a field notebook on attraction, asexuality and the psychology of how we love, one chapter at a time.https://riadms.comenhttps://riadms.com/attraction/sexualhttps://riadms.com/attraction/sexualwanting sexual contact. one of seven, not the main event.the seven kinds of attractionhttps://riadms.com/attraction/romantichttps://riadms.com/attraction/romanticwanting to build a life with someone.the seven kinds of attractionhttps://riadms.com/attraction/aesthetichttps://riadms.com/attraction/aestheticyou find them beautiful and you want to do nothing about it.the seven kinds of attractionhttps://riadms.com/attraction/sensualhttps://riadms.com/attraction/sensualwanting to be held with no interest in where it leads.the seven kinds of attractionhttps://riadms.com/attraction/intellectualhttps://riadms.com/attraction/intellectualyou want their mind, not their life.the seven kinds of attractionhttps://riadms.com/attraction/platonichttps://riadms.com/attraction/platonicthe friend crush. everyone has them. nobody names them.the seven kinds of attractionhttps://riadms.com/attraction/alteroushttps://riadms.com/attraction/alterouscloser than a friend, not a crush, no word for it until now.the seven kinds of attractionhttps://riadms.com/asexualityhttps://riadms.com/asexualitylittle or no sexual attraction, and why that forces you to notice the other six kinds. plus a big pile of resources.asexualityhttps://riadms.com/guide/split-attraction-modelhttps://riadms.com/guide/split-attraction-modelyou don’t have one orientation, you have two: who you’re sexually attracted to, and who you fall in love with. for a lot of people they point in different directions, and the split attraction model is the map. this is how to find your combination.asexualitysplit-attraction-modelromantic-orientationvariorientedorientation-combinationsaromantichttps://riadms.com/guide/attraction-vs-desirehttps://riadms.com/guide/attraction-vs-desireattraction is a target, your brain pointing at a person. desire is an engine that can run without going anywhere. most people fuse them into one word, which is why the honest answer to "do asexual people masturbate" confuses everyone. it shouldn’t.asexualitysexual-attractionsexual-desirelibidoresponsive-desireasexualityhttps://riadms.com/guide/dating-an-asexual-personhttps://riadms.com/guide/dating-an-asexual-personfor the partner who isn’t. their asexuality is not a verdict on you, it predates you, and the word tells you almost nothing until you ask them the rest. the skill that makes it work is one every strong couple needs anyway. you’re just learning it sooner.asexualityasexual-relationshipmixed-orientationdesire-discrepancycommunicationallosexualhttps://riadms.com/guide/asexual-or-autistichttps://riadms.com/guide/asexual-or-autisticautistic people identify as asexual at much higher rates, and that scares people into thinking one cancels the other out. it doesn’t. the research shows co-occurrence, not cause, and a reason for a feeling has never once made the feeling less real.asexualityasexualityautismneurodivergencecorrelation-not-causationidentityhttps://riadms.com/guide/asexual-or-not-attracted-to-menhttps://riadms.com/guide/asexual-or-not-attracted-to-menasexuality is not being sexually attracted to anyone. not attracted to men is a direction, not attracted to anyone is an absence. and there’s a third answer almost nobody names, which is that you might just be exhausted.asexualityasexualitycompulsory-heterosexualityheteropessimismorgasm-gapidentityhttps://riadms.com/guide/demisexualhttps://riadms.com/guide/demisexualyou only feel sexual attraction after a real emotional bond forms. no bond, no attraction. that is not taking it slow and it is not being picky, it is demisexual, a spot on the asexual spectrum. here is what the word means, the three things people keep confusing it with, and how to tell if it is you.asexualitydemisexualgray-asexualityresponsive-desireasexual-spectrumam-i-demisexualhttps://riadms.com/guide/compulsory-sexualityhttps://riadms.com/guide/compulsory-sexualitynobody voted on it, but everyone gets graded by it: the rule that every normal person wants sex, and that not wanting it means something in you is broken. it runs your life whether you are ace or not, and once you can see it, you cannot unsee it.asexualitycompulsory-sexualityallonormativityamatonormativitymedicalizationasexualityhttps://riadms.com/guide/never-felt-romantic-attractionhttps://riadms.com/guide/never-felt-romantic-attractionevery description of romance you have been handed comes pre-mixed with sex, so if you are trying to work out which half you have, the vocabulary is useless. here is romantic attraction described with the sexual part taken out, the four things that get mistaken for it, and why "never felt it" and "never met the conditions" are different