Published on 12, July, 2020
My autistic son wants to be like everyone else and have a partner, home etc. he encounters women at the gym and work and he goes headlong into building relationships with them but he is clumsy, direct and full on. Unfortunately he comes across as inappropriate and a little odd. How do we advise him to take a step back. Whenever we approach the subject he just accuses us of interfering with his friends. We are worried someone will not understand him.
Well maybe he needs to understand that some girls just want to be friends and just because they are nice to him it doesn't mean that they want to marry him. Maybe he doesn't know how to tell the difference between someone who's interested romantically and someone who isn't. Maybe he doesn't realise when he's being rejected? Or doesn't realise when he's being invited. Maybe ask him in more details about his experiences and figure out what he's doing wrong to help him do it better next time. He should also know that it's harder for him than an NT when it comes to relationships so he needs to stay optimistic, motivated to search for love. I think it's better to set his expectations differently as to tell him that it will take time, lot of unsuccessful experiences before he cracks the code. He shouldn't be comparing himself to NTs who get these cues fairly easily.
I think it's better to set his expectations differently as to tell him that it will take time, lot of unsuccessful experiences before he cracks the code. He shouldn't be comparing himself to NTs who get these cues fairly easily.
I don't think that will help at all. You may have heard 'the heart wants what the heart wants?' Well that's the way it is. Providing a reason for why something is unfair doesn't make it easier to bare. In fact you you provide a reason for something being unfair as if it were a justification, as if knowing the reason should make it easier, then actually you're making it harder because you're just confirming that you don't really understand how they feel. So now they feel isolated as well as upset over the unfair situation.
I don't understand what's the unfair thing that you are talking about?.
Providing a reason why someone is failing to obtain something while others do seems ok to me. He might lack the understanding of social cues, undirect messages or relationships because he's autistic. We all do in different levels and it does affect our relationships. Knowing why helps me personally to know where my weaknesses are and improve my skills. It also helps me to not compare myself to others who succeeded in ways that I still don't succeed in. It helps me to be gentle with myself and not expect more than I can handle or expect to be able to get what others have as easily as they have it. I know that I have to put extra work and time in certain areas. I think it's very helpful.
Iain said:I would love to see the grant application for this LoL.
I imagine it works in rather the same way as the bell ringing society at my old university that got the union to give them entertainment funds for videotapes for people to watch while queueing to ring the bell they only had one or two bells. What they didn’t mention was that the videotapes were in fact porn.
so I imagine you would do something on the lines of ‘we are organising a speed dating event involving a buffet meal and musical background accompaniment’ and fail to mention that the musical background accompaniment is a club DJ and the buffet is in fact a bar.
actually when you rephrase it that way, ‘2 speed dating events one only for autistic men to meet women and one for autistic women to meet men,’ it sounds a lot more palatable.
Peter said:imagine a highly subsidised Wild Party
I would love to see the grant application for this LoL.
You make good points on how to create a scientific comparison, but I'm not sure the same methodology works when working with a social perception study like this.
It would be difficult to get a meaningful response on the data you want because of the privacy aspects involved, and by only inviting people who are informed that this is a requirement you already create a bias (ie people who don't want to reveal their sorded debauchery won't go).
There are psychologists studying group behaviour who could provide a better model I guess.
I suspect we may be going down a rabbit hole, an interesting one admittedly, so I'll bow out here.
Agreeing to disagree not with standing, actually I think parity is probably reasonably easy to measure. You could probably look at 4 numbers.
and just compare them to the same numbers for Neurotypicals.
if you define a casual sexual encounter is an encounter occurring within 24 hours of first meeting someone in person. Sure measurements like this I never 100% reliable but it’s a good chance that the biases and errors will even out on both the autistic and Neurotypical side to make the comparisons meaningful.….
also with regards to not wanting Neurotypicals to have to change against their will, it’s worth noting that probably the easiest sort of advantage you could give autistic people would apply in an opt in system. The simplest way to try and give autistic people an edge would probably be to throw them a free party and invite lots of eligible members of the opposite sex.
imagine a highly subsidised Wild Party which only autistic men could enter and that females could get in for significantly cheaper than the entertainment and hospitality in the local area. And then imagine the next week you do the same thing but the genders are reversed. And then you probably have some gay parties for autistic people somewhere else. No Neurotypical is forced to come to the party where they will be surrounded by autistic people of the opposite sex. But they do so anyway to have highly subsidised hospitality and entertainment. That would be one really easy way of giving autistic people an advantage to even the playing field and the Neurotypicals involved are opting into it.