Gender Differences for ASD People re: Dating/Relationships

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Which religion? And do you attend church/whatever regularly? If so, how big (in terms of approximate number of regular attendees) is it?

This may be one area of numerical advantage for you: Religious women tend to outnumber religious men, at least in most Christian churches, and tend to be interested only in men who share their religion.

Also, if you attend a church or other of house of worship, have you asked the leaders there to help you find a better job or refer you to someone who can? Churches can be an excellent source of business networking.

Churches can be a great place to meet people.

I would’ve had no trouble finding a relationship if I had stuck to my church, but it was more insular than most, so that was definitely a contributing factor.

A local Christian saying here: “Praying is women realm” , since women always outnumber men in churches.

That’s not the case for the Muslims though.

Or the Jewish even. I read (and kind of agree) that Christianity tends to emphasize female sensibilities in the church, even if that is generalizing.

Again, yes and no. Ok so most women may have moved out by the time they're in their 30s. In what sort of financial situation are most of them? Most of them STILL are living paycheck to paycheck, that's a fact and that doesn't make you terribly "independent" if you're additionally in debt, have various regular bills that even if you can afford them now you may not be able to in the near term future if you lose your job, your hours are cut, your wages are cut, you get some unexpected medical or other emergency expenditure or a host of other possible eventualities. THAT is the economy we're living in, Inquisitor.

And you say it's better to be living w/their friends, absolutely if that's possible, not always but in general I'd agree. That's still not owning your own home or even having your own apartment/flat (if anyone in the UK is reading this). Most people in your and Sly's generations won't have the hope in the foreseeable future of owning their own home, if ever. And Twilight's correct, the odds by far are more likely you find someone than win the lottery.

She's also right that you're very young. My sh***y relationship didn't start till I was 24 either. You feel left behind b/c you didn't have sex by the time you were 19. Well I hadn't either and sure it sucked. But that's in the past, there's no point in worrying about something that's already happened. Still even compared to Sly, you have more time, basically your whole adult life ahead of you. You and Sly both need to drop this fatalistic attitude you have. We're giving you facts and alot of advice, which again is all we can do. Again, I'm older than you and essentially in the same boat as you and I have much less time and therefore a similar tolerance threshold for your rejection to either of you. But I'm not feeling fatalistic any more b/c I want a happy life, I'm desperate for that and I'm working on myself to achieve that, including re: relationships. We live in tough times, but the suggestions being offered here are for your benefit. If you feel like giving up, that's your choice, but I'd advise against it b/c you're kind of throwing your love life away for no reason.

Another point. I haven't tried dating really since my breakup 2 decades ago b/c I've always been so afraid that things would never improve, that I was destined to be alone for life, no one would ever like me romantically and that I had nothing to offer. Even on the rare occasions when I was approached (a very long time ago), I either didn't know what to do or just told the girl she was wasting her time. That was stupid and a mistake on my part. Things won't happen if you have that kind of attitude and if you don't even try and as friends and therapists have been telling me for years, I'm not a monk or a priest, I've never had any interest in being one (my Dad was and he eventually gave that up). All it did was make me super lonely, miserable to the point of despair (especially after my mom died) and b/c I was so desperate but kind of repressing myself, I lost several women friends b/c I exceeded their boundaries, which might not have ever happened if I'd tried dating. It's very true I didn't know I had ASD till 2 years ago, so that should be kept in mind. But now that I know, I'm learning from those major past mistakes. And I believe in myself, especially since I recently started CBT. It's no magic wand, but I can see where alot of my problems are and we haven't even gotten to how to dealing w/them yet. But I've already taken the first step w/o which "dealing" wouldn't be possible. It helps that I live in a big super cosmopolitan city where I'll probably be able to meet the kind of cosmopolitan woman I'm looking for. But you don't have to be here to find that. As has been said on other threads and as Twilight said earlier in this thread, it doesn't matter how you see yourself, it matters how s/he sees you. But s/he's more likely to be into you if you do see yourself as confident (as much as you can be) as well of course as into her/him. This is what will get you there if you keep at it.

Pah! No you wouldn't. Women in churches outnumber men and the men who go are so overwhelmed by women that they can't choose and refuse anything less than a magical, fairy, unicorn princess.... although, rumour has it you are a princess

Even religious guys will string you along. They won't sleep around, but they'll flirt around and won't ever have a steady girlfriend, and there's so few men that these poor unsuspecting lasses will think his flirty attention is real interest, when in actuality, he's just having a bit of fun. Which is ok, IF the other person is on board with having a bit of fun too, but not if you appear to only be interested in her. Hearts can break guys, be careful. Yes, I know you said dating was serious stuff in your old church, but in reality... People are still people. Flirts are flirts. Serious people will get hurt by flirts

Then when you get hurt, the guy wonders why. "But we were just friends," he says and you can't really prove that you didn't take friendliness the wrong way... but you know he was flirting because he enjoyed your attention.

