Aspie males are notorious for putting themselves down.

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Females are attracted to guys with confidence, good self esteem and sense of humour.
Aspie males usually have low confidence, low self esteem due to past issues and they tend to take life too seriously and may not understand jokes.

Anyway I am guilty of constantly putting myself down because I have been traumatised by my past. I believe an ugly virgin loser guy like myself has absolutely no chance in the dating market. No chance, no point playing the dating game.

The lack of confidence and low self esteem and other psychological issues are also to blame for my lack of self identity and inability to obtain employment or find direction in my life.

You do have a fair point. I don't take life too seriously (you'll never get out alive anyway), and though my emotions are really rather confusing and, at times, very negative, I do have quite a happy exterior most of the time. Anyway, I've had better luck with relationships than a lot of Aspies twice my age from this forum. Or maybe that's just because I'm so awesome?

But listen, don't say you have no chance. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy if you think that. Everyone has multiple chances, yours just haven't come yet.

I don’t know how old you are SadAspie, but I am in my 40s and have never had a girlfriend. I know that my lack of self-confidence really hurts me, I really just don’t understand what I am doing. All the women that I have dated have told me that there is nothing wrong with me, that I am a great guy, they just have some big problem in their life that prevents them from dating me. How can I learn what to do if I don’t understand what I am doing wrong? The more I fail, the worse my confidence gets.

All everyone tells me is to just go out and try over and over until I figure it out. You don’t gain confidence by trying and failing over and over again. You gain confidence by trying and succeeding. Once you start that downward spiral of failure you need help to get out of it.

Asp-Z, I know I can be confident and fun, once I get to know a person. But, it has been impossible for me to not get nervous and lose my confidence when meeting women, especially one that I am interested in. And there is no way to play any mind games with myself so as to trick my mind into not being nervous. The only way I can get over it is to spend time with her (who ever that may be), but how can you do that if they run away before you can get to know them?

That is why I agree with SadAspie, unless I can figure out how to gain confidence without getting to know someone, I will never be able to find anyone.

I agree. If you tell yourself you won't be successful the you probably won't be. But if you decide to go for it at least you'll always have a chance.

I also find that people tend to have a higher opinion of you than you have of yourself. I try to remember this when I start to worry about how people will react to me.

I have extreme social phobia, extreme social anxiety and paranoia. Avoidance seems to be my best method of coping with things. I avoid experiencing more anxiety inducing experiences by simply staying inside my house most of the day. Any interaction with people makes me feel agitated and feels like a huge effort. I often come across as angry and annoyed. I usually try to avoid talking to people unless I need to.

The computer has become the main means of me communicating with the outside world. I do not really like face to face interaction.

A lot of NTs are like this too. Even some of the ones who appear very confident are like this. So what? Girls know that guys who act nervously around them probably like them anyway. No need to use that as a reason not to get to know people, because as you yourself said, once you do get to know them, you become more confident.

I am, in fact, exactly like this myself, and as I said, I've had better luck with relationships than a lot of other Aspies on here.

Here is the thing that I don't grasp. If I truly had a chance to succeed in any endeavor then how do my thoughts matter whether they are positive or negative? Is there an objective reality outside of ourselves? If there is an objective reality outside of ourselves then it doesn't matter what negative thoughts I have had or still have. It doesn't matter what my feelings are. The underlying assumption is that thoughts create reality. If this is so then how can logic and science be valid and sound at all?

Which is it? Does my perception of reality create thoughts whether they be positive, negative, or other or does my thoughts create reality itself or does it create only my perception of reality? How do we truly determine what reality is so all of our thoughts can be in sync with it?

It's called the subconscious, and if you ask any professional psychologist (feel free to ring one up right now and ask this, honestly), if you keep telling yourself that you cannot do something, you start to actually believe it at a deeper level, and it'll become true because you'll never even bother trying. If, on the other hand, you're more optimistic, or at the very least, apathetic, you will try, and therefore you'll have a chance to succeed, because even when you're feeling crap, deep down you'll know you actually can do it.

Again, ask a professional and they'll tell you the same thing. What you tell yourself has a massive effect on how you think and what you do.

My outlook might be a little different still, like SadAspy I can relate on a lot of past 'stuff' influencing things but the way its influenced me more I think its that I've developed the need to feel that I'd be good with the person I'm talking to once we both have our guards down and the games are off, the facades are off, etc.. Attraction is a strange part of the equation as well - as in I've dated people I was comfortable with but not attracted to, I've talked to people who were attractive but I didn't feel safe and I was the one to bolt. Seems like any attempt at trying to have both is like asking to have my cake and eat it too.

