Relationship "advice" obviously written by an NT

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Conquers all for me.

Sure, sometimes things get bad because of the past, but if you live life afraid of the past, what future can you have?

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Last edited by Apple_in_my_Eye on 01 Feb 2011, 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've had lots of fake love in the past which caused lots and lots trouble and anguish for me.
If you don't go through the bad times - how can you truely appreciate the good ones.

If I do lose this love - i'll still have the good memories which help to combat the bad ones already caused by other cruel people.

I couldn't just not do anything and be alone forever.

I've always thought this was a funny statement as there's no way to know if it's true or not. If someone had loved and lost then that means they had never, never loved so there's no way for them to know if it's actually better.

I've always thought it was a stupid statement as well. Of course, there are a good number of statements that are similar in that they don't add up. Not everyone has logic; in fact most people don't.

The line is part of a poem by Tennyson. It is self-comforting to realize that the pain one feels means one had something extraordinary for a while and, even though it is now lost and replaced by pain, it is better to have had that extraordinary experience than to have never known it. It's a romantic, albeit bittersweet, thought.

The logic of that is spotty, as it assumes the value of the "extraordinary experience" always exceeds the cost in pain. This isn't so self-comforting once you realize the odds of emerging from every bad situation with a retrospective like that.

In response to the comments by Moog, I think you are one of the many (most) people who do view being alone as always second best to finding someone, although I am surprised that so many Aspies also have this view. I have not given up due to the pain of my last relationship (in fact I was the one giving out the pain to a lovely man who I got on well with), but due to the things I learnt during it, about having to compromise and about the impossibility of perfection from the logical perspective. It seems that most people dislike being alone so much, that they will settle for mediocre relationships. I am not fussy in not wanting a mediocre relationship, I can just clearly see the benefits of being alone outweighing the what seem to be to be paltry benefits of spending your life with someone who frequently irritates you, who you feel obliged to change your own behaviour for (even slightly), and who you feel guilty about hurting when you refuse to change your behaviour, let alone the awkwardness in reading and responding to the right signals as intimacy progresses. Added to the fact that I dislike physical affection and intimacy anyway, I would have to be crazy to actively search for a relationship that cannot possibly be better than my current single life. In fact I view the desperate singles as being the crazy ones, although I will agree that for anyone it is worth trying at least once. Also, being single does require taking complete responsibility for ones own life (rather than letting someone else decide and drive things and sort things out when they go wrong) and I can understand that can be scary for people who are not very self reliant.

Regarding that phrase 'better to have loved and lost than never loved at all', I agreed with it the first time it happened to me - thought the experience of unrequited love was a good one to have had even though there had been nothing enjoyable about it. However, it certainly isn't worth doing a second time - same experience, more pain, no joy whatsoever. It might be different if you actually have a good time whilst doing the loving (i.e you are also loved - the phrase omits that point completely). It is similar to that saying 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger'. It might be the case for minor obstacles in life, or even some larger ones, but most people with recurrent mental illnesses or PTSD wouldn't agree. Severely traumatic experiences can damage people permanently (psychologically and neurologically due to cell death), and make the mind less resistant to future stresses, depression, psychosis, anxiety and further suffering.

The saying is not aimed at people who have not loved, it's aimed at those who have and are forgetting that they've at least temporarily enjoyed what many people never seem to.

I think experiencing particular kinds of pain is useful. You can't love and not also feel some pain. That's part of the package.

But then, I think that the 'negative value' of pain is often significantly overestimated. Or perhaps we underestimate the value of what pain brings, as long as you've got your learning hat on.

It is a fundamental part of character growth to experiance emotional pain, angst and suffering.

As old Arthur Schopenhauer once said 'Life without pain has no meaning.'

The website that the OP posted seems fine. I found the advice there pretty reasonable. The only thing that bothers me about it is that "scn" is sometimes used to mean Scientology. Then again, it mentions all sorts of neurological conditions that Scientologists don't believe in.

If you can think about it,  then it isn't that bad.  If,  when you think about it, you are not overwhelmed with a sensation of pure horror,  such that it  washes out all possibility of thought,  then it isn't that bad.  If your vision doesn't go white when you think about it,  as if you're physically becoming snow-blind, then it isn't that bad.

There is a point at which it becomes impossible to even process the experience.  Impossible to even think about the good parts.  At that point there is nothing that can be learned.  It's just loss and horror with no redeeming value in any way.

Some experiences are useful,  even if negative.  But others are so negative that they're even less than worthless.

