Still need help talking to girls on dating sites

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So tonight I spammed a few profiles and for the first time in a long time, one of the girls accepted. It had been so many months since that had happened I could barely remember what to say, not that I was that great at it in the first place. I can talk to girls in platonic situations but on dating sites or on dates I lose most of my vocabulary. I asked a few dull questions and then she logged off. Either that or she died from boredom. She hasn't deleted me... yet.

Also a number of these girls (including this one) casually mention they like video games. I'm reluctant to bring this up too enthusiastically because for them it could be a small part of their lives, not an obsession. So do you think it should be a taboo subject, like it could make girls think I'm lazy and/or immature?

I still go through dating sites because at least on dating sites I don't run the risk of asking a girl out and then finding out she's not single... or just not looking.

You need to flirt, aka, teasingly make fun of her, by saying something interesting... you're overthinking and overinvesting in this, there are lots of girls. Don't just focus on 'one' like its your mission to get her to like you, you can only do so much per girl, she either has some level of interest or she doesn't. Girls on dating sites get lots of interest (aka they have abundance of guys messaging them). If you mess up on one you move onto the next, etc. It's all a numbers game.

You can ask her if she's a big gamer or just a little bit and then calibrate, if she's big into gaming then you can slowly talk more about games to see how she reacts.

The thing about us with AS, is we tend to focus on conversation like it's a problem - not sure how social you are, but being social is about 'vibing' mostly - talking about regular life things and noticing emotionally interesting things. AKA imagine you are sitting across the table looking at yourself, imagine how you look from 3rd person as you watch yourself converse. Visualize to get an idea of what you are doing wrong, often we can pick out other peoples social errors on TV and in movies because we are the 3rd party and don't have the extra burden trying to converse.

I guess I should flirt. If I can figure out how. I always worry if I say or do something risque it will put the girl off but lately I've been worrying not doing so will make her think I'm an asexual cold fish.

I don't think she's the only one but she was the one I was focusing on at the time. There are a lot of girls but I think of it sort of like the Drake Equation. When I think of my odds of being the number of girls in Adelaide divided by the number who will accept me divided by the number of those who will go out with me divided by... and so on. So with all those dividers it makes my odds seem ravishingly small. Just getting a reply on a dating site is a rare occurrence for me which is why I don't like it when another one deletes me.

I know guys outnumber girls on dating sites many times over which sort of depresses me because I think if guys outnumber girls ten fold does that mean to stand a chance I have to be in or above the ninetieth percentile of guys?

Good point, I should learn to read people better.
I guess I do focus on conversations like a problem. I read some book called Aspie meets Girl which said finding a girl is a problem which can be solved like a puzzle. Not that that book helped much anyway

Yeah, I can imagine myself and be aware of what I do wrong but I'm not quite sure how to get it right. Mistakes lead to anxiety lead to more mistakes.

Just like the real Drake equation it's meaningless because nobody knows what those numbers really are as much as they like to pretend otherwise. This reminds me of an Astronomy lecture in University. When asked what numbers to put into the Drake Equation, the professor, not missing a beat said "let me just get God on the line and find out". The bottom line is that no matter what, it only takes ONE and you can't approach dating using a logical, scientific approach and it doesn't work that way.

I would suggest not taking online dating seriously and get out and about in the world. They may be (mostly) all single online but that doesn't mean they are truly interesting in a relationship. Learn the unconscious signs women are into you show like I did when a girl's eyes dilated rapidly when talking to me (I was on the road in another town getting gas. ARGH!). Instead of worrying about whether she is single, just chat her up and she will eventually start dropping hints. I know, easier said than done for us Aspies!

Picking up signs of girls I meet in real life. A good skill but as you say it's no easy task. This one girl seemed to be into me. I asked one of her friends if she was single. It turned out she wasn't.

I'm not a recluse, I get out into the real world but that just seems to lead to more female acquaintances.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just to old to be a noob at this.

