Intense fear of driving

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For those who haven't seen that before, it's the Magic Roundabout in Swindon. Read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon).

My boyfriend can't drive and either can I. We're both too scared of it, so I don't judge him on it. However, most women I know think that the ability to drive is important. I don't see why.

I think it's pretty much a given in the local dating scene that a man has his own car. In Canada you pretty much have to own a car if you don't live in Toronto or Montreal. I don't see what the big deal is but apparently a man without a car is not a real man

I think it's a social status/safety issue when one does not drive or own a car. It is not always the case though, like what has already been mentioned, small towns are navigable by foot or some faster means of transportation. In most cases though, being able to drive and owning a car has many common, occasional, and rare advantages all in all.

Well I wouldn't totally write off a girl for not having a car, but for the most part, not having one is a red flag. Why? Because the girl will ask you for rides everywhere and just use you for rides, you might get to have sex and a fake girlfriend out of the deal, but once the rides stop, she's gone. I knew someone who had a girlfriend he'd let sleep in his house and gave rides to. He let her drive, and she crashed his car, and then dumped him after because he had no car. True story.

So if you found a girl who was understanding about you not having a car, basically for reasons of you being disabled due to Aspergers, then it'd be fine. In a reverse scenario, if a girl had Aspergers (so far I've not met too many people with Aspergers in real life) and I was dating her, and she didn't have a car I'd probably be OK with it, too. But the likelihood of them "getting" your Aspergers could be low, and you'd need to disclose it quite early.

It's not even women, though, America in general is made for driving. If you don't wanna drive, you pretty much gotta move out of America. And the only way you could get away without driving is friends to drive you places really. And that requires social skills. You'd have to get to work, arrange a ride with someone from work, etc. Probably have to arrange to pay them for gas money/time, also. More of a pain in the ass than actually driving is. Not driving is like being stuck in perpetual teenager stage of life in America, always reliant on someone else to take you places. I have NVLD, so driving is hard for me, due to my spacial processing issues, I always have to take caffeine or something to be like, safe, and frustrating driving causes meltdowns sometimes, especially if I'm lost or have to drive on the highway. Oddly, my relationship with driving is weird, as I love cars as machines and love driving in nice back roads without traffic recreationally. When I had more money, I'd drive like 50+ miles through backroads in one night just to calm myself down some days. It's so relaxing, just seeing trees and old houses and rivers and stuff with the windows open. So for the unpleasantness driving gives, it has some pleasantness to it too.

For me it's not driving, but I do face a similar problem to you. I'm socioeconomically like...crap. No job, no school, messy house in a not great neighborhood, completely disorganized kinda life. I feel ashamed to even try with girls, really, as they'll see how screwed up my life is.

It's mainly a big deal because if only one person has a car, they are totally dependent on the other person for rides unless public transit exists.

It's definitely a problem if there's no solid transit links in the area and everything isn't interconnected like in a city.

True but the guy who cant drive would have major problems getting women if it's a country community that's anything like country songs. Too many songs come to mind for me to post just one or two

Actually, I know a couple of people in the local town who do not have cars.

One of them has very bad vision and will never be able to pass a driving test. He did drive a golf cart around town for a while, but got in trouble with that. I don't think he does very well with the women.

The other is always in trouble. Sometimes he has a car, sometimes he doesn't. His big problem is staying out of prison, not getting women.

Go to an army surplus sale and get a tank. That way you won't have to worry about traffic anymore, the other motorists are the ones who will have to worry.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duBVnn9GRuA[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ6Y4RpuhwQ[/youtube]

Now seriously, right now I'm attracted to a girl (well, I should say,a woman) who apparently walks as much or maybe even more than I do...

Not every small town. I live in a small town and right now I don't have a car. It's really difficult to arrange everything around when I'll have our van after my husband is home.

It's somewhat hilly here, and that can be difficult for me because even though I'm thin, I'm out of shape. I get winded and tired easily going up hills. I know I should exercise more and I'm trying to, but at the moment I can't really walk everywhere I need to because of that.

Also, we don't have sidewalks everywhere. Some places, like walking down the main road that you turn into my neighborhood from, is downright dangerous. It's a narrow two lane, on a fairly steep hill, with no sidewalk and it's bordered by woods and a ditch on one side with about two foot of grass to walk on and on the other side it's bordered by a deeper ditch and the old people apartments and about six inches of grass to walk on.

Even though everything in town is within about three square miles, it's still very difficult. There is no place to sit down and rest in lots of places. Things are pretty spread out, not close together like in a city. And even though some place is only a half mile away, when you are walking down a road with nothing but grass, trees, one house and a church, it sure seems farther.

It seems much easier to walk places in cities because you are only going a certain number of blocks. It's a way to measure it in your head, so while ten blocks in the city may be fairly long, it seems much longer to walk that same length in the country where nothing is really broken up and when it is, it's not even and very random.