answers.asexualityromantic-attractionaromantic-spectrumdemiromanticlimerenceamatonormativityhttps://riadms.com/guide/a-nun-in-1691https://riadms.com/guide/a-nun-in-1691in 1691 sor juana ines de la cruz wrote down why she entered a convent, and it was not a calling. she wanted to live alone, study, and have nobody making noise near her books. what she had that you do not is a word that ended the conversation instead of starting a longer one.asexualitysor-juana-ines-de-la-cruzrespuesta-a-sor-filoteaforced-monachizationamatonormativitycompulsory-sexualityhttps://riadms.com/guide/why-you-pick-the-wrong-partnerhttps://riadms.com/guide/why-you-pick-the-wrong-partnerthree large studies, all recent, all pointing the same way. the thing you screen hardest for predicts what you like on paper and nothing else. the spark cannot be predicted at all, and people with a hundred measurements and machine learning have tried. and the two things that actually carry a relationship are things you cannot see until you are already in one.asexualityideal-partner-preferencesromantic-desirerelationship-qualitydating-appschemistry-vs-compatibilityhttps://riadms.com/guide/why-am-i-with-this-personhttps://riadms.com/guide/why-am-i-with-this-persontake sexual attraction out of the equation and you have to answer, at the start, the question most people only reach at year three. why this one. what do they add. here is what the answer sounds like when it is about them, and what it sounds like when it is about you.asexualitychoosing-a-partnerchemistry-vs-compatibilityapproach-and-avoidance-goalsasexual-relationshipscompatibilityhttps://riadms.com/guide/limerencehttps://riadms.com/guide/limerencethere is a specific kind of wanting that feels exactly like love and isn’t. it has a name, a timeline, and a tell, the feeling gets stronger when they pull away. this chapter is how to run the test.love & its counterfeitslimerenceobsessionpassionate-vs-companionateanxious-attachmentthe-testhttps://riadms.com/guide/feelings-confused-for-lovehttps://riadms.com/guide/feelings-confused-for-loverelief, familiarity, and dependency. three feelings that wear love’s symptoms and lead you somewhere love wouldn’t. this is how to tell each one from the real thing, and the single test that catches all three.love & its counterfeitsrelieffamiliaritydependencyinterdependenceis-it-lovehttps://riadms.com/guide/love-bombinghttps://riadms.com/guide/love-bombingit feels like being chosen. that’s the design. the psychology underneath love bombing is the same machinery that makes slot machines addictive, and once you can name the parts, you can see it coming.love & its counterfeitslove-bombingintermittent-reinforcementreciprocityred-flagsthe-five-year-testhttps://riadms.com/guide/coercive-controlhttps://riadms.com/guide/coercive-controlhe never hit you, there was never an incident, and you have started rehearsing sentences in your own house. this is the pattern you were never taught to see, why it is made of pieces too small to report, and the one question that tests it.love & its counterfeitscoercive-controlgaslightingdarvoemotional-abusethe-small-no-testhttps://riadms.com/guide/comfort-vs-lovehttps://riadms.com/guide/comfort-vs-lovecomfort and love can look identical from the inside. one is the absence of discomfort, the other is the presence of something. the difference is which question you’re actually answering: do i want to leave, or do i want to stay.love & its counterfeitscomfortthe-stay-testsunk-costcompanionate-lovestayinghttps://riadms.com/guide/types-of-intimacyhttps://riadms.com/guide/types-of-intimacywhen someone says intimacy you think of one thing, and that’s the whole problem. there are five: physical, emotional, intellectual, experiential, spiritual. most relationships have one or two, and the missing one is usually the thing that feels off but won’t name itself.love & its counterfeitsintimacyemotional-intimacyphysical-intimacyintellectual-intimacyclosenesshttps://riadms.com/guide/childhood-woundshttps://riadms.com/guide/childhood-woundsthe pattern in who you fall for is usually older than the people you fall for. attachment, and the wound doing the choosing.love & its counterfeitsattachmentpatternsthe-woundwhy-you-choosehttps://riadms.com/guide/falling-slowlyhttps://riadms.com/guide/falling-slowlyagainst the vertigo. what it means to let closeness accumulate instead of detonating it.love & its counterfeitspaceintimacythe-36-questionsvertigohttps://riadms.com/guide/why-you-go-back-to-your-exhttps://riadms.com/guide/why-you-go-back-to-your-exyou know it was right. so why is your thumb hovering over their name at 11pm. going back is not love, it is withdrawal, and your brain runs a handful of quiet tricks to make the craving feel like a reason.love & its counterfeitsbreakupwithdrawalrosy-retrospectionno-contactwhy-you-go-backhttps://riadms.com/guide/what-love-actually-ishttps://riadms.com/guide/what-love-actually-iseveryone tells you what love isn’t. this