When in my early 20s, I was in a relationship with a young woman who in retrospect I think may have been on the AS. The relationship spanned a number of years.
I should say I met her quite by accident, and within a couple of weeks we were basically living together which continued for some time (this is a bit oversimplified). She was the love of my life until I met my wife several years later. Although I dated some other people in the interim, none of them replaced her (until my wife). I am glad to be married to the person I'm married to and I think I'm happier now than I would be if I'd stayed with this girl which is why it's not especially hard for me to talk about. But I still think of her far more than I should.
I would like to ask people's opinion on this. I am not looking for a diagnosis, just off-the-top of one's head opinions. A big reason is that I feel my experience may have some relevance as to whether aspies are better off marrying other aspies or not.
I will try to give reasons to think she was on the spectrum. Or at least observations that may or may not be relevant. This will be hard because I am going to avoid specific incidents and a lot will be from others' point of view. I guess what I am asking for is not so much a diagnosis, but an impression of whether such a person could be on the spectrum, given the description.
0.) To begin, she was inarguably "eccentric". Nobody I knew who had met her would have ever used "normal" as a way to describe her. My parents definitely though something was wrong with her (as in "Dad, there's something wrong with my son").
1.) When I think back, I would say that her father was a classic Aspie (by which I mean somebody you would probably suspect of being an aspie if you knew him). Her mother was a strange, childlike person although I don't think of her as being autistic. Her siblings were really quite conventional.
2.) She had an unusual way of talking, although after being around her a while, I stopped noticing much (plus communication changes when you are close to someone). She had a number of pet phrases of her own that she used over and over again.
3.) To expand on 2.), when she would call my parents' house and I wasn't there, apparently she would repeat phrases over and over again as a way to achieve emphasis. She probably did it with me too but I had gotten used to it. This in particular convinced my parents she wasn't normal and I should get out of the relationship as soon as I could manage.
4.) Most of my acquaintances (and friends such as I had) who felt entitled to an opinion thought I should drop her ASAP although I had no wish to. Of course this included my parents, who told me she could never be more than a "pet" but could never be a proper wife. Another thing was, they didn't think she could be trusted to be monogamous.
5.) In point of fact, they were probably partially correct about the latter (although I don't know how they got that impression). There was an episode when she did something inappropriate with another guy right in front of me. Later I simply told her I didn't like that, but I wasn't angry like you'd expect. And this was fairly early in the relationship, nowhere near to when we broke up.
6.) She impressed people as being younger than she was. An acquaintance (a fellow student) asked me pointedly how old she was (it seemed he was asking on behalf of a number of people). I suspect he thought she was a teenager.
7.) She did like a lot of childhood things and liked to talk a lot about things from childhood. This never bothered me. She was nevertheless a fully functioning adult. Although one "adult" thing she really liked was sex. To be specific, I would be more inclined to say that she liked sex a lot rather than that she was unusually horny. She just didn't have misgivings about sex unlike a great many women.
8.) Speaking of sex, she had an extremely uncomplicated and straightforward approach to sex. Having sex with her was a lot of fun although she wasn't actually the best lover I've experienced. She seemed to take great pride in being a good girlfriend, in the sense of meeting her boyfriend's physical needs (which to her was her most important responsibility as a girlfriend). I actually learned a lot from her because she was always frank about what she was experiencing.
9.) Importantly, when I was with her, I never felt any need for "alone time". We could spend every waking moment together for days without having a disagreement (or at least so I remember). At the same time, if I needed to be away from her, I never felt any real regret (I suppose I always assumed she'd be waiting when I got back). I also sometimes came on to other females when away from her (see 4.) and 5.)) without feeling any guilt. On at least one occasion, I was ready to cheat on her had things worked out.
In retrospect, I think I treated her quite badly and if I ever again came into contact with her, the first thing I would do would be to apologize (although ultimately it was she who dumped me). I understand now that she had very strong feelings for me to which I was largely insensitive, and that I did not fully appreciate my own feelings for her (except in retrospect). But my time with her will always be my fondest memory from when I was in my 20s.
My reason for posting this is that it may be a cautionary tale for aspies who desire romantic companionship with other aspies. I hope somebody finds it interesting.
01 Feb 2015, 11:57 am
