‘I got engaged three times – before finally realising I was asexual’

"Relationships had a common theme – me not wanting sex and them, understandably, feeling rejected. Then it fizzled out."

For years, Ian Oliver thought he was just bad at relationships. Here’s how he figured out what was really going on.

Are you unhappy in a relationship you don’t feel is right, but you’re not sure why? Or keep repeating the same patterns again and again?

There could be many reasons, of course. One that’s possibly never crossed your mind is being asexual. People don’t take asexuality seriously, and for middle-aged people like me, there is no role model or cultural reference. Yet I do believe there are many people struggling in life, as I once did. And realising why I felt different has immensely helped – which is the sole reason I’m happy to talk about it now, so others simply know that people like me exist, and it is nothing to be ashamed of.

Growing up in the 1980s, everything was geared towards standard heterosexuality – from teenage television dramas to my mother joking about “getting a hat” every time I mentioned a female. The idea of not even trying to find a partner? Well, that was just weird.

I only discovered I was asexual in my 30s when I read a newspaper article about a woman and thought “that’s so relatable”. In hindsight, the clues were there, if only I’d known what I was looking for.

At primary school I always got on better with the girls because I wasn’t good at football.

My mother was a young single parent and so my grandmother, a staunch Conservative, wanted to raise me and sent me to a private, single-sex secondary, thinking I would be less bullied for being “clever” there. My teenage years were spent surrounded only by boys.

When they hit puberty, girls and masturbation became the hot topics. I had no interest in either. In those days before social media, I loved having girl pen pals and soon fell into the “friend role” – girls asked me for advice on boys. Unlike the other boys, who envied my ease with girls, I never felt anything sexual or romantic towards them. Or the boys.

Back then the only non-heterosexual role models were very sexualised gay men, such as Larry Grayson and Kenny Everett. I didn’t relate to them at all either. I thought maybe I would develop feelings later.

My reaction to my peers losing their virginity in their teens was just “oh”.

I did start dating women at university, but it always started platonically. We got on. Then, because they were regular heterosexual women, they assumed it would move forward. I had my first girlfriend aged 20 – to an outsider we looked like a regular couple. But in the bedroom there was no sexual contact.

My reaction to my peers losing their virginity in their teens was just ‘oh’.

The next year I went out with another woman, telling myself I really should try this sex thing. It was fine – not exciting nor revolting – I just felt there were more interesting things to be doing. I lay in bed afterwards and said “that was exhausting”. Probably not what she wanted to hear.

I never instigated sex, and the actual “mechanics” only ever worked if she was on top and in control, I would be the one lying back and thinking of England. I never felt comfortable using my penis for penetration. It never came naturally, and it’s nothing we’re taught. There was just pressure to do it.

I confessed this to a baffled friend at the time, who advised “it’s in and out – on repeat”. I tried, but it was difficult not to get bored with this procedure. Naturally, there were times I had “performance issues” and felt I was letting them down. Relationships had a common theme – me not wanting sex and them, understandably, feeling rejected. Then it fizzled out.

I actually got engaged to my third girlfriend. She started as a pen pal and we felt so close that I believed I was in love. Only with hindsight do I see I just wanted companionship.

People weren’t “supposed” to be alone. There wasn’t a proper proposal, we just decided to do it. She wanted sex most nights, I did not, so we compromised. But after six years and buying a house together, she felt her sexual desires weren’t being met, entirely fairly. I didn’t learn, getting engaged a second time in my late-20s and again in my mid-30s. Each time the same pattern. Lovers became friends. It wasn’t fair on them.

People thought I just couldn’t hang on to women. Or that really, I was gay. Several accurately noted that I’m not a “red-blooded man”. My former workplace was dominated by men in their 20s and 30s and conversations could be slightly misogynistic. Once they were discussing a Beyoncé music video. I declared it boring: “it’s only three women dancing”. A stunned colleague piped up “but look at those women!” For years I just assumed I was a particularly “bad” heterosexual.

People thought I just couldn’t hang on to women. Or that really, I was gay.

Asexuality is defined as someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction. It’s not the same as celibacy, which is a choice to abstain from sex; being asexual is who we are. I find the best way of describing it to a heterosexual person is by asking them how they feel towards someone of the same sex. “Not a lot” they tend to shrug. That is exactly how I feel about everybody.

It was only stumbling across that newspaper article in 2011 that it finally dawned on me I was going through all the motions because of societal expectations, not any desire.

It was both a lightbulb moment and a comforting realisation that – yes! – there were others like me. And it had a name, which as a data analyst I appreciated. It was like my life made sense.

I didn’t feel the need to “do” anything with this knowledge; essentially I had my answers.

Now, when someone asks me my relationship status, I tell them “I’m asexual”. If pressed for more, I explain I don’t fancy anyone, which they mostly understand. Though when I said this to a male friend he said: “you’re scaring me now”. We’ve laughed about it since, but people don’t know what to make of it, or say, “you just haven’t met the right person yet”. Luckily I’ve never been met with aggression, only confusion.

There are nuances; I also don’t find people romantically attractive, which is called “aromantic”. This means I really can’t – and wouldn’t – fall in love with someone. What’s more, there is a myriad of words bandied around that make absolutely no sense outside the community. Words for people who only feel sexual attraction in specific circumstances, such as “greysexual” (although this can also mean other slightly different things to some) or people who only feel attracted to someone they have a close emotional bond with (“demisexual”) or those who don’t experience sexual desire but still want a sexual relationship (“cupiosexual”).

Yes, it sounds hellishly confusing, I know, but sexuality is a spectrum after all, and I can only speak for myself, yet all of this might fall under the umbrella of “asexual”. Using the term either stops a conversation short, or becomes a chance to talk about it. If someone is curious, I try to be open.

There was a sense of relief to having a name for myself, and on realising I’d never need to have sex again.

There was a sense of relief to having a name for myself, and on realising I’d never need to have sex again. I could stop trying to prove I was normal (or “normative” is the preferred word). Over the years I tried various kinds of therapy to understand myself better, which was of varying degrees of usefulness. I’ve also discovered I have ADHD. But I don’t believe that has anything to do with my asexuality.

I never set out to be an asexual or “ace” campaigner, but, at 48, I feel obliged to raise awareness. There was a US survey in 2019 that discovered 91 per cent of asexuals surveyed were between 18 and 27. It “vibes” with the young, but that doesn’t mean it’s a passing phase – and I’m proof.

In the 2021 census, only 0.6 per cent of people identified as asexual, but there is no official box on the form to tick; people would have to choose “other” and then self-describe, which I suspect many don’t bother to do. I am sure there are far more of us; those who perhaps don’t have the language but might be living in unhappy marriages and not understanding why.

I’d like to think that my role in ace activism is to show the world that people like me exist, and, more importantly, have always existed, despite culture and society failing to ever acknowledge the concept. Even the biographer of Sir Edward Heath believes the late prime minister was asexual, for instance, because he avoided women, and yet despite much digging on the writer’s part, he could never find any man to come forward either. Perhaps if he’d known the phrase in the 1970s, Heath could have owned it.

Today, I know this is what I am, and I’m very comfortable with that. Admittedly, I haven’t had a frank conversation with my own mother. I love her dearly, though – and I think she knows now not to buy that hat.

• As told to Susanna Galton