supposedly leftist and sex-positive accounts peddle this shit. It reeks of comphet: compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity, for the unfamiliar. It’s a foundation of “nuclear family” insistence that conservatives fetishize and are trying to legislate back into existence in the US.

Most of the reasons why people think it’s weird to be single so long, and not even dating or hooking up with years-long gaps, are really more a reflection of the person making that judgment than the one being judged.

Not to mention that signing up for a dating app is akin to repeatedly smacking yourself upside the head with a 2x4. Even alloromantics are starting to agree on this. If you love yourself enough, why the fuck would you subject yourself to that?!

But I digress. This fellow in the thread has never signed up for one probably because he can probably think of more enjoyable things to do with his life. He’s not interested in being a void-filler to a lonely woman who just wants a husband with his attributes, or seeking a woman to fill a void because he’s lonely.

But as I said earlier, this goes beyond this one person, though. It’s about a larger overarching narrative of comphet (which is why the A indeed belongs in LGBTQIA+) and aphobia.

Not to mention singlehood stigma, which affects alloromantic and allosexual people just as much as it affects people on the aspec.

Being single by choice, whether temporarily or permanently, has become a more popular stance in recent years across all genders and age groups. But an enormous stigma still persists.

Singlehood stigma was utterly dripping off that Twitter thread: someone who doesn’t date must have something wrong with them! It’s an enigma that some lucky lady hasn’t snatched this guy up! Why isn’t he making some lonely woman happy!

Because it’s his life, body, soul, and heart, NOT yours. You’re not entitled to ask someone to make themselves romantically and/or sexually available to the general public.

With all these nuanced discussions we’re having these days about bodily autonomy, can we FINALLY discuss this part like goddamn adults?

Being on the aspec is an exercise in our autonomy, although it begs the question: is it on the same page as alloromantics who are single by choice? Because even a lot of queer people say “No, you deciding to be single is nowhere in the same league as it still being legal to kill me in many places because of the ‘gay panic defense’.”

No. It’s just not the same. I say this as someone who THOUGHT my entire adult life that I was an alloromantic, just one who was single by a mix of choice and circumstances. Yet I always knew I was different than the others, and not just in a subcultural reptile and amphibian mom sense.

This is because an alloromantic may have similar motivations to a demiromantic in that they’re not making a relationship a priority, temporarily or permanently. But what separates us is that people on the aspec either always knew they didn’t want a relationship and this is their default state, or they only want one in specific circumstances. (I always called it “placing the person before the concept”.) Alloromantics form romantic attraction FAR more easily, and they purposely seek out romantic relationships through dating apps, asking friends to set them up, etc.

Speaking solely for myself rather than the entire aro spectrum, I’m the exact inverse of a demisexual. Meaning that I don’t need a vast emotional connection to have sex, but I do need it to want a relationship.

Alloromantics insist they’re the same as us. But you’re not. Because if y’all were, you wouldn’t say things like “How is this total catch not seeing anybody!” and “It’s SO WEIRD to go years without dating anyone!”

If you’re placing a need for external validation above your own emotional needs, THAT is one of the major separators of grey and demiromantics from alloromantics.

The primary one is that alloromantics simply form romantic attraction more easily. It’s often billed as them simply being more open-minded and less fatalistic than we are — which is a lie I fell for for years!

You can have an open mind, heart, and bed but just rarely or never feel romantic attraction. It doesn’t mean you’re picky or weird. This is just who you are.

Because if someone thinks it’s weird that I haven’t been in a long term relationship much in my 37 years? That’s actually my cue to think YOU’RE strange, because you care more about some arbitrary timeline and what other people think rather than what and WHO you actually want.

Some people just couple up easily! Others don’t! A lot of people just want a partner so badly that they don’t really care who it is. Others just need a deeper emotional connection to feel romantic attraction, and well…you’re not going to find that by swiping your life away on some churn-focused app where one party just wants to find their spouse already and another just wants itinerant companionship and/or sex.

Even if you’ve had no problem meeting people and have enjoyed dates and casual sex, but just felt this disconnect from dating culture? Gone years at a time without having crushes? These are usually signs you’re somewhere on the aspec, even if you do want a partner and can feel romantic attraction!

