Should autistic people date younger when it's NTs?

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I'm thinking about why it's wrong to date younger people of legal age and it comes down to 'you're more emotionally mature then them, prone to socially manipulating them and you're at a different life stage'.

To me, none of that is true when it comes to someone who's 21 and just about to leave home. However, someone who is 31 is all of those things to me. They've lived an adult life I haven't had yet and they're competent socially in a way that I'm not, therefore prone to being able to manipulate me.

So surely in my case - it's more healthy emotionally for both of us for me to go with someone younger?

My dad was 26 when he married my mum who was 19. She was very emotionally mature and NT. He had mental issues and was autistic. He was the one who wasn't cut out to be a dad yet (in fact I'd say he never fully matured and I spend a great deal of time parenting him rather than the other way around). I'm not saying she took advantage but I am saying I don't think he took advantage, I don't think he was capable of it. I'm also saying the lack of maturity and competency he had/has meant he should not have been a husband or father.

The exception to this is if it's someone else who's autistic or someone who has mental issues that makes them emotionally immature and socially unable to cope.

Am I being a prick for thinking like this or am I being logical?

It’s true that an older (HFA) autistic person is probably incapable of taking advantage of a younger NT person of legal age or above.

Even if: Autistic man is about age 30
NT woman about 19.


It varies on the individuals involved, though.

I had the capacity, when I was in my 20s, to “take advantage” of a naive NT person in her later teen years. Though not a streetwise teen person. It’s not something I would have done, though.

I was into women my own age or above. I enjoyed equal companionship, rather than exploitation.

I see nothing wrong with late 20s/early 20s dating.

Or with 30s/middle 20s dating...amongst all neurotypes.

20s/late teens (legal age or above) dating. Depends on the people involved.

30s/teens—probably not, in most cases.

I was 34 and my AS wife was 24 when we got married we have been married for 11 years now. I personally thinks it takes a certain level of maturity to look past AS and see the good. I can honestly say if I would have been in my mid 20s I would not have been able to look past the AS and seen all if the good things in her.

Nobody in this society would find anything wrong, even these days, with a 34-year-old marrying a 24-year-old. You're both adults.

My father was 55 when he married his 30-year-old wife.

Sure! If you can find someone to (legally) date, then why not?

Agreed. Age really is just a number.

I feel like with AS you might be caught in this weird place where you're wise beyond your years and at the same time you never really grow up. So if you're mid-30's, you ought to be stable enough for a serious relationship. One would think, anyway. And while you possibly could be prone to some child-like behavior, it's just enough to be fun without being inappropriate or outright stupid. You could have a relationship with a 19 year old girl, provide a sense of protection and security, and still understand her enough to have fun with her.

I started dated an 18 year old when I was 23 years old. What was nice about that relationship was that I'd gotten so much dumb stuff out of my system as an undergrad that I kept an intense focus on my studies for my next degree. Sure, I was still young and horny all the time, but I made sure I waited until the last paper was submitted before the weekend before I even considered having fun. So we'd spend a lot of time in her dorm room that first year while she studied or worked on a project and not even really say much to each other. And then we might go to dinner and a movie on the weekend or have some intimate time together. What made that relationship so great and so fun was we put school demands ahead of our relationship, and when there was nothing school-related to do, we kept from making demands of each other. We just kinda let things happen.

I think when you're younger it's too easy to have unreasonable expectations of your mate. When you're older, you can see that she's spending time with some other guy and you can ask her about it. She'll say, "Oh, you have nothing to worry about. We're just friends." And you'll be like, "No...I've seen you together and it's obvious how you feel. It's ok. Go be with someone you love. No hard feelings, ok? And maybe gimme a call sometime!" No tears. No anger. No jealousy. No obsessive calls at 3am. No weirdness. Younger people might not handle breaking up so well. Yeah, when we broke up, tears were shed because everything had been going so well. But things had gone as far as they would ever go. It sucks when that happens. But it ended on good, friendly terms. Younger people might have trouble doing good and friendly.

I kinda like being over 40 and knowing everything. I'm sometimes curious what it would be like to date again. I don't think I could date a 19 yo. I would probably look for a widow whose kids are already grown, preferably someone not more than 15 years older than me. Older than me is good. But I'm pretty much committed to not ever dating again. I like it that way!

As I posted in another thread Us Aspies tend to mature slower than our peers & some studies say on average that our mental age is a 3rd less than our physical age. There is plenty of variation ofcorse & there even are Aspies who are mentally older than their physical ages. This said it would make sense for some of us to be attracted to younger people since we'd be more on the same mental age. My 1st girlfriend was 15 when I was 20 & my 2nd was 19 & I was 28(I met my 2nd & current on this forum). I never really been attracted to older women when it came to looking for a romantic relationship. I find various women including celebs & porn stars who are like a decade older than me attractive but I never really wanted a relationship with someone who was a bit older than me. I think part of the reason is that I'm behind my peers in some very important ways & I never had my sh!t together with life. I cant drive, didn't own my one place, & only worked 38 months of my life thou I tried for YEARS to find work. I was afraid that an older women would act like a mom with me & I NEVER had a good relationship with my mom. My mom resented me for being so dependent & demanding & she made it very known most all my life. I also know I don't have much to bring to the table in a relationship & I think one of my biggest relationship strengths is trying to be supportive of my partner & a younger girl is more likely to want & need that. My 1st girlfriend had some serious issues she was dealing with & she never knew her dad & cuz of the combination of all that, she did have some "daddy issues" & I kinda felt like a parent with her in some ways. I'd much rather feel like a dad to my partner than feel like I'm her child.

