Asexual adults report similar rates of loneliness regardless of relationship status

Romantic partnerships often act as a buffer against loneliness for most people, but this protective association does not universally extend to asexual individuals. New survey data show that being in a romantic relationship is not linked to lower levels of current loneliness for asexual people, challenging long-held assumptions in psychology. The research was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Giulia Zoppolat, a social psychologist at Amsterdam University Medical Centers, led a research team to investigate how romantic involvement correlates with well-being across different sexual orientations. The researchers wanted to test two cultural assumptions that dominate relationship science and everyday life. The first is amatonormativity, which is the assumption that a central romantic relationship is expected and necessary for a normal, fulfilling life. The second is allonormativity, the expectation that everyone inherently experiences sexual attraction and desire.

These widespread assumptions typically exclude asexual people, who generally experience little or no sexual attraction. Past research consistently demonstrates that high quality romantic relationships are linked to lower rates of isolation and better overall mental health. A satisfying romantic bond is widely considered by psychologists to be a cornerstone of social resilience. Most of this foundational evidence, however, draws almost exclusively from heterosexual populations, with only some recent expansions into other sexual minority groups.

Zoppolat and her colleagues recognized that excluding asexual populations limits the true generalizability of relationship science. Asexual individuals often face unique forms of delegitimization because they fall outside of standard societal scripts regarding intimacy and sex. This marginalization can lead to a double exclusion, where asexual people feel isolated from mainstream heterosexual society as well as from broader queer communities. The research team suspected that these distinct social hurdles might alter the way romantic relationships function for asexual people.

To evaluate these dynamics, the research team analyzed data from the BBC Loneliness Experiment. This large international online survey asked participants comprehensively about their social lives, demographic backgrounds, and general well-being. The investigators narrowed their focus to over 41,000 adults who provided detailed information about their sexual orientation, relationship status, and subjective feelings of loneliness. Around seventy percent of the respondents lived in the United Kingdom, spanning an age range of sixteen to ninety nine years old.

The participants were divided into three specific categories for the analysis. The vast majority, comprising over 36,000 people, identified as heterosexual. Another group of roughly 3,600 individuals identified as other sexual minorities, such as gay or bisexual. The final group consisted of just over 1,400 people who identified as asexual, providing a rare and substantial sample size to study this specific population.

The researchers first looked at baseline levels of social isolation across the different sexual orientations. They measured loneliness as a subjective mismatch between the social connections a person desires and the connections they actually have. They found that asexual participants and other sexual minority participants reported higher average levels of current loneliness than heterosexual participants. Both minority groups also expected to encounter more loneliness in their old age than their heterosexual peers did.

Differences in relationship frequency also emerged across the three demographic groups. Nearly half of the heterosexual participants reported being currently involved in a romantic relationship. In comparison, about a third of the other sexual minority participants reported being romantically linked. Only fifteen percent of the asexual individuals were currently in a romantic partnership.

When it came to the quality of these connections, asexual participants reported different outcomes. The investigators measured how satisfied each person felt with their specific partnership. When asexual individuals were in a romantic relationship, they reported lower levels of average relationship satisfaction compared to the other two groups. Within the asexual group, the proportion of individuals in unsatisfying romantic relationships actually exceeded those in satisfying ones.

The most prominent divergence occurred when researchers looked at how romantic involvement related to current feelings of loneliness. For heterosexual and other sexual minority individuals, being in a romantic partnership was associated with lower levels of loneliness compared to their single peers. This aligned with established psychological theories about the protective associations of companionship. For asexual individuals, relationship status simply did not appear to offer the same social buffer.

Even when the research team accounted for relationship satisfaction, the pattern held steady. Unsatisfied and single heterosexual and other sexual minority individuals felt lonelier than those in highly satisfying romantic relationships. Asexual participants reported completely similar rates of current loneliness regardless of whether they were single, in an unsatisfying relationship, or in a satisfying one. The typical mental health advantages linked to romantic pairings seemingly did not translate to the asexual respondents.

While current loneliness was not tied to relationship status for asexual people, their predictions about the future responded differently. The researchers measured expectations of loneliness in old age to see if current romantic involvement shifted long term outlooks. Aging regularly changes social connection, and the anticipation of isolation is often linked to worse mental health. The team evaluated if a satisfying partnership alleviated these distant worries.

When assessing these future expectations, the benefits of a satisfying relationship extended across all three population groups. Being in a satisfying relationship was associated with fewer worries about being lonely late in life for asexual individuals as well as their allosexual peers. The researchers used the term allosexual to refer to individuals who do experience typical levels of sexual attraction. A current satisfying relationship is associated with greater confidence that aging will not result in total isolation.

The authors suggest several theoretical reasons why a romantic bond fails to combat current loneliness for asexual adults specifically. Current feelings of loneliness might capture immediate social stressors, such as feeling invisible or misunderstood in a highly sexualized world, that a single partner cannot adequately offset. Relying on one romantic partner to navigate the friction of an allonormative society might even produce its own relational strain. Such persistent cultural barriers could overwhelm the immediate psychological benefits of a romantic bond.

Additionally, people who identify as asexual might rely on non-romantic structures for their primary social support. Friendships, familial bonds, and queer platonic partnerships might provide the specific companionship that allosexual individuals typically seek within romantic pairings. If an individual does not view romantic love as the absolute center of human connection, the presence or absence of a romantic partner will predictably correspond to a lesser degree with their overall loneliness. Evaluating only romantic units misses out on a broader, diverse network of modern intimacy.

The study relies on a few constraints, primarily related to its broad categorization of asexuality. Asexuality functions as an umbrella term encompassing a wide spectrum of identities, desires, and behaviors. Some asexual people identify strictly as aromantic and do not experience romantic desire at all, while others deeply desire romantic intimacy. Aromantic individuals might actually experience amatonormative pressure to date as a source of stress rather than a source of joy.

Because the dataset grouped all asexual participants together, the researchers could not differentiate between these nuanced subgroups. Future studies must separate these distinct identities to better understand the varieties of asexual relationships. Investigators need to examine how varied forms of intimacy, including non-sexual and non-romantic connections, correlate with overall well-being.

The study, “Does Romantic Involvement Benefit Everyone? Testing a Foundational Tenet in Relationship Science Through the Case of Asexuality,” was authored by Giulia Zoppolat, Manuela Barreto, Pamela Qualter, Jasmine Crosbie, and David Matthew Doyle.