Nice Guys suck...

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I'm aware that I choose who I talk to. I'd rather prefer that this not be about what hurts my feelings.




I don't mean to be harsh, but is this relevant in some way?

If you intended to express empathy with the experience of rape, thank you for the thought. I'd like to throw out, though, that stranger rape is quite rare. Where I live, for example, one is more likely to be seriously injured by a vending machine.

It is almost always someone you trusted.

*sigh*

OK, so I'm obviously something of a mess about this. If you could ignore it, that would probably make things easiest.




I don't think the public is ignorant about sexual selection.

This is why we have romance movies, and why they are fairy tales; if people were living it, they wouldn't need to go see it at the movies. People lie to themselves about a lot of things to get through the day.

Virtually everyone who dates experiences some sort of devastating breakup at one point or another. In my (first and second hand) experience, the results of this not infrequently range into the sorts of experiences (nightmares, vomiting, and physical pain) you've described.

I'm not sure it's fair to say that those who experience sex in a relationship are necessarily in a better place, either, or that orgasm is the epitome of the experience of mutual love. I think many people in that situation- a sexually active relationship- are as unlikely to find what I would call real romantic love as someone who doesn't date. I think that many- possibly most?- relationships are only a matter of desperate, lonely placeholders, placebo to the real thing. Better than nothing? Apparently the people in them think so. . . However, it seems important to me that we not idealize this so far beyond it's reality.


On your second question-

I know a lot of women who feel guilty saying no to sex already. I used to be one of them.

It's particularly problematic for those with traumatic backgrounds- which is a startlingly high percentage of the population- and for those with autism. Why? Post traumatic stress disorder and autism both sometimes have the effect of creating an emotional delay- so that one does not experience the emotional impact of events at the time of.

With an emotional delay, it can be hard to connect things that ought to be connected. Sex with a variety of people one doesn't want to have sex with feels benign at the time; because of this, it seems selfish not to have sex with them, as they seem to derive so much pleasure from it.

Anything that worsens the incidence of this phenomenon would have to have a lot of other, positive effects to seem like a good idea to me.



You say there are plenty, but list none specific. What sort of privileges? What other possibilities?

Given how important romantic love is to us, I honestly don't know yet. But I think it's important for us to keep an open mind, stay aware, and not lose sight of the suffering of the less fortunate.

Do you seriously think that I'm going to tell people about that? I'll keep quiet, and make up fake stories about past relationships. The key is keeping my stories consistent. However, my friends know I took this option, and while they don't think it's great, they do agree with me that it's a better solution that being frustrated all the time.

Yeah. There's that, and the fact that I still live at home at almost 28 (never mind the fact that I can't actually afford to move out, of course...).

I have no idea if this is sarcasm.

My implication was that those who date you aren't particularly sensible or mentally collected, which, based on everyone else I know, seems a safe assertion.

Also, what I don't get is, why do you feel the need to advertise it?

I'll take a wild guess and say he just feels he's found something that works for him - possibly getting himself over his initial prejudgments of it he probably wondered why he hadn't done it sooner. On the other hand its also clear that society puts stigmas on certain things for a reason - part of it, all the rest aside, is the fact that its a breach of natural law.

Jain, something you have to realize though, being a guy in this is pretty f'd up. Its sad that people go to certain measures sometimes but if you could take on the male experience of AS (I mean live it for a few weeks) I'm sure you'd understand even if you disagreed with certain people's conclusions.

I'd understand the prostitution thing, you mean?

I mean I think you'd understand where being a guy with AS really puts us in terms of having no control over our circumstances, no way toward a brighter future that's really in our hands - so yeah that may encompass what Aspie1 said but a lot of other more pivotal things as well. Mind you I'm not saying that some people don't help themselves, just that even giving it your all to improve your life quite often isn't enough to make an inch of difference; particularly in the relationship world. Sometimes in those situations people will even do things that seem stupid just because its change, and any change at all, seems better than staying on a steady and monotonous road to nowhere with life circumstances.

While I would hardly be one to say that individuals control their destiny, I think this approach is defeatest and destructive.

No matter what else may happen, no matter what may be true of you that you can't change, you choose how you react to the things you can't control. In this way- or perhaps under this definition- you choose who you are.

Furthermore, of all areas, the field of relationships seems to me the one where bothering to do something is most likely to cause change. Rather than just say, "I can't read non-verbal cues," one can learn how; if you can identify the bad guys on your xbox and are willing to put a lot of time into it, you can learn how. Rather than just say, "the women who I'm attracted to aren't attracted to me," one can analyze from both sides; why am I attracted to these women? Who are they attracted to? Could I cultivate an appreciation for different qualities that would lead me to be more attracted to women who would more likely accept me? Could I cultivate different qualities that would make me more attractive to the women I like?

