Romantic partnerships often serve as a buffer against loneliness for most people, but this protective relationship does not universally extend to asexual people. New research data shows that being in a romantic relationship is not associated with lower current feelings of loneliness among asexual people, challenging a long-held assumption in psychology. The study was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Julia Zopporat, a social psychologist at the Amsterdam University Medical Center, led a research team that investigated how romantic relationships and happiness are correlated across different sexual orientations. The researchers wanted to test two cultural assumptions that govern relationship science and everyday life. The first is amateur normativity. This assumes that a central romantic relationship is expected and necessary for a normal, fulfilling life. The second is aromanormativity, the expectation that everyone inherently experiences sexual attraction and desire.
These widespread assumptions typically exclude asexual people who experience little or no sexual attraction. Past research has consistently shown that high-quality romantic relationships are associated with lower rates of isolation and improved overall mental health. Satisfying romantic bonds are widely considered by psychologists to be the basis of social resilience. However, most of this basic evidence has been obtained almost exclusively from heterosexual populations, with only some recent extension to other sexual minority groups.
Zoppolat and colleagues recognized that excluding the asexual population limits the true generalizability of relationship science. Asexual people often face unique forms of delegitimization because they fall outside of standard social norms regarding intimacy and sex. This marginalization can lead to double exclusion, with asexual people feeling isolated both from mainstream heterosexual society and from the broader queer community. The researchers wondered if these clear social hurdles could change the way asexuals engage in romantic relationships.
To assess these dynamics, the research team analyzed data from the BBC Loneliness Experiment. This large-scale international online survey asked participants comprehensive questions about their social lives, demographic background, and general well-being. Researchers focused on more than 41,000 adults who provided detailed information about their sexual orientation, relationship status, and subjective feelings of loneliness. Approximately 70% of respondents lived in the UK and ranged in age from 16 to 99 years.
Participants were divided into three specific categories for analysis. The majority of over 36,000 people identify as heterosexual. Another group is approximately 3,600 individuals who identify as other sexual minorities, such as homosexuals or bisexuals. The final group consisted of just over 1,400 people who identified as asexual, providing a rare and sufficient sample size to study this specific population.
The researchers first examined baseline levels of social isolation across different sexual orientations. They measured loneliness as the subjective discrepancy between the social connections a person desires and the connections they actually have. They found that asexual participants and participants from other sexual minorities reported higher average levels of current loneliness than heterosexual participants. Both minority groups also expected to encounter more loneliness in old age than their heterosexual peers.
Differences in relationship frequency were also found between the three demographic groups. Almost half of the heterosexual participants reported being currently in a romantic relationship. In contrast, approximately one-third of other sexual minority participants reported being in a romantic relationship. Only 15 percent of asexuals were currently in a romantic relationship.
Asexual participants reported different results when it came to the quality of these connections. The researchers measured how satisfied each person was with their particular partnership. When asexual people were in a romantic relationship, they reported lower average relationship satisfaction compared to the other two groups. Within the asexual group, the proportion of people in unsatisfying relationships actually exceeded the proportion of people in satisfying relationships.
The most notable differences occurred when researchers looked at how current feelings of loneliness were related to romantic relationships. For heterosexuals and people from other sexual minorities, being in a romantic partnership was associated with lower levels of loneliness compared to their single peers. This is consistent with established psychological theories of protective bonds in friendships. For asexuals, relationship status did not appear to provide a similar social buffer.
The pattern remained stable even when the researchers took relationship satisfaction into account. Dissatisfied single heterosexuals and other sexual minorities reported feeling more lonely than those in more satisfying relationships. Asexual participants reported current feelings of loneliness at exactly the same rate, regardless of whether they were single, in an unsatisfying relationship, or in a satisfying relationship. The typical mental health benefits associated with romantic pairings did not seem to translate to asexual respondents.
For asexual people, current feelings of loneliness were not tied to relationship status, but predictions about the future responded differently. Researchers measured expectations for loneliness in old age to see whether current romantic relationships change long-term prospects. As we age, social connections change regularly, and feelings of isolation often lead to poor mental health. The team assessed whether a satisfying partnership would alleviate these distant concerns.
When assessing these future expectations, the benefits of a satisfying relationship extended to all three population groups. We found that being able to develop a satisfying relationship meant that asexual people, as well as their allosexual peers, felt less worried about being lonely in later life. Researchers used the term allosexual to refer to individuals who experience typical levels of sexual attraction. If you are currently in a satisfying relationship, you can be more confident that you will not become completely isolated as you age.
The authors suggest several theoretical reasons why romantic bonds may not combat current loneliness, especially for asexual adults. Current feelings of loneliness may cause direct social stressors that cannot be adequately offset by a single partner, such as feeling invisible or misunderstood in the sexual world. Reliance on one romantic partner to navigate the frictions of an allonormative society can even create its own relational tensions. These persistent cultural barriers can overwhelm the direct psychological benefits of romantic bonds.
Additionally, people who identify as asexual may rely on nonromantic structures for their primary social support. Friendships, familial ties, and queer platonic partnerships may provide a certain kind of companionship that homosexuals typically seek in romantic pairings. If a person does not view romantic love as the absolute center of a relationship, then the presence or absence of a romantic partner will predictably be less consistent with one’s overall loneliness. If we evaluate only romantic units, we miss out on the broader and more diverse network of modern intimacy.
This study relies on several limitations, primarily related to the broad classification of asexuality. Asexuality functions as an umbrella term that includes a wide range of identities, desires, and behaviors. Some asexuals identify as strictly aromantic and feel no romantic desire at all, while others deeply desire romantic intimacy. Aromantic people may actually have previously experienced nonnormative pressures as a source of stress rather than a source of pleasure.
Because this dataset grouped all asexual participants together, the researchers were unable to distinguish between these subtle subgroups. Future research should separate these different identities to better understand different asexual relationships. Investigators need to examine how different forms of intimacy, including nonsexual and nonromantic connections, correlate with overall well-being.
The study, “Does romantic involvement benefit everyone? Testing the basic tenets of relationship science through the case of asexuality,” was authored by Julia Zoppolat, Manuela Barreto, Pamela Qualter, Jasmine Crosby, and David Matthew Doyle.
