14 Jul 2013, 11:26 am
anneurysm wrote:
It's a strong possibility that your girlfriend may be uncomfortable with eye contact (many people with AS are) and will close her eyes to lessen the discomfort. If this looks weird to others, suggest that she looks at your mouth or eyebrows. It gives the same effect as eye contact but with less of the intensity for her.
I don't see why it's necessary for her to have her eyes open at all, if she isn't driving or something. Though: If she's worried that it looks odd, you can make the closed eyes look quite natural to passing NTs, just by sitting side by side and having her lean on you. That way it just looks like she's snuggling. It depends of course on whether she's touch-sensitive, but could be an option.
Above all, please remember that your GF's little autistic oddities are part of her personality; they're part of what you love about her. So there's no need to try to push her to change. There's going to be some places where you two are different, but then any couple has to learn to deal with differences, whether that's because the girl wants to go shopping and the guy wants to watch football, or because the girl's autistic and the guy isn't. You just compromise, meet in the middle, learn to laugh at life's little absurdities, and optionally punch out anybody who thinks your girl isn't just fine the way she is. Or maybe she'll punch them out, who knows; we can get pretty feisty sometimes.
14 Jul 2013, 3:49 pm
Callista wrote:
anneurysm wrote:
It's a strong possibility that your girlfriend may be uncomfortable with eye contact (many people with AS are) and will close her eyes to lessen the discomfort. If this looks weird to others, suggest that she looks at your mouth or eyebrows. It gives the same effect as eye contact but with less of the intensity for her.
I don't see why it's necessary for her to have her eyes open at all, if she isn't driving or something. Though: If she's worried that it looks odd, you can make the closed eyes look quite natural to passing NTs, just by sitting side by side and having her lean on you. That way it just looks like she's snuggling. It depends of course on whether she's touch-sensitive, but could be an option.Above all, please remember that your GF's little autistic oddities are part of her personality; they're part of what you love about her. So there's no need to try to push her to change. There's going to be some places where you two are different, but then any couple has to learn to deal with differences, whether that's because the girl wants to go shopping and the guy wants to watch football, or because the girl's autistic and the guy isn't. You just compromise, meet in the middle, learn to laugh at life's little absurdities, and optionally punch out anybody who thinks your girl isn't just fine the way she is. Or maybe she'll punch them out, who knows; we can get pretty feisty sometimes.
Completely agreed
It's all about friendly compromise and embracing who the person is, quirks and all. I should have been more specific above though. I don't see an issue with having her eyes closed if the OP is okay with it and no one points it out, but let`s suppose that she has a relative who always points this out...or she discovers she does it and becomes self-conscious about it. This is, of course, hypothetical, but other than that, I don`t really see it as an issue.
