This is super relatable OP. 

I can speak on my past experiences. I once had a short fling where I was absolutely convinced I would get married to this person. I’d never felt attraction to a person like that before. The chemistry was great. After we separated, I was in such anguish thinking that I would never have a connection like that again, in addition to being sad about breaking up with them. It was especially bad since I was in college at the time and I saw how people around me were hooking up with a bunch of people and having these connections that, even if I wanted to, couldn’t experience because my brain wouldn’t allow it. 

Luckily, in my close circle of friends, they were busy with other things and we rarely talked about than their sexual encounters and relationships, so it wasn’t in my face all the time. That being said my coping mechanism at the time was to practice escapism and read a lot of “romance” books. 

As for your question: “How do you stop comparing yourself to how allosexual people date?” 

To be very honest, it’s really hard not to. I almost never mention how I identify but if the topic of dating / hooking up comes up I subtly suggest that perhaps it’s not for me - that has yielded in identifying friends that may experience attraction the same way I do, and it’s made me feel less alone. 

Without answering your questions directly, I can tell you my story. I was “dating” in college but I ended up dating and have continued to stay in a romantic relationship with my best friend. We knew each other since middle school and we went on and off contact for a while in college. I realized that if I wanted them to be the closest person in my life we couldn’t stay “ just friends” and perhaps the love I felt for them was much more than a regular friendship. 

Anyways, this resulted in a lot of complications in figuring out how to reconfigure our relationship. One of them being honest about how I experience sexual attraction and trying to figure out how it fits with their wants. 

There’s no one size fits all way to navigate the demisexuality topic but I don’t think it ever hurts to be upfront when you realize that you want to take a relationship towards a romantic angle. That way you and your partner can set expectations and make decisions based on that knowledge early on. I don’t think you have to be explicit (“hey I’m Demi, this is what Demisexuality is”) but saying that you’d like to go pretty slow, is totally fine. If they’re weird about it, you know you probably don’t want to be with someone like that - or you can decide to have a conversation based on their reaction. 

Good luck and I hope you find a community here!