Romance

Autistic Not Alien said:

What are your thoughts about romance?

It is largely a societal construct where the rules evolve over time and knowing what the other party to the relationship is wanting is incredibly hard.

I find it much more effective to be polite, kind and thoughtful and have a range of gestures to call on, eg:

When you go to visit them, always take a small gift, even if it is something small like fresh fruit, flowers they may have mentioned they like or their favourite snack. Listening to them and making notes on their favourite author / artist / actor helps here.

Make an effort to remember things that are important to them. Use your mobile phones calendar and note taking function to do this when out of their presence so it seems less mechanical to them - the mystique is an important part for many NTs

Ask how they are and how they feel - but not too often. This one is hard to judge but observing when their behaviour changes can be important.

Offer praise for the little things - how they dressed if they look a bit different to normal, if they have changed their hair or have a new accessory - tell them it looks great, suits them, that they have good taste etc. Keep it simple and sincere. It relies on you paying attention to them.

Overall much of this relies on us stopping being so self centered (a very common autistic trait) and focussing on the partner, paying attention and remembering the small stuff.

Autistic Not Alien said:

What are your thoughts about romance?

It is largely a societal construct where the rules evolve over time and knowing what the other party to the relationship is wanting is incredibly hard.

I find it much more effective to be polite, kind and thoughtful and have a range of gestures to call on, eg:

When you go to visit them, always take a small gift, even if it is something small like fresh fruit, flowers they may have mentioned they like or their favourite snack. Listening to them and making notes on their favourite author / artist / actor helps here.

Make an effort to remember things that are important to them. Use your mobile phones calendar and note taking function to do this when out of their presence so it seems less mechanical to them - the mystique is an important part for many NTs

Ask how they are and how they feel - but not too often. This one is hard to judge but observing when their behaviour changes can be important.

Offer praise for the little things - how they dressed if they look a bit different to normal, if they have changed their hair or have a new accessory - tell them it looks great, suits them, that they have good taste etc. Keep it simple and sincere. It relies on you paying attention to them.

Overall much of this relies on us stopping being so self centered (a very common autistic trait) and focussing on the partner, paying attention and remembering the small stuff.

Iain said:

Overall much of this relies on us stopping being so self centered (a very common autistic trait)

Iain said:

I use the same base of the posts on this forum and my rational for the conclusion comes from the sheer number of posts which have common elements such as:

I think it would be helpful if you sometimes said that what you believe is just that, a belief from observations.

I note that you have a tendency to make statements as facts (as in my 1st quote) when they are actually just a view of yours (as evidenced in the 2nd quote).

As I don't agree with the rationale upon which you have come to this conclusion and you weren't able to provide evidence as I requested, we shall have to agree to disagree.

Iain said:

Overall much of this relies on us stopping being so self centered (a very common autistic trait)

Could you substantiate this statement with some evidence please?

My experience is often the opposite, both of myself, the autistic people I know personally, and from reading this forum.

It will of course vary from person to person depending on their personality, irrespective of whether they are autistic or allistic.

Some useful tips here, I think. Interesting comment about autistic people tending to be self-centred. What do other people think about that?