Can't stop thinking about an Asperger's girl at work...

Post Reply New Topic

Life with R has got more complicated.

As I've got to know her more I've become to realise that despite her outer shell she's very delicate and needs someone to look after her. She knows this too.

She was having problems late one night and messaged me. We spoke for a few hours and I spent the next day with her to make sure she was ok. I found out much more about her and ended up liking her even more.
I tried to do the right thing and made sure her BF would be coming to look after her after I left.
The next day she told me she was moving in with him. I was very jealous, but again knew it was the right thing.

I expected things to cool down between after that. That she would be focused on building a home with him and that I would just be forced to move on.
Instead we talked about how our SOs didn't really understand the Asperger's/ASD thing, that we didn't really like having to pretend to be normal etc.
One afternoon she set up a situation where we could be alone and talk. I told her that I really liked her. I don't really remember what she actually said but only that she used the word 'no'.
I avoided her the next day because I was embarrassed and confused. I thought she would have preferred we didn't see each other but instead she messaged me to tell me she wanted me to be there and was unhappy I wasn't around.
If anything our messages had become more flirty than before.

I was still confused but less embarrassed.

We didn't chat again for the rest of the evening until about 2am when she messaged me to tell me she was high in a club and had screwed up her life. She had an important work thing the next day. She said I might have been the trigger for making her go back to her old life. She had lied to her BF about where she was.

I eventually talked her into going home at 4am, and convinced her to call in sick a couple of hours later.
Her BF came home to look after her and although we spoke a few times for the rest of the day, I told her she should concentrate on him because it seems to me that he must love her.
She's better off with him. He's smart, from a good well off family and most of all stable. I don't have anything better to offer.

We haven't spoken for over 24 hours now. This makes me sad.

I like that it's me that she contacts me when she needs someone but I'm very confused about everything else.

Even with all of this I still really like her.

It sounds to me like R likes you alot as a friend & maybe as even more than a friend & you coming out & on to her by telling her you like her, made her confused as to if she should really be with her bf over you or not. The thing is that both you & R have romantic partners & for the sake of your partners you need to both make sure you prioritize your partners & your relationship with your partners over the relationship you have with each other. If you & R both want to try having a romantic relationship with each other, you both have to end things with your partners which I feel your not ready to do OP & you made R confused about it. I think it'll help if you & R try to have some space from each other & try to have very defined boundaries.

With my sane logical brain I completely agree. The problem is none of this is sane or logical. If I was being sane and logical I wouldn't even be thinking about R at all. I would be happy with my GF, who is kind, supportive and stabilising. She might not really understand my differently wired brain but she is accepting of it.
Until I met R I thought this was the best I could ever hope for, and I was happy.
It's not as if I don't love my GF, I do. But being with R is a completely different experience. It's clichéd but it feels raw and electric. I simply crave her attention, to be with her. When I'm not with her she's all I think about.

I wish we had met when we were both single, to even find out if it would work now I'd have to destroy people's lives.

My GF deserves to be with someone else. I'm clearly not the one she should be wasting her time with. I have to destroy her life to set her free.

R needs someone stable. That's not me. I don't want to destabilise her anymore than I already have.

At this point nothing feels like a good choice. I'm exhausted thinking about it and I just want sleep.

It's easy to let fantasy overtake reality. You need to be mindful of this. You should spend time thinking of all the reasons you're fortunate in your current relationship.

There's a great episode in the TV show Seinfeld where Jerry meets a woman (played by Janeane Garafolo) who thinks like him and acts like him in every way. They "get" each other more than anyone else has. They fall in love rapidly and get engaged. They're mirror images of each other. Shortly after they're sitting in the diner and at the exact same time they blurt out to the other: "I hate you!" They break up amicably within seconds and never see each other again. Moral of the story? Differences can be a good thing in relationships. Extreme similarity may not be as good as fantasy could lead us to believe.

If I'm thinking logically I'm pretty sure I would be better off with my GF. She's very stable, very sensible, and doesn't have problems/incidents.
She looks after me, makes sure I eat properly, sleep properly and provides a strong moral compass.

With R it really is what I can only describe as having fallen in love. I wouldn't of ever said that but after googling how I feel I'm fairly sure that's what it is. Tbh until recently I would have said the phenomenon is something other people imagined they had. If I accept that I might have to accept the concept of 'the one'. And accepting that shouldn't I do everything I can to be with her?

I do agree though. It's a lot to throw away for both me and R for what may end up being a short relationship.
My impression is that ASD/ASD relationships are usually unstable. Both R and I are impulsive and unstable and I'm sure our relationship would be explosive.

R did say to me "the grass isn't always greener".

Sigh. Life's complicated.

UNLESS both their NT partners just happen to be open to polyamory, which is of course unlikely, but I thought I should throw out this possibility just in case, because it seems to me that, in the unlikely event that they ARE open to it, polyamory MIGHT be the best possible outcome for everyone concerned. It might, for example, take some of the ASD support burden off of their NT partners.

Alas I can't advise on a good way to feel out this possibility, which is, of course, a huge minefield in itself. A failed attempt to feel out their NT partners on this issue could, in itself, destroy either or both of their primary relationships -- the worst possible outcome.

Unfortunately for me the only solution is for me to get over R.
She wants to be with her BF, and anything other than friendship from me risks destabilising her. That's just not something I want to do to her. I care about her too much to put her through the chaos.

I think it's got better over the last couple of weeks. Early last week I left early one day because I couldn't cope being around her but not having her attention, I worked remotely since and that's been better. I will have to go into the office next week though.

I've also starting smoking weed again after a break of a couple of years. This probably isn't great solution but it has dampened my emotions down and made it easier to cope.
R tried to talk me out of it, but I couldn't tell her that I needed it to get over her.
This has caused problems with my GF though.

We've still been chatting a lot though. I've tried to keep things constructive, about work, not flirty and to mention our SOs frequently.

I've also been making a effort to interact with more females in a attempt to dilute my feelings towards R. Not sure if this is sensible either but I'm hoping that not being fixated on just R will be an improvement.

So tell us, does she smoke pot?

R? Yes. My GF? No.

Can you convert your GF?

Never going to happen. She's sensible and well behaved. Basically the opposite of me and R. Never did drugs, never been in trouble for anything.

Why even have a partner? All that cooking, cleaning being taken care of stuff can just be outsourced...



Isn’t the point to have fun?

Isn’t more important to feel alive?! !! ! To drink rum from ice cream buckets in Cambodia on New Years to dance to dawn? To build igloos and houses in countries you’re never heard of? I don’t know but I feel for u I’ve been through something similar and it did not end well.

Have u been with ur GF long? Like ova a year? We’re not talking 3 months here are we?

I've been with my GF for over 10 years.

Lack of excitement is one of things me and R talk about. We both managed to not screw up too badly, worked hard and get nice well paid corporate jobs. We managed to avoid the poverty we grew up in. But god isn't this life boring.
Until I met R I didn't realise how bored I was. Until she started saying that one of the hardest things is convincing yourself that this is what you really want.
Until she started suggesting things we could do to add some excitement in to our lives.
Until I met her.

As for a partner, it's not the cooking, cleaning etc. It's that she's stable and I'm not. It's that I need someone to play with, that I'm hard work to be around and realistically the number of people willing to deal with me is small. It's selfish I know, I guess I'm still scared of being alone.

I'm not sure any of this will end well either.

Can’t you just hang out with her? Is it that hard to not touch her?

That's exactly what we do and that's all it will ever be. It's easy to accept now, I know there will never be anything more.

I still want to hold her hand, except for that it's not really a physical thing anyway.