I freaking hate it when married guys at work do that. Go away flirty guys. I'm trying to work not boost your ego.

Matters of the heart are complicated. You've got to be upfront about what you are looking for I think. Which is hard... It's not really socially acceptable in person... you could write it on a dating profile, but you can't just go up to new people and say, I like you, but only for a bit of fun till we find someone else more interesting. Maybe we should assume a bit of fun is the default and anything serious is a bonus.

Still... married guys being flirty at work is really annoying. I hate it. Got sucked in once and thought there was a real connection and I was really upset that someone actually liked me, but they were unavailable. I left that job and haven't spoken to him since.

I’m no princess by any stretch of the imagination! LOL

My church was weird. I was the only girl amidst several socially awkward but very horny young men. They hounded me for years with brief intermissions when another female would visit.

I developed heightened sensory perception and could sense when one was approaching, so I could go hide in the bathroom. I was in my teens during much of this and was horribly shy.

I could’ve had a relationship, but I wouldn’t have wanted one. It’s not flattering to be liked for such reasons. One of them eventually married a woman with an adult daughter and another one married a woman with bipolar which she refused to treat. You can probably imagine how that marriage went. I felt bad for him because he was decent, but he had a lot of things going against him which he couldn’t help.

Then an extremely unpleasant guy married a very lonely woman and she seems absolutely miserable. It’s a shame because I was rather fond of her.

I guess it’s hard to find someone worthwhile when the dating pool is small. Before I left, I briefly dated someone worthwhile but he couldn’t decide whether he wanted me or to pursue spiritual goals he needed to be single for, so that relationship was on and off for awhile until I chose to get off the cycle from hell and ditched him.

Edited to add: Okay. Maybe dating someone from church is a bad idea. LOL
I want to add that the interest was only because I was the only girl. They were against marrying outside the faith.

Churches here seem to be even genders. All the girls including underage teenage girls all go for this one guy who’s in line to be pastor and strung one girl along using her for sex while trying to date another intern while flirting with underage girls and breaking one underage girl up with her boyfriend.

And the churche pastors blame the girl he used for sex and still want him to be pastor and still let him be in charge of teenage under age girls he’s probably having sex with.

Why should I go to church again? Guess I could try that one down the street I could walk to it but I’m not sure what Version of Christian they are or if they are open to public

Okay, so first of all I did say that women in comparable situations are less likely to be fazed by those situations as it relates to dating, so women who are living out of their parents house but are living pay-check to pay-check are less likely to snub a man in the same situation, but more likely to if he's still living with his parents. Women who still live with their parents are less likely to snub men who still live with their parents.

And I realise I didn't clarify what I meant by independent. When I say independent, what I mean is not living with parents or guardians, being responsible for your own washing, cooking, etc.

I acknowledge that the problems you mention about housing and cost of living exist. I'm not sure if there's much difference between the US and Australia as it relates to those issues, but Australia has a relatively high minimum wage relative to the US. At present I'm essentially making minimum wage and I can still afford to move out with my brother (which is the plan) and save 10% of my pay every week. I won't be flushed with money but I doubt I'll be strapped for cash either. I've saved up $6,500 in savings over the last year since I started working, $3,000 of which since February when I decided to start saving any money I have left over from my last pay on pay day (generally $100-$300 a week, but occasionally I don't have any left over). I'd like to think I'm pretty good with money.

Generally when I use an analogy, I'm doing so to illustrate a concept, rather than comparing the things themselves. I didn't say that my chances were as bad as with the lottery. The point I was making is just because something is possible doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect it's likely. I have put on a fairly significant amount of weight since the start of 2018, and if I was having no luck up until that point, I don't see why I should have any faith that my odds are any better now.

Would you agree that there's a fair difference between someone who started wanting a relationship at 12 and has almost reached 23 without one and someone who started wanting a relationship at 20 and has reached 23 without one? The difference is pretty clear to me.

Anyway, I'm not giving up so much as deferring. I don't believe I'm currently good enough to where I would have any reasonable shot of being in a relationship with someone I would like to be in a relationship with, and I've already exacerbated my emotional state by trying to find something that clearly isn't going to happen for me right now. For me to actively look for a relationship, I would need some hope that I would get a return on my time investment, and not instead end up feeling like crap when things don't go my way as the case has been every time. Essentially, I don't see myself actively looking for a relationship until I've lost at least 75 pounds and am at a weight that I'm content with. If I get the opportunity to be in a relationship that I want to be in, I certainly won't pass it up, but I don't see it as being any benefit to me to market a product I don't think is worth marketing and being shunned by the market. Problem is I'm encountering difficulty losing that weight.

