Lying to Attract a Mate

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Listen folks it does get annoying when others demand the moral and ethical reality of a label being part of my identity as if it was the color of my skin and then in my personal life be judged to reveal it or else be judged by the all mighty superficial dating gods. It is absolutely destructive to demand that others to be so superficial that the world, my mind and those around me must revolve around a diagnostic criteria or else be deal breaker in dating. I wouldn't want to date someone that in the first place obligated the obvious to be written on my forehead to.

If someone cannot accept someone for how they are without the disclosure of who and how they are which is already present then the prejudice is self-inflected and self-mandated regardless of others being dumb like some say which is just bad social discourse. This is a real-life manifestation of what I call an obsession of a label and frankly most with autism I know are not even interested in the label and other times not even aware. Now a social clique that wants to be the governing "cultural" definition of people with autism lives is trying and failing to brand it on our foreheads as if some elite medical and psychiatric establishment intended for it to be this way morally in romance.

Be yourself!

Think beyond the label.

Great attempt to create awareness with the romance obligation effecting self-esteem, self-image and back to the diagnostic idenity. Less folks talking about this rubbish aren't even aware of it themselves. It's not healthy.

What will work is giving people a chance to get to know you beyond your label before you drop it on them so that what they've learned about you to that point challenges their preconceived notions.

This.

Okay, I really don't understand your position here. Are you saying that because most people don't accurately understand autism, that lack of understanding should be accepted? Because my position is that it should be challenged by education.

Sorry, I'm not sure I'm following you. I do think adult courtships are quite different than teen-aged courtships.

I'm saying that if you have knowledge of a condition that impacts the relationship and you don't disclose that knowledge, you will be sabotaging your relationship. The first type of sabotage is that you and your partner won't be able to discuss the diagnosis and the challenges it presents, research the diagnosis, and deal with it openly and honestly. The second type of sabotage is that you will have destroyed your partner's faith and trust in you when he/she discovers that you knew about the condition, and hid it from him/her. I agree that a diagnosis of mental illness, or any other type of chronic physical illness has to be disclosed. When you're in a relationship, your life isn't just about you any longer. It's about your partnership, it may be about children (if you have them). So IMO, you absolutely have a responsibility to your partner to do the best you can for the relationship - and that includes working to accommodate your disability.

Seriously, though - what? I had a team lead with ADHD at my last job and he told the whole team about it. I worked with a guy 15 years ago (that I'm still friends with) and he told me he had ADHD more than 10 years ago. Why do you think partners wouldn't disclose that information to each other?

Okay, I don't know how you can consider autism "controlled" - can you explain that?

Again, the impact that ASD has on a relationship is not up to you to decide, because relationships are team sports, you know? It's like saying, "I have this kink that I need you to indulge, but it will have no impact on you - it's just something I need you to do." I'm not saying being autistic equals being kinky - at all. But if you have a kink, and you really won't be satisfied sexually unless your partner participates in your kink, and you want to be monogamous - wouldn't you feel obligated to tell your partner about your kink before your relationship had progressed? If your requirement is, "love me, accept my kink," wouldn't your partner have a right to know about your requirement before she decided to love you? Every person with ASD who wants to be accepted by their partner has that requirement: love me, accept my disability. Of course there are behaviors that can be modified within the context of a relationship, but there are limits. At the end of the day, there are going to be certain aspects of your personality that can't be changed - you can't just choose to stop being autistic. So if your partner is going to be with you, she's going to have to choose to accept and accommodate your disability - and you're going to have to give her that choice.

I don't understand your use of the word "accurate" here: it is an accurate thing to say about yourself if you've been diagnosed. I'm not following you.

i mention my AS on my covering letters for jobs. this ensures that my employers know who they are hiring. i would do the same for meeting a person for dates.

i think more honesty from people doing online dating could lead to a lot more potential success. i've read profiles of people with AS and would have had suspicions about them if i had been perusing their pages as part of the dating pool. if i am even picking up something "different" from a profile, then it is logical a first date would definitely lead to differences coming out.

not everyone may disclose on their online profile, though i would encourage them to do so. but... by the end of the first date, the chance to openly disclose is *gone*, and the chance for a second date has probably evaporated. someone who wants a date with an NT and gets a date with an aspie may be reluctant to continue onwards - and i would not blame them at all.

When people look at a profile and see a person's interests and values layed out on the table, where they get a clear enough idea of the person that what they see in the profile is what they'll get - its a clear and accurate profile. Dating sites are also filled with people who may have ADD, anxiety, depression, OCD, lots of other things - it doesn't really need to be addressed by the because, well, we aren't in 1940's Germany.

Okay posters, here's my suggestion: put together the information you'd like a potential mate to know about Asperger's. Find sources that are objective and fair, and put all that info into one place (in maybe, I don't know, a sticky in the L&D forum?). And then read those sources, and figure out what applies to you as an Aspie, and what doesn't. Be honest - have someone who knows you well evaluate your perspective. Be able to provide an honest assessment of the impact of Asperger's - as it applies to you - as a partner.

