Any other Autistic adults who have no desire to be in a relationship ?

I know it's three years later, but i created my account just to say "finally" - someone else who ended a relationship with a brief conversation! I commented to my therapist, the breakup conversation was 16 minutes, one minute for each year of the relationship. It felt strange at the time and for such a long time it felt so casual, to discard something that was a part of my life for so long. When i reflect back on it, it makes me think perhaps i'm actually just not meant for most relationships. I didn't know i was autistic at the time, and my ex is NT.

I've always struggled over the years making friends, had a few relationships, some lasted longer than others. I'm on my own and 69 later this month, so wish i'd tried harder. When people use to ask why don't you get married, i always use to joke back saying ...... My house is my house, i'm not going to share it with some woman who may leave the top off the toothpaste : leave the toilet seat down, and leave her dirty knickers in the sink  !! People would laugh and not quiz me again. I'm sure lots of people thought i was gay. I became a workaholic using that as a excuse why i wasn't going out, when i think the real reason for not going out was autism, i just found it to hard. As i said, i'm almost 69 and i sit here some days wishing i tried harder when i was younger. Dirty knickers left in the sink would have been a small price to pay, for to have some company, just someone to talk to. I've got a Paddington, but teddies don't talk back.

Thank you so much for creating this thread.  I find its existence, and the responses given in it so far, more consoling than you will ever know. I have some specific thoughts and experiences to relate when I can find the mental energy to adequately articulate them, but for now am just recording my gratitude and giving the thread a 'bump' so I don't have to dig quite so deep next time (I first spotted it a few weeks ago, and it's got rather buried since then) to find it. The anxiety that feeling anomalous in not wanting to actively seek out any old relationship just to tick a box and fit in (society and 99% of media and cultural outputs bash us over the head relentlessly with coupling up as the prescribed, near mandatory, 'right' way to be) has caused me a lot of stress, and two breakdowns, in recent years. To explain, I'd have to expand at some length and I feel too drained right now. But again, thank you for helping me find my tribe within a tribe on this forum, and I hope you're doing well. 

Heya,

I've been involved in a few relationships now, twice engaged to the same guy and I was with a lovely woman in between times. 

I was with the guy between 2004-2009 and again between 2016 up until summer of 2021. I was also engaged both times also. The first time we split up it was a fairly bad one as I didn't speak to him again until mid 2016, where we hooked back up again and had a more sensible, loving relationship and got re-engaged on Christmas Day 2016 (very cliche I know lol). When we broke up last year, we have stayed as close friends as he was with me through a difficult time and was one of the first people I spoke too when I began my autism journey. I am glad I have stayed good friends with the guy, but my love for him now is definitely more of friendship than actual relationship. Since the first lockdown we barely saw each other and I was lucky if I saw him every 10 days or so, and it made our relationship feel quite difficult for the both of us. So we sat down and had a chat and decided it was better for us both to just be friends.

Sadly, the lovely woman I was with in the years I was first ignoring the guy (when we broke up the first time), was sadly hit and killed by a bus on a date. She was really lovely and I loved her a lot too. I think of her often.

Nowadays though, I am much happier being single and have no intention of looking for another relationship. I would rather just have my lovely little cat for company now . 

My mother, bless her, still thinks that myself and the guy are going to get back together - despite the fact that the both of us have said no to her lol.

Mweekie xx

I can’t wait to be single. I really can’t.. one more step for mankind 

 I am 63, diagnosed last month. I have been single since divorce in  1984, through choice. There are so many things to fill your life with, you dont need to be dependent on a relationship to be fulfilled. I have been to places I would never have got to, camping in the middle of nowhere, peace and quiet. I have found relaxation in my interests. No need to feel you have to conform. Being single us a choice too. Take care. 

ME I HAVE BEEN  WITH MY OTHER HALF 6WEEKS 

since being diagnosed 4 years ago, i noticed the vast majority of my friends are pretty freaking neurodiverse, invcluding even relatives. (i come from a large extended family, and the NT's have their own busy lives to live, and not much time for weirdos like me, or the few other weirdos in the family).

i'm now struggling to maintain relationships with various friends - maybe especially the aspie-like ones, who i find pretty annoying at times. the funny thing - i'm wondering if the annoying parts are also coincidentally things i habitually do.

i'm trying to remember that we're friends, and that that is what matters. that's a new concept for me; previously, friends could be dropped at the slightest irritation.

I have a friend that will do things for me, like, phone the dwp, do passport applications and flat removals and ferrying around by car, petrol money and treats get reimbursed, he is an ex public relations man, from the higher reaches of industry and can talk any upset person into loving me and all my delightful eccentricities. We have known each other for over forty years. We do have our blow outs and I avoid him for months at times but the old bonds always reform. He can be very annoying indeed at times, especially when he has been drinking, but the good outweighs the bad in the scale pan of human relationships.

There is a massive difference between wanting a relationship (platonic / romantic / sexual) and wanting a relationship with the people you see around you. When I was a kid I used to dream what it would be like to have friends and in my head it usually played out with us gathered around a blackboard talking science or going all famous five investigating some local mystery with hi-tech tools. The reality I was mostly unaware of in those early years is that the average kid my age would rather ride bikes or kick a football than use their brain or meddle in the affairs of adults.

