asexual and love

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As a 37 year old guy i think i've finally come to terms with dating and that it's not something I want to do. I loathe it, I've tried tons of dating apps, been on dozens of dates but more to the point talked to 100+ connections and I end up ghosting them when it comes time to set up a date. I just dont want to go through that. I hate it, i hate small talk, I don't like making plans or being out anywhere, socializing, any of that.

I'm just curious what love is. I never had any semblance of a family growing up, no need to expand and derail but I raised myself from the time I was about 12, I've 3 times in my life had a friend that may be similar to a best friend but that's about it. 2 times were coworkers that involved some semi-regular hanging out at a bar doing trivia on occasion. 1 time was a friend of a coworker that we went to museums and stuff a few times, all 3 times have been maybe about a year before moves/work/other things have cut the ties.

Basically I dont think I even know what human connections are but i'm just kind of curious what it's like to be loved.

I dont know what I'm getting at. But maybe some familiarity with someone. It's just getting uglier year after year, to the point I lie about having a girlfriend at work to avoid annoying questions or would be admirers. But how do you just want to know what some kind of connection can be like without all the other stuff? the time and effort to get there? Due to my social nature I do work quiet overnight shift, only thing that works for me, and that makes things 10x worse.

i dont know, i'm just rambling.

No, I don't think you are. I can sort of relate to quite a lot of what you say. But you deserve a considered response from someone who hasn't been drinking, and I am temporarily unable to fit that bill. If no-one else has come in on this by the next time I'm sober, I'll endeavour to say something.

But I do salute the relative lack of plaint or self-pity in your remarks. You are surely to be congratulated on that, as compared with myself at your age (and as compared with some other men posting on this forum).

I'm with you there, but we have to accept that this can be a bit of an impediment when it comes to relationships. Somehow I have had a few relationships, and somehow I do have a few friends, but as far as the term "invisible disability" goes, in my experience this is one of the areas where Asperger's really is disabling, and all the people who tell me to "get out more" and "make more of an effort" and "stop being so antisocial" etc. are totally missing the point.

Well, a lot of people struggle to work that out! More seriously, it sounds like you know enough about it to notice its absence from your life, and I can definitely say when it hits you you'll know about it; for some people, it turns out to be so intense and so overwhelming that they decide they'd sooner do without, but I myself am in favour of it, and would quite like to enjoy a bit more of it some time before I die, even though I consider myself very severely scarred by my last encounter with it.

That sounds like a very A.S.D. sort of feeling, and there's no shame in it; you may yet discover that you can connect with certain people (I can connect with a few rare and special people who come along once in a blue moon, but not long ago I made an NT acquaintance explain to me how the hell he could profess to have so many friends, and he did explain at some length his approach to the human race, following which he went on to give me a load of irrelevant advice about what was "wrong" with my attitude and my spending so much time quietly alone at home): it's clear that NTs really do start from a totally different place, and while the apparent pleasure they get from constant pointless meaningless social interaction is in fact (or can be) 100% genuine, it would naturally seem very hollow to someone with A.S.D. and it could even detract from one's quality of life, e.g. the sensory overload and frustration and anxiety of being stuck in a social situation one can't cope with, and the depression and exhaustion afterwards.

Can be good, but not necessarily: to be good, it needs to be mutual and it needs to be not too smothering or importunate or overbearing or claustrophobic; and being loved by someone who doesn't actually really understand you can be a mixed blessing, to say the least.

Um. Well, fate may or may not suddenly send someone your way: these things can happen unexpectedly; a connection can suddenly be made, and it feels like waking up with a jolt, and if the other person feels it too, then that can lead to something. But in the situation you describe, clearly the odds are not greatly in your favour, and I'm not suggesting they are.

So now it's I who am rambling, and so I'll stop!

Thx for the reply. I dont know, it just that so much of life takes so much effort just for everything else I've kind of felt like friendship or companionship should be the one thing that doesnt take effort. Like I get up every day with only so much gas in my tank and most days it's used up halfway through. i tried explaining to someone and they said it was laziness, but hell if they only knew how much effort it took just to get out.

I'm afraid the kind of exhaustion you're describing does seem to kind of go with the A.S.D. territory, and yes other people do tend to perceive it as laziness or lack of effort; this is among the reasons why I quite like the new phrase "hidden disability" or "invisible disability" (not that I like actually having the damned disability, of course), because some of us just do have this thing to struggle with, and to manage, and to cope with, which many people don't even see.

Still, the fact that the diagnosis exists, and many of the threads on here, indicate that it is not just your imagination, and although it can be a very real problem, it isn't a curse cast on you alone and nobody else, that only you have to suffer. This may not be much of a consolation, but I find I can derive a little bit of consolation from it.

Occasionally, when the chemistry is right, friendship and companionship can be effortless. How and where you find those occasional special people, I alas have not yet worked out! Seems to be as much a matter of fate and luck as anything, so far as I can see. Obviously, forcing yourself to go out and "mingle" a bit will increase your chances of finding people; but there again, driving yourself too hard or forcing yourself into social contexts that aren't right for you will only increase the exhaustion and distress, obviously: so there's some kind of a happy medium to be worked out (I believe the professionals call this "Managing Your Condition"...).