Dating

I need somebody to love too.

Thank you for the replies. It makes me feel a little less alone in all this. 

I just really don’t like how intense or obsessive I feel. It’s quite overwhelming. The logical part of me can see how crazy it all is and how much I just need to chill out and relax. But the more anxious, autistic, rigid, part of me is just in a whirl, with so many questions and doubts and fears. 

I want to be able to think about something else. I don’t like checking my phone literally every minute. I just want to be able to say what’s on my line with spiralling about it all. 

and why did I drink so much coffee today knowing I was already really anxious? 

Yeh I really need somebody to love.

I think dating is a hard balance. My longest relationship was 2 - 3 years. I realise now I was masking the whole time to be the NT person he wanted me to be, and I ended it because I didn't like who I'd become (isolated from my friends and only really doing things as a 'couple'). Now that I know I am autistic I can watch out for that and be more assertive about my needs and personality.

It is hard, because I'm willing to compromise to have the relationship, but I don't always know the consequences of the compromise until I make it, because it's different in each situation. So I might ignore all the texts with comments I don't understand rather than question everything... Some people will see this as understanding them, some people won't bother because words are transient things to them, others might get annoyed because I don't respond appropriately, others will get frustrated because their words mean a lot to them... And some of them their words are lies or stories which are not quite true, which really annoys me.

On the positive side, my friend's son has ADHD and is in a long-standing relationship with a partner who is a few years older and a wider experience of life. Sometimes the narrow-mindedness of some of our cultures leads us to expect other people to be like us, rather than be curious about differences.

Now I know I'm autistic I'd like to try again, but most people I meet are already coupled up, so I haven't given up hope but am not actively 'looking'.

I came across the term "limerence" quite recently. 15 years ago I had a ridiculous and painfully hopeless crush on a work colleague. After a decade away up in London (thanks to another failed relationship!) I came back to live with my parents, partly because I'd burned out at work, was broke, and needed somewhere to live, and partly to be... helpful for my parents. (They don't really need a carer as such, but dad's health is failing and physical exertion flattens him pretty quickly, so I do housework, gardening, moving heavy things around, fix his computer every so often... thst sort of stuff.) Anyway I had an errand near my old workplace so went back there for a mooch around. (The firm is long gone; the building, surreally, is now occupied by a well known US defence firm.) That brought back all the times I'd tried to avoid bumping into her, whilst of course hoping to bump into her-- even though it hurt like he'll every time. I was then haunted by the memories for weeks. On a drunken whim one night I started poking around to see if I was the only one, and fetched up on the Wp page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence

It was some small comfort to find its a thing, though the prospect of it being a lifelong affliction is pretty depressing.

On another autism forum I sometimes read, questions like "would you take a pill that made you not autistic?" or "you become neurotypical for 24 hours. What's the first thing you'd do?" ... For those of us who feel thr positives outweigh the negatives-- great, good for you, I'm happy you're happy. For me, though, my inability to have a normal, long lasting, happy romantic / sexual relationship -- and all the other deficits and problems which,  I think, have resulted from that -- don't just outweigh thr positives; it drops a cartoon ten ton weight on the scales, like something from the Roadrunner cartoon. 

I stopped asking for advice when people I asked refused to discuss it with me like it's forbidden or some ***.  None of my counsellors could have hoped to understand how confused and screwed up I was about it at the time.

I took so many years of mistakes finding the right person it was lead with bad chiuces but nkw i found someone who gets me and has even helpes me understand why i mabie didnt fit in at school 

Dont rush 

The right person almost knows you as well ot betther than yoh do but also wont try put you in bad situations 

If it helps talk online before talking on the phone and agter that meet up thats how i did it 

Not only did i find a relationship i found a whole new family and a new home town where i feel i fit in more 

Limerence…now this is a term I’ve just come across when trying to understand some of the intensity I feel. I don’t know if having a word for it makes me feel less or more crazy. 

I want to ask for clarity when I dont understand or I’m not sure what is being implied. I want to ask for feedback and advice from people when I can tell it isn’t going well. I want people to be direct and open and honest. I want to apologise for the way I might sometimes come across. I want to do all that and explain that I think it’s probably because I’m autistic. I come so close sometimes but stop because I think I’ll just come across as crazy. But maybe I am crazy. 

And I just go round in these circles all the time. And I don’t think my friends and family will get it. They either think that I’m fine socially or that autism is just an unhelpful label. Or they will just tell me that I don’t need a relationship or that I should be focusing on other things.

But the thing is, I want a relationship. I don’t want to be alone. 

But I’m also terrified that I’ll make the same mistakes I did in my last (only) relationship. I terrified that my intense, obsessive like feelings will cloud my judgement. I’m terrified that my fear of remaining alone with push me to settle. But I’m also terrified that that will all cause me to end up rejecting a good thing. 

Oh god, I feel like I’m really spiralling with this