I'm 19 and my girlfriend is 20, in case you still wanted to know.

As for the waiting a year thing. Many asexual people are more comfortable with sex if they've been in a relationship for a longer time and have a stronger emotional bond with their partner.

This makes me feel a lot better and helps me understand her a little bit more. Thanks so much for telling me this; it really was possibly the most helpful thing you could have done! I have faith in my girlfriend that she's not just using this as an excuse. So I think I understand her rationale for waiting a year, definitely definitely a lot more.

Also upon further reflection the morning after making this post, I realized I was definitely too demanding of my girlfriend last night. I shouldn't be trying to coerce her to do something she's uncomfortable with, because like you said that's abuse. So I'll definitely apologize to her and let her know that I'm willing to wait for her, because I honestly do think she's worth it :)

Oh and don't worry, I'm definitely not in the relationship for sex. Right now I think I'm more frustrated than usual because my girlfriend and I are both away from each other on summer break, but I definitely derive too much pleasure in my life from just being with her for this relationship to solely be for the purpose of sex :)

Thanks for the rest of your advice btw. As for some of the other things you mentioned, we've discussed the open relationship idea briefly but I'm particularly not comfortable with that idea. And of course you're right that sex is not a necessary component of EVERY relationship; I think I was just starting to feel that because of how much people tend to stress the importance of sex online. But obviously there are people who can live without it even if they want it.

Seriously thank you so much for your advice. I've decided on my course of action now, and that is to stay with my girlfriend and wait until she's ready to discuss some sort of "sex as a compromise" plan because it's clearly too early to do that now. If down the road, she never comes around to the idea, I will really have to ask myself whether I want a relationship without sex, and it may turn out that things don't work out. But I want to stay with my girlfriend and I think it's worth trying to work out this difference of ours.

P.S. I'm not sure if this is really relevant, but I am a virgin and I think that's part of where my frustration stems from. So yeah there is THAT, but like I said I don't know if it's actually relevant.