Should there be accountability for inequality?

The backdrops are typically humdrum and every day. It’s the experience of ‘clicking’ with someone I think that is romantic. Finding you quite rapidly forge a deep connection based upon a common point of view or a common Experience. Or maybe it’s just based on sheer physical attraction.

The location is less important than the opportunity to really get to know the person and be honest with them. Having a third party there interrupting can kind of disrupt that to some extent. Disrupt that sense of natural connection.

A lot of relationships don't seem very romantic to me, in any case. How many people meet their partner at work? What's romantic about that? It's not like Jack and Rose on the Titanic, is it? Or something from a Shakespeare play. Or meeting a seductive stranger on a train. A lot of relationships seem quite boring.

doesn't sound very romantic does it? A date with a 3rd party hanging about reminding you that if they seem weird its only their autism and you should overlook it. The moment you have an authority figgre seeming to tell people how they ought to feel you tend to put their noses out of joint. If you want to tell people how they ought to feel you need to use peer presure. That's what seems to work best with neurotypicals.

“Our sires' age was worse than our grandsires'.

We, their sons, are more worthless than they;
so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.”

• Book of Odes, Horace, 20BC

“We have fallen upon evil times
and the world has waxed very old and wicked.
Politics are very corrupt.
Children are no longer respectful to their parents.”

• king Naram Sin of Akkad,  23rd century BC

I don’t believe it does. Just because I can’t get a girlfriend doesn’t mean society owes me one. Nobody can make me happy except me. Happiness comes from within. I believe society should be more equal but sadly that is not what the majority of humanity wants because look at the world around us. The other day I seen a homeless man in a sleeping bag in broad daylight in the middle of the street. Whilst around the corner there was girls only in their 20’s buying expensive jewellery out some fancy upper class jewellers store. I don’t think that’s fair at all but everyone seems to be okay with it so I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think homelessness should be a thing but it is. It upsets me a lot but no one seems bothered enough to do anything about it. When people get fed up enough all they do is go and riot which doesn’t help anybody because it just makes the government more strict about protesting and gives them an excuse to start carrying guns (to keep the peace). Not sure what the answer is maybe mass non compliance with the system. The world is getting a bit scary these days with all the censorship and wars and viruses. Anyone else concerned with the way the world is going?

On " Paper ", yes.
But in all honesty, it is up to you and me , not society.
just my opinion in this wacky World of ours.

There are many options. The government could have chaperones who introduce Autistic people to potential partners, "middle men" who would help translate the body language to the Autistic person who doesn't understand and help soften the bluntness of the Autistic person to the neurotypical, for example.

Working in a predominately female domain, I actually miss male colleagues. The banter is usually better and they don't bore me with pictures of their kids. 

Peter said:

Sure you hear about these places in the 70s where offices had nude calendas on the wall

I worked in a large power company for around 6 months in 1999 and our IT support office was staffed entirely by women. They had smutty male calendars on the wall of their office. Possibly trying to make a statement but we all took it in good fun.

haven't been very good at maintaining friendships, and friends have 'dropped' me

This seems to be a very common autistic experience.

Amerantin (former member) said:

I made all my adulthood “friends” via work but I think by masking I was giving them a false understanding of me and that prevented the friendships from deepening.

Now that's a different point, and a very interesting one.

I haven't been very good at maintaining friendships, and friends have 'dropped' me, and you may well have pinpointed why

I made all my adulthood “friends” via work but I think by masking I was giving them a false understanding of me and that prevented the friendships from deepening.

Peter said:

I've never even made a friend through work. It a place I feel I need to mask in and I don't think you can realy make a friend much less find a girlfriend while masking.

You can.

By masking you appear more 'normal' so therefore more attractive to 'normies'.

That's been my lifelong experience.

I've made practically all my (few) friends + relationships through work, albeit sometimes by friends of acquaintances.

