Dating Agencies for Asperger People

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this but ..

My son is 38 , diagnosed with Aspergers at age 20 .

He has a very limited social life but is so wanting to find a girlfriend and has been joining various well known dating agencies online ( and spending quite a bit of money to do it Frown ) but he is finding it hard to accept that his aspergers may put people off .

I don't want him to feel that he is inferior to other folks , which he isn't , but I really don't think the websites he has been trying are suitable for him . Does anyone know if there are any "asperger friendly" sites that he could look at ?

  • Yeah was thinking of uplouding a picture in the hope the goddess im meant to spend the rest of my life with contact me, in reality it be some dude on a fake account asking me to send him monies lmao

  • I browsed 2 or 3 a while ago - I saw all the suspicious signs and never went back. All very dubious with maybe half a dozen authentic and hopeful profiles. 

  • From the site i could find they all seem pretty dead, like only a couple of women have been on in the past few days, no pictures. They is also a lot of women who look like models, one profile was looking for a man with a lot of money lol

  • Please could you give me some help as I have mild Asperger's, and I live 20 miles from yeovil. I would appreciate a dating site that I don't have to pay money for. 

  • Oh - just realised it's a really old post - it might help someone though.

  • Does he also have any mental health issues? - as I found No Longer Lonely to be inclusive and ok.  It's not for me now though - but that's no criticism of the site.

  • Hey, guys i wrote an article on online dating for singles diagnosed with aspergers and other autistic conditions. Furthermore, all relevant dating sites for adults with aspergers or autism in the UK have been compiled within it. Hopefully this helps a few Aspie singles out there find a fitting dating service. 

    ps: There are no affiliate links involved, I make 0% profit with this site. All sites have been listed solely for the purpose of providing guidance for Aspie singles interested in online dating.

  • But that's down to how you present yourself and what you bring to the party.      There's a key for every lock.

    Ok the thing is what you just said could be basically summarised as “You might do better if you had better social skills” ... which is exactly my point. Not having good social skills is kind of what autism is about. People have looked at ways of helping autistic people compensate for poor social skills in almost every area of life. Education, work, family relationships, even dealing with the law.

    i just happen to think it’s a huge oversight that academically no one has really done much work on compensating for autistic people’s difficulty charming the opposite sex.

  • They are, mostly, male,

    Not in my experience.

    However none of the women I were ever interested in felt the same way about me.

    But that's down to how you present yourself and what you bring to the party.      There's a key for every lock.  Smiley

  • Socially, undiagnosed aspies are everywhere

    But that’s part of my point. They are, mostly, male, and it doesn’t nessiserally follow that an autistic man will find establishing a romantic conection with an autistic woman that much easier than with a neurotypical woman.

    in the past I was more active in special interest groups and I was privalidged to make some wonderful female friends who shared my interests. However none of the women I were ever interested in felt the same way about me. In fact many almost seemed shocked I was interested in being something more than friends.

    translating female friends into romantic conections is from my point of view a lot harder than it seems. My comparatively more nurotypical friends were much more successful. In fact many of them are now involved with the women with whom i was once interested.

    It is clearly one of those secret neurotypical social tricks, how to take a frendship with a woman, who you have developed feelings for, and introduce them to the idea you might be more than friends without freaking them out.

    its the kind of thing they don’t teach in books but really really ought to.

  • I'm an old aspie - I can spot aspies a mile away - there's lots more of us than you realise - mostly undiagnosed people getting on with their lives and are just lucky to have found a job that suits them.

    Socially, undiagnosed aspies are everywhere - model clubs, history clubs, photography clubs, classic car clubs, caravanners, model train associates, pub-quizzing teams, volunteers at museums, cos-players, historical re-enactors, sci-fi conventions - basically we're everywhere doing the interesting things - and not sat at home watching 'Strictly'. 

    That means there's plenty of places to hang-out in a low-stress group environment to practice social skills and - maybe - meet someone to date.   Smiley

    The formal dating scene is just too narrow and too stressful to bother with.

