A skinny-muscular, tall man of 32 with a dark complexion and big, expressive eyes, Darshan is successful. He grew up in Bangalore, did his master's at an Ivy League school, then settled in California, where he's minting money.

His parents want him married. He's dodged the subject since he started working, over seven years ago. The family senses something is amiss, so they've made their peace with it: white, brown or black, man or woman, whoever he wants. If he has someone in mind, he's welcome to talk about it freely. If not, they'll happily arrange a match.

Darshan's closest friends will vouch that he stays perennially single. He's lovely to be around—a good badminton player, a jogger three times a week, game for most things. But beyond a point, reached fairly soon, he shuts the door. A significant part of his life stays private, an enigma even to his best friends and to the younger brother he's close to.

We've known each other for ten years. When we met, under circumstances beyond the scope of this piece, he confided that he feels no connection between himself and a sexual stimulus—by which he meant another human being. "That's asexuality," I told him. "Not a disorder, a distinct orientation." "Liberating and troublesome at once," he said, thoughtfully.

It isn't celibacy, a sage's discipline of curbing desire by choice. Asexuality is the absence, or near-absence, of that desire itself—not a suppression of it. It shows up across cultures, classes, religions. The aromantic spectrum—or the aro-spec—is an umbrella term for people who experience little, no, or conditional romantic attraction that differs from societal expectations. And it shouldn't be confused with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, a drop in libido that causes real distress; asexuals, by contrast, are generally at peace with their lack of attraction.

I wanted to be sure it wasn't a way of dodging something harder. "There's a term—ego-dystonic distress," I told him, "for when someone feels tormented by their own body or thoughts." It's an acute anxiety about one's body, often genitalia, that breeds shame and low self-esteem—and some people, to avoid confronting it, start performing asexuality as cover. In doing so, they cut themselves off from the one thing that might actually help. The fears can be strange, specific: I once knew a woman consumed by shame over the stretch marks on her hip. Darshan claims no such trouble—if anything, he's something of an exhibitionist.

Darshan is a textbook case, and being asexual doesn't mean being without desire. He seeks emotional intimacy instead—platonic, deep, non-romantic. Not being sexually drawn to someone doesn't imply a low sex drive; some asexual people have a high one.  

He isn't rigid about avoiding sex, either—he knows it's simply not his thing. He'd be generous enough to have it for a partner's pleasure, though that's never come up, or for his own release, the way he might go for a jog after a hard day. His attitude is closer to indifference: he'll do it if nothing better presents itself. Something better always does. That's why it has never happened. 

"I'm ace of hearts," he insists, as he enjoys pornography, erotica, elaborate and vivid fantasy—without any pull to enact it. He'd rather remain a witness than a participant. My advice to him: find a partner of similar orientation. It can happen, once he's open about it. "We had an open conversation," he said, smiling. "First of many," I said.