Published on 12, July, 2020
Do you think this is a good idea?
I've read about it and people seem to like it but a lot of people don't. I worry because of my autism I might not be understood by a lot of people. My last boyfriend who was also autistic wasn't the nice guy I thought in the end and ended up treating me horrible.
I'm tempted to do online dating but I'm anxious about it but at the same time I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life. I want to live someone, be loved and maybe have some children one day.
It’s a fantastic idea for a woman (see here https://youtu.be/x3lypVnJ0HM) the proviso being you will need the mental energy to do a lot of manual vetting and filtering on the men who contact you before you invest the time in a face to face.
Thinking of prepping for the date conversations - would you disclose your autism?
If so I would probably consider phrasing it along the lines of
I have Aspergers Syndrome - it means I'm on the autistic spectrum but have relatively low needs.
The reason is that my experience of social bias towards autism on its own is that they expect you to be almost non verbal and by using Aspergers it sounds like something more exotic and is likely to lead to more talk about it.
You are not denying the autism but defusing the social mis-perception and creating space to explain in brief detail without scaring the date away.
I know we should be autistic and proud of it, but you have a goal of finding a partner and you will be able to educate them as you go along, so there is no harm done. Hopefully society will change over time as autism becomes more understood in the mainstream, but is is not yet there.
If you don't want to disclose then you should give time to thinking about when would be the right time to tell them.
I would probably disclose on the date not before.