There is an article currently on Huffington Post that details the dating difficulties of a person who identifies as asexual. I mention it because the issue can be generalized to a number of relationship questions. The author of the article was bemoaning the fact that, while there are asexual dating sites, they aren’t very well populated and some of the people on them she finds strange. It’s also difficult to identify asexual people in daily life who might be prospective dating partners. Her solution has been to date non-asexual people, both men and women, but that hasn’t really worked out because they are looking for sexual relationships. Go figure.

While we might be tempted to roll our eyes at the fact that she is baffled by all of this, many people enter into relationships where they know from the outset that some of their prospective partner’s strongest needs are something they just aren’t interested in. Foe example, perhaps one partner loves spending many of their weekends at Civil War reenactments, and the other finds them silly. This couple would need to ask themselves if they could tolerate spending many weekends apart. If not, there isn’t much point in continuing the relationship.

No relationship is going to feature two people who meet all of each other’s needs. Each partner is ultimately responsible for getting their own needs met. If we are talking about finding a tennis partner or someone to go to craft fairs with, there shouldn’t be a problem. If we are talking about finding someone else as a sexual partner, there is likely to be some question as to why we are in a romantic relationship rather than just remaining friends. If an asexual person is looking for a life partner, their best bet is probably another asexual person. If they chose to try to date sexual people, it seems to me they lose the right to be surprised when it doesn’t work out.

Other times, it can be a problem of mistaken definitions. I worked with a woman several years ago who told me she was bisexual. By this she meant she was attracted to gay men. It turned out that she had an extensive history of sexual abuse as a child, and she felt attracted to gay men because she could be fairly certain they wouldn’t want to be sexual with her. She didn’t understand why gay men didn’t want to date her. I referred her to a therapist. No matter the context, it’s good to know when you are in over your head!