True Love Has Eluded Me

With Valentine’s Day — and my 64th birthday — coming up, my thoughts turn to the fact that I have never been in love. I’m single, childfree, and asexual—although being asexual does not preclude me from entering into a romantic relationship. AVEN (The Asexual Visibility and Education Network) notes, “Asexual people can have romantic feelings and form romantic relationships around those feelings just like anyone of any orientation can.”

In eighth grade, I’d had my first date. We went to the movies and in the middle of the show, in the semi-empty darkened theater, he thought he was slick in how he dropped his arm behind my neck onto my shoulder. He let it rest there for what seemed like a long time; I lost track of what was going on in the movie. Then he slipped his hand inside my blouse and felt my breast. With a jerking motion, I wrenched myself free. Surprised, he yanked his hand away. For the rest of the movie, we sat frozen, not talking, not looking at each other. When I got home, I went straight to my room. I never told anyone what happened.

My first kiss was one Saturday night when I was 15 while I was babysitting up at the bungalow colony my family used to vacation at during the summer months. He was a boy every teen girl had a crush on.

I was sitting on the porch reading when he tapped on the screen door. I wasn’t one of the popular girls, so I was surprised to see him. We made awkward small talk for a couple of minutes, and…