What is your biggest challenge with being an autistic adult?

I think that my greatest problem at that age was being interested in the opposite sex and being completely unable to translate interactions with them into any form of romantic relationship. I did not have the ability to decode non-verbal signals that indicated whether a girl was interested in me or not. As a result I had no confidence whatsoever about trying to ask a girl if she might want to see me outside of school or college. Personally, I had no problem in making friends of my own gender, though I usually had only a couple at any particular time.

I think that my greatest problem at that age was being interested in the opposite sex and being completely unable to translate interactions with them into any form of romantic relationship. I did not have the ability to decode non-verbal signals that indicated whether a girl was interested in me or not. As a result I had no confidence whatsoever about trying to ask a girl if she might want to see me outside of school or college. Personally, I had no problem in making friends of my own gender, though I usually had only a couple at any particular time.

In my teens, I was lusting after older men a few years older than myself at the time or at least a gay guy my own age - one guy in our village got a reputation as the village hunk, because in summer heatwaves he would ride around the village on his racing bike shirtless - we never did find out if he was straight or gay because he suddenly disappeared - then another straight guy I’d just thought was a sweet kid when I was growing up came back into the village a few years later and turned out to be this super hot and super fit hunk and it turned out he was married (damn lol) then there was this annoying kid that used to drive us all insane and he came back from Australia a few years later as this strapping hot hunk, this time an actual bodybuilder and he had a boyfriend in tow (damn lol) 

absolutely this. also if I was interested in someone that would completely lock out any interest in anyone else (and that would stay locked unless there was a very definitive "no interest" from the other party, which seldom came due to my complete inability to properly express an interest in the first place).

I say "interested", with caution too, as this whole idea of men being some kind of predatory creatures who're only interested in "one thing" and not a companionship and taking things very slowly has dominated popular culture which also made me very self-conscious as I was very conscious about any advances towards anyone being taken that way which perhaps made me even more standoffish and confused. A total nightmare.