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.

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.

Unknown said:

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

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:

- difficulty in maintaining friendships or even relationships as they find it too hard to deal with the other peoples expectations

- need for lots of "me time" away from others in order to decompress and recharge

- lack of understanding of social rules then when a book is suggested that explains all this then they cannot be bothered to read it or don't want to try the techniques suggested.

- dislike of other people making noises, speaking to them or often generally existing.

- many who have a strong moral compass are intolerant of the more liberal opinions or behaviours of others.

etc

We focus on what we need, feel, want etc rather than others.

These all stem from their autistic traits and it makes us more self centered (not necessarily selfish - a big difference) than neurotypicals on average.

I guess we see life through very different lenses if you see the above and see people being other people centered (the opposite of self centered).

I guess it depends on the book Iain, but when I made that comment about it depedning on your culture, I was thinking of a dating website from some years ago, that was very successful in America, but when it was launched here was an almost total flop, because the questions it asked and the ranking the user gave them were totally different here to the USA, they had to recalibrate their algorhythms and change some of their questions for the UK. If I'd have believed my original thingy from the site I would of been undateable, I spoke to a few other people who'd tried the site and they said the same things.

I don't think I push help away, but being an intelligent and resourseful person I do as much for myself as I can think of, I will research thing and try things out, I tend only to ask for help when I've reached the end of my resourses, unfortuantely the end of my resourses are often ahead of those who try to help, like the pain clinic saying that I could teach them stuff, they couldn't help me, but they admired my resoursefulness. It's really frustrating for me and for those I ask to help, it sounds as though I'm playing the "yes but" game, but I really have tried the things they're suggesting. Then there's the people who don't listen, like physiotherapists, who tell me I've got brilliant strength and flexibility and act like I'm wasting thier time when actually I've gone to see them because of hyperflexibility.

I guess it depends on the book Iain, but when I made that comment about it depedning on your culture, I was thinking of a dating website from some years ago, that was very successful in America, but when it was launched here was an almost total flop, because the questions it asked and the ranking the user gave them were totally different here to the USA, they had to recalibrate their algorhythms and change some of their questions for the UK. If I'd have believed my original thingy from the site I would of been undateable, I spoke to a few other people who'd tried the site and they said the same things.

I don't think I push help away, but being an intelligent and resourseful person I do as much for myself as I can think of, I will research thing and try things out, I tend only to ask for help when I've reached the end of my resourses, unfortuantely the end of my resourses are often ahead of those who try to help, like the pain clinic saying that I could teach them stuff, they couldn't help me, but they admired my resoursefulness. It's really frustrating for me and for those I ask to help, it sounds as though I'm playing the "yes but" game, but I really have tried the things they're suggesting. Then there's the people who don't listen, like physiotherapists, who tell me I've got brilliant strength and flexibility and act like I'm wasting thier time when actually I've gone to see them because of hyperflexibility.