There may be no shame in not wanting to know?

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I just had another situation that brought to mind my own internal reactions and another wave of sorting out the nuances of my own identity. I enjoy going to my martial arts class a lot, lots of people I get along great with. We had a special event of some type, I stayed around after class and chatted with the instructor and several other students. Somehow we got on the topic of body language, I chimed in a bit on some things I'd seen regarding tests from other guys, confrontation, etc.. One of the guys who's in my class, cool guy - seems like he has his head on pretty straight, was mentioning that if I ever wanted to go over that sort of thing on the phone that he was up for talking about it. The topic shifted to women as well somehow, he and my instructor were both chiming in and he mentioned that if I ever wanted to go out with him and pretty much see how it works that he was up for it.

On one level of course, to see that people think well of me - I'm flattered, and I know that people don't offer that kind of thing if they don't think highly of someone's integrity or character. The only thing that I have to admit is that this topic is one of those that pushes my buttons, conversations like that can reverberate around my head and pop back into mind at the oddest times - make me very uncomfortable.

I think this is why. A lot of guys have a particular skillset, most of them acquired it from just having the right people around them where they got to see it almost under a microscope. What I mean is the specific 'right' way, the straight and narrow of how gender communication is allowed - either by instinct, society, both I think are ultimately the same thing. While I'd definitely be up for going out and grabbing a beer with him or any of the guy's in my class I definitely would not (at least at this point in my life) be up for going out with the agenda of getting phone numbers. While I understand that I could learn the rote specifics of this and act on them, I also have to note a couple of big red flags:

1) Your identity is your identity. You have certain amounts of room to change, however there's a very blurry line, I'd call it actually quite a wide zone, where at least in your 20's and perhaps through much of adulthood you can't tell the difference between changes in yourself that work and overstepping your boundaries to where it'll bite you later because you passed yourself off as something you weren't. Being on spectrum I've had to scrutinize this with great care. This leads to:

2). There really aren't many misunderstandings out there. The opposite sex typically either likes or dislikes you for you. Learning these things makes you more 'successful' but what the heck does that even mean? Now that I'm out of highschool and 'getting laid' is far from a benchmark of success, I look at all the relationships and marriages that blow up from subterfuge, often enough its both parties - I think divorces are more often initiated by women these days and I would estimate that they can hold that subterfuge longer than guys can (perhaps have more internal pressure via biology to do so). Two people faking it together only have so much endurance, hopefully for both of them that endurance isn't long enough to form a legal contract.

3). I'll be honest, with most NT's, positive reactions are just as repelling and chill-inducing as rejection. When I watch the emotional state that women want guys to be in, the dynamic, the times that I've gotten exuberantly positive responses - it was really creepy. I say that because I'm used to that state being violently hot/cold, from sappy happy to utterly sadistic, anchoring it on solid ground is strictly forbidden. It doesn't feel balanced, it hits on a zone where everything that I need to cover for the world is at; I have to be really careful of who I let in. The types of girls who I'd have to meet on the 'straight and narrow' of societally appropriate sexual interaction - when they smell weakness is like a shark smelling blood in the water. Difference = weakness. If I'm with and talking to someone who's like me enough to understand me to the point where we can be ourselves with each other its a different story, to have to put on an act ultimately brings back memories of personality types from grade school where it was so exotic and I was so helpless to interact or even think the same way that I'd be plunged right under again. Social skills can't fix that, they can smooth over the cracks but getting to the core of someone is what relationships are about.

Its not that I think women or guys intend to be utterly barbaric on this stretch of behavior but - we were apes no more than four or five million years ago. This isn't something we get to choose; radiation maybe induces fundamental changes, little else. We've shown just how deep and sharp this rift is in our ability to make the world as it is today - palm pilots, internet, latte stands everywhere you look, we effectively live in a sanitized glass world and at the same time can't escape being very rigid in this category.