"Finding true love is finding your other half." Never knew that all this time I'm half of a person until i find the elusive true love

This reply to my post (and many others in the thread) was absolutely dead on:

I believe anyone who doesn't see in line with this point of view-- that relationships aren't worth the pain-- doesn't have Asperger's, or only has it to a mild degree.



Contrarily, I think it's delusional for many Aspies to think it's possible for them to have a relationship. The sad truth is, there ISN'T somebody out there for a lot of us. It is oftentimes utterly, completely impossible for people on the spectrum to have a lasting romantic relationship, and this needs to be recognized by anyone who wants to help and advocate for those with autism, as well as people who have it. (I speak from the male perspective, but I think it's fair to assume it applies to women on the spectrum as well, if for different reasons.) It's not only because we can't make it happen, but also because it's really not what we want, once we step outside and really look at our lives.

I don't think it's possible for someone who hasn't gone through endless rejection with -zero- success to understand what it feels like to never be able to say the right thing, never be natural in conversational skills no matter how hard you try, harbor increasing paranoia because those little oddities that are just a part of who you are DO turn people off and they WILL hold them against you, and to have girls creeped out by you all the time-- that last creates an awful kind of torment that no one should have to endure.

I will state in no uncertain terms that fairly recently I made a decision to only engage in casual encounters (I have never had a girlfriend and every time I've been with someone it was casual). Since then, I have been much happier with myself and have found inner peace. I am able to pursue my esoteric hobbies to my heart's content, and I have been freed of the neverending misery, heartache, and psychological trauma associated with "dating"-- but I am still able to be held once in a while.

Conventional psychology says that fleeting relationships are "unhealthy." Well maybe they are for NTs, but not for me. I would say the lost jobs, suicide attempts, running away from home, self-injurious behavior, and substance abuse I engaged in as a result of endless rejection were pretty bad for me. And sure one could say that my sometimes drastic reactions to rejection were unhealthy and needed to be addressed, but people just don't understand what it's like to be one of us and to not have these basic courtship skills that are really not learnable because they are so unnatural. I maintain that the detractors of my past self-destructive behavior would react the same way if there was nobody nowhere.

Aspergians play by a different set of rules. A hallmark of autism, I believe, is a complete lack of nurturing capacity, despite a genuine underlying compassion for our fellow man. Like many of us on here, I have absolutely no interest in sharing my life with another person, having children, or starting a family. I'm completely in my own world. Whenever I had a crush on someone (and I had some pretty heavy ones!) the relationship I idealized was one where we had a close emotional and physical relationship, and we could tell each other anything we wanted to without fear of being pushed away. There was never any intention or desire to cohabitate, have children, or give up my autonomy. NTs don't want this. They are programmed to continue the human race. Women can sense this lack of nuturing capacity in us and it's part of what turns them off.

I do desire intimacy-- a no-strings-attached and meaningful intimate encounter (I guess what we would call a one-night stand) is in my opinion the ultimate experience in life. To create a memory with another person that you will always cherish, without suffering through the psychological headgames that are considered par for the course in "real relationships" is a beautiful thing that can't be duplicated. I also have a deep-seated fear of growing old and I don't want to see someone I have given myself to, grow old. I resent any accusation that I am "shallow" because I feel this way (it's been implied by people I've talked this over with). But my desire for intimacy is sort of half-born, I guess you could say. I don't want, nor have I ever wanted, anything permanent or committal. I just failed to recognize this because other people were always implying I had to want it, and that there was something wrong with me if I didn't. People with autism should be able to make their own decisions in life and not be pressured, and they should be made aware early on of the not-necessarily-so-bleak reality that they will likely end up single.

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yes.

unless what is meant by risk here is the risk of failing to support oneself financially (a very real one for a lot of us); the risk of being thought a loner / crazy or a spinster by our neighbors, thus being accused of unabomber tendencies; or the risk of cracking one's skull open from a bad turn in the shower and having no witness available to call an ambulance.

I'm not so sure about what you're saying here. Just like there are completely varying types & personalities of those with Asperger's, I would imagine that their goals may be different, too. For instance, I wish I had somebody to share my life with. In fact, it's one of the things I have most wanted in my life. However, my nature fights my desires in that I've become very accustomed to being alone. Also, there are lots of Aspergians out there with children, and I'm sure many of them have always wanted children (I'm not one of them). I happened to notice you do a bit of acting. There are lots of people w/ Asperger's who only do technical jobs & couldn't fathom why anyone would want to do something other than programming or mechanics.