Published on 12, July, 2020
Ok, so here’s the thing.
My boyfriend has aspergers syndrome. He keeps staring at other girls when we go out- and I don’t mean just glaring, lookig, peeking. I mean downright STARING silently at a girl, watching her every move until she leaves his sight.
This makes me a little jealous of course. I don’t mind him looking, because hey I look at guys too, but I don’t stare at them so obviously. I’ve talked to him about this, expressed how I’ve felt when he does this.
He keeps saying he didn’t mean to stare, and that he only wants me, and so on. He also says it’s because of his diagnosis that he’s acting like this. So autism makes guys stare at other girls and flirt with other girls even though he is in a relationship?
Maybe it does? That’s why I’ve come here to ask hopefully other adults who have autism.
Thank you in advanve.
Staring silently at someone does not seem to me to be a very effective way of flirting.
Flirting involves some sort of interaction between both parties to be effective. If you want your boyfriend to flirt with members of the opposite sex, then he needs some lessons in how to do it. His current method seems to me to inevitably lead to no success at all.
His 'staring' can be a characteristic of autism. I frequently do not know where to look, and have been accused of staring at people, but in fact in my case there is nothing that goes throught to my brain in these circumstances. In my case it is when I am uncomfortable in a situation and is linked to the 'eye contact' thing that autistic people are notorious for - the eye contact is seen as inappropriate by a neurotypical, either in the fact that it appears not to be taking place, or is taking place in what is construed as inappropriate.
Your boyfriend is only behaving in a way in which he has little control over. He may be able to teach himself how to react in the circumstances and put on an act to mask this behaviour, but it may slip at times and he will revert to the original behaviour. This may cause him much anxiety.
Can you try to accept your boyfriend for what he is, not what you want him to be?