What I'm getting at with all of this though - I'm really starting to wonder whether there's any shame in not wanting to pick up these kinds of skills or force yourself to ask for numbers or try these kinds of fronts on? I've had it drilled into me by friends and society so long that its not ok to hang back and relinquish on it, my friends don't get after me quite as much anymore although they get on me to holler at girls out the window - which I won't no matter how much I'll talk it up to humor em for bothering me. Also, my dad's now constantly trying to push me back to the state college (OSU) that my friend moved to - he keeps telling me that there's three girls to one guy. That's great! and....utterly worthless at the same time if I'm in all the wrong places with all the wrong people, which is something that I can be pretty certain of.

Really, when I look at all the barbarism that people have to endure from each other and put up with the be in relationships - I can't relate. I feel absolutely terrible for those who are tied together through children, that's the situation at its worst where they really have no way to escape. I thought I had a strong drive to be with someone or a normal sex drive but, either other people are just much hornier/lonelier than I realized or I realize that I'm just this much of an outlier that if the shoe doesn't fit - I don't want anything to do with it. It seems like by our society's standards to care about these things is weak, wrong, or a sign that your weak or unfit; again, nothing new but its something worth reiterating.

Hope this didn't meander all over to too many weird or dark places but - generally I'm thinking game matters when you're trying to coax someone who isn't right for you (mastery of the obvious I know - though it does go against the grain of what people would tell me). That threshold area where people can't tell up from down, this is where I keep seeing people destroy their lives by the same thought "I can't be myself, they don't like X, Y, and Z about me so I have to be someone else.... I don't like it but this is just the way its supposed to be". That "This is just the way its supposed to be" is likely the most lethal thought here. When I look around and see so many teetering marriages I can't stomach the thought of being most people or living the lives that their paths have taken them on - it seems like all dreams for the future are inherently gone.

You can always do nothing, avoid women and be single for the rest of your life. If that's what you want to do, it's certainly very doable and much easier than dating anyone. Though I doubt that's really what you want to do, and if indeed it isn't what you want to do then you're just talking yourself out of doing things that are more likely to make you happy than staying closed to new possibilities.

There's more I'd say on your beliefs about humanity, but I think it'd be picking at needlessly small details.

^this.

there's absolutely no shame in not wanting to play those games, or not wanting learn to approach women in that way. that is not the only way to meet women.

but i think you are saying a lot more than that. is the risk of divorce really a good reason to avoid meeting someone or eventually getting married? if you are happy with someone, you can just be happy for now or for the forseeable future and let the unforseeable come as it may. nothing is forever, but you can enjoy yourself in the present period. i guess i don't understand the social tendency to focus on the end goal instead of just appreciating the 'now'.

Its been considerably difficult thinking on how I wanted to go forward and answer replies - mainly that I'm really trying to keep my communications clear and roll back the tendency people have the typecast a thread like this just on its face. To clarify I don't mean give up, do nothing, avoid the opposite sex all together, and not marry. I mean that there are certain skill sets, just like different groups, that work for certain types of people and not others. I'm different, I not only realize that I'm different but that I'm different in was that I cannot change - no matter how well I can mask or smooth it over from time to time. So, I have to deal with reality for what it is.

I've always noticed a really strong correlation between people's need to stay tacked down to animal dynamics or coast on things outside of reality as a state of mind that's highly allergic to those kinds of differences. Yes, I've had enough guy friends who could think that way with women - I guess from that end it doesn't mean that I can't relate to people who can enter that zone, but then again that kind of interaction isn't demanded from me. If it were I could maybe keep up for all of five minutes? If I can't get that sort of emotional flow on and pass a drug test, while I have my own set of profound emotions I've noticed that what's healthy for me and healthy for other people varies considerably. If I'm not centered the same way other people are I have to take that into consideration, trying to pry and bend myself to fit into one box or another won't help.

So my title is really about this - in full self knowledge, if a guy or girl doesn't want to try and go out and 'sling the game' because they don't like what they'd get, I don't think there's any shame in that, regardless of the message that society keeps pushing down. I was laying out some of the details as to why I think society's pressures are utterly wrong. With all the pressure that's on us I think its actually much more difficult to accept ones self for finally just saying "F--- image, life is too short, I have to do what's right for me and stick with it", and do so regardless of what people might say or think about the matter.