Did These Situations Destroy my Ability to Feel Infatuated?

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When I was 18, I had two situations, basically, potential romances gone wrong, which I think completely destroyed my ability to feel infatuations of any kind. Read about them, and post your thoughts.

Situation 1
This happened when I was a senior in high school. There was a girl in my class, who started flirting with me a little bit during class. (The teacher had a very liberal talking policy.) She also asked me for help with the material. I met with her after school to tutor her, we exchanged phone numbers, and I asked her out. She gave me the usual "maybe some other time" crap. Being young and stupid that I was, I took it literally. Second time, she said no. Third time, she said no. All while continually asking me to explain stuff to her. It didn't dawn on me until after graduation that she was only using me to avoid doing any actual studying. I wanted to go to the prom with her, but never got to. This pretty much laid the groundwork for S2.

Situation 2
This happened my freshman year of college. Embittered by my past experience, I decided to be smarter this time. I tried my chances with a homely-looking girl who showed what I thought was romantic interest. The girl in S1, on the other hand, was pretty cute. Same thing, we exchanged phone numbers, but this girl never asked me for help with classwork. I asked her on a date, and we went out (hug at the end). After that, we spent time together on campus, and I asked her to a formal dance at the college. She said yes! At the same time, she wasn't affectionate when we hung out, but since I didn't know better, I "stayed the course". Finally, the day of the dance arrived. I was very pumped, and smiled as I remembered people who laughed at me when I didn't go to my prom. But at the dance, she didn't want to do any contact dances, not even holding hands. At that very moment, it dawned on me: she didn't like me!

After these two experiences, I have not had a single crush in the last ten years, despite meeting a good number of sweet, fairly attractive girls. Even when the romantic interest was mutual, any feelings I had toward the girl were strictly logic-driven, based on solid evidence that she was indeed interested. My feelings would kick in automatically when I made sure she liked me (if I kissed her, that was a guarantee), and deactivate just as quickly when she dumped me.

So am I right? Did S1 and S2 really destroy my ability to get crushes, or was it just a simple case of being overly analytical because of my AS.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 11 May 2011, 12:49 am, edited 2 times in total.

The last option.. you never know when that feeling might hit you. You may simply not met any of the right people over the last ten years

Your response sounded very patronizing, no different than the cliche "there's someone out there for you" said by someone already in a relationship. I'm partially to blame; I should have mentioned that my definition of "right people" are girls who like me romantically. So following that, I met a decent number of right people in the last ten years, and that feeling hasn't hit me even once.

So, if an infatuation hasn't hit me in the last ten years, I doubt it'll come barreling down from the sky anytime in the future. I already said it: my romantic feelings toward girls I meet are event-driven and logic-based, both of which are the opposite of a crush. The possibility of a girl not liking me back preempts any crush from happening, and I think my ability to do that started because of failures in Situations 1 and 2. Post your thoughts. And please, thoughts, not platitudes.

I guess those events could be the reason. Though I guess if you other emotions work just fine, it isn't that much of a problem since infatuation goes over in few years of relationship anyway. But if lack of infatuation prevents you from giving enough attention to more infatuated side, and thus hurting the relationship, that would be a problem.

Ive certainly been knocked out the game by bad experiences before. In one case it took me a couple of years, but not ten, to recover. I became very gun shy.

It may be that your AS doesnt let you even consider that women might be attracted to you. That's stumped me in the past. It may be either a lack of imagination or theory of mind issue ( you can't envision what they would see) or just a run of the mill self-esteem issue based on a few bad experiences. But of course that's just a random internet opinion.

Ive had worse experiences than you describe. My only advice would be to make sure that you are taking shots if you feel an attraction. There is a bit from the "Sh*t my father says" twitter feed where the dad says: "Son, let women figure out why they won't go out with you. Don't do it for them".

Not necessarily; let me clarify this. Between age 18 and now (28 ), I've been on quite a few dates, and even had sex a couple of times. So I've gotten used to the notion of a woman liking me enough for it not to seem far-fetched. But I absolutely never allowed myself to feel attracted to a woman (and therefore, never had a crush) unless I was sure beyond a shadow of doubt that she was attracted to me. Perhaps this computer-like control over my feelings is something that comes with AS, I don't know. But I do like this thread so far.

I don't know......I'm not even sure if infatuation is something that's worth having......when I've felt infatuated there's always been a strong element of narcissistic needs in there, so that I've hardly looked at the lady, and then, even if she turns out to want me, the resulting relationship is full of shocks as I discover the real person behind my romantic projection.

I guess those disappointments of yours would have toughened you up a little in that respect, but my first few attempts were very much like yours, leading myself on and then finding out that the girls in question just didn't want me in that way, and yet I still kept getting infatuated. Maybe your experiences made you lose hope? I suppose that infatuation can't survive without some hope of reciprocation.

I think some of these things can be quite traumatic.......there was one lady who rebuffed me, and for some days afterwards I felt nothing for any woman, which was quite scary.....I guess something inside had decided that the whole game was just a quagmire of humiliation and disappointment. But my normal self returned, and to this day I'm sure I'm quite capable of getting infatuated.

Dang, lost my post with the lovely description of love v. Infatuation.

Short version;

Consider an option number 3 - you simply grew up.

Trust me, it's a good thing you don't get crushes anymore. Nobody wants to have an unrequited love.