Does this guy have Asperger's and not know it?

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A few weeks ago, I met this guy with whom I could talk for hours and still not get bored with him. He asked for my number, but waited to text me until exactly 24 hours after we parted. I replied, but he never got back to me. I didn't want to give up on him (maybe he was shy?), so I texted him a few days later asking him if he had plans for the weekend. He said he wanted to go out with me that same Friday.

However, on this particular night, he took me out to a bar with all of his friends and left me by myself while he was talking to his friends. Needless to say, it was very boring for me, because I didn't know anybody and it was hard to initiate conversation because the music was loud and most of his friends were already drunk when we got there.

At one point, I couldn't take it anymore and went back to see him. He introduced me to the friend he was talking to and it surprised me that he would always stick to either individuals or very small groups (not more than 3), despite the fact that at least 20 friends of his were in the bar. Whenever more than 3 people were talking in a small group, he would suddenly leave without saying anything. He was also not the type of guy that wanted to dance or that needed a lot of attention. In fact, he is the only single guy of all of his friends...

That night was very strange, but I liked him, so I decided to stay in the bar and go home with him (he lived near the bar and my house was 15 miles away, too expensive for a cab). We slept together in the same bed, but he didn't make a move on me and when I tried to kiss him, he seemed to be very nervous. I thought he was inexperienced, because he didn't know how to kiss properly.

The next morning, he didn't mention the cuddling and kissing we did the night before. When he dropped me off at my house, he said bye to me like he would say bye to one of his friends.

I didn't hear from him, so I decided to text him again and I did get a response asking me if I wanted to go for lunch. Unfortunately, I wasn't available that day, so we rescheduled and watched a movie together. Afterwards, I insisted that I wanted to stay at his place for the night and he agreed. Again, he wouldn't make a single move on me. He wouldn't even kiss me and I asked him why he didn't do that. He said he wanted to take things slowly.

He seemed to have difficulties with physical contact.

He seemed to take things literally all the time, e.g. when I said that people in general don't text very much, he thought it was aimed at him, so that's why he texted me every single day.

When he didn't know what to say, he would start to talk about the usual superficial topics.

From that point onwards, he texted me every night to ask how I was doing. The text conversations were usually very superficial and although I asked him directly about his plans for the weekend, we never managed to make plans. He would always say he had no plans and when the weekend approached, he would suddenly cancel using some excuse about a friend that bought him a ticket or whatever or he wouldn't talk to me at all, despite the fact that he promised me to go out with me.

We did see each other a couple of times afterwards. Mainly in his house (because he lives by himself) talking or watching TV. I would always spend the night at his house and he never made a move on me. He would only kiss me when the lights were off and he would always get very aroused from kissing. One time he tried to go further than kissing, but he never tried to take off my clothes or open my bra, despite the fact that he was playing with my bra all the time.

He never gave me any compliments.

He did say he felt attracted to me and that I was the type of woman he would want to date. However, he said it as if he was stating facts, not giving compliments.

One time he misinterpreted one of my text messages and basically that was the end of our friendship/relationship/dating period. He texted me that it felt too serious and that he wasn't ready for a relationship. He started to ignore me from the point onwards. We did talk on the phone a couple of times, sometimes for over one hour, but he didn't seem willing to meet me in person anymore.

We did meet once after the break-up text, but it felt very awkward. He hardly made eyecontact, he seemed very annoyed and he ignored me completely when we he ran into a friend of his, although I was standing next to him the whole time. The reason why he ignored was that he didn't want his friend to think we were in a date. The worst part is that he said it was fun and that he wanted to hang out again with me. My initial reaction was "no". I was perplexed, but agreed to see him again.

I haven't heard from him since then...

Does this guy have Asperger's? It does sound like it to me, but I am not 100% sure. And if so, why does he ignore me? I genuinely thought he cared about me...