The Grand Inquiditor. I downloaded Lifesum onto my phone andvtracked what I'm eating. It's helped me to stop over eating. I'd recommend it.

I've list 6lb since Jan, which isn't amazing, but I've been too ill to exercise and watching what I eat has helped.

I don’t think people should put their lives on hold just because they want to lose weight. I don’t want to be pessimistic, but what if you don’t lose the weight? It’s hard to lose weight and keep it off when one struggles with binge eating or emotional eating (I’m not saying you do.)

The added pressure could make weight loss more difficult and keep you from meeting someone worthwhile.

Fair question.

As it relates to putting my life on hold, I wouldn't say that I'm doing that for every aspect of my life, so we'll just reference romance here, because at the moment I'm not putting any effort into finding a romantic relationship for a couple of reasons.

The first is because I don't want a repeat of the past, and I have no reason to believe things will be any better at this stage. By that, I mean I've tried pursuing a relationship in the past when I was only slightly overweight through many different avenues and I had no success at all. As far as I'm concerned, the added weight only has the capacity to make my chances even worse. That would all be fine if rejection didn't faze me, but in the absence of any past or present romantic validation when I've sought it out, constant rejection is going to be catastrophic for my mental health and well-being. Rejection when you've had other good past experiences verses rejection when you haven't is like being hit in the stomach with a baseball bat while wearing armour verses being hit in the stomach with a baseball bat while shirtless.

I don't see that it's likely that any efforts I make to find a romantic relationship are going to pay off, and if they don't, I won't be able to cope well. If I wanted to win the lottery jackpot and I knew I was going to have a tantrum if I didn't do so, I'd be smarter off not buying a ticket.

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, my internet access was limited over the weekend. I'm of two minds on your situation now that you've clarified where you are in the world, your current situation especially re: your financial situation and you physical appearance since those are the issues you talk about and appear to be what you're focusing your comments on and finally what your plans are.

First, as usual Hurt and Twilight are right and offering you good advice. You simply don't know what will happen if you were to continue trying w/dating now, you might meet someone, it's perfectly possible and I wouldn't even let the word improbable into your mind, that's self-defeating. Also, Hurt gives you one suggestion that's sort've working for her for one of the problems you say you're worried about.

Second, you're right the minimum wage in the US is s**t. The federal one hasn't risen in something like 30 years, though alot of states and cities have now put in $15/hour which is alot better, even though it's still behind the cost of inflation. But it sounds like you're in decent shape financially for dating at least and that moving in w/your bro is a viable plan, will save you more money and get you out of your parents' place. All good things and probably points in your favor w/alot of women.

You're mainly worried about your present physical appearance and how that's led to a history of rejection and whatnot which you say cumulatively has damaged your self-esteem, something you're not interested in bruising more. Right now. And here I guess I owe you an apology for jumping to the conclusion that you were forever hopeless and giving up for good. You're saying you're not ready right now, whatever the reason(s), it doesn't matter. I can respect that, it's a mature observation and it leaves the door open to hope at least down the road, after you work on yourself. I'm again in that boat w/you, I'm not ready atm. I have alot of work to do on myself in therapy and whatnot and now's just not the time for me. Maybe in 6 months or a little longer, we'll see. As we've said, you're 22 and you have your whole adult life ahead of you so there's alot of time still. Take your time, use it and improve your situation in whatever ways you feel you need to. Then, possibly sooner than you think down the road you may be ready. Anyway, good luck!

To answer the original topic of this thread:

Due to various unusual aspects of my life history, I think I've probably had a much easier time with relationships than most people on the autistic spectrum, male or female, at least once I reached my mid-twenties.

The details of how I managed to accomplish this are probably beyond the scope of this thread. At some point I should probably write about my relationship history in detail. For now I will just say the following:

1) I have always loathed -- and avoided -- standard dating rituals. My relationships have all started in non-standard ways.

2) I have always believed that mainstream Western culture is permeated by some very unhealthy attitudes toward sex and relationships.

3) Based on my experiences, I believe that the autistic community can develop alternatives to standard dating rituals -- alternatives that will be much easier and less stressful and can lead to better relationships. And, precisely BECAUSE of the social disabilities that we need to work around, the alternatives we can develop may turn out to be generally much more robust than the currently popular standards -- robust enough to make relationship-formation much less awkward for NT's too, not just for us, thus eventually worth popularizing to the world at large.

4) But before we can develop these alternatives in ways that will work for more than a few of us, the autistic community needs to grow and develop in various other ways first. In particular, we need well-structured social groups that will make it easier for us to make friends. We also need various ways to make it easier for more of us to find and keep decent jobs.

Details of all of the above are probably beyond the scope of this thread. I'll be writing about them elsewhere, at some point in the future, when I have time.