Social anxiety and dating

It is strange, I felt the same puzzlement; in my younger days my friends and other people I knew seemed to find making, and indeed breaking, romantic relationships easy. I could look in the mirror and dispassionately say that appearance-wise I was on the on the attractive side of average. I also knew that I was basically kind, loyal and reliable, but had absolutely no success romantically. 

The big breakthrough for me - I have been married for 26 years now - was the realisation that I had to be proactive, and that no potential partner was going to declare undying love at the mere sight of me. It is very difficult, but in order to form a romantic relationship it is necessary to make oneself emotionally vulnerable and emotionally available. This comes down to actually saying, or giving unmistakable hints, that you find someone attractive, which is not easy.

Neurotypicals can read people and situations easily, we cannot, which means that neurotypicals can be fairly sure, from non-verbal cues, that someone is attracted to them even before anything is said. Therefore, they know when they can expect a positive response. Unfortunately, we do not receive or appropriately interpret  these signals, so we have to take rather more of a chance when we inform someone else of our romantic interest with them. We also tend to need to know someone quite well before we feel relaxed with them. I had known my future wife for three years before I asked out on a date, luckily, she said yes. Don't give up hope, but do try to make positive efforts, and if you don't get it right the first few times you try to make a connection with someone, you haven't really lost anything.

It is strange, I felt the same puzzlement; in my younger days my friends and other people I knew seemed to find making, and indeed breaking, romantic relationships easy. I could look in the mirror and dispassionately say that appearance-wise I was on the on the attractive side of average. I also knew that I was basically kind, loyal and reliable, but had absolutely no success romantically. 

The big breakthrough for me - I have been married for 26 years now - was the realisation that I had to be proactive, and that no potential partner was going to declare undying love at the mere sight of me. It is very difficult, but in order to form a romantic relationship it is necessary to make oneself emotionally vulnerable and emotionally available. This comes down to actually saying, or giving unmistakable hints, that you find someone attractive, which is not easy.

Neurotypicals can read people and situations easily, we cannot, which means that neurotypicals can be fairly sure, from non-verbal cues, that someone is attracted to them even before anything is said. Therefore, they know when they can expect a positive response. Unfortunately, we do not receive or appropriately interpret  these signals, so we have to take rather more of a chance when we inform someone else of our romantic interest with them. We also tend to need to know someone quite well before we feel relaxed with them. I had known my future wife for three years before I asked out on a date, luckily, she said yes. Don't give up hope, but do try to make positive efforts, and if you don't get it right the first few times you try to make a connection with someone, you haven't really lost anything.