Asperger's, shyness, involuntary celibacy and social trauma

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Some Aspies, particularly those who are more shy and therefore more shy at initiating relationships, experience social humiliation and trauma because of it. As a consequence of having little in the way of a relationship history, as they get well past the age at which most people achieve milestones such as losing their virginity, marrying etc. some can be subjected to social trauma at the hands of people. Common scenarios being as follows: Getting accused of being a paedophile, or something else creepy. Getting badgered, humiliated or ridiculed by family members or other people about not having a partner or marrying. Getting pegged as being gay, with people maybe doing things like jokingly sexually harassing or inappropriately touching them, for example. Some Aspies, then, experience serious humiliation or even trauma because of being chronically single.

Can such humiliation and trauma, if it gets too much of an emotional burden, in very many cases start to outweigh their shyness and how much they'd perhaps be emotionally affected by approaching females and oftentimes being rejected? I know this question pertains more to the males, on whom society places the onus to approach and initiate a relationship. But due to emotional trauma, do many people in this situation come to a point where it turns around and it's better just to approach females, which can be emotionally burdensome but not as emotionally burdensome as the social trauma from being involuntarily celibate? I'm as shy (at least at starting relationships) as they come but feel I'm coming to that point some time soon. I wondered if this scenario is true for any other shy Aspies, and have you started to just approach, even if it's with cold approaches, for these reasons, and maybe overcome of your shyness to some degree because of it?

I wouldn't call it trauma. Trauma is when you have a negative experience that affects you psychologically for a long time. For instance, a couple months ago I was in the woods and a tree almost fell on me; now every time I hear a tree creaking it scares the $hit out of me.

And yes, the agony of being alone/celibate may at some point outweigh shyness, but that just leads to a whole new set of problems, such as looking like a wannabe manwhore.

I never liked the term "involuntary celibacy". It's usually attributed to people who possess a means of having sex, at least by seeing a prostitute. Thus in most cases it's a dishonest label.

God, I'm sick of hearing "Go see a therapist." For one thing, it's the most obvious answer, and almost invariably one the OP has probably already thought of. For another thing, therapists are not always helpful. All my last therapist did was ask me questions and then agree with everything I said. I got rid of her in August 2009, and I haven't needed therapy since. In fact my life's a lot better now, maybe something to do with actually working to fix my problems rather than just crying to a therapist about them.

I was accused of being gay in high school. After I denied this a few times, it got boring so I started saying things like "thanks, I wasn't aware of that, glad you came along to clear it up". I was always of the opinion my peers talked way too much, so nothing pleased me more than leaving them speechless. I guess that doesn't help you much, but seriously, people are going to think whatever they want to think. You can't control it. You might think you can assuage their concerns by approaching random women, but this won't necessarily work. If it's an obvious act, you may make it even worse. Moreover, you have to be prepared for the possibility you'll actually get a woman to agree to a date or something that you weren't prepared to follow through on.

If your main concern is overcoming your shyness rather than being accused of being some sort of sexual deviant or gay or being harassed, I probably can't help you. I never overcame my shyness because I wasn't really shy. I just don't like most of the meaningless socialization most people engage in (much of it having about as much intelligence as the average cow's mooing), and my dislike for it far exceeds my dislike of being lonely. I can actually be quite an affable fellow, but I have no endurance for spending an entire evening talking about nothing. I like interesting people, but most people aren't very interesting until and unless you can get them alone and find out what they really think.

I'm guessing you're not interested in short term sex flings, which are, I suspect, fairly easy to get if you're not picky. On the other hand, if you're looking for a life-partner, you are accompanied by most of humanity. It may make you feel worse, but statistically most of us will fail at this task. If you add up the divorcees, life-time singles, and people who are in unfulfilling marriages, it will dwarf the happily ever afters.

I personally have used and will use dating sites. Easy way to get rid of the people that are A.) already attached, B.) not remotely compatible, or C.)not looking for a relationship. Of course, there are people who would lie about A, B, or C, but then that's part of the dating stage where you assess qualities like honesty.

google roissy, and read everything on his blog, and dont take the hand reading s**t too serious. Also dont take some other stuff too serious. But 80% of it is just goldmine.

i don't get how anybody could ever be badgered into normal social functioning. it never worked for me, i was just driven into hermithood instead.

If pre-existing amount of 'emotional burden' X > 0 becomes greater than emotional burden of dating Y > 0, then the total burden X + Y is always greater than X. It's not as if X goes to zero once Y becomes bigger than it.

And, if X is slowly and continually increasing, then X + Y will eventually approach maximal endurable burden level M. And after that X itself will exceed M, which means that Y will eventually approach zero.

And from the journal Psychological Science, a Journal of the American Psychological Society:

Yes, I had come to that point where my secluded life was bothering me so much I had to do something about it. May I suggest online chat or dating sites. That's where I began. It's way easier than meeting people in real life. You don't have to deal with body language, silences aren't awkward, everyone is focused on chatting, and there are no other people in the mix.

I'm still bad at real life approaches. There's just too many variables to consider. It's never as simple as going up to someone, saying hi, and asking them questions. You have to deal with thier friends, divided attention, logistics, and situational awkwadness. Only people with very strong social skills or an invitation to approach can make those work.

For several different reasons, online chat and dating is something I've already tried, initially got a lot out of (and could put a lot into at the same time), exhausted until I could get no more out of it (nor had the opportunity any longer to put anything into), and so turned out to be a phase I've already come past.