Dating doesn't make sense to me

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I'm a 26 year old, PDD-NOS, single hetero male who has been on and off online dating for about the past 6 years now, and I've yet to have had even a single date. I'm not a virgin, and I have had two relationships before, which I couldn't have said either just over two years ago, but those experiences both lasted under five months, and I haven't been involved with anyone since then.

About half a year ago now, I moved to a new city where I was able to find a better job, and there are more people here in my age group than in my old city, but I've still had trouble meeting women and initiating any type of relationship with them. I only have one female friend here, and she's my roommate because we both moved here for jobs and to have a place to live together. Since we moved here, she's dated about one guy a month, so all her friends are men and their friends, and since I didn't know anyone else, her social circle and our coworkers have become my social circle, and none of them are single women interested in men. I'm generally "the fifth wheel," because we usually hang out as couples or go on double dates with me coming along but never having anyone.

So at this point, online dating seems like the best option for me, but I'm still not having any success on there. I messaged about a dozen different women, but none of them ever responded. I tend to "follow the rules" about sending out a message with an original greeting, a compliment, and a question, such as: "Howdy! I like your profile picture because you have a warm smile. I see you said you want to go to back to school. What were you interested in studying?" Or something along those lines, but I never got any replies. Then I sent a new girl this message: "I'm messaging you because I saw you are obsessed with dinosaurs and cats, and I had a dream last night I was given a baby triceratops that meowed," and for some reason, she was the first in months to respond to me because of that.

We started messaging each other every day for a week, so then I got up the courage to give her my contact info and ask her out on a date, but she didn't reply, and I haven't heard back in days now . I don't understand how everything can seem to be going so well, and then hit a wall just because I wanted to take things to the next step. I thought that was how dating sites and so on worked, but maybe not.

In the meantime, I've developed a crush on a girl at work who admitted she finds me attractive, but unfortunately for me, she already has somebody, so I'm not trying to start anything more than friendship with her. The only available woman I've met in the past several months, we ran into on a vacation to another city, and I spent the night at her place, but she was drunk and wanted me to hook up with her, which I didn't because I didn't know her and didn't want to take advantage of her while she was under the influence. However, we exchanged contact info, but it turned out she wasn't really interested in a long-distance relationship and is too involved with her education and career for anything serious and long-term, so we aren't in touch anymore.

Your online dating profile says you're obsessed with dinosaurs and cats?

Labeling her as "weird" and "obsessed" is an issue.
Also, something may have gone wrong in that week of talking to her, how are we supposed to know?
Maybe she has some personal issues that she won't tell you about?
Maybe she's just shy?

There are too many possibilities.
As for being nice on dating sites, yea... if you happen to find a genuine girl somehow.
Most of the girls on dating sites are desperados who are looking for "Mr. Right now" not "Mr. Right"... so they will go for the physically attractive guy. A lot of girls prefer the ones that aren't douchebags about it of course, and wear shirts... but they're still quite shallow online nonetheless.

I recall a study being posted here where women on dating sites rated something like 70-80% of men on the site "below average" in attractiveness.

Well it sounds like your messages are mostly pretty good, so I see no problems there. But I would recommend not commenting on anyone's appearance in online dating at all, even if it's something as innocent as saying they have a nice smile. I think that any time you mention the slightest thing about a woman's appearance on those sites, they automatically assume you're some sort of pervert (after seeing some of the messages that women I've known have received on those sites, I honestly can't blame them either lol). So I would say that your lack of success probably boils down to one of three things, or even all three: your profile pictures, your profile content, or who you are sending messages to/how frequently. If you haven't had any success after 6 years I'd say one of the three is in drastic need of repair, unless you just haven't really been trying.

And typically what I've found works best when actually trying to go from messaging back and forth to a date, is to wait about 3-5 messages, and if they still seem interested (they respond with a decent amount of content and ask questions about you), then just say something like "You know, I've really enjoyed talking with you these past few days, would you like to get together for _______ sometime so we can get to know each other better?" I don't even bother with calls/texts and all until we have something set up, but I know plenty of people would disagree with me on that point. So far everyone I've asked has agreed, the hardest part is just finding someone with a mutual interest. You will get plenty of people who will just flake out like that, just don't take it personally and move on.

Most women gravitate to strength. This is why bad boys do so well. They have confidence because they are used to being on top (or perceiving themselves that way) through force and by being aggressive.

Everything you wrote here comes from a position of weakness. It is not so much what you said as how you said it.

Confidence is everything when talking to women or getting a job. What you need is success to give you confidence.

Most guys gain this confidence in grade/high school. Most Aspie men are late. We don't get the wins in the years when the stakes are lower and as a result we have little confidence when the stakes are higher later in life.

Most aspies can't lie well. Don't pretend to be something you are not. You will have 0 confidence in it and it will show. If your profile makes you out to be a geeky hipster, are you?

My advice to you is to gain confidence first, then look into dating. When I met my wife, I had given up on dating and was focusing on improving myself. The little victories (losing 20 lbs, being able to run 10k etc) gave me confidence that showed in every day life. My wife was attracted to that confidence and that led to dates where we experimented with mutual interests.

It takes the type of confidence the type of woman you are looking for wants.

Some women want social confidence. To them being able to talk your way through life is sexy.

Some women want physical confidence. To them being able to fight your way through life is sexy.

Different women want different things but MOST want some type of confidence (dominatrix types excluded).

If you do not believe in yourself, why should she?


Build yourself the way you want to be not the way you think others want you to be. "To thine own self be true." This will give you confidence and expose you to people who see your prowess and admire you for it.

For example, I write code for a fortune 100 company and I work in their multi-billion dollar billing system. I am very good at it. I suck at talking to women. I am good at writing code. When I worked on building myself, I ran to lose the fat and learned to write better code. I met a woman who is a bookkeeper and who is interested in running and in billing system code. We talked code until we got hungry, then we had dinner and then we got social and found other similar interests and I married her.

Play to your strengths not your weaknesses. An aspie trying to pick up women on a social media site? Really? What happens when you meet face to face and you can't type your reply? Will she bail when she realizes that all your smooth talk can only happen through a keyboard?

If you have no strengths, figure out the type of man you want to be and work to better yourself until your strengths are attractive to the right woman. Do not try to be someone you are not or you will attract the wrong type of woman and they will see right through you.

If you work to better yourself and are true to yourself, your confidence will grow from successfully working to better yourself. That is VERY attractive to the right woman.

In short, work to be a better man than you are. The challenge will attract women who are more suited for you personally and who are more likely to grow with you over time instead of growing apart.

The key thing to understand with online dating, it's a numbers game.

A girl may get between 20-50 messages a day, and of course the cuter she is the higher it goes up.

You simply can't place your eggs all in one basket. You might get ignored 49 times before you get 1 reply.