is what’s left once you strip out the noise: it calms your nervous system, it makes you want to know the person, and it survives an ordinary boring tuesday. the three quiet signs, and none of them feel like the movies.love & its counterfeitswhat-is-loveco-regulationself-expansioncompanionate-lovereal-lovehttps://riadms.com/guide/lonely-not-lovehttps://riadms.com/guide/lonely-not-loveif you only want them at 2am, when the apartment is too quiet, it might not be love. love is specific, it wants this person. loneliness is general, it wants the silence to stop. here is the 2am test, and the fear that actually keeps you settling.love & its counterfeitslonelinessthe-2am-testfear-of-being-singleis-it-lovesettlinghttps://riadms.com/guide/loving-their-potentialhttps://riadms.com/guide/loving-their-potentialyou’re not dating them, you’re dating who they’d be if they changed. you stay loyal to the finished version in your head and keep excusing the real one. that’s not love, it’s a renovation project. the difference between seeing the best in someone and inventing a person who isn’t there.love & its counterfeitsloving-their-potentialcrystallizationpositive-illusionsidealizationprojectionhttps://riadms.com/guide/the-yes-i-walked-away-fromhttps://riadms.com/guide/the-yes-i-walked-away-fromthere are two reasons to say yes to something you did not already want. moving toward closeness and being wanted, or moving away from a mood, an argument, and four days of being punished. they produce the identical word, and since 2005 the research has measured them as two separate dimensions that barely correlate.love & its counterfeitssexual-complianceconsent-vs-desireapproach-and-avoidancefawn-responseself-silencinghttps://riadms.com/guide/wuthering-heights-limerencehttps://riadms.com/guide/wuthering-heights-limerencea poll of british readers voted it the greatest love story of all time, and the 2026 film billed itself the same way. read cathy’s famous line all the way to the end and it is a description of intrusive thinking, written in 1847. the 1847 reviewers knew. charlotte brontë knew. heathcliff says it out loud.love & its counterfeitswuthering-heightslimerencebyronic-heroenmeshmentromeo-and-juliet-effecthttps://riadms.com/guide/in-love-with-an-ideahttps://riadms.com/guide/in-love-with-an-ideayou met them once. maybe twice. and you have spent months feeling something enormous about a person you have almost no information on. stendhal described exactly this in 1822 and the mechanism has a name, and so does the thing that actually cures it, and it is much more boring and much better than finding them.love & its counterfeitscrystallizationmere-exposure-effectfictional-attractionparasocial-relationshiplimerent-objecthttps://riadms.com/guide/love-is-not-desirehttps://riadms.com/guide/love-is-not-desiredesire tells you about your body. love is someone who has paid attention to you for a long time and stays. i’m asexual, so i had to pull the two apart on purpose, and it explains why people leave when the wanting fades and why sending all your love to one person leaves you lonely.love & its counterfeitslove-vs-desirebeing-knownattraction-fadingsettlingfriendshiphttps://riadms.com/guide/making-friendshttps://riadms.com/guide/making-friendsfriendship has butterflies too, and a number attached: about 200 hours to a close friend. the science, and permission to act on it.friendship & lonelinessfriendshipthe-friend-crushsquish200-hourshttps://riadms.com/guide/love-like-an-economisthttps://riadms.com/guide/love-like-an-economistmarket value, return on investment, keeping your options open. where that vocabulary came from, why it is ninety years older than the apps, and the prediction the model gets flatly wrong.friendship & lonelinessdating-marketemotional-capitalismonline-datingchoice-overloadassortative-matinghttps://riadms.com/guide/love-languageshttps://riadms.com/guide/love-languagesit is three claims, not one, and they are not equally true. one is fine, one is shaky, and the one the whole industry is built on does not hold up. plus the box that has two completely different things in it.friendship & lonelinesslove-languagesgary-chapmanphysical-touchsensual-attractionrelationship-sciencehttps://riadms.com/guide/rom-com-relationshiphttps://riadms.com/guide/rom-com-relationshiprom-coms sell the airport chase. the research says the romance is in the small stuff: turning toward each other’s bids, doing new things you’re both bad at, ending the night warm, and telling your story as a team.friendship & lonelinessbids-for-connectionself-expansionpeak-end-rulegottmanlong-term-romancehttps://riadms.com/guide/love-our-friendshttps://riadms.com/guide/love-our-friendsmen held hands in photographs for a hundred years and then stopped, and nobody passed a law. what actually happened, why the tidy version of it is wrong in three places, and what it costs boys now.friendship & lonelinessfriendshipromantic-friendshipsworn-brotherhoodhomohysteriamale-lonelinesshttps://riadms.com/guide/friend-got-a-partnerhttps://riadms.com/guide/friend-got-a-partnershe didn’t drop you, she stopped adding. the 1982 name for what is happening, the 2024 study that changes what to be upset about, and why nobody will let you call it a loss.friendship & lonelinessfriendshipdyadic-withdrawalamatonormativitydisenfranchised-griefgreedy-marriagehttps://riadms.com/guide/adult-lonelinesshttps://riadms.com/guide/adult-lonelinesswhy the friends stop happening after university, and why that’s structural, not a flaw in you.friendship & lonelinesslonelinessadulthoodconnectionstructuralhttps://riadms.com/guide/platonic-partnershttps://riadms.com/guide/platonic-partnersyour person doesn’t have to be your romantic partner. the case for the relationship our hierarchy has no slot for.friendship & lonelinessplatoniclife-partnersfriendshipthe-hierarchyhttps://riadms.com/guide/sensual-attractionhttps://riadms.com/guide/sensual-attractionsensual attraction is the want to be held with no interest in where it leads. why our culture has no room for it, and why the lack of it is making everyone lonely.friendship & lonelinesssensual-attractionnon-sexual-touchskin-hungeraffectionate-touchtouch-starvationhttps://riadms.com/guide/alterous-attractionhttps://riadms.com/guide/alterous-attractionthere is a person you love in a way that is too much for “friend” and is not romance. the feeling has a name, alterous attraction, and the relationship you can build from it has one too, queerplatonic. the space between the two boxes was never empty.friendship & lonelinessalterous-attractionqueerplatonic-relationshipamatonormativitychosen-familyaromantichttps://riadms.com/guide/intellectual-attractionhttps://riadms.com/guide/intellectual-attractionintellectual attraction is the pull toward how someone thinks, not how they look. the science that says it is its own channel, and why the sexiest mind is one that meets you, not one that outranks you.friendship & lonelinessintellectual-attractionsapiosexualthe-36-questionsassortative-matingmate-preferenceshttps://riadms.com/guide/aesthetic-attractionhttps://riadms.com/guide/aesthetic-attractionaesthetic attraction is finding someone beautiful to look at, and nothing more. no pull, no wanting, no next step. the brain science that says beauty and desire are two separate systems, and why mistaking one for the other quietly ruins relationships.friendship & lonelinessaesthetic-attractionbeauty-vs-desirehedonic-adaptationsplit-attraction-modelreward-valuehttps://riadms.com/guide/relationship-lonelinesshttps://riadms.com/guide/relationship-lonelinessa study of 55,000 people found the exception to one of the safest findings in relationship science: for the 1,443 asexual participants, being in a relationship was not associated with lower loneliness at all. what that says about what a relationship is actually doing when it works, and why the thing that predicts it is your whole network rather than whether somebody lives in your house.friendship & lonelinesslonelinessamatonormativitygreedy-marriagesocial-integrationasexualityhttps://riadms.com/guide/kinds-of-closenesshttps://riadms.com/guide/kinds-of-closenessyou can be loved and still feel like nobody has met you, and it usually isn’t ingratitude or the wrong person. closeness is not one thing. here are eight kinds of it, the research under each one, and why one partner was never meant to supply all eight.friendship & lonelinesskinds-of-closenesslonely-in-a-relationshipcloseness-communication-biassocial-lonelinesscommunal-relationshipshttps://riadms.com/guide/the-four-secondshttps://riadms.com/guide/the-four-secondsthere are photographs of men from the 1800s sitting in each other’s laps, in portraits they paid for. across a century the affection drains out of the pose. this is where that went, how well the history actually holds up, and what the research says about the four seconds of awkwardness you have been pricing higher than the friendship.friendship & lonelinessfriendshipromantic-friendshipmale-friendshipaffectionawkwardnesshttps://riadms.com/guide/a-little-life-friendshiphttps://riadms.com/guide/a-little-life-friendshippeople call a little life trauma porn. it is also the most convincing case i have read that a friend can be the great love of a life, and it has a couple who take sex out of their relationship and are happier for it. and the man at the centre of it is not asexual. here is the difference, and why it matters for real people.friendship & lonelinesschosen-familysexual-aversionsex-averse-vs-asexualwas-there-a-beforetrauma-pornhttps://riadms.com/guide/intellectual-lonelinesshttps://riadms.com/guide/intellectual-lonelinessyou have good friends and a partner and you still feel alone with your own head. that isn’t social or emotional loneliness, the two kinds