There's been a fair amount of discussion about where the line is between people's perceptions of Aspies and autism, and the reality of ASD for each individual. I understand that's a tricky topic, and I understand there's a reason it's a "spectrum" disorder. So don't leave a potential partner's understanding of Asperger's to chance - particularly when it comes to how it affects you.

I think @Techstep mentioned "confidence" as an issue for Aspie men. I have sensed a fair amount of shame in the posts in this thread. I guess that's what I have a hard time understanding. From my perspective, ASD is what it is - a disability. I'm not blind or deaf, but I wouldn't expect a blind or deaf person to be ashamed of their handicap. (Maybe they could be, I just wouldn't expect it.) I find myself not understanding how to correlate the shame I'm sensing with the "confidence" required to attract a partner. If you believe Asperger's is a source of shame, that's going to come across in how you approach the subject with a potential partner. And I think that will be more anxiety inducing for both of you.

So I don't know where this discussion is leading, or if it's even still productive. My perspective - as an NT female - is that there has to be a better approach to disclosure developed than wait-and-see, or actual deception. I understand the problem with stereotypes, and the only thing I can suggest is what I have suggested: break down the stereotypes with accurate information. It would be nice to have a thread where all the confused NT partners could come to get accurate information. There are a lot of women who come here and ask questions about awful behavior that has nothing to do with Asperger's. I know I don't see every one of those threads, but I respond when I see them so at least these women don't walk away attributing every upsetting behavior they experience to Asperger's.

I didn't read the Delphi thread (no offense, @Jono, but after I saw the comments, I didn't think it would make my life any better to read it). But I do believe that Aspie/NT relationships can work (I know more than a few people in successful relationships). But I very much believe that the success of those relationships is not only about "meeting the right person" - their success is about both partners doing hard work. Aspie/NT relationships take more effort, more nurturing, more understanding, and more flexibility than your average vanilla relationship. It doesn't mean they can't be great - they can be. But all that effort and nurturing and everything else relies on a foundation of trust - and honesty.

Again, I'm not sure where this is headed. I know it's foolish to say, "Be proud of being an Aspie," because that's not a switch that can be flipped. "Oh....I should be proud. Well then, I am proud." I know it doesn't work that way. And I know we don't live in a society that embraces differences. I'm not that naieve. But I do believe that at your core, you have to know what you bring to the table as a partner - and you have to accept it, and you have to value it. I want to say that again - you have to value what you bring to a relationship as an Aspie. When you're able to do that, I believe that air of "confidence" you get lectured about will materialize - and I don't think disclosure will be the hurdle it appears to be for a lot of people. At least I hope so.

If someone with AS, bi-polar, OCD, or whatever it is has a mild enough situation where people around them don't readily see it - and their profile describes their personalities and beliefs (which will always be effected by these things), I really think its sufficient. You can say things easily enough without specifically 'saying them'.

Ok, I think I see what's happening. Your coming at this from an angle of them being blindsided by really odd behavior, thinking "Wow, this person is a freak, what did I get myself into?". I guess I'm stuck using myself as an examples if I want to keep this from sounding 'pie in the sky' - I've been on many Eharmony dates, I've never had that reaction from anyone I went out with, the majority of the time I ended up not choosing a second date for my own reasons. Whether I said something about AS previously or not didn't seem to make little or no difference.

dating someone online: my AS would sure as hell be on my profile, because the profile is supposed to be a way of presenting as much honest information as possible at-a-glance. if i am putting my body type, education, eye colour (and even income) on there, then hiding my AS is frankly dishonest.

Making a sticky thread may be a good idea since this this site already has high traffic. Do you think it would also be a good idea to make use of keywords to increase the google rankings? I suspect that Google keeps bringing up those Cassandra sites when one googles Asperger's together with love and relationships because words like Cassandra and CADD are keywords that increase that increase the google rankings. If we could get such a thread on WP to appear on the first page of google searches then maybe we could attract people in potential relationships with aspies to this site rather than possibly getting misinformation from other sites.

The idea of the "casting a wide net" strategy for Aspies with more noticeable symptoms is also ill-conceived. I believe eventually, this method will result in finding someone - anyone - willing to "give you a chance." And who exactly will that "anyone" be? Someone who is too dull to notice the deception? Someone who is chock full of problems of her own, and therefore willing to "settle" for you? (To be clear, "chock full of problems" is not necessarily a deal killer, but Aspies tend to attract partners in this category who's problems are profoundly incompatible with their own.) Or the worst case scenario, you'll get someone who doesn't care, because he/she just wants to use you. When you put out a lie as bait, you can't be surprised when you haul in a liar.

Have you been used before?

Women have hit on me countless times (especially in high school) solely for me to do something for them, oftentimes homework. As a freshman, the fact that I was being used went right over my head, but I eventually got wise to that, and quickly put a stop to it. That's about the time women stopped being interested in me in general... which in turn makes me wonder if being used is the only way to be noticed?