Will going too the gym help?

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I have hazel eyes (green/brown) and brown hair. My hair can sometimes go blonde if I spend a lot of time in the sun

Unfortunately the effects are not necessarily instantaneous! But hopefully you can take comfort from the widely-held opinion here that feeling mentally better IS increasing your chances, as well as your own day-to-day quality of life even as a still-single person.
Exactly!
Flirting is a whole other thing...

Some of us just have to accept that we aren't good at it and we lack the necessary equipment. Picking up women in bars is not the only way of getting one (which is just as well, or I'd never have had a girlfriend in my life). A woman may find you visually attractive but if you come across as socially awkward then, in the context of a bar, she may decide to cross you off her list. In a quieter context she might not, and that's when the fact you feel good in yourself can come across as attractive (whereas the fact you do not feel good invariably comes across as unattractive).

You can improve your chances, and it sounds as if you are doing so, but there is no magic bullet, unfortunately.

I don't know about you, but it's clear from the psychometric and neuropsychological data which came out of my A.S.D. diagnostic testing that even at my happiest and cheeriest and most charismatic, and even if I'd been going to the gym for ten years, I still couldn't ever flirt to save my life, and I still wouldn't be the kind of man who could pick up women in bars or clubs or any kind of environment like that.

However, despite my innate inability to flirt, my success rate did increase when I'd had some therapy and begun to feel better in myself. I had one girlfriend who was several years older than my mother. I had one or two who were just about young enough to be my daughter. Age is only a number!

Last edited by Raphael F on 14 Oct 2019, 12:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

cheers for advice

There is more to flirting than NT guys picking up women in bars for a one-night-stand. NDs can flirt too, and it comes naturally to us if we just relax and "target" compatible women.

Agree some truth in this. Obviously every ND has a different skill set. Apparently I can sometimes be charismatic and magnetic, but if that is true, I sure as hell don't know how or when I'm actually doing it! So while some women have occasionally told me I was flirting very effectively, I still count it as something I don't know how to do, because it isn't something I can do actively or deliberately or consciously.

Maybe the chemistry between two people just has to be somehow "right"? And maybe if a man feels good about himself, for whatever reason (e.g. because he's been going to the gym...) the chances of that chemistry occurring are significantly enhanced?

One-night stands for me are yuck, but of course not every connection that starts in the context of a bar necessarily finishes by dawn the next day.

However, a bar is not necessarily the right environment for some of us to even be, let alone to hope to meet someone!

That’s cause older men tend to be more well off and better providers. That’s why young women were often married off to men their parents age, often at 12-14.

So for men who are old and nit well off, were just creepy.

I’ve never been well off.

Must admit I do have some sympathy with this slightly bitter observation!

However, at least I know that on the very rare occasions when a younger lady was interested in me, it must have been me she was interested in, because it can't have been my body or my bank balance.

Exactly. Ideally, if she is much younger, she should not know anything about your social position or bank balance until she has put some effort into it, and then you would know for sure that she doesn't show interest in you for the wrong reasons.

If you do it deliberately or consciously it's not natural. If it's not natural it's probably some learned NT-variant that you do pretty badly.



Sure. Having compatible neurotypes is more or less required for chemistry, but not sufficient.

You're not old. Being 31 is not old.

Ha ha, well, as it happens, in my case the young ladies came from within my own small social circle, so they knew pretty much everything there was to know about me anyway! I couldn't possibly hook up with someone I didn't already know pretty well; I think terms such as "demisexual" and "demiromantic" may apply to me.

Meanwhile, let us not tumble into the stereotype of supposing a younger lady is necessarily what men want (or indeed need...)! I've had relationships with two women significantly older than myself, and those relationships had a lot going for them too.

Um. I wonder about that. Many NT men, and even some NT women, over many years gave me a lot of advice about flirting, suggesting that they were to some extent conscious of how it worked.

Tentatively, may I suggest NTs are flirting deliberately (by which I mean, knowingly and intentionally) yet still also perhaps in some way subliminally or instinctively, whereas I with my Asperger's was simply born without the social aptitude with which they were born? I mean, I gather NTs are born not only with some innate socializing impulse and instinct, but also with an in-built aptitude for observing and internalizing (is that the word?) the behaviours and social tactics they witness. I seem to have gathered it is this kind of facility which those of us with A.S.D. are typically born without. So that flirting, for us, involves a lot more conscious, deliberate observation and effort.

Plus in my own case, one of the features of my Asperger's is slow processing speed. What with that and sensory overload in public spaces, I simply cannot "process" fast enough to act and react as cleverly as someone who is good at flirting will. Not that I'm complaining. I've pretty much learned to accept there are some situations I can't cope with and some things I can't do. This feels a lot better than beating myself up for not being able to cope with those contexts and not being able to do those things!

As to whether 31 is old, I seem to recall it felt pretty ancient and mature to me when I was 31. Fifteen years down the line, I'd love to be as young as 31! Reminds me of Clemenceau's comment, in very late age, when some pretty girls walked past: "Oh, to be 70 again!"

Anyway it's good if Jamesy can feel some benefit from going to the gym, even if it isn't a magic bullet: clearly there is a lot more to getting a girlfriend than meets the eye!

Certainly. There is a lot more than age to it. The problem for me is that most people my age are so boring, but there certainly are some exceptions too.



Maybe I worded it incorrectly. I'm also pretty much aware that I have flirted with somebody, and even what I did, so I'm aware of it afterwards. It's just that when I do the actual flirting it's not conscious or deliberate, rather it's like an innate program, but I still know what I did in retrospect. It's a bit like breathing. It happens automatically, but you are still aware that you are breathing.



Nah, they are only born with their way of flirting and we are born without that way.



Innate processes are not dependent on manually analyzing things and thus don't contribute to sensory overload. However, if you got a lot of advice about flirting from NTs, and you try to do it yourself based on their descriptions, then this takes a lot of work and could end in sensory overload.

Tell that to 18 year olds. They considered me old at 25

Certainly, but 18 years old girls are not optimal for a potential relationship.

Was more meaning, the bright lights and the music and the people talking all around, and with all that sensory overload already occupying most of my circuits and draining my power, plus the alcohol taking its toll on the efficiency of the mechanism, I was supposed to be trying to watch and interpret and respond, and of course be witty and charming and intriguing, while simultaneously keeping in mind everything I'd ever heard about body language and eye contact and "signals" and so forth, all at the same time?! What am I, a freakin' magician?!

So that was kind of what I was getting at, about sensory overload and how, in conjunction with slow processing speed, it put flirting utterly above and outwith the scope of my own A.S.D. abilities (whatever those may be...).

As to the rest, we could pursue our semantic and neuropsychological debate, and I believe we could do so very amicably and enjoyably, but I really need to have a bath and put some clothes on now that I've actually been out of bed for nearly 7 hours, and anyway the world will probably continue to turn if we simply agree to disagree on one or two points of detail!