Robert Weiss named in 1973. it’s having nobody to think with, and more closeness won’t fix it.friendship & lonelinessintellectual-lonelinesssocial-lonelinessemotional-lonelinessthinking-partnerdeep-conversationhttps://riadms.com/guide/why-you-like-who-you-likehttps://riadms.com/guide/why-you-like-who-you-likesometimes the attraction isn’t about them at all, it’s about who you get to be near them. how to tell the difference.attraction & the selfattractionmere-exposurethe-mirrorpatternshttps://riadms.com/guide/male-validationhttps://riadms.com/guide/male-validationwhen the wanting is really a hunger to be chosen. where it comes from and what it’s standing in for.attraction & the selfvalidationbeing-chosenself-worthattachmenthttps://riadms.com/guide/why-youre-singlehttps://riadms.com/guide/why-youre-singlethe reasons are mostly not about your face or your worth. they are a browsing mindset the apps trained into you, an ache you keep mistaking for a green light, and a bar for one partner that no single person could clear.attraction & the selfdatingrejection-mindsetchoice-overloadpropinquitywhy-youre-singlehttps://riadms.com/guide/the-deadline-nobody-sethttps://riadms.com/guide/the-deadline-nobody-setat some point you set a deadline for your own life and you do not remember agreeing to it. by twenty five, by thirty, by the age your mother was when she had you. and when you pass it, it does not release you, it moves.attraction & the selfsocial-clockfeeling-behindage-normsoff-timearrival-fallacyhttps://riadms.com/guide/the-understanding-onehttps://riadms.com/guide/the-understanding-onebeing the understanding one is a job and you do not remember anybody hiring you. you say it is fine before checking whether it is fine. and if you always explain other people to yourself, nobody ever has to learn your language.attraction & the selfunmitigated-communionself-silencingemotional-parentificationemotion-workfawn-responsehttps://riadms.com/guide/fear-of-being-knownhttps://riadms.com/guide/fear-of-being-knownyou say you want to be known, and then you keep a little back. it comes from watching a song wear out and deciding you are also a thing that can be played too many times. you are not. a song cannot do anything new.attraction & the selfself-concealmentself-disclosurehabituationvulnerabilityintimacyhttps://riadms.com/guide/how-to-know-if-someone-likes-youhttps://riadms.com/guide/how-to-know-if-someone-likes-youthe lists of signs run at 28 per cent, and your errors all point one way. what actually carries information, why nobody asks, and the three better ways to ask.attraction & the selfflirtingreading-signalsuncertaintycostly-signalsasking-directlyhttps://riadms.com/guide/gender-envyhttps://riadms.com/guide/gender-envyyou cannot stop looking at them and it has nothing to do with sex. two completely different feelings produce that, and one question tells them apart: do you want to have them, or be them.attraction & the selfgender-envyaesthetic-attractiongender-euphoriaenvysocial-comparisonhttps://riadms.com/guide/sad-for-no-reasonhttps://riadms.com/guide/sad-for-no-reasona wave of dread on a normal day, sadness with no story attached. the feeling is real, but the reason your brain hands you is invented after the fact. usually it is a body running on empty, an old feeling with no picture, or the stress of a hard week finally arriving now that you are safe.feelings & the bodyanxietybody-budgetemotional-flashbackthe-let-down-effectnervous-systemhttps://riadms.com/guide/social-hangoverhttps://riadms.com/guide/social-hangoveryou had a great time and got home feeling hit by a truck. it is not introversion and it is not the people. it is the tax of performing a warmer, smoother version of yourself for hours, plus an attention system that ran flat out the whole time and now needs to recover alone.feelings & the bodysocial-hangovermaskingsurface-actingsocial-batteryrecoveryhttps://riadms.com/guide/emotional-contagionhttps://riadms.com/guide/emotional-contagionyou walk in fine and leave heavy, carrying a feeling that was never yours. it has a name, emotional contagion, and a mechanism: we automatically mimic the people around us and drift toward feeling what they feel. the fix is not going numb, it is learning to feel with people without turning into them.feelings & the bodyemotional-contagionsecondhand-stresshighly-sensitive-personempathaffect-labelinghttps://riadms.com/guide/body-signs-of-lovehttps://riadms.com/guide/body-signs-of-lovesix things your body does around someone you love, and not one of them is sexual attraction. heart rates that couple in the same room, breathing that syncs under touch and takes the pain down with it, mirroring, pupils, cortisol, steps falling into line. including the two places the popular version has run ahead of the research.feelings & the bodyphysiological-synchronyco-regulationsigns-of-lovenervous-systembody-language