Published on 12, July, 2020
Has anyone else struggled? Apart from when I was very young I only have very short term relationships- usually about 3 months, and I’m usually the one to end them. It can be years in between relationships though. I’ve always been awful at judging how to get across to someone that I’m interested, sometimes I try anyway and it may or may not go well - I often do cringeworthy things like fail to notice a wedding ring or something. Sometimes though I don’t really understand what I could have done differently, other than be a bit more forward on the times where I didn’t speak up enough - it’s just my difficulty understanding signals over the years, even though I believe I’m better now, as well as generally being an absent minded, daydreaming oddball (even if the women I’ve been with have assured me they find my appearance very attractive), has totally sapped my confidence. I have almost zero success with dating apps.
I expect a lot of this is more a problem for autistic men, as it’s normally men who do the asking, but I suppose for autistic women there are other relationship difficulties?
It would be interesting to know if anyone has had similar experiences, and if they have any advice.
Thanks
My dating years were long ago & pre-diagnosis - I had some limited success (and failure aplenty), but I think it was just luck - me & my (probably ND) friend obsessed about the "secret" to getting girls - but never discovered it.
In retrospect, I probably just "masked" my way into their hearts/pants by telling them what they want to hear - of course a deceitful start like this makes a long term relationship unlikely as the bent truths come to light.
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia said:I would not want to date an NT, because if I'm working on something, they feel ignored, so they try to pull my attention away from it and onto them, they want the attention to always be on them 24/7 or else they're not happy and they feel unloved and think I'm a bad person and start treating me like one.
I struggle with exactly this ↑↑↑ with my wife (we have come to an understanding now, but it was a painful transition)... so while a relationship with an NT is possible, there are extra hurdles of understanding (but also extra opportunities & experiences to do things that 2 x NDs may not).
Best wishes for your love life Roguelife.
I mean for ASD, we need a lot of personal space, because things can overstimulate our senses, and social interaction can drain us, so we need a lot of alone time to recharge.
But NT needs a lot of social interaction because it fuels them, and they feel negative if they're left alone for long periods of time, because it's like solitary confinement to them, they will feel ignored and not cared about. They want people to dote on them and shower them with affection to show that they are cared about.
So the alone time that recharges us, will drain them. And the social interaction that recharges them, will drain us, which is why relationships with NT is a tricky one, but many people somehow manage to get through it.
I think there's ups and downs to every relationship, but if you love your wife, it does not matter at the end of the day whether she's NT or ND, as long as you understand each other and enjoy each others company, then that's all that matters.
I mean I really love being with another ND because we get along very well, but we also have similar drawbacks as well. I mean many things can get ignored in favour of our personal interests. I have methods of reminding myself of when to pay for bills and rent, but my partner always forgets that kind of stuff, so I just remind him.
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia said:So the alone time that recharges us, will drain them. And the social interaction that recharges them, will drain us
This is a good way to express it!