The Need for Romantic Intimacy

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I'm not sure if there are any political issues I feel strongly enough about to get involved in activism. My interest in politics has more to do with learning about others' views, and the reasoning behind them.

If I was to get involved in activism, it'd probably be for a cause that was pertinent to my life and problems.

Precisely!
If you can't be happy on your own, no relationship fill that void. If you truly love yourself you make yourself attractive for others. Self loathing is a major turn off.

Well, in one way at least, you're in luck. Although autistic men vastly outnumber autistic women, female autistic rights activists seem to outnumber male autistic rights activists. Quite a few of these are LGBTQ+ but some are cis het.

Next question:

What are your career goals?

I wish I knew. Figuring out career stuff has been another ongoing source of grief for me. My second attempt at university this semester didn't work out, and I've withdrawn from my units. I think the door is open to go back next semester, but at this stage, I don't think I'll be doing that.

At the moment, my mum and I have been focusing on rebranding the trivia business and seeing if we can expand and potentially get to a stage where we can make our livings off of hosting, and perhaps branching out into other things like bingo. I'm not overly confident in that working out well enough to provide us both with full-time incomes, but I don't have much else in the way of career direction at this stage.

Do you think the average person would be content to live out their life never getting to have romantic and sexual experiences throughout the entirety of their existence?

What course(s) were you taking, that you did not succeed at? What kind of career goal, if any, did you have in mind when attending school?

Are there any school subjects you especially enjoy?

What kinds of career goals, if any, have you had in the past, even if you subsequently deemed them not to be realistic?

That's not at all what I was saying.

To be clear, learn to love yourself and you will be ready for romance and relationships. I believe that self love and self acceptance is the foundation for any type of relationship. I had to learn this the hard way. I had to learn to fist accept that I had a right to exist and take up space in this world, despite a long history of rejection and non acceptance for being weird. I had to learn to exert my right to be happy and to have a space in this world which belonged to me. I slowly gained some self confidence and that blossomed over many years into self love. There are no shortcuts and it's hard work.
Try using some positive affirmations. Things you say to yourself that make you feel worthy and respected. Even if you don't believe it at first. You need to start to feed your brain with positive views about yourself in order to start this process. If you rely on someone else to do this for you it will not work!
My affirmations were:
1. I am a good person who deserves to be happy.
2. I have a right to be happy and live a fulfilling life.
3. I respect myself and am worthy of respect from others.
etc. etc. fill in the blanks

Who ever said anything about me not loving myself? Why is this a talking point that gets brought up when the grievances I'm airing are about my inability to experience romantic and sexual intimacy?

If you acknowledge that most people wouldn't be content to live a life completely devoid of romantic and sexual experiences, why is it not clear to you that that is the problem I'm dealing with?

To me, romance is harder to live without than sex.

Sex without romance means virtually nothing to me.

What happens within your online relationships? I understand it’s not the same as in-person relationships.

It was an IT course. I didn't have a specific career path in mind. I saw a career counsellor who recommended I take that course based on my answers to the tests she gave me.

I didn't hate the course, but I didn't love it. I don't think I'm very self-sufficient when it comes to getting unfamiliar tasks done that I don't find particularly enjoyable, especially if I'm undertaking them alone and without someone to help guide me initially. I think I'm something of a slower learner in that my brain needs to soak up more detail than the average person before the penny drops and I really know what I'm doing, but I think that also means that if I persevere, I'm able to achieve a more in-depth understanding than most do.

When given the freedom to slack off, that tends to be what ends up happening, despite my efforts to plan to get things done. I think there's some executive dysfunction at play, and probably also some lacking motivation. It wouldn't surprise me if depression and a lack of fulfilment with my life also factor in.

It's never been obvious to me where I fit in the working world. I find it difficult to comprehend the scope of a given career based off of just a description, so that makes it more difficult to weigh up good and bad options. It's easy enough to pinpoint some career fields I'm not interested in (I don't like physically intensive work, or work that drains my social energy too much), but finding those that I'm interested in is more difficult.

Maybe my depression is just that bad that it's difficult to pique my interest when it comes to doing things. Or maybe I'm just too much of a thinker and not enough of a doer.

Before I mention career paths I've considered, I'll go through what I perceive to be my strengths. I'm a very detail-oriented person. I'd consider myself a fairly good problem-solver (though not when it comes to career clearly). I'd say I have a way with words. I can multiply two-digit numbers in my head and I'm pretty good with general maths skills. I'm a perfectionist in my approach to tasks, and I develop strategies to try and get things done in the most efficient way possible.

I considered trying to become a bookkeeper years ago, but I abandoned that idea out of a fear that bookkeeping will be automated away and I'll be back in this position again, and because the earning potential wasn't very high. I'd thought about possibly doing something in IT. I've also thought about doing something related to finance and money, but my perception is that those fields would require me to cut my long beard, and my beard is extremely important to me. I've considered leveraging my way with words and maybe trying to get into marketing, but I'm just not sure. I've considered doing something related to politics, but I wouldn't have a clue what.

Why is the beard that important to you?

Why not become an accountant? Especially if you like finance.

Bookkeeping is digital, yes—but a person still has to oversee the ledger. A computer program can’t pick up patterns that a person can.

There is still a great need for human accountants/bookkeepers.

I feel similarly, though I would amend the statement to say that sex without a mutual desire means virtually nothing to me.


I wouldn't call them relationships. Generally we just talk, maybe flirt, and for a while I feel like someone could actually like me romantically. It helps me feel a lot better.

But I also know that they're only getting to see what I'm choosing to show them. If they saw me in person, there are a few different things that might turn them off.

Something that might combine all of the above: a web developer of political campaign websites? Or perhaps a data analyst for some large political organization or think tank? (Data science is a hot field these days.)

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 06 May 2022, 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

I would suggest that you try taking interactive online courses, e.g. on brilliant.org. Supposedly, at least, they have ways to make it more engaging and hold people's attention better than the typical college course. You might try either their "software development" sequence or their "data science" sequence.

I would suggest that you learn everything you can on brilliant.org, then go back to college and take a placement exam.

Yes, these are potential options. When I started my IT course, I was considering the data science field as an option.



That seems like a good idea. Definitely worth looking into. Thanks for the suggestion.

Besides brilliant.org, another online educational resource you might want to look into is Khan Academy. You might want to consider using both, for a more thorough learning experience.