Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I'm not diagnosed as Autistic yet but am on the waiting list for a full assessment as I have completed the pre assessment form.
My thoughts about relationship are:
Am I able to have one because of my long term anxiety issues and regular need for emotional support? I cannot deal with the abuse that comes with paid and non paid dating sites where people are more often looking for casual of which I am not. I do enjoy a lot of alone time but I also feel deep aching loneliness for a hug and physical/intellectual/spiritual closeness. I was married for 8 years and together for 10 but my ex husband and I were completely incompatible. His negatives made mine worse and vice versa. He was unable to discuss emotions and I am a very emotional person so I felt single in a relationship which was even more lonely. I feel I want to trust someone again but the more I encounter men, the more they would like a casual hook up which is when I tell them where to go. I have standards and respect for myself but never seem to meet someone of the same ilk.
I'd be interested to hear what everyone else thinks and feels about this topic. It's an emotive one for me and triggers me to tears because I feel there will be no-one for me as everyone is so complex that I'm not sure if I could deal with someones bad points and them mine. I put my heart and soul into my marriage but my hubby was unable to communicate love to me which I couldn't deal with.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to folks replies.
H :-)
I know what you mean about the subject being emotive. Earlier this year I was in a very low place and started to dwell on what the future would look like if I didn't start taking action. I.e. I'm not going to die before my parents, I'm an only child with no real extended family, a couple of older cousins up north, that's about it. In reality that brought me to tears a few times, as literally it dawned that I would most likely die alone in a small flat somewhere.
Unfortunately...Dating for me = DISASTER!!
Uni, I fancied one girl in particular for the last 2 of the 3 years. Unfortunately my mate was trying to get with her to "complete the set" our house of 5 blokes knew a house of 4 girls... One of the other 4 girls came outside for a cigarette with me when we all went to a restaurant one night. Then out of nowhere starts snogging my face off. When that stopped and her head moved out the way, there was my mate and the girl I fancied just staring at us...
I've mentioned elsewhere on the thread I spent £2k on bar bills in a few months of going to my second most local pub. I went in every day the first month, having met a girl I thought was attractive the first time I went in. About £1k/£2k was spent on her and her best friends drinks. Their cards never seemed to work at the end of the night?? (THIS IS NOW A RED FLAG I USE). At one stage I had bought "us" a bottle of wine, which she had then taken away to go and chat up a different bloke, that should have been a flag. She told me "you'd crush me if we had sex" that should have been a flag.
I also broke my hand over that girl, punching a wall in the pub toilet, a full on "boxers break". The broken bone formed a pyramid sticking out the top of my hand but under the skin... Someone thankfully pushed it back into place that night. I hadn't wanted to explain to my parents what had happened at 11:30pm, so had taped it up as best I could and waited till the next morning. Turns out bones don't fuse if you don't act fast, so I owe the other customer who pushed it back in big time.
I also met a girl off match.com, we went on three or four dates, before she came over to mine/my parents. I had been paying for the dates, things I thought had been going well, we ended up upstairs... At which point she then proceeded to tell me I was "too fat to ***"... upset and dishevelled I retired to the spare room. The next day I took her home, and a week or so later my parents credit card statement came and she had taken the details and stolen £5k... I had left her unattended the rest of the night as I had retired to the spare room.
And so it goes, on, and on, and on...
My issue have been:
A.) I'm too eager to impress/compensate for my own known issues
B.) I am far too trusting. Believing in the goodness of all people.
C.) Assume that everyone can see the full picture that I am seeing
D.) Assume that the picture I am seeing is actually the full one.
I had a couple of relationships when I lived in Salisbury before my mental breakdown a while back. One in particular was the best thing that had ever happened to me, she was a nurse in the burns department at Salisbury hospital. It worked quite well as I've got no sense of smell and she smelt of patients when she got back.
I did things I never thought I'd do, they had seemed so much more grown up than I was at that time: picking her up from the airport after her holiday with a bunch of flowers... salsa dancing!!! Although I was also the cheekily childish one in the relationship.
Everyone said I was so much more vibrant and genuinely happy which I guess I was, it was one of the few times in life I didn't feel truly lonely. This is a particular bug-bear of mine, that people think everyone with autism is "emotionless".
But stress at work was building up, and she said she didn't want kids, whereas I really did, so thinking we weren't on the same wavelength I ended it. However, looking back I think what she meant was she couldn't... which made me feel like utter sh!t for the misunderstanding.
I don't necessarily need my own kids, I could adopt, or help raise someone else's but kids in my life is a massive issue for me. Like I was actually made an honorary godfather to my mates daughter... something tells me I was made the "honorary" godfather so as to remove the legal custody element that is meant to pass to godparents if the parents meet and untimely end... Haha.
Tbf I went up to see them all in Manchester and we went to a garden centre where we had lunch, afterwards I was left to look after her whilst her parents went in the gift shop... there was a life size fibreglass cow outside on the grass, so I may have perched her on top... You've never seen two more concerned looking parents running out of a garden centre gift shop...
She's an amazing young lady, very intelligent, her name is Robyn and she's 3 now. We've always had a bond, since I started making raspberry/farting sounds when she was a baby and her face lit up.
She asks to see me on facetime and stuff. I even did a rendition of The Gruffalo Song for her... with face paint and a hand stitched purple prickles jacket... Apparently she watched it on repeat for a fair few days. Which her parents appreciated even if it was only giving them a 1minute break each time. Haha.
Sorry the last 4 paragraphs have absolutely no reference to dating. I guess what I'm trying to show is there are different mentalities. I have had conversations with girls, and have heard anecdotally that a lot of girls say blokes these days are all about the sex, and tbh I've probably been one of them in the past. But I think it then comes down to mental maturity. When you realise that time is starting to run out to accomplish what you want to, you start getting more serious about things.
I guess you just have to get to a position where you can work out what mentality someone has, which in itself isn't easy to do on online dating apps behind messaging, and for me, if I somehow make it to meeting up, I find non-verbal signals almost impossible.
It's great that you have gotten out of the situations when you did realise and it's wonderful that you met a super lady who rocked your world. Despite it ending, because of the misunderstanding. It proves that it is possible for you. Keep trying. If you meet a partner who you can explain stuff to and who is willing to tell you how they are feeling since you aren't able to then that's all good. Good and brave communication is the key to any relationship I think.