At the start of the year, I decided to make a concerted effort to give dating a real go – but quickly became completely overwhelmed by the process. Soon, my head felt more scrambled than a Love Islander in a love triangle.
My resolve was such that I swiped on dating apps until my thumbs were raw from sliding over my cracked phone screen, and found myself talking to five men simultaneously. Consequently, my brain felt like it was caught in a Groundhog Day conveyor belt of “where are you based?” and “how’s your week going?”
Matching with people on dating apps is obviously a good thing – at the risk of stating the obvious, that’s the whole point – and I was glad to be chatting with multiple men who seemed kind and interesting. The thing is, I identify as demisexual, which means that I don’t feel sexually attracted to people unless I have a strong emotional connection with them.
Now Tulisa Contostavlos, the former N-Dubz star and former X Factor judge, has flown the rainbow flag for demisexuals, during a frank discussion about her personal life in the I’m a Celeb jungle, by explaining why she avoids dating apps. “Even though I’ve been on there, I’ve never gone on an actual date with anyone on there,” she explained. “I’m proper guarded.”
She then added: “I feel like I’m demisexual.
“I need to have a really close emotional bond with someone … I need actual depth. I’m a slow, slow burner. I’ve been celibate for over three years.”
Like Tulisa, I’ve previously enjoyed wonderful relationships, but it takes me a long time to feel attracted to someone. I’ve only felt truly sexually attracted to two people in my whole life.
Needless to say, then, I’ve also struggled with dating apps. Not because I have an issue with the apps themselves, but because building emotional connections doesn’t tend to be at the forefront of the dating app agenda. By their nature, they operate mostly on near-instant reactions to aesthetic appearances.
When we swipe through people in a matter of seconds, there’s no room for the unique fizz of electricity that physical proximity (and, for me, a close emotional bond) can engender; and despite the prompts that many dating apps offer, I often struggle to get a true sense of anyone’s personality just from skimming through their profile.
Whether we like it or not, physical appearance is placed front and centre; and while this aesthetic element certainly works for many (and, of course, the electricity can build when people start messaging), I’ve never related to it. I’ve never once looked at someone’s face on a dating app and thought: “Wow, I really fancy this person.” I’ve never felt any sort of spark on a first date when I didn’t know the person previously.
I only realised recently I was demisexual, and it was a realisation that brought clarity to all my dating experiences. Despite this, I don’t really feel at home in the world of modern dating.
It is like being caught in a unique dating paradox, because when I’m messaging five different people at once, I find it impossible to even begin establishing an emotional connection with any of them. But, equally, if I ignore most people, I might be denying myself a powerful connection. So I’ve ended up messaging multiple people simultaneously while feeling like I’m diluting the connection I have with each of them, like impossibly weak orange squash.
The men I’ve talked to are all perfectly lovely, and sometimes, I felt excited to meet these men in person; other times, I’ve wanted to drop my phone in the bath.
As a classic demisexual, I’d flip between thinking how much I was enjoying forging tentative new connections, and wondering what the point is when I knew I wouldn’t want to kiss anyone that I didn’t have an emotional connection with anyway (that is, I assume I won’t).
Modern dating isn’t always fun when you’re demisexual, but that’s OK. If it gets too much, the apps will always be there later. And now our little gang’s got Tulisa as a poster girl – our very own female boss.