Published on 12, July, 2020
I am an occupational therapist who works with autistic teens and young adults. I am curious- what is the biggest challenge autistic teens and young adults face as they transition to adulthood? Is it the fear of being lonely? Employment? Succeeding in college? Being accepted by others and making friends?
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.
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.