My 17 year old son wants a girlfriend

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Hi everyone,,, I just signed up,,, I have a 17-year-old boy who is extremely sweet and when he grows up he wants to have a girlfriend and I don't know how to handle this problem. He is very limited and his cognitive ability I would say about five or six-year-old and he really wants to have a girlfriend and him and his words tickle her. He would like an exact date and time in which she could have a girlfriend to buy a bathing suit for and tickle her but obviously I cannot do that I know that he is going to struggle with this for a long time. Does anyone else have a similar situation? He is also in a group home right now and is extremely aggressive when he's not the sweetest child in the world. Thanks everyone,,, Karen

Hello I can feel the pain .... my son is 16 and is his struggles are greatest in area of social connection/articulation - he is a sophomore in high school, mainstreamed with support. His wonders very often when he will be able to have a girlfriend of his own, and will life be anything like normal for him, really sadden me. too. Its a constant struggle for him - has been for more than an year and continues. He is in depression and in complete social isolation other than contact with his teachers and his parents. So I wonder what hope can I give him but do try

I am so sorry I wanted to help you but just started my own rant. Just wanted to share that we also go through this. Just be strong and take one day at a time ALL THE BEST TO YOU ! !! !!

Hello I can feel the pain .... my son is 16 and is his struggles are greatest in area of social connection/articulation - he is a sophomore in high school, mainstreamed with support. His wonders very often when he will be able to have a girlfriend of his own, and will life be anything like normal for him, really sadden me. too. Its a constant struggle for him - has been for more than an year and continues. He is in depression and in complete social isolation other than contact with his teachers and his parents. So I wonder what hope can I give him but do try

I am so sorry I wanted to help you but just started my own rant. Just wanted to share that we also go through this. Just be strong and take one day at a time ALL THE BEST TO YOU ! !! !!

Thumbhole, I do not think that is fair.

We don't know what the boy's situation is. We do not even know if he is in contact with other young ladies or not. I do not think the OP is saying it is never going to happen. The boy wants a concrete date it will happen, and she has no way to know.

OP, I do not have a teen. I have an 8 yr old, and he is just beginning to learn after many years of repetition that there are things I do not know and cannot give him advance warning/notice of/or an exact time and date for. We are much better, now, but he will still ask me things like how long it will take me to fix something, when I am still researching HOW to fix it or when exactly there will be a commercial on.

I wish i could tell you magic phrase or strategy. I don't know if it is a switch in his brain turning on, developmentally, or the result of repetition. And yes, he can get agitated when I do not have a certain answer for thing, although, the intensity and frequency of these reactions has greatly improved. . I think you do have to approach it that way, though, and maybe remind him of other things you cannot predict in advance. Give him lots of examples and maybe it will start to sink in.

How much does he understand about theory of mind? Does he show an awareness that other people have desires different from his own, and this affects their behaviour? For example, if you give him the following problem:

Johnny likes to eat [food your son hates].

Johnny has a choice between [food Johnny likes] and [food your son likes]. Which one will he choose?

If your son can predict that Johnny will choose the food that Johnny likes even though your son doesn't like it, then he understands enough to be told that the girl will have to want to be his girlfriend to become his girlfriend. You can explain that you can't control it because it's the girl's choice if she want to be his girlfriend (and his choice if he wants to have her as a girlfriend).

I completely agree with mikassyna. Both points are very important - a romantic relationship is one or two steps of complexity beyond a reciprocal friendship. If he doesn't have any consistent friends (not volunteers who are being nice by spending time with him, but real friends who want to be with him and get as much from his friendship as he gets from theirs), then he needs to work on that before a girlfriend is even possible.

More importantly though, if he is thinking about girlfriends in those terms (i.e. concrete, without theory of mind), he may be at risk for doing some of the things that can land people with ASDs into a lot of trouble with the law. He needs to understand that it is not ok for him to touch strangers, and that he shouldn't follow people. You need to be alert to any of these sorts of inclinations. If he does or wants to do anything that can be misconstrued by others as stalking, sexual harassment, or sexual assault; he needs to learn those rules and learn them well. There is occasionally some slack provided to people with ASDs or ID by the law for this sort of thing, but you cannot depend on that happening, so it is crucial that he understands those sorts of boundaries. Sorry to be so blunt on this issue, but it really is important for his well-being.

