Published on 12, July, 2020
I, a 30 something male, have occasional longings for romantic connections. It's so stupid, I have never had friends let alone a girlfriend, and I know it's a lifelong endeavour of self development and discovery.
It is usually triggered by seeing couples walk along the street holding hands or hugging and being bombarded by media no matter how much I avoid it. It has also been a catalyst for my depression which I have since controlled with medication.
It's wrong of me to think about such things when I lack even the most basic friendship and socialising skills which come naturally to most people. I feel like I don't deserve to think about romantic love and I'm putting the cart before the horse. I'm usually content enough when I'm busy with my hobbies and errands.
To be clear, I have ASD Level 1, I have little sexual interest at most and I am always respectful of people. Also I decided long ago to never marry or have children.
Most advice says to quash those troublesome feelings and mind my own business, more so as a guy who is expected to be strong and free of weakness.
A lot of online advice falls back on cynicism and self help clichés, like I should love myself or that autistic men are undateable, etc.
I find men change their tastes in women quite frequently or expect women to conform to a narrow and yet ever changing set of expectations.
I blame Hollywood personally for the idea of happy families and eternal romance, advertisers have taken it up showing shiney happy people and telling you you can be one too if only you buy their products and into the lifestyle that goes with them. It was something that made me very unhappy for a time in my 30's, all my friends happily partnered, weekends and bank holidays seemed to stretch into endless loneliness as everyone was to busy for me, unless it was to babysit. What was worse was that many of them seemed quite happy to have this single friend who was romantically unsuccessful, the backlash was astonishing when I did have a relationhip.
Now I know relationships arn't for me, they're not good for me and presumably not for my partners either. I have come to terms with relating to animals more and better than I do to humans and that a cat has probably been the biggest love of my life, certainly the longest at just shy of 16 years. People go on about soul mates, if I have a human one then I'd probably have to go up the Amazon or somewhere you find rare and exotic species, but why does your soul mate have to be human?
That's true, and vice versa. I actually prefer animals to humans, though I like dogs more than cats.