My Teen Is Desperate for A Girlfriend

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My son is 19, Aspie, getting ready to graduate and go on to college. He really has no friends. He's never put any effort into it because what he wants is to skip the guys and go to the girls. There is one month left in school and he thinks he's going to find a girlfriend (not a friend who's a girl) to go to the prom with.

His therapist, his father and I have given him all kinds of ideas for making closer friends with guys he's always known so they might know someone. No matter what we tell him, he won't do any of them. It's like he wants us to grab his fairy godmother and make a girlfriend appear.

My husband and I are going through a tough divorce - this is a big part of it. Maybe he's trying to punish us by giving us a problem that we can't solve.

I feel his pain and wish so much that I could think of something new to at least get him a date.

We've tried:
- Start eating lunch at school. Choose 5 guys he knows. Ask one if he can eat with him. They have friends, they know girls IF guy #1 say no, move on to the next.
- Or, go right to the girls and do the same thing (who knows?) Ask (after 2 lunchtimes) if the group she eats with know anyone looking for a date to the prom.

Be willing to go out on a blind date.

The most he's done is ask a friend if he knew anyone who he could hook him up with.

Ideas?

Does he want a real girlfriend or a date to the prom? What does he assume he would do with this girl? Have you asked all those questions?

If you can steer him towards a very innocent and platonic vision - or if he already has one - that pretty much just involves the one date, then you can set him up through your own network, via other parents and contacts, for the one night.

If he has a more serious vision, and is really looking for the companionship, it obviously gets more difficult, in which case I'd send him over to our love and dating board. Maybe, anyway ... you should read around it first, you know him best, and decide how the tone over there will affect him. There are some useful ideas but also a good deal of bitterness.

Most people just want to be able to go to the prom.

What exactly is the issue?

Is he looking for a girlfriend?

Or for an escort for the prom?

Two very different things.

One is a relationship.
The other is an entrance requirement to go to a single a social event that happens to be coming up soon.

If its a relationship- then there is no deadline- so dont worry about it.

If its the latter- why on earth does he care?
He wants to bring a hot date to an event so he can impress all the friends that he doesnt have? And say a fond farewell to all of those friends that he doesnt have? And celebrate the end of the highschool experience which (since he never had friends) he never really experienced?

Youll have to walk me through this again. I dont see what the issue is?

Id say talk him out of caring about it.

OK. So, I know that what he wants it's not going to happen this fast. He wants a girl to fall in love with him. That's number one. Next he wants to go to the prom, but that's second. He has been to a dances before. So he knows what that's like.

Truthfully, I think he's putting all his emotional baggage into needing a girlfriend. We're going through a very rough divorce which has turned his world upside down. But that being said, I don't think that a date to the prom is out.

The guys over on the dating site had good suggestions about life. Spencer should read those. From what the guys said, he should just take the bull by the horns and ask for a date to the prom. At least that's something.

But he is not interested in impressing anyone. He doesn't understand peer pressure - that's a totally foreign and ridiculous thing to him. He just wants another person in his life he can talk to, hold hands with and kiss.

Meanwhile, he needs to prepare for a compromise, like a non-romantic date, sort of a blind date.

Thanks for the advice.

I've tried telling him that. It's like talking to a wall. Really, I guess it's all about anger and not about reality. There's an All Night Party the day of graduation. The prom is after that. Maybe he can find the love of his life there. (being sarcastic in that last sentence).

I wish so much that I could make him happy because this divorce has been so awful. But I guess I have to face reality myself and accept that he has to take some bumps in the road through life.

Next year he's going to Landmark - a college for kids with learning disabilities. There are girls there! Just a few months away.

Thanks so much for everyone's help.

Very well put. I hadn't thought about all the other familiar things in his life that he will soon be leaving. And, of course, change is a huge thing.

I know the divorce is a large reason why he wants a girlfriend. He wants a romantic person he can confide in. Fortunately, a friend of a friend just told me that the prom is not a couple's thing anymore. (Spencer is an only child, so I'm clueless about a lot of high school - especially since he's so isolated).

So, I hope he'll go and at least that's something.

I know the girlfriend thing won't work in the space of 6 weeks. College will be the time. But I hoped to get him to at least make a start at something he says he wants so much. Eating lunch at school would be a big step.

Thanks so much for your very very thoughtful advice.

He's an 18 year old male (now 21 or 22)

He's young, horny, and lonely. Of course he wants a girlfriend.

I agree that the impetus to have a gf (or bf) is different than wanting a friend. Pushing him to have male friends to make it easier to meet girls is going to seem like too much of a detour. He wants to get from point A to point B without going through a circuitous route. Getting and maintaining friendships you don't want just to maybe have a chance for a gf (or bf) is not very logical.

Friends at that age, won't necessarily fix you up. They would need to have a gf who would be willing to fix up a friend who also needs a date. There is no notion of compatibility in this at all. It has to do with social rankings and all that other stuff that won't help him. Even if the girl is also uncool, it does not mean that friends would want to match them up, if they think she can do "better."

He is better off meeting girls away from the social hierarchy of school.

Reaching back through the decades, I can vividly recall being in his state.

What worked for me was befriending girls based on common interests and being prepared to sacrifice all my preferences and endure any amount of fear and anxiety to arrange to spend time with girls who were interested in what I was interested in.

Girls who could appreciate my love of astronomy and physics.

Girls who liked Monty Python (this was a pretty reliable cultural marker for a certain outlook back around 1979-1980!)

Girls who enjoyed listening to Elvis Costello, Bob Marley and the Clash.

This was a minority of girls, but they did exist. I bent over backward to pursue opportunities to be with them. Sometimes I embarrassed and humiliated myself. Sometimes I had a really great time dancing with someone and talking about things we both liked or listening to her talk about things she liked, and became infatuated -- only to discover there was not a shred of interest on her part and feel crushed and dejected. But all that experience built to the point where I had a couple of friendships with girls and eventually, my best female friend became my wife.

So, my limited and weird experience suggests that familiarity and friendship through shared interests and outlook may be a good way to go about this profoundly important pursuit.

Oops, I think this is a necrothread someone revived. I did not notice the original post date.