I agree with most of the things discuss here, I used to think I was demi for most of my teen years, because I was in love with the thought of love; being in a relationship was really important to me, even though I didn't have a single person in mind I found myself attracted to. I did start to notice that after I've begun to form friendships, and learn about other people on a deeper, lengthy level, I felt a stong attraction "suddenly" come on, where I went "heh, I could fall in love with this person" (spoiler alert, never did, because my heart's a fickle little shit that dosn't have time for bonding). This attraction was purely "personality" and not sexual (It'll take me my years in my twenties to realize I don't feel sexual arousal), but it opened me to the world of sexual and romantic expressions, which I think is so important, but people within the "norm" don't pay enough attention to, because all media romance focus on is the heteronormative expression of relationships. I consider myself demiromantic, asexual, and my research/exploration in this, leads me to understand that the spectrum is as broad as the homosexual/queer spectrum, which it's also apart of (LGBTQIA get's mocked for being the "alphabet people", but it's not fair that people still look at attraction as either "straight or gay"; there's a catagory, with a spectrum, in a spectrum, here).
I personally classify it as "Demi"(sexual/romantic) means it takes a "long" time to find that bond that would "activate" that feeling of love and/or arousal, while "A"(sexual/romantic) just means it's not there at all. We also have to take into our account of society and the social constructs we're raised to follow. I was always pressured to be in a relationship when growing up, so to me, having a partner seems like "the right thing to do"; that's my social construct. While my mind and body tells me I don't find anyone sexually arousing, but I find masculine personality attractive and something I can live with affectionately in my family/romantic household (I've so far only been romantically attracted to men, as they complement my femininity more than any of my female friends had). I can also convince myself to pursue sex, even though I don't naturally get aroused, so I'm not sex repulsed, even though I never felt a need/want for it; I conditioned myself to sort of become "desensitized" to the process of sex. Just from my curiosity in trying to understand why people are so interested in it. I still don't understand, but it's no longer a foreign icky-ness to me.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, Cove has a lot going on that sets his Demi apart from anyone else, we have to factor in his autism (which I think is the biggest factor of his hesitation; he expresses a feeling of "sensory overload", which is the root of autism, and instead of finding a way to express/release it, he just "shuts down", which gives us those "non affectionate"/"begone thot" moments), also, I believe if Cove was heteronomative, and not autistic, he'd still be the shy, awkward passive boy, as that just seems to be the root of his personality, which I get it.
I just see a lot of potential for this "build a boyfriend" genre, and I feel like focus should have went into changing Cove's character, more than focusing on what player is comfortable with; initiating consent/(dis)allowing romance/sexuality isn't that difficult to execute, we don't need a "Cute Demon Crasher's three second check up", but I think OL's 18+ question of consent was played very well (I don't know, I didn't opt out of the sexual content, so...); I like their initiation feature, as it allows players to set the ground rules on what Cove is allowed to do to them, but I also think that no matter how high initiative/in love Cove is, he just doesn't take that first step; I don't think it's a Demi or Autistic thing, I just think that's Cove's baseline personality. He's a submissive man, and that's okay, I just like my partner's with a side of dominance.
