Understanding of what flirting is

Post Reply New Topic

Hello! I have an 18 year old son with a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome. He is dating an 18 year old girl that has high functioning autism. They've been together for six months and they seem to be completely in love.

The problem is that my son has caught his girlfriend sending VERY romantic sounding text messages to other guys on 4 or 5 different occasions. She refers to the other guys as "cutie", "baby", and "boyfriend" and, in one case, indicated that she wanted to kiss the other guy. She also tells them "I love you".

In many respects it sounds like a straightforward case of a girl cheating on her boyfriend -- and my son has nearly broken up with her over this on two occasions. Yet, for several reasons, I suspect that she might have never touched these other guys in any romantic way.

There are times when I find myself wondering whether she truly understands the difference between "things you say to a romantic lover" and "things you say to a guy that is just a friend". For one thing, she sometimes uses words in ways that are not quite correct -- she seems to have normal intelligence, yet she sometimes seems to struggle to understand the meaning of abstract words.

Reasons why I wonder if she doesn't fully understand the social meaning of the things she is saying to these other guys

1. She will send these flirty text messages when she is sitting RIGHT NEXT to my son. She will also talk to the other guys on the phone, with her phone set to speaker phone so that everyone in the room can hear everything that is said. That leads me to think that she doesn't believe she is doing anything that would upset a boyfriend. Any time she thinks my son might break up with her, she nearly has a panic attack -- so it seems unlikely that she would knowingly do something that could endanger their relationship.

2. Most or all of these words can be used in non-romantic contexts. For example:

a) Young people say "I love you" to platonic friends all the time.
b) Women often address their platonic female friends as "girlfriend".
c) People often call babies, children, animals, etc, "cutie".
d) I have heard people that are trying to sound cool address platonic friends as "babe".

Of course, a NT 18 year old girl would understand that saying ALL of these things to a guy will be interpreted as a desire to start a romance -- but is it possible that a girl with high functioning autism doesn't realize that?

3. On several occasions she has asked my son questions like, "Is it okay to say ______ to another boy?"

On the other hand, my son has told her specific things like "Don't send heart emojis to other guys", yet she keeps doing it. Also, it is a bit troubling that she rarely refers to my son as "boyfriend" when talking to other guys. Usually she just says that she is "with a friend".

A possible alternative explanation: NTs often have different opinions about what is, and is not, cheating. Some think it is perfectly okay to flirt with other people as long as you don't actually DO anything romantic/sexual to someone other than your partner. That being the case, I wonder if my son's girlfriend might not consider sending flirty text messages to be cheating. I know that she has a lot of trouble making friends, and is often bullied and called "ugly" -- but she is actually very pretty -- so maybe she just likes to know that other guys are interested?

What do all of you think is happening here? Is it possible for people on the autism spectrum, with normal intelligence, to say "You're my boyfriend" and "I want to kiss you" without realizing that it is romantic? Or that a boyfriend might see that as evidence of cheating?

Maybe she just hears so many nasty comments from people her age that she is desperate to hear someone say something nice to her, so she flirts with other guys because it is the only way she can get people to say nice things to her?

For those of you with autism, when you were teenagers, how well did you understand the difference between "things you say to a romantic partner" versus "things you say to a platonic friend"?

Talk to her but keep it a friendly way please because it could be that she isn't realizing it that way. Nobody here can tell anything about this without knowing her at all. Many people on the spectrum have no idea of what flirting is.

Quite an extreme: Thank you so much for the reply. She's actually my son's girlfriend so I think it's up to him to talk to her about it. I believe he has tried but he says that she gets too anxious to be very informative (which is understandable, I think).

My son occasionally comes to me for advice, so my goal here is just to get as much information as I can so that I give good advice when he asks me. I am particularly hoping to get the perspective of people on the spectrum. When you said that many people on the spectrum have no idea what flirting is, that's valuable information to me.

I am particularly interested in hearing whether people on the spectrum think it is plausible that a teen with autism and normal intelligence could call someone a "boyfriend", "baby", and say things like "I love you" and "I want to kiss you" without realizing that she is flirting. (Or, without realizing that she is doing something that would offend her real boyfriend.)

Personally, I understand the boundaries very well. There's a reason why I was drawn to this one person and if she's drawn to me as well, I want to keep a good thing going.

Her being told that those things can be considered "flirting" or whatever would be better coming from you, because if it came from your son, in which he already asked her to stop doing so, that would be interperted as that he's being controlling over her.

Because she gets emotional when the thought of the relationship being over comes to mind, I do think that she has her heart set on your son as her boyfriend, and that this problem can be fixed. We all have things about ourselves that we can fix. Again, I would talk to her one on one yourself.

Absolutely not. Not even in the slightest bit.

I really don't want to sound like I'm being an ass but I feel as if you and your son are really reaching to try to justify this woman's - what I would perceive as - horrible behavior. She absolutely needs to be held accountable and your son deserves a woman who loves him for him and doesn't seek validation from (several, apparently) other sources.

There may be instances where some mild flirting just happens, especially at a young age. But if she's telling other boys she loves them and wants to kiss them, I think the writing is very clearly on the wall. That's extreme. I cannot think of any time, even at my lowest points of social skills and awareness as a man on the spectrum, that I would tell a woman those things if I wasn't somehow interested in them romantically, and respected why saying those things would be cheating.

I would take her break-up panic attacks more so as a sign that she fears being rejected and needs the validation/emotional security more than a sign of her being afraid to lose him. I can't imagine many other reasons she'd need to have all these other guys to flirt with