Lying to Attract a Mate

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@HopeGrows, the reality is that the words "Autism" and "Asperger's" are loaded. The film Rainman has created a stereotype for autistics. Then there are books like "House Rules" or "The curious incident of the dog in the night-time" which also portray characters with this condition, albeit higher-functioning than Rainman. Because of this, it is surely more sensible to let the girl get to know the guy a bit first before announcing you have the condition. The idea is not to mislead them by witholding vital information, but to prevent her assuming a worst-case scenario when it may not apply. If done right, the girl gets to know that he has autism but only after she knows him well enough to judge him on his own merits. That is to say, she is comfortable with how he is and the relationship is stable, but she now has an explanation for the quirks in his personality. Let's face it, it is not the labels which are attached to him that make or break a relationship but how he actually is. If she gets to see how he is first and then gets the labels, that's not deceit, it is being fair to both parties. If you announce it early on, people are more likely to judge you on the label rather than the personality they can see in front of them.

If a girl decides to not have anything to do with you on the basis of what she's read on the internet, she's not seeing a person, she's seeing a disability. Who wants to go out with a woman like that?

If a girl is right for you, she'll look past all that and make a decision that's based on you, not your medical report.

You should think of your AS as a kind of elementary compatibility test. If she says "Thanks, but no thanks" after your disclosure, she's not for you. If she says "Okay, we've done all right so far. Let's see how things go", she's a girl who's willing to make the effort and the rest is up to you.

8O

Oh yes that is a rather notorious forum full of embittered fools who want to blame their failings on a partners medical diagnosis. I almost thought it was a joke or some kind of satire the first time I encountered that community.

What a horrible place. There is a post on there now titled "Get out while you can fellow sufferers," and the responses are all supportive and anti-Aspie--not a single one refutes it or points out that you cannot judge millions of people based on one experience. Not to mention that said experience is hardly discussed in an objective fashion.

Edit: Further browsing shows that that is far from the worst of it. I will close it now. What horrible people.

That's exactly why I agree with OP on one point: we really want to make sure that we're with the right people (then again I'd assert that that's true for us, NT's, anyone). I also get the feeling that if we probed around for NT-NT relationship problems boards that it wouldn't look much better. People are in there to blow off steam and that's typically not a pretty sight - its frustrating when we feel like society has singled us out much of our lives, but, I don't know that we're necessarily getting a treatment that people outside our group aren't prone to on occasion.

Yes, I wish I didn't follow that link

haters gon' hate.

Yikes! I clicked the link and the majority of posters are trying to talk that one confused but still optimistic girl out of her relationship with an AS man. They are pretty harsh and full of doom-and-gloom.

The conundrum is clear:

Reveal Aspergers too early and her inevitable Google research will scare her away because she won't have enough knowledge of you to override what she reads on Cassandra-ish sites. (And those are what pop up if you google Aspergers and love relationships rather than just Aspergers.)

Reveal Aspergers too late and she will feel deceived, as described by Hopegrows.

It is a really tough decision. My best guess is to tell a woman about Aspergers when the relationship progresses to a point where a true decision must be made because the subject has come up. It might be when your visible discomfort at parties (or unwillingness to go to parties) brings it up. It might be when you are both comfortable enough to start talking in depth about your childhoods and then you can talk about a childhood diagnosis and what that meant. I wish I could come up with some sort of actual number of dates or time elapsed but I can't. It's such a risk either way because it depends entirely on the specific woman and how she will react. LogicallySound said he wouldn't want to reveal it "until he trusts her" which seems like a good parameter. A certaion level of trust means a relationship is starting to develop and there is enough knowledge about you as an actual person to put into perspective whatever her Google research leads her to.

Last edited by Janissy on 09 Dec 2010, 8:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

I noticed that a lot of the men who are vilified on that site don't even have a formal diagnosis of AS. The woman just puts that label on him as an easy answer for his unreasonable behaviour.

In my case, lying about my disability wouldn't do me much good because it's patently obvious to anyone who sees me that I'm not all the biscuit. I might as well put on a wig and a dress and pretend to be a woman .

Within the first date or two? I wouldn't recommend that unless the subject really gets pushed by her such as, "I have a brother with Aspergers and you act sort of like him. Do you have it, by any chance?" Without such a prompt, I'd wait several dates in. Why? Because this "informed decision" is almost certainly likely to be informed by Google. If you do a google search for Aspergers as such, you get of info about childhood diagnosis. When you narrow it down to romantic relationships, you get Cassandra-Syndrome vent and support sites which are uniformly off-putting. If all a woman knows about a man is wjat coffee shop he chose as a meeting place and what he does for a living...and that he has Aspergers, there is a real danger that her "informed decision" will be informed mostly by posts about impending divorce or wished-for divorce with no personal knowledge of "fred doesn't sound like that woman's husband" to counter-balance it. Waiting several dates in at least lets the woman gets some sense of the man so that her sense of him can also be part of the information in her informed decision.

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.

I'd just send them to greenturtle's cartoons.

Wow, that's so easy. Why didn't I think of doing that? =P

Bad stereotypes take decades to eradicate, if they can be eradicated at all. Heck, there's still racism out there and we've been fighting that form of discrimination as a society for at least the last 40-50 years.

I am not at all ashamed of myself. If anything, I am incredibly proud of just how far I've come. The initial reaction to me disclosing my diagnosis, every single time, is "really? You?!" That's how well I've learned to cope with the challenges that my disability has presented to me. I can do so many of the things that somebody reading me just from the label would assume that I'm not able to do. If a person who could have understood and accepted me dismisses me because his/her perception of me is coloured black by a label that he/she already has preconceived notions of, I have lost an opportunity to create another fulfilling relationship in my life. That's the risk that you're asking all of us to take. Friendship and love is hard enough to find; I refuse to unnecessarily sabotage myself just to live up to your definition of honesty. I would like to just agree to disagree and be quiet but I cannot stand idly by and allow people to accept such terrible advice.

I'm not saying that you're wrong. It really should be better than this. But it isn't. That's reality. Yes, we should be educating people and we are. We've even made considerable progress in that. But I don't think that any of us can afford to wait for the world to change to find a partner to settle down with to start a family. It could be decades before our efforts bring us to a point where being labelled as "Autistic" isn't seen as a black mark. We all need a solution that works for now and gives us the best possible chance of finding somebody who will accept and love us.

Well, I guess you could come up with a solution that might work better than posting accurate information in a high traffic website dedicated to the topic - or you could just b!tch about it. Or you could continue to completely ignore all the reasons I've given to support the idea that failing and/or waiting to disclose offers an equal risk of sabotage - because that conflicts with your principles and world view. You don't like my input? Awesome - let's hear your plan.

(emphasis mine)

I'm still waiting for the part where you prove this statement. So far you've stated no grounds for it except that you think it's true because of your previous experiences with Aspie partners. The plural of anecdote is not "data" and is most certainly not "proof".