Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm interested in whether anyone here has dated before and what your experience had been.
I've never dated but I want to and then I don't want to because I'm so anxious all the time and it gets in the way of most things in my life. I've been wanting to date since I was 20 and now I'm nearing the end of my 20s.
In those years I've never dated anyone. I don't have any friends. I hardly go out and I'm so anxious all the time.
I worry about what will happen when my family are gone. I don't want to end up alone for the rest of my life but the chances of me dating are so slim and then there's no guarantee it would work out for me anyway.
I have but never deliberately. What happens over and over again is that I think I've made a friend and then suddenly they're trying to stick their tongue down my throat. I don't know how your supposed to tell something is a date vs hanging out.
I wouldn't know the difference between that either. I'm sorry that must be so uncomfortable and frightening to go through.
I guess upon first meeting you can say that you're just here to hang out and chat casually, that way the person you're with would know how things stand with you. What's obvious to us isn't always obvious to neurotypicals so it can be helpful to explain to them sometimes.
It seems like overkill (and kind of arrogant?) to say that to everyone I happen to hang out with. Also on the few occasions I have picked up on signs that there might be some ulterior motive and said that, the other person usually says "oh no that wasn't my intention don't worry" and then makes a pass later anyway.
It was set up by a UK charity and I think it was aimed at the UK autistic community initially. However I guess once on the app stores anyone can find it.
There does seem to be very little awareness or mention of it on here since it was launched.
I just signed up for that app. Everyone on it appears to be in the USA
There is the Autistic Empathy app that was mentioned on here when it launched last year.
https://www.actionforaspergers.org/autistic-empathy-app/
It is completely free and they are very strict on proof of identity to try to ensure safety.
I believe it is for friendship as well as dating. When I signed up very briefly last year that wasn't working well and users were being messaged about dating when they had specified friendship only in their profile. Hopefully things will have improved since the strict id verification was introduced.
I cannot vouch for it personally. I only signed up briefly out of curiosity and when I didn't send the required id my account got deleted automatically.
There's also one called Hiki but I think that is worldwide and therefore will be harder to find local matches.
I'll never understand neurotypicals they are so strange. I wish there was autistic dating apps, it would make dating a lot easier for me and probably for a lot of others on the spectrum.