However my current girlfriend is half a year older than me & she has some various issues she's dealing with so in some ways I do feel like a dad to her sometimes but she also feels like a mom to me sometimes so things kinda balance out.


This said, it does seem to make sense for some on the spectrum to date younger people but a lot of it depends on the person on the spectrum & they're partner. Lots of women tend to prefer older guys in general & lots of older guys prefer younger women in general so it may be much harder for an Aspie girl to find a younger guy.

This is kind of true. My best friend (female) is 11 years my junior. When I met her, I was 33 and she was 22. But she treated me as an equal, and showed real interest in spending time with me. All while my best friends since high school pretty much kicked me to the curb after they found serious girlfriends. While those friends were having boring conversations about kitchen tiles and curtain fabrics with their girlfriends, me and this girl walked around a zoo, where we made noises at the animals. She also gives me better hugs than my first girlfriend did, and is a more skilled dancer too.

On some level, I was flattered and endeared that she was looking for friendship with me, rather than a relationship. I saw many relationships that are unhappy, boring, or both. The lack of romance made me feel ethereally relaxed with her. We have same sense of humor, and she has a youthful playfulness that women my age simply lack. For example, we once drank vodka-laced Slurpees in an underpass, like Lucas and Maggie in the movie "Lucas". Except that she was a fun partner in crime (we were technically breaking the law by consuming liquor in public), rather than someone out of reach romantically.

It's not that uncommon for these sorts of relationships to happen.

33 and 22? Big deal!

It is generally socially acceptable for a man to be romantically involved with a woman whose age is at least half his age, plus seven years (Age♀ = (Age♂/2) +7).

• Frederick Locker-Lampson's Patchwork from 1879 states the opinion "A wife should be half the age of her husband, with seven years added."

• Max O'Rell's Her Royal Highness Woman from 1901 gives the rule in the format "A man should marry a woman half his age, plus seven."

• The 'rule' appeared in John Fox, Jr.'s The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come in 1903.

• The 'rule' appeared in American newspapers in 1931, and was attributed to Maurice Chevalier.

• The 'rule' also appears in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In the 1950s, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad "taught that a wife's ideal age was half the man's age, plus seven"; a further claim was that this age gap should make up for women's maturing more quickly than men, as well as ensure that the husband was "sufficiently authoritative" over his wife.

• In The Moon Is Blue, a 1953 film adaptation of the 1951 play by Frederick Hugh Herbert, Maggie McNamara -- playing 22-year-old Patty O'Neill -- asks her 30-year-old suitor, "Haven’t you ever heard that the girl is supposed to be half the man's age, plus seven?"

Personally, I think it's another apocryphal "Old-Wives Tale".

I know. It my case, it wasn't even a relationship; she said she was looking for friends. I know it sounds odd and counterintuitive, but I was more endeared when she went out of her way to be my friend, like telling me about fun events she found and asking me about my favorite animal, than I would be if she did those things to show romantic interest. Just consider the stark difference between discussing kitchen tiles and making noises at zoo animals.

I met her during a dark time: when everyone I know was coupling up and turning into 70-year-olds in 30-year-old bodies. So her young age and lack of relationship mindset made me feel very comfortable with her. Something very few women can achieve with me to this day. (Well, she's 25 now; only time will tell what she'll be like when she reaches 30.)

Your premise isn't necessarily logical. Emotional intelligence isn't always age related. Recently I had a 3 yr old give me a lecture at the Melbourne Zoo about etiquette regarding pressing buttons on a zoo enclosure. And she was right

You are right, I been feeling like I’m growing up every five years or more.

What exactly did your daughter tell you? What buttons? Did it have anything to do with treating animals well? Most aspie kids have a hypertrophied sense of kindness. Heck, I myself used to describe myself as "the kindest child ever lived" (that is, the kindest child in human history). Morality/kindness is NOT a problem for aspie kids. But when it comes to standing your ground and navigating society, i.e. "social skills", aspies are still at 2/3rd level of their NT brethren. Many don't fully catch up until their 30's. I know from my own life experience.

Heck, my emotional development is STILL behind NTs, even though I fully caught up in social skills. At age 33, my old best friends, same age as me, were discussing curtains and kitchen tiles with their girlfriends, oftentimes together at dead-boring dinner parties with all couples. (Where I occasionally mimed a noose gesture behind my neck, out of sheer boredom.) Me and my new best friend, who was 22 back then, were drinking vodka-laced Slurpees in a pedestrian underpass and roaring at tigers in a zoo. Mind you, I met her that year, so it's not like we had a long friendship history; we just bonded right away. And it's interesting how her LACK of romantic interest in me made me MORE comfortable with her. That year and ever since, she was a better friend to me than my old friends since high school.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 09 Jan 2020, 11:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.

When I was working at a workshop in the early 90s, I was 20 when I got a boyfriend, he was 19, he was very immature 19 year old, I was almost 21. I was always interested in younger guys, I didn’t know about my Aspergers then. I’m 49, my ex-boyfriend is 43, on OkCupid, I’m interested in guys that are 37, but under 35 seems too young I guess.