In my experience it’s impossible to do this as a young healthy individual. You will simply have too high of a sex drive and too high of a drive for personal connection. It’s physiological; if you’re healthy and in a natural state your brain will assume you’re ready for what you were built for: finding suitable mates and reproducing.
Your body is likely different, but I can tell you how it works for me. I can increase or decrease my necessity for female companionship and sexual contact very easily. When I want my drive to be very high, I eat more or less paleo and I do as much natural movement as I can, eschewing sitting for constant walking and exercise. When I want it to be low, I eat a lot of grains and drink a lot of tea. I also sit a lot, take hot bathes, and do various forms of meditation. I avoid social contact in general, and create a fantasy world in my mind where I believe that the average person cares about my intellectual projects.
It’s doable, and as others have mentioned you may want to look into the Buddhist tradition for ideas. But it’s not natural. Invariably you will end up less physically healthy than you would be otherwise. Is this a trade-off you’re willing to make? You could always alternate between them; that’s my solution.
If you’re a socially adept individual looking to remove distractions and increase your focus on certain projects, then you’ll be okay. If you hurt your health, you’ll notice and you’ll go back to a situation where the artificially-engineered aromanticism evaporates and your sex and companionship drive returns. But if you’re trying to wire aromanticism into yourself to compensate for lack of success in the social realm, then you’re on a dangerous path. Loneliness and sexual frustration are horrific circumstances from an emotional standpoint; many people would choose to destroy their physical health instead.
My suggestion: Prove to yourself that you don’t need to be aromantic to enjoy your life before you begin the process of learning how to engineer it into yourself. Then you’ll be in a position to abort mission if your health suffers.
In my experience it’s impossible to do this as a young healthy individual. You will simply have too high of a sex drive and too high of a drive for personal connection. It’s physiological; if you’re healthy and in a natural state your brain will assume you’re ready for what you were built for: finding suitable mates and reproducing.
Your body is likely different, but I can tell you how it works for me. I can increase or decrease my necessity for female companionship and sexual contact very easily. When I want my drive to be very high, I eat more or less paleo and I do as much natural movement as I can, eschewing sitting for constant walking and exercise. When I want it to be low, I eat a lot of grains and drink a lot of tea. I also sit a lot, take hot bathes, and do various forms of meditation. I avoid social contact in general, and create a fantasy world in my mind where I believe that the average person cares about my intellectual projects.
It’s doable, and as others have mentioned you may want to look into the Buddhist tradition for ideas. But it’s not natural. Invariably you will end up less physically healthy than you would be otherwise. Is this a trade-off you’re willing to make? You could always alternate between them; that’s my solution.
If you’re a socially adept individual looking to remove distractions and increase your focus on certain projects, then you’ll be okay. If you hurt your health, you’ll notice and you’ll go back to a situation where the artificially-engineered aromanticism evaporates and your sex and companionship drive returns. But if you’re trying to wire aromanticism into yourself to compensate for lack of success in the social realm, then you’re on a dangerous path. Loneliness and sexual frustration are horrific circumstances from an emotional standpoint; many people would choose to destroy their physical health instead.
My suggestion: Prove to yourself that you don’t need to be aromantic to enjoy your life before you begin the process of learning how to engineer it into yourself. Then you’ll be in a position to abort mission if your health suffers.