Anxiety level = over the top! relationships are hard

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Being an obsessive person as i am which i know very many aspies may find it in themselves as well..... I come here looking for help! I find that when i have the opportunity to enter into a sort of relationship i find that i typically suffocate the i dea with attention. Normally I am a very relaxed person but as soon as get out towards the battlefield of romance BOOM its like a warzone! Does anyone know a way to lower those pre-dating/post dating jitters?

I wish I knew.

I expect it will settle down in time, when you're more used to hanging out with the opposite sex. I'm a lot more relaxed with women than I used to be, though I can regress if things start to get clumsy.

I think a lot of it is guilt and fear of humiliation, as if sexual desire was something to be ashamed of. But so what if everybody finds out that I'm attracted to somebody?

It's more difficult if you tend to get crushes. The result gets so important that it's almost impossible to function. I don't know quite what to call the feelings I get these days. Feels much like the same schoolboy crush syndrome, but it doesn't knock me sideways any more......self-doubt such as "am I good enough" tends to get replaced with "are we going to turn out compatible?" It's important to hang onto your sense of individuality as a person in your own right, rather than thinking that some lady or other is the possible answer to all life's problems. I think one good thing is to talk it over with a trusted friend or two, if you can find any. If you keep it all bottled in, it feels worse than it is, and your decisions, being taken in isolation, will be less wise. I mean we're bound to feel silly, because nature is trying to get us to procreate, and with all those hormones floating around in us, we'll hardly recognise our old, logical, dignified selves. Love is a kind of madness.

I expect the usual stress-relieving techniques will help. Exercise, scream your head off if you have to (not in front of your heart's desire though).

I think the other thing that feeds into this is that after a few relationships have failed, you don't get quite so stressed out because you know that Utopia isn't likely to be at stake.

Once in a relationship, sure I'm likely to be stressed. After all, there I am, head over heels in love with some individual who has a mind of her own and who can do me an awful lot of harm if she doesn't know what things are likely to hurt me, or just isn't willing to take steps to protect me. What once stressed me out because of the hope of gain, now stresses me out because I fear losing it.....and that's worse.

This would help. Anyone?

I have done this. And yes I am more relaxed with women than I used to be. But, this has not lowered any of the anxiety when interested in a girl. :sigh:

I spent quite a while with women I liked but wasn't sure were right for me, so in those cases I rather put the idea of a relationship out of my mind, although I felt attracted. Once I'd abandoned that kind of hope, I found it easier - I had no agenda to worry about. They were rather like same-sex friends to me, though it was important to me that they were female. Sometimes I'd spontaneously hug them, but without the burden of any agenda to go further. At the time I didn't see many signs that they felt more than friendship towards me, but I see them now when I look back. If I saw those signs now in a current situation, I'd be quicker to interpret them, and that would probably give me the confidence to talk to the lady about where it's going. But back then, I just waited, and would only have talked it over if they'd given me a very clear signal that they were interested. And if they'd initiated such a talk, I think I'd have been fine.

It was a bit of a forlorn existence, and I must have driven them potty (they sometimes would end up blowing hot and cold at me, I guess that was to get me off my butt - to no avail). But I think it helped me to get used to being with women with some element of romantic interest, but without that stressful urgency. I guess I got to the point where I didn't really crush on anybody any more, still getting quite infatuated, but resigned to the idea that it probably wasn't going anywhere.

After that I started to see how I was wimping out of responsibility (not an attractive feature), so I took to being a bit more forward and invitational, which was nothing like as risky as I'd expected, and rather fun.

Don't forget my age - it took decades to get this far, and I'm still in many ways a beginner. It's still a tense thing for me to try to build a relationship. But a lot of the stage fright goes.

thanks for the words.