In my experience autistic relationships (friendships, dating etc) work better when they're with other 'weirdos.'

this is a really interesting thread.......  i struggle with my few friends, feel they (must be, right?) are worth so much... yet so problematic. but this thread is the flip side.... 

one thing i wonder about - what do you guys do when you need someone for a hand or ride or to help with something? do you just do it alone, and accept the fact that if something needs two people - you'll just pay someone or do without? i'd assume that means a lot of independence and determination, or having a hard time because you'll have to do without on certain things.....

silly me............. i misread the title as meaning --- being totally isolated... i guess they meant be in a 'relationship' meaning... like a couple or.............even.................omg........married, etc... 

I'm happy on my own. I've no interest in dating, getting married or being with anyone. Just lost my mum who I was very close to and that broke me, don't want to go through that with someone I love and am intimate with. It's not worth it, in the end it will lead to pain and upset when they die or for them when I die. I don't want to go through that and don't want someone I care about to go through it.

I'm happy being on my own until I drop.

You are young yet, I was very aloof as a teenager and young adult, and used to play it cool to the point of liquid helium, too cool for the u.k. scene, women didn't do the chasing. I went to work in Sweden when I was twenty six and there, the women did do the chasing, after having only one real girlfriend in the u.k. and she only for six weeks, I had at least three or four Swedish women interested in me in one year.

One was the Polish Ambassador's daughter, ie not Swedish. I also initiated things for the first time myself as my confidence had risen, I considered myself Steve Stunning Esquire.

Lots of opportunities but I was not able to take full advantage of the options due to chronic inexperience. My advice to you is 'fake it til you make it.' It might sound like masking, it may be stressful but keep a very open mind. I am now fifty eight and look like Uncle Fester from the Adam's family, I would need a time machine and an army of personal trainers to get me back on the dating scene.

Remember that for us, emotional responses can be very delayed, it was years before I cared about what I had lost by way of my first U.K. Girlfriend and, to get her back, I made a drunken phone call to completely the wrong person, it hurt but it was funny too.

I also dated one of two Swedish twins, we all went out on a trip and I chatted the wrong one up for an hour or so, I hadn't given her chance to speak, you guessed it, I was gassing on and on about subtle and bewildering me. Thing is, in our position we have to get a lot wrong before we get it right. Life is a battlefield in which those that are hurt the most are the ones who don't take part.

You are young yet, take a long hard look down the road of emotional detachment and see what's there, if your emotional binoculars see a roundabout with a sign saying...oh no, what have you done? then just do not go there.

I wish you all the very best. Nick

Alone is good. It's not obligatory to pair off.

If the one for you makes an appearance in your life, fine. Never say never. But not needing it in order to be happy is actually pretty healthy. What's right for you, is right for you.

Personally, I'm going through a divorce. I love my husband to absolute bits but he's an alcholic and that was bombarding my senses beyond endurance. If he ever wakes up, smells the coffee and gets on the wagon, I'd have him home in a nano-second. If not, well, there will never be anyone else for me. I got my mates. I've got my son. I'll adopt a cat and knit. I'll be ok. I have no further need for hearts and flowers.

I don’t desire a relationship 

Non autistic partners are critical if they don’t understand autism.

I like being free from constant unnecessary criticism 

I'm 46, haven't been in a relationship per se, since late teens.  Apparently I have missed many opportunities over the years because i'm oblivious to other peoples intentions (several family members have commented on it).  I do miss it, not so much the physical connection, but the having someone around, having someone to enjoy situations with.  Not feeling alone all the time and from time to time whether to just end it all.  So yes if one came my way I wouldn't say no.

But at the same time i've been single for 25 years, so i'm also a little meh. ;)

There's actually no value judgement in being where one is at. Goodness and Badness are values we pick up in society and while the philosophy of ethics is worth looking into, even that is used to measure or compare states of being. Oppressing another for enjoyment (sadism) crosses the line into "badness" in my book. 

Relationships require effort. They require vulnerability, negotiations and are better engaged when we're aware of our limits and strengths, our capacity. When we know our values and can help another understand them without being hurtful (this does not imply the other won't be offended). If you feel, what I would classify as 'Envious' (as Jealousy is at it's core about protecting something we've invested into while Envy is wanting what someone else has), then you're experiencing a desire for a connexion perhaps. And not pursuing this might be a deeper level of consciousness which understands what's at stake. Everything has a cost.

Allow yourself to grow! One doesn't always need a partner in our society. In the past it may have been prudent for survival. I have been in and out of a few and not always with a conscious choice in the matter. But the time I spend alone is typically far more rewarding intellectually and creatively. Until I find someone who appreciates this kind of space themselves and shares a few similar values as mine, I'm rather happy being single.

I will say that humans benefit from community. Showing up once a week to a philosophy or book club regardless of how one feels has always been of value. Save taking a month off once a year for myself. 

I can't even make a friend let alone start a relationship, I wouldn't know where to start. I've looked up tips online how to make friends and I still have none lol. Useless with people so I imagine a relationship would be the exact same, I don't want to think about it lol.

I remember when my marriage ended, obviously I was distraught, suffered burnout and shut down as didn’t even know I was Autistic at the time. Colleagues kept telling me I need to get back out there, that I will find someone else, and that I should get on dating apps….I didn’t want to! I didn’t see the point, or have the urge. People think there’s something wrong with me. 

Incidentally, I think my ex is also Autistic, with other undiagnosed health conditions. When I ended it, he simply said OK I understand, and that was it! We’ve chatted a lot and both know that we probably don’t want to be in a relationship again. Neither of us are looking, and if it happens it happens, but there’s no desire there to do so.

I struggle with making friends, just can't seem to get it right. School was absolute hell, complete loner from start to finish! So with that in mind I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must be to be in a relationship and make it work.

I'm not interested in relationships, at the moment. Maybe one day but for now I'm ok as I am.