How do you think *I* feel? I'm 5 years OLDER than you
In all seriousness, yes I have mentioned many times about the "tenant" at work who was showing all the signs of being interested in me (even the dilated pupils). She even saw me with a business suit once and I swear it looked like she wanted to "drop em" right there I worked up my courage and I told her how beautiful she looked with her new hairstyle (it was nothing short of jaw dropping plus I find long black hair irresistable) and she said "thanks, I guess" and then ignored me for days with her coworkers treating me like I had the plague. Found out later she informally reported me for that comment Go figure that when I said "well f*** her then" and ignored her she started being friendly and flirty again. Just a few weeks ago I had a woman I have been eyeing at the gym for 6 years make it crystal clear she was interested, even commenting on how my workout times are getting gradually shorter (correctly I might add) and my shirts are usually blue now instead of black. She even asked about my hobbies and why I am visiting the gym so much more and I told her about being single. Decided to ask her out the next week but when I chatted her up she was unbelievably rude, disrespectful and condescending to the point I had to resist saying "the f*** is your problem, b****?" I tried again on Sunday and she was the same way but..... you guessed it flirty and friendly once I started ignoring her. A coworker said she was in a bad mood but when I see a girl I am interested in, I always do a 180 no matter how grumpy I was! All you and I can do is keep at it and eventually we will find a normal woman who doesn't play head games.

To further make things confusing I had girl who was recently interested in me and was not single. For all you know they could be very unhappy, feel trapped in a relationship and looking an excuse to break up so don't automatically count them out as future relationship material. I know I did that in the final two months of my relationship. I know it's the almost blind leading the blind here but I do know exactly how you feel. It sucks being 31 and being no better than the average 21 year old at understanding how to attract women and form a relationship but I have to work with what I have. You would think being fit, taller than 99% of men and always smiling would make it easy but apparently not. I think it is an example where being intelligent is a hinderance rather than a help to finding a partner.

Do you like Zelda? Cause Zelda is f*****g awesome

All I can say to retro and hockey fan is:

You seem to be attracting the types who only want an ego boost at your expense. Clearly they don't care how you feel about it. Don't give in when they change back from cold to hot again. They already got the ego boost and believe they could get it again at any time they wanted.

Yeah, that's how I feel when I see some teenager asking for advice, not that I think they shouldn't ask for advice or they shouldn't be given any, I just think maybe I should have been asking questions like that at a younger age instead of watching Star Trek.




That's it, I feel like I can't get good it this sort of thing if I have to fear making an error. You can't get good at something without practice and you can't practice if you're expected to be good at it before you begin. It's true that I'm at an advanced age but even if I was younger, I've heard of boys in school getting in trouble for asking girls out. They say they should know the appropriate behavior but how can they now if they're never given a chance to learn? I never would have learned to play the piano if I got wrapped across the knuckles every time I made a mistake.



I wish I could be as good as the average 21 year old. At the moment it feels like I'm trying to make up for lessons I purposely avoided in middle school.



Gee it must be great being taller than 99% of men. I'm only taller than 75% of men

Yes I do and yes it is!

I like a lot of games but I picked Zelda because I wanted a game from 1987. I can identify with Link. Life is a quest.

Maybe so but I don't think my experiences have been as extreme as Hockey Fan's. That might be because I'm overly cautious though. I don't take risks so nothing can ever go wrong but nothing can ever go right either.

I think you could probably very easily find out how invested of interest they are in video games by simply asking which games they are interested in.

Typically, if someone is not a big gamer, and you ask which games they play, they'll just say they aren't much of a gamer, but like such and such games/series.

I have a PS3, and can play difficult games rather proficiently, but wouldn't call myself a gamer. If someone asked which games I liked, I'd mention that I don't play much anymore, but still mess about in a few games like Fallout, Ninja Gaiden, and Skyrim on occasion. It lets others know that I can enjoy playing games a little if they'd like to with me, but mentions it's not that important to me, so I don't wish to as a core form of companionability.

I recently asked my roommate what types of games she liked for conversation's sake as result to her mentioning playing computer games. Apparently she just meant simple app like games on her apple ipad thing, because she hadn't played an actual computer game in some many years when taking note of what people generally mean by the words "computer game". However, she mentioned that in her own detail after mentioning she hardly ever plays games.