As of right now I hate the prospect of dating - perhaps not the end result *if* its an end result I want, but for me its about as much fun as getting my teeth drilled. Pretty much the more dates you go on and the more of those that end up with you feeling like everything was just luke warm/mediocre and neither of you seemed to really find a spark, the more unrefreshing the process seems to be and more you really just want to live your life, be successful, and figure that you'll be a bit more alive for what's available (as well as the element of perceived 'serendipity' heating things up if it does seem to come together out of thin air). I think the problem with dating as well - it feels canned, it feels contrived, and half the time it feels like the situation itself and its own mechanics and formalities that doom it to failure.

What's happening now though - my friends have mostly left the area. I realize that just for the sake of bring my social life back up again I do need to network, and along side that the possibility of inadvertently meeting some people along the way gets better. I do enjoy networking, I do enjoy breaking into new circles, and I'd like to think that kind of networking doesn't get too stagnant over 30, I get that its not fraternity/sorority parties anymore, but at the same time nothing seems to make me feel less desiring of a relationship than the effort of going out and deliberately chasing it - I'm still not sure whether that's the way it should be or if its just an ugly catch 22.


As for guys with AS being down on themselves, I know plenty of NT's who are down on themselves as well - and quite unhappily married, engaged, or in long-term situations. Could it be perhaps that with what we go through as aspies that we simply aren't allowed to have illusions to the extent that many NT's would and hence we end up with a much higher, both standard and reciprocally danger radar (I don't think most of us could take nearly the type of fighting that so many NT couples I see have at home when we have so much pressure already), bar for what we're willing to commit to?

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 12 Dec 2011, 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't put myself down; the world puts me down instead. I do feel fairly good about myself but the problem is that others do not. I am not highly confident but I do not have the low self-esteem that others assume I have. I have lots of issues/problems/limitations due to my AS & physical disabilities. I am aware of how others are not accepting even thou I feel fairly good about myself

Maybe. How does one objectively tell what one is capable of doing and what one is not? It seems similar to the placebo effect. How does one remove this and perceive reality for what it is? How was this derived? Did psychologists derive this? I do not believe that psychology is a science like chemistry is? If I went to more than one psychologist I bet I would receive different diagnosises as to what was wrong with me. Are there objective tests for any of their disorders in the DSM? For those who think it is my bad attitude what are the objective tests to prove either way?

Last edited by cubedemon6073 on 12 Dec 2011, 10:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

No way, I suck at putting myself down. I'm so freaking posi, lifting myself up, that I can be downright arrogant. Isn't "condescending" an aspie trait too, esp with bad theory of mind and one sided blathering about my special interests? How could I condescend if I wasn't "on the high horse?"

Interesting questioning about our thoughts and reality. May i propose that which ever of the above is true the way we think about our reality after we have experienced it determines our perception of it it was positive or negative. Eg. If a relationship ends and we view it as negative we may miss what we have learnt from it wich could actually be positive. As a result we then percieve future events as negative also. We build nurological pathways that then trigger the negative or positive emotions associated with the future event. So i try to always believe everything happens for a reason and there is something to be learned from every experience.

lol my thoughts and what keeps me positive about life, love and people.

That's why I'm thinking the whole "Just be more confident" advice often times seems off-point. I know I had plenty of times myself where people could have cared less what I thought of me; what mattered to them was what they thought and, often enough, they adamantly disagreed with what I thought of myself when I was at a stage in my life where I did feel like a big somebody.

I think the push should really just be people looking at those who are long-term single as normal, not pushing them, not riding them, not trying to make movie script drama in their own minds about why this person is where they are (and worse - occassionally gettin reckless IRL with that kind of fanciful thinking). Technically if we want to be honest, where anyone is in this world is technically not their fault; and that applies to just about anything let alone relationship status which often times you can't even tack to behavioral merrit or lack thereof. Similarly if a guy or girl is a long term single - no one owes them anything in terms of a relationship (likewise we'd hate the results if they thought they did and acted on it) and, reciprocally, they really shouldn't owe anyone else's anxiety or paranoia any service either. If people like some of the more prolific L&D posters find people - great, I don't think its necessarily impossible either, but it seems nonsensical for them to beat themselves up over not finding anyone either.

I wish more people would attempt to try to determine what objective reality was instead of just going by their own opinions and feelings. Can we please go by facts and logic?

I'm sorry if this comes across so angrily, but I just get so frustrated with this kind of answer. Of course women will like me once they get to know me. The problem is that they are never around to get to know me. It doesn't matter where I go, women always seem to scatter when I am around. Women aren't around to see what I am like when I am not nervous. The only way for me to get to know women is to simply ask them out on a date, and I only get one chance to make a good impression, which I don't.

It's not that I don't try, it's that I am always in the worst possible situation when I meet women. Constantly asking women out and failing isn't the answer, and there isn't anywhere for me to meet women my age where they can get to know me.

It is so easy for people who don't have problems meeting women to tell guys that don't know what they are doing that it's no big deal. Telling someone that their problem isn't a problem isn't the way to help someone out.