A myth that people with Asperger are incapable of love

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It really pisses me off when NT-s assume that people with Asperger are incapable of love. If I was truly incapable of feeling emotions, why would I be so lonely and miserable about the fact that I am single?

Sometimes I wonder whether the brush-off "you can't be happy with someone unless you are happy with yourself" was developed specifically for aspies. NT-s know perfectly well that *their* happiness/unhappiness has everything to do with their social surrounding. So maybe they just heard a bit too much about aspies not being that way and then they label any loner as a supposed aspie.

I think things used to be better back in the 90s when asperger was unheard of. But perhaps it was just me being younger and getting more leeway?

I think we don't love the same way.

It seems to me that the vast majority of AS people are profoundly capable of immense compassion. Compassion is one form of love, and one of the most sacred forms of love. Compassion for animals is very obvious as one facet of this in many members here.

I can very much relate about having compassion for animals. I even have a compassion for toys too: if I see a toy in the middle of the road, I would take it away so that the car won't drive across it. I remember having discussion with someone about it and they said "yeah so you are attached to inanimate objects more than to people", and I was like "no, I simply have compassion for the weak, it is simply that inanimate objects happened to be weaker than people most of the time".

I did have compassion for a person though: over a decade ago, I dated a girl who was really sick and I was taking care of her while she was sick. Then, when she became better, she got grouchy and I came to a point of regretting being with her, but I stayed with her for the whole another year (our relationship was total of two years) because I didn't want to "betray" her, remembering how she used to be sick and all that. And in fact she told me in a derogatory way "get yourself a girlfriend that is permanently ill" meaning that when someone is ill thats the only time when I am not selfish.

This brings me to the actual root of my supposed selfishness. In majority of situations I view others as "strong" and myself as a "victim" (due to Asperger) and thats why I feel sorry for myself not for them. But in the few cases when I feel that it is the others that are weak (whether those be toys or animals OR a person that happens to be sick) then I finally feel compassion for them. So Asperger doesn't stop me from being able to relate to people, it is the victim status that does. And victim is what society made me into through the very judgement described in the OP. So in this respect it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

It varies alot by the Aspie since no two are exactly alike & autism is a spectrum. There's more than a few Aspies who get in relationships & only to avoid spending much time with their partner & ignore them because the Aspie is overwhelmed or too focused on his/her special interests. Those Aspies may love their partner but they do a horrible job of showing their partner that they do which leads to people assuming that Aspies cant love.

However there's Aspies on the other end like me who's partner becomes the Aspie's special interests & the Aspie does everything he/she can to try & take care of their partner.

One of my past girlfriends complained that I been ignoring her in favor of physics. But that has nothing to do with physics being my special interest: this has to do with the fact that I have a real tangible crisis, as evident from the fact that I am 38 year old and didn't become a professor yet. I guess the "special interest" comes into play in a sense that other people in my situation would go work in a lab or teach in community college, but I am sticking to my goal of becoming professor and chose to go back to school rather than have those other jobs. But still, that has nothing to do with neglecting my girlfriend in favor of special interest. That has a lot more to do with neglecting her in favor of some type of crisis -- and that crisis was created BY special interest but thats a different story.

Also, let me point out the following: if I presumably don't care about dating, why do I spend so much time obsessing as to why I am single? So, when I am single and have all the time in the world to do physics, I instead obsess about wanting a girlfriend, and when I have a girlfriend, then all of a sudden I re-focus back to physics. So which way is it? Is having a girlfriend more important than doing physics or is doing physics more important than having a girlfriend? Well, what happens is called "crisis mode": I have two kinds of crises -- failure to establish career as a physicist and failure to find a girlfriend -- so whichever crisis I deem to be "worse" is what gets all of my attention. I bet NT-s experience crisis mode too. So, contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with lack of emotions: quite the opposite, part of the reason why people in general (aspies or not) are bad at handling crisis is that they are overwhelmed with emotions.

I am capable of love and have compassion, not just for animals, but for people, too.