Gender Differences for ASD People re: Dating/Relationships

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It's definitely fair to acknowledge that aspie women are more likely to encounter difficulties than NT women attracting a partner. I said men generally need a higher level of social competence than women do to get into a relationship, but women often need to have a certain level of social competence too. I think if we compared the quantity of aspie men that can't get a relationship to the quantity of aspie women that can't get a relationship though, we'd find that more aspie men have difficulty getting into relationships than aspie women, even accounting for the male-skewed ASD diagnostic ratio.

Nope it’s too late for me.
Makes me sadder to hear of others dating at 20s getting 10-20 years of love and relationships I never got and never will.

You don't know that. 31 is still relatively young. I understand you may not feel that way, but objectively speaking you still have alot of time. I'm sorry I don't have specific advice for you, other than to keep trying. I mean for whatever little it's worth, I still have hope and look at my age and remember I haven't had a partner in almost 20 years (an abusive one). I expect I will meet someone eventually and I don't see why you shouldn't expect the same, which is probably key to keeping your hopes up. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's probably worth the emotional work in the long run if you really want to find someone. I'm not saying you aren't allowed times to be pessimistic about it, even to feel hopeless, sometimes. But you have to work on yourself, including working at keeping your hopes up. If I can do it, I don't see why you can't too, and that should pay off eventually.

Im a min wage working guy I’ll
Never have anyone and I’ll never get the youthful 20s relationship I want .
I don’t want to live past 35. Hoping I’ll die or find way to die before then. Maybe I should just say screw it and over eat and lots of sweets.
Only reason I haven’t ended it is I’m religious.

You had a relationship so that’s why you keep hopeful I have ever had one or anything close. Likely to remain so until I die.

“Until age 19” is nothing, your case isn’t an example of chronic difficulty or abnormal struggling. I haven’t had any date until age 29 if I recall right -> now THAT is abnormal.

Most people start dating at 18-19, so nope, nothing is extraordinary in your case.

Yes and no. Ok I had a relationship. As Twilight said earlier in the thread, however, isn't it better to be alone than to be in an abusive one, as I was?

That's not the reason I'm optimistic. You're right that I've said some other experiences where girls were interested in me, but that was a long time ago. People change, Sly, and it's not like things get easier as you age in alot of ways.

No, the reasons I'm sort've optimistic are (among other things) I think the work I'm doing on myself, the assets I have (and I don't mean financial ones, remember I'm on public assistance b/c I can't work), the fact that I have goals/a sense of purpose, the fact that I know what kind of woman I'd like to date and the fact that there are millions of people out there looking for a partner. There are over 3 billion women in the world so I simply think there are decent odds of meeting someone if you have those things going for you. Plus, as I said, attitude. It takes work, Sly. The pep talk I'm giving you is to encourage you that if you work on those things, whatever your goals/purpose are, knowing yourself well, knowing what kind of person you wanna be with, trying to be hopeful. Those are at least some of the key things that will help you. I don't know any magic formula unfortunately but I just think the numbers do favor you in the long run if you keep at it. Even if for now that just means working on yourself, that's ok. But you have to do some of that. Those are some of the things that can get you there.

And I should add, the things I listed among others are attractive to alot of people of whatever gender. That's a big part of meeting people and making friends, just as it is in looking for a romantic partner.

I felt like an outlier when I couldn't get into a relationship by 19. I'm not sure what it's like where you are, but here in the west, or at least where I am people start dating around 14/15. All of my friends and everyone I knew had been in one or more relationships by the time I was 19. Granted, there are obviously people who have gone longer without ever getting a relationship, and I think every year that passes that you've wanted a relationship is harder to cope with when you've never had one, but I still wouldn't discount the difficulty of not having had a relationship until 19. If you started wanting a relationship when you were 12 and everyone you know gets into a relationship by 19, 7 years of that unfulfilled desire is pretty taxing. It would be like if you started wanting a relationship at 18 and didn't get one until 25.

Puberty hit me like a freight train, and struck early, so hormones kicked in and I started wanting a relationship since I was 12. Here I am, going to be 23 in 3 months and I've never had one. It's not easy to be optimistic when the thing you've wanted more than anything for 11 years has never happened for you, yet you're supposed to just deal with having to watch pretty much everyone else able to get it

Yes, I think everyone would agree with that, but for people who've never had a relationship despite wanting one, that's besides the point. It'd be like saying to a poor person "Listen, I know you have no money, but isn't it better to have no money than to have counterfeit money? At least you can't go to jail for counterfeit."

That's about how useful that sentiment is.

I don't think so. The implication of what you're saying is that it's better to be w/someone who's often hurting you physically, psychologically and emotionally than not to have had any experience whatsoever. And having been through 3 years of that myself, if I could do it all over again, would I? Probably not.

