Friendship vs. romance?

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Well all my relationships and/or sexual liaisons that might not necessarily qualify as "relationships") began in the context of some sort of mating ritual. I never really had a "circle of friends" and I suspect a lot of males on the spectrum can say the same. I certainly never had close female friends that I can recall. To me the idea of having a good female friend who becomes a lover at some unspecified time down the road is completely alien.

I have to wonder whether everybody here (except for Boo) is being perfectly honest. Or it's possible that younger Aspies who were diagnosed in childhood were then put into situations where they were around others like themselves actually did have this opportunity, although I can also see a lot of problems with two Aspies connecting in this way. In my case, I was mostly seen as a person largely incapable of having close friends, except that in college I managed to mitigate some of the worst consequences of loneliness by joining a fraternity whose members were largely seen as a bunch of losers, and yes I did have a couple of friends there but they were male and I wasn't gay (some of them were though).

But in addition, from what I've seen of how females become romantically (and/or sexually) involved with males rarely has anything to do with what I would consider "friendship". In particular, a woman will meet somebody and feel physically attracted to him. If she is, she may (possibly) act on that feeling of attraction at that time. Now in TV and films, it's a common theme for two people who've known each other for years to unexpectedly fall in love (the most recent example of this that I've seen is the film "Yesterday") but it doesn't jibe in the least with my personal experience, despite many anecdotal examples to the contrary that are likely to be offered.

You are sexually Haskell?

If a man could get an erection, he is “sexually functional.”

Even If he can’t, and he can bring a woman to orgasm, he is also “sexually functional.”

OK so you are definitely way more knowledgeable in that area than I would have ever guessed.

I think I'll skip on googling that and let it remain an unknown for me.

My chances for female friendships decrease all the time. Women in my area tend to already by coupled up and are disallowed by their boyfriends or husbands to have male friends.

I just fix them. I don't code, at least not since the 80s. I had to Google it myself.

Haskell is 'a purely functional programming language'.

Amusing reference.

Thanks for taking the risk. I was on my work computer so especially risk adverse. I knew it was an inside joke, but not inside of which topic.

If you are logging into WP from your work computer, then you are less risk-averse than I. When I'm at work, I only use my phone (no WiFi in the office) for that purpose.

Not a risk for me. Using my own phone.

For what it's worth:
I'm an IT admin at work, so if we had anything to log access to inappropriate material there, I would be the first to know. If anyone else wanted to know what was up, I work in a library and that was legitimate research for someone who asked a question.

If it had looked really shady, I would have waited and run the search on one of our public-use PCs which run in a 'sandbox'. We could theoretically see what site was visited from which computer in the network security logs if it was something really unusual, but we'd have no idea who did it unless we happened to be watching and caught it in realtime. We generally have better things to do.

I think the friendship first approach can work well, but I have a caveat: it has to be intended as a friendship, not someone who wants to date the person but is settling for a friendship because they don't think the other person is interested. If you are settling for a friendship because you have other reasons not to date at this point in time (working together, not feeling ready, etc) that can usually turn out OK, but not if your hope is the other person will develop interest they currently don't have. While interest can develop over time, you don't want to go into a friendship counting on it. It is also very tricky trying to change a friendship into a dating relationship, and the risk of rejection is going to be there, as it is trying to start any dating relationship. You have to know that before attempting to change the relationship, and decide if you can continue to "just be friends" if the other person is not on the same page.

I agree with that. Completely alien.

I find friends first completely unsatisfactory. I want passion in a relationship, and the friendship road will lead to a boring relationship with poor attachment. Suboptimal in every way. A relationship should start with a crush and friendship should be last, not first.

That just begs the question. Why does friendship precludes passion? Intuitively, it seems like friendship and passion should go hand by hand: you feel so much in common with your friend, that you become passionate about it! On the other hand, if you compartmentalize such as "no I can't be a friend because we date", there is nothing passionate about it, just some cold-hearted rules you are trying to follow.

Why isn’t anyone replying to me?

Because passion is based on infatuation (past or present), and I cannot get infatuated with a friend.



A friendship is something that is beneficial for both parties, and preferentially without too many emotions. It only continues as long as it is still beneficial. Something that is highly incompatible with a longterm relationship.



I find "dating" a highly undesirable method for starting a romantic relationship, and I have no rules.