I simply never met anyone I wanted to really lock it down with who also wanted that with me. THAT’S IT. It’s actually not as complicated as it sounds.

Hell, I wrote about how a guy whose band I hung around somehow picked up I was on the aro spectrum a good 10 years before I did:

His bandmate didn’t just want to sleep with me; he was interested in actually being together. There were others who tried, and I was not interested whatsoever!

One of them is even in a different memoir piece where, upon revisiting it now that I know I’m on the aro spectrum, I address things more from a singlehood stigma viewpoint and that single women who can take care of themselves in middle age are really not the fiction we were told they were at the turn of the millennium.

The last time I felt that emotional connection I need for a relationship was in 2017. I met this man through circumstances so hilariously stupid, that I never expected those events to happen, let alone to feel a connection with him. It even took me almost three years to figure out that I actually FELT emotional connection with this man I slept with just once, when I simply dismissed it as just great sex that happened to have a ridiculous “how we met” story.

And he kept himself on my radar on purpose, even if he didn’t say anything. Then I tried to reconnect when I moved to the west coast in early 2022 only to find out he has a girlfriend now.

With that door closed, I went on to build my new life in LA like I set out to do regardless. I’d go on to meet other men in the wild and through work who I’d feel sexual attraction towards, but I just didn’t see myself in a relationship with any of them. Then I thought one was a friend but he kept pushing boundaries and acting like we were dating. Between that and the guy in the reptile hobby who used me to emotionally jerk off because his wife doesn’t like reptiles while I excitedly took my pet monitor lizard home, I just wanted to be left alone for a while.

And here we are in 2023. I want to feel that connection again, but I know I can’t force it. I have to just live my life and let things happen.

If I make it to 2027 just STILL not feeling again, I personally feel that would suck. But I know myself now, and who and what I am. That’s not for rando normie alloromantics to decide.

Let them think I’m weird all they want. LOL please, you think I’m deterred by being called weird for wanting a partner, but rarely feeling romantic attraction? I was called weird since Reagan was busting unions and Millennials’ futures!

Maybe work on your own insecurities and examine just WHY you think it’s weird for someone to go a long time without dating. Personally, I can’t just force myself to be with some guy who’s only talking to me because he’s lonely, not because he’s actually compatible and feels a connection…as the case apparently was for the bearer of the VHS tape in 2017.

It’s actually staggering and amusing how alloromantics think we must be horrible people who lack emotional intelligence just because we have big relationship gaps.

I find it really funny that alloromantics claim there must be something wrong with us and that you must be broken beyond hope if you haven’t dated or had a crush in 10+ years.

Because if frequent dates and throwing relationships on and off like a shirt, as so many alloromantics seem to do, actually made you a better person who’s more emotionally in tune with others?

Well, then why are there so many Reddits, tweets, Medium posts, advice columns, podcasts, and endless reams of thinkpieces about dating and relationships where at least one of the people in the couple has the same emotional intelligence as Homer Simpson?

Coupled people are NOT inherently better or more emotionally intelligent and stable than single people.

Because if that was true, r/Relationships wouldn’t exist. The entire dating self-help genre that is worth MILLIONS in the publishing world wouldn’t exist! There’d be virtually no Am I the Asshole? relationship editions where someone writes in about some completely ghoulish shit their partner did, and wonders if they’re the asshole for being upset. You wouldn’t have these viral tweets and TikToks about people who are in relationships with people they clearly don’t fucking like!

And why do y’all subject yourselves to this?! Because of comphet and being afraid someone will think you’re weird if you’ve been single “too long”.

If anything, being single for long timeframes gives you more headspace to suss out what makes you tick.

Here’s the rub, Toadlets.

Whether someone is on the aspec or they’re alloromantic and/or allosexual, they have some major trauma to work through, or simply other things going on in their lives — ultimately, you don’t know what someone is really going through.

Don’t those countless “dating experts” say you should work on yourself before you’re ready for love?

Well, I think you should work on yourself FOR YOU because self-work, therapy, meditation, and whatnot is often pushed onto single women as a way to assert they are the problem in a broken dating culture. Self-work is also just a lifelong process you should be open to over time. It’s not like a one-and-done thing you do like preparing your credit and savings accounts to apply for a mortgage then you don’t have to think about that shit again once you sign the closing statement and write your final rent check.

