Untitled rant

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Where do I start?

I've learned recently about the Social Model of Disability. The social model contrasts to the medical model of disability which views disability as a problem within the person that requires 'fixing' for the person to participate fully in society. The social model distinguishes disability from impairment. Impairment is a characteristic of a person that affects the function of their body or mind. Whereas the disability is caused by how society is structured in ways that fail to accommodate impaired individuals. When talking about ASD, struggling to maintain eye contact or understand non-verbal social cues are considered impairments, while disability results from the prejudices of society toward people who struggle to conform to unwritten social norms. For instance, an autistic person may be completely qualified and capable of performing the duties of a job they are interviewing for, but the interviewer dismisses them from consideration because their failure to maintain eye contact made him uncomfortable.

But even if every building in the world was wheelchair accessible, would that really make people with disabilities feel any less lonely?

In relation to social and romantic relationship this becomes even more complicated. Most people exclude people like me from consideration as a romantic prospect because we fail to meet certain expectations. It is a relatively simple matter to legislate laws that prevent employers or universities and other institutions from discriminating against autistic individuals. But you can't pass a law forcing anybody to date, marry, or sleep with someone with autism. Not would I want there to be any such law. I don't want a woman to have sex with me because she is forced to. I could pay for sex with prostitutes, but I want a woman to accept and be interested in me, not to pretend to like me because I'm paying her to. I often hear the phrase "you're not entitled to sex." Well, nobody is. Women don't date, marry, or sleep with other men because those men are entitled to sex; they do because they are attracted to those men and they want to. So why doesn't anyone ever want me? Its not that women don't like me at all. They clearly do like me within the limits of the box they want me to stay in. And I don't fault women for not being attracted to me. I don't mean that a self-pitying way. I'm just everyone is attracted to who are and not attracted to who they aren't and nobody is ever obligated to justify that to anyone. I'm not angry at women. I'm angry at the situation. I'm angry at the universe for placing me in it. Women are not attracted to me because I'm autistic, or because I have low testostrone, or because I grew up in an Islamic society where I never had the opportunity to even learn how to talk to girls or learn to flirt growing up. Whichever it is, I never asked for any of that, and its completely arbitrary that the universe decided to settle me with all that baggage and not Chad down the street. But can I really complain? After all, I don't want to be with a woman I'm not physically attracted to. I don't want to sleep with someone ugly. I missed out on dating a beautiful young woman when I was young and now I'm old and I'm not even attracted to women my own age anymore. So do I have a right to complain that women are doing nothing different than what I am when they want the tall handsome athletic guy? At one point I had a co-worker was gave me the impression she was into me, but I found her unattractive because she was a large masculine woman with high testostrone. So how can I expect women to be attracted to a guy with low testostrone like me? Do I have a right to demand that autistics be given equal consideration in the dating game while wanting to maintain my right to not date trans-women? Is it fair for me to want to be with someone who is young, beautiful, and sexy; while at the same time expecting her to accept me as I am?

It would certainly make it easier for people with physical disabilities to find friends, perhaps primarily with other disabled people, but occasionally with other people too.


Agreed.

However, if we can make enough progress in overcoming workplace discrimination and gaining workplace accommodations, then more of us can at least earn a decent income. Other factors being equal, those of us with decent incomes (especially heterosexual men, but other people too) generally have a much easier time finding romantic partners and potential spouses.

On another subject, there do exist women (primarily some bisexual women) who don't mind low-testosterone men, or who even are attracted to androgynous men. There were plenty of androgynous men among the people I hung out with when I was in my twenties and thirties, and they didn't seem to have any trouble finding partners in my circle of sexually noncomforming, generally oddball friends and acquaintances.

Ok, I actually find some Virgin vs Chad memes funny but you shouldn't let them influence your worldview. While you could, if you chose to, divide the world into people who have more sex and people who have less sex, specifically buying into the "virgin/chad" dichotomy comes with a bunch of attached stereotypes and beliefs that I think are harmful. Particularly the belief that the virgins and chads are the way they are because of immutable characteristics. You should look at life with a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset.

Like, I am by definition a virgin, but I don't let internet memes affect how I perceive myself because of that.

I just needed to put a name there to represent some random person who isn't living my life and I went with the Chad meme. I never meant that much to be read into it.

*Sigh*

I feel you, brother, I really do. I’m well aware of how my peers perceive me, how girls would always be like, ew, freak... So I understand how it is to feel like society is against you, how the only girls you could be with are, um...nasty and desperate...and that’s me being nice. I’ve been there.

But I also know that people will generally behave how you expect them to. When they don’t behave according to your own high expectations, the logical thing to do is assess WHY someone failed you and decide how to go about getting the results you want. You expect an attractive girl to be attracted to you. So when she doesn’t, you have to ask why. If it is something you can control, then you adjust your own appearance and behavior. In other words, before you can expect much from others realistically, you have to expect much from yourself and hold yourself to your own high standard. Along with that, you have to value yourself and see value in others. But more importantly, you have to be honest with yourself about these values. People will often pay lip service to wanting an attractive mate. They are not willing to put much work into themselves to successfully have one. If it is important and worth it to you, you will behave differently and put the effort into it long term. If you would rather blame autism and society and your Islamic upbringing for your difficulty in finding someone, then that indicates to me it doesn’t matter THAT much to you. If it really meant that much to you, you wouldn’t feel the need to rant and you’d probably display a much more positive and optimistic outlook.