And lastly, if one does give up, one can choose to do so gracefully.

Yes, life sucks sometimes, incredibly much. I wouldn't be doing nearly as well as I am were it not for the massive amounts of help I've recieved from those who care about me. However, I really think that almost everyone has opportunities to work with.

I don't understand why you think being an aspie male automatically makes it sane and reasonable to be defeatist and or stupid. I know aspie males who aren't, and this simply strikes me as the better option.

No argument there.



Replying to the rest of this is tricky because I think its going to be very difficult to explain, at least for someone to understand who's coming from the other side of it. There are certain things that you can practically kill yourself with the effort, drive yourself crazy trying to come up with solutions, give it your all and go to the best sources, throw away every scrap of ego you had and listen to every bit of advice out there in a non-biased manner to try to get it straight; and yet still often enough that doesn't even cut it. I'd think that was bulls--- myself but reality's surprised me in some pretty messed up ways. I don't pity myself at all, I know that my life is good in a lot of other ways, but I still don't think the bottom line really sinks in for people unless they've literally been where I've been.



Even that's a temporary state though, hope and that nasty gut feeling of need to be something great in one way, shape, or form is a very hard thing to kill even if it isn't serving your mental health. Usually that ends up in people thinking in circles still and constantly wondering what options they haven't tried. That and being everyone's built differently some people can glide along in the position you mentioned, for others that sense of it being apathy and destined failure kicks them in the stomach till their back trying to do something about things. In my own situation I am the guy who's at least living his life gracefully, not being a guy-slut, not banging just anything that I get attention from, and its because I still have pride in myself and there's certain interpersonal emotional exchanges I need for it to be worth anything (to tell the truth those exchanges and sharing of trust outweighs the value of sex on its own 10 to 1).




I'm just saying that some people have more wisdom than others, some have higher moral standards or codes of their own conduct, some feel more compelling needs in certain directions, and I really don't think it makes sense to judge someone or the validity of their path as much unless you really *know* them, which we certainly don't on forums like this. The best we can really get is a surface scraping idea of who people are and it really seems like most of a person's identity online is what people read into them rather than what's really there.

Also, on the defeat thing you really have to watch who you judge in terms of if they really have or if they're really that stuck and every option is exhausted, what your calling a defeatist and 'stupid' attitude is something your projecting on the actions without really taking a fair shot at understanding the person's own context of things.

I thought you believed in free will.

It's a very fascinating subject. Kant called it an antinomy. And in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics--which I've written an essay about--there really is an antinomy between objective determinism and subjective indeterminism.



Are you sure that we can learn how?



Would sexual selection favor our doing this?



What exactly do you mean by "giving up gracefully"? Becoming celibate, maybe?



But there are differences among people with AS. What's true for some of us may not be true for all.

It's not that we're defeatist or stupid. We make efforts. It's just that some of us feel our inability to compete for recognition very intensely and come to forums like these to seek protection and reassurance.

I think another element in that too is that there are a lot of people out there who's bottom line personalities aren't ok by peoples standards and never will be (mainly by the fact that people can't understand them), even if they're good people they're divergent - all the social skills in the world still don't change the bottom line. People tend to love going on about how you shouldn't care, that its a sign of weakness to even notice what people think of you, but I think thats all relative to place and where people are at in their lives regarding where it puts them. Also some people inherently value the quality of life a lot more than others and it drives them crazy just because they can't figure out why things necessarily have to be like this.

If only people knew what it was like to be us. Then they wouldn't go on snubbing us like we're the viruses of the gene pool.

That's just it though, I think our subjective experiences or roadblocks are really immaterial in all of this. I think if anything if people knew what it was to be like us they'd at least have a better grasp on how much of an element of luck there is that they're able to be them but aside from that it probably wouldn't mean a lot in the long run. Not that I'd expect it to, no one owes anyone anything, thats the way of the world and all and I know the more people have the more competition they're in with the people who still have more than them - its the manifest destiny of human nature.

I don't mean to scare anyone, but the thought that our feelings don't even matter to the healthy population gives me violent fantasies. Yes, I'm admitting this. I can only go so far saying, "There's something that it's like to be me, there's something that it's like to be me, there's something that it's like to be me," before I want to bludgeon him and say, "There, that's what my pain feels like."

People who are, for lack of a better term, infinitely selfish, and have a kind of Adolf Hitler syndrome about the suffering of the genetically inferior are the people I feel like punishing.

So, let's discuss it. How does it feel to hear me admit these things? Do you think I'm cold-hearted or lacking in empathy? Not true; I do have empathy for the less fortunate. But when you're in pain almost all day... you get angry sometimes.