Finding human connection as a person with AS

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You know, I want to add something here.

I grew up poor. And a lot of my focus, especially the last six years, has been on building a business and making money. For a long time, I thought that was all I needed to do. Build wealth and everything else will follow.

On a personal level, it worked. I lost a lot of stress and lately a lot of weight. And it is fun to be able to do things (just went to Europe for a month and blew money like a sailor). I become fearless with money much faster than I ever thought I would.

It doesn't help that up until a year or so ago, I had only attempted two relationships during that time. And, to be blunt, thanks to the money I've found myself in looser situation with a different type of woman than I really imagine myself with. Again being blunt, I've been living out a lot fun I didn't get to have in my teens and twenties.

It's the little residual fears that have surprised me. They surprise me because the big fear growing up was always money. And when money rules everything, you end up thinking money fixes everything. I remember my mom once saying that "Anyone who says money isn't everything has never done without money." And then comes the part where you've pealed those big fears away and you're stuck with the realization that maybe you fear a few more things than money.

Besides just being an odd duck, money was one of the reasons I avoided relationships. I've always believed, deep down, that I didn't want to settle down and do the family thing until I had serious money.

It's funny, because I sit here having fixed the two big problems that dogged me. I was socially ret*d and I was dirt poor. And those things eat away at you for so long that it becomes critical to your identity. "I'm poor. I suck at dealing with people." And it's very confusing to conquer those and realize, "OK, I have money and I'm good with people. But, holy s**t have I never done anything to work on myself!!"

The nice thing with being screwed up is you always have an excuse to lean on. The downside to getting things squared away is now I have to confront serious questions about who I am and what type of life I want. There are certainly worse tragedies playing out in the world.

Totally get this kind of person; there's one who's been in and out of my life recently. She's one of the nicest, sweetest people who's managed to come out of some rather hairy situations without any obvious bitterness over them.

She's an observant Christian from a quiet part of North Central California. Her sister's also a sweet person, and their parents are evidently stand-up people. My family is ... different. I'm the child of an arranged marriage and the bride and groom are pathologically unsuited to each other. Violence was a regular occurence as far back as I can remember until I left home.

So aside from the fact that this young lady and I both find each other's lives somewhat interesting (I've been to services with her church several times, and I'm insufficiently repellent to prevent her from agreeing to share a meal now and again), she and I have no commonality.

Even if she were interested, I already know I had enough things distracting me from a relationship. It wouldn't have been fair to herself or to me.

For you situation: Know yourself, know your limits, figure out if those limits leave room for inviting your lady into your life, possibly for a long time. And be open to the idea that the limits move on you, often when you're not looking at them.

I'm not a fan of "know your limits". I like testing my limits. Try, fail, rinse, repeat.

I'm getting old enough now that not achieving my goals -- in an ideal scenario I want to settle down and have a family -- is becoming more important.

I know what I intend to do here. I'm just glad for the chance to talk it out. When I'm thinking about how I approach problems, I find it helpful to stop and do a sanity check. It's helpful to lay a problem out for others and just see if they're seeing something I'm not. Especially with something like this where I know I'm pushing past my established limits.

MrEGuy, you remind me of me with try, fail, rinse, repeat. Sometimes I do take a break to cool down think about, digest until trying it again.

Sometimes it's all you can do. The cool thing with AS is that a lot of the rote behaviors we all suffer from make us very good at basic process. We don't spend a lot of time just mushily feeling our way through problems.

It's funny, because my oldest niece is a good friend of mine (in the functioning dysfunction of my family, she lived with me for her HS years). She has, shall we say, a lot of NT issues. And one of the funny things is that over time she's made a habit of confiding in me because she likes how I work over a problem instead of just jumping to an emotional outcome and trying to be supportive. It's nice sometimes to be able to just see a problem and work it over until you fix it.