While I am not a big fan of distant diagnosis (and I am not even a doctor), I can relate because it does sound he displays many traits the way you describe him. I know I would behave very, very similar if I was in his situation. If I "had to" share a bed with a woman, even if we were "on a date", I would never EVER initiate something. I am the type of guy that needs to be told what to do. Maybe he is too scared to mess things up and wants to play it safe by not risking anything. He might just be very shy. Again, it is something I can relate to, because I would always play it safe and not risk making a fool of myself. Us folks with AS have a certain knack for doing so, and if you constantly get reminded that you are out of touch with other people, that you don't fit in and no matter what you do, you will always be an oddball that can only try to imitate what comes to all other people naturally, you will start to protect yourself more and more from possible embarresment. Maybe he has been hurt before when he tried to make moves on girls/women and failed hard everytime. I have no experience with dating, but I now how it feels to constantly try to be liked by other people - or heck, just be mildly accepted or simply just ignored - and failing miserably at it, without ever knowing why that is. People could tell me what my problem ist, I couldn't stop it. These are just thoughts, theories. Maybe it is like that with him. Maybe he is on the spectrum. I just wanted to show you a male AS perspective on the situation, and that it is not an unlikely possibility.

I beg someone else to provide a solution, though, as I am not exactly the right person to talk to when it comes to relationships. Even though I have a tremendous radar about other people's romantic entanglements, this is a different story.

Thank you for your thoughts on the matter. Of course I am not in a position to diagnose him with AS, but his behavior seemed odd to me and at first I thought I had done something wrong. Realizing that it might be AS has helped me a lot to process this. Like you said, it could be shyness (or lack of experience), but if that was the only reason, it is still true that he has some typical traits: never giving compliments, not able to understand what I am feeling, not taking into account any feelings I might have, etc...

I do understand that I might have pushed myself on him a little, but he never said "no" or pushed me away... He just let it happen without making a move. Also, he would be trembling almost all night and wasn't able to sleep for one minute when I was lying beside him. It was as if his body was protesting in some way.

There are some more examples I can give:
He would always comment on whatever was happening in a movie as if it were real life. For example during a scary movie, he would say "don't look behind you" or "that's not a good idea, Sam". At first, I thought he wanted to be funny, but then I realized he meant that for real.
He would rather spend time with his friends at weekends. Like he failed to make plans with me in advance and would always look for excuses to cancel me. However, he would make that up to me by seeing me on weeknights, but never at weekends (maybe that was his fixed friends thing?)
One time we made plans for him to pick me up at my house, but he texted that some sports game was on and his favorite teams were playing, so he wanted to finish watching the game first (which took another 50 minutes!) before he came to pick me up.

One maybe not so typical trait:
He hardly ever talked about the sports he played. He used to play a specific sports on college level, but he never mentioned to me that he was playing that.

The last one might actually be rather typical. Again, I can only talk from my own experience, but I used to do sports alot and at one point even considered becoming a professional athlete, and I never talk about it. While talking about my special interests, which is still sports-related, is something I have to restrain myself from doing, I do not talk about this very important phase of my life, because it has no relevance to me anymore. I DID that, I am not doing it anymore. Not sharing achievements is a common AS trait. I never told anyone if I had good grades in school. My brother would always tell my parents that he did well, I never did. Most people in college are surprised that I do not talk about the good grades I am getting lately, because almost anyone else does. It is hard to describe, but it simply doesn't matter to me, and it never occured to me that other people would like to hear about things that don't even matter to myself. I know I wouldn't want to hear about whatever grades someone I know gets, or if they win the Soccer world cup, or get the Nobel prize. Maybe it's the same with him: He considers it not relevant anymore, alas he thinks it is not important to anyone else.

Wow, you have enlightened me a lot! Thank you so much!

I am not a doctor nor a psychologist, but from what you have said, I am starting to think this guy may actually have AS. Indeed, he was also one of the best players in his region. Yet, he never mentioned that to me. I would have loved to hear all about it! He also never mentioned his grades, so I have no idea how good he was doing in school. I also asked questions about what his field of study, but he gave me a huge book about one specific area in his field of study and kept talking about that.