I’m not a big fan of society at the moment. But it’s useless to blame society for all my problems when the only one responsible for my behavior is me. I dumped my fiancée and took a slightly more aggressive approach to women. A girl would mention her boyfriend or fiancé in conversation, which ordinarily translated means “p!$$ off.” Well...I refused to take that at face value. You really mean that, or are you REALLY happy with your SO? After breaking up with the only gf I’d had for the last 5 years, fear of rejection wasn’t exactly something I worried about. I lost more often than I won. I only THOUGHT rejection in high school was bad. But I’d accepted rejection as just a part of the process. Sooner or later it almost always works out, and if I ended up in bed with my frat brother’s gf, so what? And no, I wasn’t targeting women who were spoken for. It’s just that I’d come out of a really bad relationship and happened to spend time talking with women who were more or less in the same boat at the time.

I couldn’t be bothered with how unattractive I was—and that has only gotten worse, btw. Girls are attracted to bald guys, yes...but I’m more the ugly, patchy kind of bald, not the chrome dome Vin Diesel/Shaq bald. What I eventually did was grow out my beard to balance it and take clippers to my scalp. People love to hear me play saxophone, clarinet, and piano, and I can even work some magic on the alto recorder. Embracing my ugly, bald, artist side seems to make me MORE rather than less attractive, and people will generally be more forgiving of physical and social and even mental deficits if you have that one solid, consistent thing to offer. I tended to obsess over things like music, religion, and philosophy, but I was also deeply obsessed with women’s media and romance novels. Trash literature, basically, but trash lit that shed a light on what women’s interests—books for women from a woman’s perspective. I learned how to adapt the language and behavior of some of these male characters and approach girls like a regular Chad. What little bit I’ve read about PUA’s shows me a few similarities between what I do and how they do things—which, IMO, PUA methods work as long as guys have authentically good intentions towards women. They more often don’t, though, and I think this sets up negative expectations that end up only frustrating guys like me rather than helping.

My main point in saying all that is you really do have to make up your mind to go through with it and not let your real or perceived compatibility with society be the main driving force behind approaching women. You end up selling yourself short worrying too much about what society thinks, and you certainly won’t get anywhere if all you do is contort yourself into an unrealistic image of what women supposedly want. Reading romance novels didn’t make me some Uber-Chad. It just shed some light on women’s interests and expectations, which in turn informed me on how I could just be myself and communicate effectively with women while showing interest in them. I don’t deny that I bought into a victim mentality at one point, and it took time to figure out what the problem really was. The main lesson is to give yourself a chance. Do that, and others will as well.

Uh

The problem with that is the same as with any situation that involves limiting myself to a small subset of the dating pool. We would need to both find the other attractive. And neither of us can possess characteristics the other would consider a deal breaker (for example, I once was on a date with someone who told me she was into BDSM stuff I'm not comfortable with). Finding someone who meets all these criteria is difficult enough just within the overall dating pool in general. To further be limited to a subset that represents 10% or less of that dating pool makes it virtually impossible. I resent the idea that my only option is to settle for someone I'm not attracted to simply because she's one of the 0.01% of women who are willing to date someone like me.

Don’t get too much into that “Chad” stuff.

Trust me....it would mean futility for you.

You’re a smart guy. Get out of this Incel crap.

Yeah, I'm not touching that immature BS with a ten foot pole.

I've already responded to that.

"Chad down the street" is simply meant to represent men who've experienced a more typical life trajectory than what I have. It is not meant to invoke Incel ideology.

You all know that there are actual people named Chad, right? I had a friend named Chad when I was in college, and I've met a handful of other people with that name over the years.

Chad Everett was a famous actor.

There are a few other famous Chads.

Just don’t get sucked into the notion that you’re undatable.

How else do explain that I haven't had a girlfriend in 12 years?

If I was datable, something would've happened by now.

I'm 33, and never had anyone that called me "boyfriend". Surely something should have happened by now, right, I mean, I went to school, did things after school, went to college, had jobs. Something should have happened, right? Wrong. I didn't try, or rather, I never put myself in a position to succeed like that... Perhaps until now.

You're only as datable as you make yourself be. You control your success and failure.

(I'm in a relationship of sorts that has yet to be defined, but that's beyond my point.)

Growth vs fixed mindset my guy, look it up. I'm 23 going on 24 and have had no romantic experience in my life. But I'm improving myself and keeping an open mind. And, I don't mean this to sound antagonistic in any way, but you seem fixated on wanting someone "young, beautiful, and sexy." Ok, there needs to be some attraction obviously, but there's more to attraction than appearance. You've never met a woman who didn't catch your eye, but after talking to her for a while, noticed her become more beautiful? Just keep an open mind.

I did try and I did put myself out there many times. I approached many women when I was in college and women at work over the years, and was consistently turned down every single time.

Things I can change:

Lose weight and get in shape.

Things I can't change:

I have ASD, anxiety, and depression.

I have a high pitched voice that makes people consistently think I'm a woman on the phone.

I have low testostrone.

I am unable to achieve financial independence despite having a university education.

I am too old to do many things I would like to.