I was additionally forced to involve her after my mom died and was in a rush to sell her house b/c I had almost no one else to turn to do to get the job done. And what happened over those 2 months? Well she wasn't hitting me any more or forcing me to bang my head on the wall (I guess that's a plus), but enduring verbal abuse every day just made an already overwhelming situation more traumatic. Again, I'm still not sure 8 years later that it was worth the trauma of involving her just to beat a deadline to sell my mom's house. What I do know is I never want any contact w/her ever again for what should now be obvious reasons.

You say that's beside the point to people who've never dated someone. Should we do a poll on that or something? You go on to compare an abusive relationship relative to being single your whole life, you compare that to someone telling a homeless person it's better to be broke and homeless than to go to jail for counterfeiting. I find the comparison absurd. Being single your whole life can make you very unhappy, no doubt, but that's comparable to being homeless or in jail? Should we poll a bunch of homeless or incarcerated people and ask them?

I agree that intimacy is a basic human need, absolutely, otherwise I never would've started this thread or posted anything on this board. And I sympathize, in fact I empathize w/people who've never had the experience. But as I've said, whatever traumatic experience I had 20 years ago was basically back when I was a different person. I'm not him any more and whether you or others agree w/me on this or not, I might as well have never had any experience it's such ancient history. And I guess I'm saying I'd trade in that history of trauma to have never been w/someone if I could.

I’d rather have an abusive relationship then no relationship. My brother had 15 good years or more before his relationship became abusive, that’s 15 years of love, companionships and tons of sex. My online friend and his gf fight a lot but they also love a lot. I doubt your relationship was always a abusive? People tend to remeber the bad more then the good. I’d gladly take 5+ years of love for the trade off of years of abuse.
My job sucks, it’s horrible, but I’ve gotten a lot of stuff from it and it wasn’t always horrible. I won’t tell people not to work nor do I regret taking this job. Just cause it’s not abusive and horrible doesn’t erases the good years. Best I can compare never having had a relationship.

Women have never been interested in me.

Nope you’re right things get worse, so that’s why I’ll always be alone. I’m going spend my whole life alone . I won’t ever be happy about it and gosh willing it won’t be a long life.

The only asset that matters is income with it nothing else matters.

3 billion isn’t a real number unless you plain to date 5 year old girls, or are wealthy enough to travel. So let’s be realistic my dating pool is my city, likewise probably same for you. And there’s about 3,000 more men age 18-40 in my city then there’s women, so nothing to be hopeful about. And half the men are poor like me while all the women are highly successful and don’t want to date men who make less then them.

Also globally there way more men then women. Then Numbers are not in our favor. Many millions of men through out history never dated or had relationships and died alone unloved and unwanted. That is my fate.

I have zero desire for in person female friends, nor do any females deem me good enough to talk to, non less be friends or date. I’m really am deemed worthless subhuman by most women.
All my activity partners have been men, women tend not to share my interest and the ones who would disapprove of my existence and government aid.

I don’t meet people ever. I’m poor. No one likes poor people.

Given the first eight words I typed, I have no idea how you could conclude that I was saying that being in an abusive relationship is better than being in no relationship.


I think you're misinterpreting what I was saying. I'm not saying that being in an abusive relationship isn't a problem, just that the fact that abusive relationships exist is of no consolation to those who can't get relationships at all.

And I'm not comparing the severity of never having had a relationship to being poor or in jail. I'm highlighting the lack of utility of telling people in horrible situations that their situation could be worse. Another analogy would be telling someone who can't get a job that "at least you don't have a mean boss".

I'm sorry that you've experienced this trauma, and I hope you find yourself a healthy relationship. My point here is not to minimise abuse or trauma, but just to say that I don't feel any better about my situation just because I could be in a worse situation. Things in life can always be worse. You might say that your horrible abusive situation is better than an abusive situation where somebody is being beaten within half an inch of their life on the daily, but I'm sure that doesn't make you feel much better about the trauma you endured.

I'm bi but I pretty much only want to date women going forward for the simple reason that these issues keep cropping up with me in hetero relationships. Women I date seem to understand boundaries better. I know it's not PC to say that but the guys I've dated aren't PC either, not even PC enough to understand no means no.

I'd date a guy who respected boundaries, actually physically appealed to me (not many do so it's easier to just say I'm gay than offend guys), wanted a butch woman and was prepared to let me be me but I'm fed up of being put into a certain feminine 'role' and pushed into sex when I don't want it. By sex, a lot of it is actually BDSM which I consider abuse without informed consent.

I'm very rigid. To a NT it looks like I've forgotten my partner exists but in reality my brain gets stuck on a thought loop and I can't pay attention to anything else at that point in time.

I don't think the NT typical framework is useful for comparisons. I mean, I had several nonverbal "things" going on in high school and college, the latter lasting almost three years, but none of them got to the point of a typical relationship, and I cannot say I would have wanted them to either. I was rather content with it as it happened.

My first relationship was at around 30, and then I got engaged and married a few years later (to another woman).

Still, I think my current love that started at 52 is by far the best ever. I would have wished we could have met when we both where in the 20s, but things didn't turn out that way.