Do you think that this guy knows he might have AS? I think he is not aware of that... And do you think it's a good idea to suggest to him that he might have it or should I keep quiet and let him discover it himself?

It is hard to tell if - assuming he is on the spectrum - he is aware of it. Personally, I do not think it is a good idea to suggest you think something is wrong with him. Not a good starter for a relationship if your significant other says she thinks you aren't normal. You should try and point the things that concern you out to him, allthough his reaction really depends on his personality. I, for example, usually accept it when someone approaches me directly and tells me that he or she thinks I did something wrong, as in many cases, I am simply not aware of it. Alas, he might react rudely or even get very angry if you call him out on his behaviour, as he might have realized that he did something to upset you, but cannot do anything about it because he doesn't know any better. Without wanting to make that a general statement, but if you talk to people with AS - especially men in my oppinion - you have to consider you are talking to grown man that has, more or less, the emotional maturity of a 10 year old. You talk to someone who is might be very well aware of other people's emotions and his own, but who has never really learned to express them in a way that fits the situation and the expectation of other people. I can honestly say that between my 10 year old me and today, there is not much difference between how I handle emotional and social conflict. I have more discipline and self control, and alot more experience, but within me, it still looks the same. When people annoy me, I still get very, very angry, to the point I want to break things, huddle up on the floor and lash about. People with AS are really easy to overwhelm when it comes to emotional things, and while I and most other with AS really like direct approaches, when it comes to out greatest weakness, we tend to get startled really easily; mainly because we know that it exists, we now what effect it has on us and other people, and we know why that is, but still cannot do much about it. If you are constantly faced with the inability to live up to other people's expectations, it is understandable if you get upset if yet another person walks straight up to you and verbally punches you in the face, essentially saying: "Wow, you are a freak!"

I disagree. If he is on the spectrum, it is not at all sure he is aware. It could be that he is aware of something being off with him, but he has never really found out what. So telling him you think he have Aspergers might actually be a relief for him, to finally find a reason for all the weird things he has experienced over the years.

Thats how it is with me, at the ripe age of 32, I found out.

Perhaps you could trick him into taking an online test at the same time as you, then you can compare your results after?

If you ask/tell him, there are some possible scenarios
1. If he knows he has Aspergers: He will admit it, since you noticed.
2. If he don't know, but he has Aspergers: He could be very offended that someone would think such a thing. But he could also be relieved since the world finally makes sense. I am 95% sure he have heard over the years he is weird or a freak, so I would stay clear of insinuating anything along those lines.
3. If he lives in denial, but he has Aspergers: He could end up hating you for suggesting such a thing, perhaps because someone else has suggested the same at one point, and he absolutely does not agree.
4. If he doesn't have Aspergers: See 2. Even if he doesn't have it, he could be relieved since it fits him somewhat, however, it is not sure he has Aspergers.

Yeah that's true. It's not sure that he has AS.

He hasn't talked to me in a while and I don't expect him to talk to me anymore. He didn't reply to my messages, so I gave up contacting him as well. The only connection we have right now is that we are still friends on a social networking site, on which he has made most of his activity invisible to me.

All I want to do is 1) get closure on the brief dating period we had (it got quite intimate and I was starting to feel attached until he suddenly broke it off for no apparent reason) and 2) let him know there might be something else going on with him than "being unique" (these are the exact words he used to describe himself).

I don't know about you guys, but this guy felt very attached to his mother. He would listen to the same singers and bands his mother liked, he would like the cars his mother drives, he would even like a certain eye color, because his mother had this eye color...

In the beginning I thought he loved his mother a lot, but he kept referring to her, even at inappropriate moments. Is it possible that he might use his mother as the person he wants to imitate? Do you think she may have told him that he is "unique"?

Also, for the people here that can relate to the behavior I described: do you think he will contact me again or continue his life without ever talking to me again?

Probably might say hi at some point but don't bank on it.
Seriously, it doesn't matter whether he talks to you again or not he's not after a relationship with you.

Oh, I definitely gave up on a relationship with him! I just want to be friends and make sure he is ok.