Published on 12, July, 2020
So I noticed a few days ago a post about a UK version of 'love on the spectrim.' I don't know about you but it got me thinking about very out of the box dating strategies. I think it's universally acknowledged that autistic people, even quite high functioning autistic people, generally struggle to find romantic / sexual partners. Going on TV is one very extreme strategy for finding a partner but have you ever thought of others? If you're like me you approach these sorts of frustrations in life by turning them over in your mind coming up with plan after plan each more far fetched than the last. Personally I'd love to know I'm not the only one. Let me share a few of my mad cap ideas with you.
This one is more or less ripped straight off the big bang theory. The notion being that if your interlect is rather more impresive that your body and you're intrested in finding a mate who shares your intrests why not make it a competion. The general notion being that you put up an advert to an alternate reality type game where dating you is the prize. If this seams fanciful remember a huge number of people competed in Cicada 3301 mostly out of curiosity and the fun of solving the puzzles. Something that could filter out those who are intolerant to my general obsession with science, weird stuff and my puerile ribald sense of humour might be quite a good dating strategy.
People always seem to value things they pay for more and who doesn't love doing stuff for charity. So called charity slave auctions used to be quite popular even if the terminology is no longer PC I could imagine on a docket all the educational accolades might sound impressive. Putting my time up for auction might work. I imagine if I were the the bidder the young lady might just grin and bare an awkward date but if I was the one bid on I suspect the bidder would want to make an effort to make something of the money she spent on me.
These days becoming a VTuber is a bit like becoming a rockstar. They definitely have their groupies. And these groupies are usually anime obsessed, horny 'degens.' So just like me.
That's just a sample. We also have cosplay blind speed dating, setting up my own dating site. etc. What mental gymnastics has your mind gone through to address your dating woes?
One thing I actually tried and tbh didn't work for me was joining one of these autism dating agencies. They'd closed their dating services down due to the pandemic and as it happens never reopened them. They did briefly start a friend meeting service which they told me had no one suitable for me.
That's the problem. 90% of these services have autistic people with intellectual disabilities. If the pair some one with an IQ in the 110s or 120s to some one with an IQ in the 70s or 80s they worry ... well first they worry it will be a bad experience for both sides. It's probably tricky to find common ground when one party is going on about petaflops and the other struggles to send an email. Secondly they probably worry it looks exploitative. That there is the appearance of power imbalance. Whether or not that's justified is another matter. I suspect this is also why you don't see a lot of high functioning autistic people in so called reality tv shows. I don't think any one wants to see an awkward date between people who talk languages which are metaphorically totally different.
Maybe there ought to be a high IQ autistic society. Like mensa for autistic people. I know that sounds incredibly elitist but it would help concentrate the relatively rarer high functioning autistic people together for forming friendships and dating. I'd say any IQ in 3 figures should do (given an IQ of 100 is considered average).