I'd almost imagine that if gaming wasn't a large hobby, it'd not show up on one's dating profile or mentioned in conversation on their own accord. Gaming still has a negative stigma, it's just not as bad as in the past... now it's just seen as more akin to the sedentary activity of staring at television programs, but people who enjoy television programs don't tend to be judgmental of others who do as well. Though, if you ask what games a woman is interested in and she gives you a list of actual games that you'd discern were the choices of a avid gamer or not, I'd think that should be enough information to satisfy your question without asking the clunky and awkward "How much of a gamer are you?" question, because that can be seen as unknown to probing for a positive or negative response and modify her answer. If she mentions being quite a gamer laced in her response, it's probably safe to talk about your interest in games without being judged. Regardless, a woman who dates you is likely to find out that you enjoy them quite a bit at some point, no?

Also, even if she seems to really like games, it's probably best not to go full throttle with game talk unless you're both discussing the same games, and even then, regulate the flow of your dialogue by discerning how invested she is in in the conversation.

I'm a guitarist, but I don't really find intrigue in hearing about a majority of bands, guitarists, or guitar gear. If another guitarist wishes to discuss the bands, guitarists, and gear that I've knowledge about due to intrigue or has something really interesting to share about ones I don't know (likely through luck or knowing what I already like), then it's not an off putting eye glazing exercise of social skill practice. Likewise, when I converse with other guitarists, I typically hold myself as reserved until I know what they're interested in, and how what I know can apply to being interesting and create stimulating conversation, rather than bore them to tears with talk on theory, method, maintenance, and composers and musician's like Paganini, which they're more likely to think is a toasted Italian sandwich rather than the late Italian violinist virtuoso and patriarch of shred from the early 1800's.

That's what I usually do. Sometimes I think even that might be too much. If she thinks I'm into gaming too much she may think I game instead of working. One of the things I find it hard to break to women is that my job is part time. Not that I got a part time job just so I could play games.

That leads into the problem that some of my conversations seem to go like, which games do they play, what music are they into (they usually reply with "any music"), what movies do they like, what TV shows do they like, which books do they like and so on until I run out of media. Not that I really need to know all that but I just need some way to keep the conversation going until enough time has passed for me to ask them out (whatever length of time that is )

Maybe I should just ask them out straight away so they don't think "Why is he asking me all these dumb questions instead of asking me out" but I've had some who said too soon even after it had been a while.

I wouldn't judge a woman harshly if she wasn't into games it's just that it would be nice to have something to base a conversation around. I've heard people say opposites attract but I'm not sure if this is true. I think like likes like.

Hmm... in a face to face conversation, something along the lines of "I like a bit of everything" typically means they aren't particularly invested enough in whatever you're asking to formulate an opinion of what they actually like, and/or, aren't interested in the topic at hand enough to give a straight answer that would lead to more questions on the matter.

I've not done online dating, but I've been in a relationship that started online, and she and I certainly didn't hold back the floodgates for one or two worded responses and we were an autistic couple. I'd suspect that if you're asking questions and getting nothing, they are rather low priority topics of interest for the women you're corresponding with.

As far as opposites attracting, I don't suspect that works for dire opposites. Having some similar primary likes are important for having immediate bonding activities, but at the same time, opposites give new things to learn about the other person through the enthusiasm for their interests. I think going about nearly equal in interests and things that aren't of interest creates a good bond for having things to share, and things to learn about each other and life that you'd not normally see through your eyes in general.

I also suspect the "opposites attract" sentiment refers to personality types... like an extrovert is more likely to keep an introvert on their toes in conversation, rather than two extremely reclusive introverts never speaking to each other while comfortably lying in wait for the other to say something with nothing ever getting said.

You are overthinking it a bit. If someone really likes you on there, they will talk about most things with you. If they stop responding, it means they are not interested.

That's only because at your age I did not talk to women, PERIOD. I was so afraid of rejection I didn't even bother talking at all. I remember looking back at 25 this friendly girl my age struck up a conversation while we were waiting for a walk light and it was absolutely pouring rain to a level I have only seen a few times in my life. What did I do? Answer her questions in a serious tone and wished her well. Ugh what a wasted opportunity that was!


As of last week, when a women gives me passive aggressive attitude and don't apologize I cut them from my life to the maximum extent possible with no second chances or exceptions. If they are this bad now, image being married to someone like that. No thanks!