How do I make it clear that I’m more interested in love than sex?

I find love far, far, far more important than sex. How can I make this clear to prospective partners without coming across as some sort of dinosaur?

Caring more about love than sex isn’t old-fashioned or bad, though not wanting to have sex could make some people less interested, since even people who want deeply emotional relationships also sometimes want sex.

But it kind of sounds like you’re not opposed to sex, just not particularly invested in it. Indifference to sex, if that is how you feel, could actually be ideal for finding a partner. It would keep your potential partners open to those who want sex and those who don’t.

Wanting a deeply emotional relationship (or whatever else you mean by love) and not wanting sex (if you don’t) are kind of things you just need to explain to someone before you start a relationship with them, either directly or indirectly. If you wait until you’ve started a relationship, you run the risk of your partner taking you less seriously or discovering that you and your partner have incompatible expectations.

You should also take your time as you start relationships. Even if you’re willing to have sex, doing it hastily isn’t going to attract the kind of partner you’re looking for. You can also build close friendship with people before you start considering them as potential romantic interests, giving you time to start building an emotional connection and to feel out compatibility in what you want from relationships.

And avoid ever setting up sex and love as a trade off (“I’d be happy to have sex with you, but I need you to really love me.”) That’s going to make it way too easy for someone to feign love for sex. Even if the two are related, discuss them separately and calculate for yourself (“I need someone who really loves me,” and later, depending on whether they do, “I’d be happy to have sex with you.”)

Recommendations: Three books about sex and relationships in college.