It isn’t clear how many people in the UK identify as demisexual but it falls under the umbrella term of asexual, which is estimated to include 1% of the population, according to the BBC.

While the proportion of demisexuals may be small, the increasing understanding of the characteristic over recent years is a welcome development, especially to those left feeling ‘abnormal’ and even “broken” for not being attracted to anyone as they went through their formative years.

One teenager spoke to the Huffington Post about her experience and said she’d assumed something was “wrong” with her: “I honestly can’t feel attraction towards people unless I already love their personalities and minds along with a few other special snowflake qualities.

“I didn’t know what was wrong with me. That I seemed the only person in my high school who didn’t want sex for the sake of sex itself, and I struggled a lot with that until I went to college and learned more about the different sexualities.”

Forming an emotional bond does not guarantee that sexual attraction will follow, but it is a prerequisite and the level of connection required in order to feel sexual attraction varies from person to person. For some individuals, it may take years of close friendship before any sexual feelings develop, whereas others find that attraction can brew after a short but intense experience, such as travelling together.

Love before lust: this is what it means to be demisexual