Peter said:

I think for me to have a work place I didn't need to mask all the the politically corect watch your language culture would have to go. Sure you hear about these places in the 70s where offices had nude calendas on the wall and smuty inuendo was the normal coffee break banter. Maybe in a place like that I could mask a little less but not in this modern 'sensativity' culture. Because I can't be sensative and be myself

I don't think this is to do with masking.

I think it's simply to do with culture having changed (improved) over the years and you don't fit in to the modern culture.

Is that really an autistic thing or is it just aligned to your values?

Masking is masking autism, not whether or not  you are a 1970s man re-born.

Which sadly removes one avenue by which a huge number of people used to meet their partners

No it's the fact that sexual harasment laws were toughened up making employers responsable for employees actions. To some extent it good. But it failed to adress that there are lots of border line cases where someone unintentionaly makes someone else feel harrased. The law doesn't play well with grey areas and corperate lawers want to offer buisnesses certainty. So an if there is smoke there is fire aproch to these bordeline cases is too often adopted.

So frankly employers would rather their employees just not have relationships with each other. Of course tryng to ban that would usually be overreach and could get them in trouble too. So instead they just come down realy hard on any aligations of sexual harasment even if they look like minor incidents caused by honest mistakes.

I've never even made a friend through work. It a place I feel I need to mask in and I don't think you can realy make a friend much less find a girlfriend while masking. I think for me to have a work place I didn't need to mask all the the politically corect watch your language culture would have to go. Sure you hear about these places in the 70s where offices had nude calendas on the wall and smuty inuendo was the normal coffee break banter. Maybe in a place like that I could mask a little less but not in this modern 'sensativity' culture. Because I can't be sensative and be myself, I'm just not capable of it. So I'm always constructing a front at work to some extent.

I'm going to assume you mean spicificly with relation to autism? To an extent. Already in therory (but too often not in practice) employers must take special steps to make jobs accessable to autistic people which of course helps level in playing field on income. The NHS, and the goverment more widely, has a legal duty to try and remove health inequalities in health and social care (although in practice its very easy for them to get out of actually doing anything and turning it into a box ticking exercise instead).

I think you need to ask yourself what would 'sociaty' taking reponsability for relationship sucess and happyness inequalities (for autistic people) look like? Are we going to have goverment issued girlfriends? I don't think any one wants to live in that sort of distopia. And what is happyness? Isolation certainly is a driving factor in depresion and you are a lot less likely to form relationships if isolated. The goverment certainly can and should do things to address autistic isolation.

It's been my observation that its very easy to exclude autistic people socialy and get away with out any negative social or legal consequences. If you label a person as a weirdo or creep instead of autistic it sounds perfectly rational to most people to shun them instead of what it generally is, discrimination. If it's just a circle of friends I'm not sure how much we can do about it but when it's something a bit more orgonised like a club or your local pub that sort of thing should fall under the equality act. The problem is the equality act only really works well if you've lots of money to throw and using it to enforce your rights through lawsuits.

So yes I think the goverment has a duty to address employment inequality (which can lead to income inequality), health inequality and social isolation inequality (which can lead to depression and a lack of relationship sucess). However in practice they will only ever give it lip service unless their hands are forced.

Hell they promissed to let the autistic patients out of mental hospitals and then went back on it when it was inconvenient for them. If we want them to do these things we will have to drag them kicking and screaming all the way.

A quick google on “me too” and meeting partners at work results in dozens of articles from reputable sources. I’ve linked one below which acknowledges that “male employees are worried about asking out colleagues” for fear of allegations of sexual harassment” but then goes on to place 100% of the onus on men to both do the “asking out” and making the woman feel 100% safe.

This of course puts 100% of the risk on men. No wonder they appear to be increasingly opting out.

https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/staff-worried-about-metoo-backlash-over-work-relationships/ 

I know from personal experience and from other people at work that men are vastly more reluctant to approach female colleagues than they used to be, or even to be alone with them 

Social/Romantic relationships between colleagues are discouraged, if not actually banned in many workplace cultures now. 

I feel it likely to be a bit more complex than simply a consequence of the Me Too movement. Societal change is complex.

It probably also depends on your profession to some extent, different cultures.