You don’t know why someone is single for so long. It’s just asinine and off-base to assume they’ve been single that long because they must be this shitty toxic person! Because you don’t know what they’ve gone through or are currently experiencing.

And come on, how many toxic people do you know have been coupled up for ages or have no problem finding a partner? Coupled people, and single people looking to cease their singlehood, are NOT automatically better people!

Moreover, it’s not as if that time that long-term single person is spending by themselves is some massive waste of minutes, hours, days, and years in melancholic solitude.

Many of us spend that time figuring out who we are and what we want out of life.

I know I’ve definitely spent a lot of that time figuring myself out. I didn’t even solve a lifelong mystery until late 2022, that I’m indeed on the aro spectrum and belong on it despite wanting a partner. That having a demiromantic identity means I will be loudly romantic and devoted to him, but I need to feel a certain connection first. It’s one I just rarely feel.

It also makes you question the role of a romantic relationship in your life, and society altogether.

Like why are we expected to make communities and platonic friendships less of a priority once we find a partner? Even if kids aren’t in the picture?

Maybe you decide in this endless period of introspection that long-term singlehood affords that you indeed want a romantic relationship regardless of what society says, which is my case. Or maybe you just don’t want to bother at all, regardless of your sexual proclivity and romantic orientation.

Spending massive swaths of time single and not going on dates at all doesn’t inherently mean you’re this unlovable monster of a person. For some, particularly those on the aspec, it means they don’t want these things at all or only if they feel strong connection and attraction with someone.

It also doesn’t necessarily mean that you CAN’T attract or keep a partner. Which is often the assumption with women past a certain age and/or weight.

Rather, because you’re not focused on finding a romantic relationship at all costs, long-term singlehood often causes you to value and build strong platonic relationships. Whether you’re on the aspec or not.

You might be more apt to seek out, and strengthen, your platonic, familial, and communal relationships over romantic and sexual ones. After all, it introduces you to new viewpoints and lifestyles. For those who also need to bond as friends to feel romantic attraction, it’s a happier and more fulfilling way to meet a partner on the same page without necessarily setting out to do so.

After all, it was through a platonic friend’s Discord server where I met other people on the aspec who helped show me where I belong on it! When previously, I’d been under the impression that being asexual or aromantic was this all or nothing thing.

Seeing singlehood as a gift rather than a point of contention and lacking also tends to align more with aspec identities than alloromanticism.

It’s because I’ve had such huge gaps between crushes, let alone relationships, that I was able to parse what I truly want in a relationship, how past trauma impacted me this way, how many ways I don’t fit into society, and how I’ve made it my mission to simply fill my life with what brings me joy no matter what happens with my heart and bed. Like reptiles and amphibians, living in a place I genuinely love, making and playing indie games, underground music, and appreciating the simpler pleasures in life alongside the big-picture aspects of enjoying my autonomy as a solopreneur.

Would I like to include a partner in that? Hell yeah! But I just never found anyone I connected with who was able and willing to do that, and men I felt no connection with tried to. But I refused to be some conscripted wife doing the grownup version of playing house.

And it’s because of all the above that I’d wager long-term single people are likely to have MORE emotional intelligence, awareness, and empathy than coupled people who think they no longer have to work on themselves once they get married or cohabit long-term.

So, stop judging people based on how long they’ve been single and/or how long they’ve gone without dating or sex.

Unless that person identifies with specifically misogynistic and hateful beliefs like the inceldom, chances are that they’re not a toxic person who’s just bad at dealing with the opposite sex.

You don’t know what they’re going through, or have lived.

You can’t get inside their heads or demand that they make themselves romantically and/or sexually available just because you think they should be, or do the inverse and immediately write them off as hideously unlovable.

And maybe, just maybe, they require a fortuitous emotional connection to desire sex and/or a relationship and simply haven’t MET anyone they wanted that with in several years! Or upon working on themselves, realized that they’re definitely on the aspec and either don’t want these relations at all or only under specific circumstances.

Maybe you’re the weird one for projecting your insecurities onto total strangers. Just a thought.