  • A number of websites and other services over the years have purported to offer dating services especially for autistic people however they have a number of issues.

    1. They are often mostly seeking to introduce autistic people to each other which is somewhat limited by the large gender imbalance in diagnosed autistic people.
    2. A lot of focus is on filtering out dangerious nurotypical persons which rather limits the pool of avalible people.
    3. They tend to be either
      1. very location spicific because there is a small group of volunteers arranging things often in person
      2. or they are 100% online with only a few active users spread all over the world.

    Ultimately the autistic dating pool is just too small for autistic people to find many dating options looking exclusively for autistic people. Likewise there isn’t really a group of neurotypical people spicificly looking to date autistic people.

    The real question is how best to support autistic adults looking at dating through conventional channels. Very little work has been done here. Most of it is either 

    1. aimed at teenagers and is mostly an extension of ‘how to make friends’ style programs. From what I’ve seen the material is mostly over simplistic and a bit patronising.
    2. Or it’s repurposed relationship counseling material that's been designed for couples where one or both are autistic. Maybe somewhat relevant to autistic people wondering why they can’t get past the 2nd or 3rd date but not much use to people whose main problem is getting date one.

    As far as I am aware no one has ever done any a priori development research regarding interventions for autistic adults who have difficulties forming romantic / sexual relationships. This is really a real shame, because there’s clearly a demand for it.

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  • Lucky to live in such a beautiful country!!

    Yeah I have come to the same conclusion also but I have so many barriers between me and women (interests, height, sociality) that adding another "requirement" seems like shooting myself in the foot.

    I consider myself somewhat flexible and adaptable (ish) and so am always willing to figure out the specifics with a partner in order to make them feel equally valued, it's just getting that foot in the door that's hard, especially when I don't socialise.

    I'm not sure about the benefits of dating another aspie but I know there are a LOT of downsides to dating most NTs, at least for me. I'll try anything at this point tbh.

  • I know exactly what you mean about views on the world being a huge barrier - I’ve exactly the same issue to be honest. I shan’t go into my views here - but happy to discuss them... you never know we might be equally ‘out there’ in our views! 

    I totally get the interests thing too - I love aviation, history and nature - none of which is particularly “cool” to like. 

    Feel free to drop me a message if you want to chat Slight smile

  • Yeah there are a lot of barriers and nobody seems willing to slow down and understand. I always feel like my relationships are one-sided (I try so hard and they're nonchalant) and perhaps as if I'm expecting far too much from what I now know to be neurotypical women.

    Add to that a few other societal barriers regarding my views on the World and my interests, AND my shortness (5'6) and my options become super limited :( I've also never met another aspie in person

  • Hi, Ryan:

    It’s Elizabeth from Canada and I hope you’re well. This thread really caught my eye because I think the dating issue is something with which many of us struggle, including women.

    The prolonged lack of intimacy you mentioned is super hard. I have come to see that what I previously thought were my high standards is actually my understanding, after multiple failed relationships, of my need to find someone who is accommodating.

    I don’t know whether anyone else feels this way, but I’ve actually concluded that in many ways having a partner who also has Asperger’s would be ideal. That’s because he would hopefully understand why, for example, I am exhausted at the end of my workday and prefer to walk the dog and then stay in for a really relaxing and, frankly, much needed quiet time. I would hope that I, in turn, would be understanding about his needs.

    Perhaps, for example, he would be unable to maintain full-time/any employment, have few if any friends, and/or need to game for a few hours every evening in order to relax. These things would make sense to me, and perhaps that would be something we could give each other – understanding, respect, and space.

    Do you or does anyone else have any thoughts about the advantages of finding a partner who also has Asperger Syndrome, rather than continuing to try to date neurotypical people?

    Elizabeth 

  • Welcome also! I think many on the spectrum have this issue - there’s a whole host of reasons why. It also depends what you are looking for in a relationship too - I think being on the spectrum can make us all a little bit different in terms of what we want or need.... I dunno, I’m terrible at forming friendships or relationships so probably suck at giving advice... but i totally get what you mean Ryan!