I like mikassyna's advice. Get him working on the steps for preparation, while emphasizing that in real life girl friends don't happen on any predictable schedule.

I think it has to be very difficult to have the hormones of a seventeen year old and the emotional maturity of a six year old. I pair those concepts up thinking of my son and how he was at six and I see ... disaster. I was so scared for his future at that age because he had zero, and I mean zero, concept of boundaries and zero ability to understand that other people could not be forced into physical contact just because it is what he wanted. We worked hard on those concepts for many, many years and at the rate your son is learning this is not something he will grasp anytime soon.

As for how to convey all these concepts to your son ... sorry, I am so many years past those steps that I cannot remember the precise language. I can say that you phrase and re-phrase, repeat and re-emphasize, and this process needs to be continual for an extremely long period of time.

On the flip side, I will note that many, many people with ASD DO learn these concepts and mature in their ability to have relationships. My son is 16, graduated out of his IEP, and dates lightly. He seems to have taken all my warnings over the years to heart and tries hard to respect boundaries, but he also has had to tell his dates point blank that he doesn't read signals and that they need to TELL him where their heads are at. He also agrees with me that some things need to be completely off the table, like most everything physical, because despite progress in understanding boundaries, hormones can be very powerful, and it is best to avoid situations that could get out of hand. Dating remains a frustrating area of life for him in many ways, but that isn't unexpected.

When you son is ready, hopefully the right person will be there for him.

Thumb hole, I don't see that him wanting a girlfriend is a bad thing or a problem per se,,, just the fact that cognitively I don't know if you can make a connection and with his aggression I worry if you were rejected what would happen I think it's a great thing that he wants to connect with other people,,,, I only see the problem as him wanting a date and time for his girlfriend to appear and so he can tickle her

Also to add: Make sure you go through all the permutations of "No", meaning, "not now," "please don't do that," "I don't really like that," "that doesn't feel good," "I'm not ready to do that," "now's not a good time," "I don't think so," "maybe we can do something else instead," and all the NON-verbal ways girls say "No" [oh boy, sorry, that'll be a project!], and on and on...

OP, I'm not a parent, so I'm prepared for my opinion to be brushed off before the rest of this post get read, but...

I (male) clearly remember what dating---or lack thereof---was like at age 17. First of all, if your son can drive, and you haven't already do so, GET HIM A CAR. In every US city except New York and in most Canadian cities, dating without a car is IMPOSSIBLE. Since the guy is typically responsible for organizing dates, he is the one who's "required" to have a car. No car = no dating, no negotiation. Which is sad, because an aspie guy will experience tremendous personal growth from having a relationship. Unfortunately, it's a difficult proposition, since many teenage girls prefer flashy cars and Justin Bieber's looks over the genuine loyalty an aspie guy can give.

Now, one thing you can do is prevent your son from falling into the traps I felt into. The first one is still relevant. I had zero dates in high school. Although once, I almost went on a date, but the girl broke the date after I told her I didn't have a car. After having zero dates in high school experience, I went to college in a more urban area, with a better public transit infrastructure. I still didn't have a car. So I went on a mad dash to find a girlfriend who is specifically OK with that. Lo and behold, I found one! Unfortunately, it was someone I felt no physical attraction for, and come to think of it, was slightly embarrassed to be seen in public with her. But since I felt like no else would ever like me---because I didn't have a car and wasn't good-looking---I went ahead and dated her. Two months later, when me and her went out dancing, she didn't want to dance close. Whether she caught on to my lack of feelings for her, lost interest naturally, or never liked me to begin with, I'll never know. (We've hugged, but never kissed.) But that's the story, which could have been avoided if I either had a car or didn't feel so desperate due to not having one.
Your son's lesson here would be not to feel compelled to enter into a relationship with the first girl who shows interest in him, despite his intense temptation to do so.

The second story would no longer hold true today. When I was 17, I just plain couldn't get dates. But I did what any red-blooded geek with a smidgen of computer knowledge would have done: turn to the internet. Now, mind you, that was in 1998. Online dating was not well-established back then, and was neither self- nor externally policed. It was a rough-and-tumble, jungle-like, Wild West environment. But it offered something my school didn't: allowing girls to get to know the real me, and possibly see past my butt-ugly face and lack of a car. So I jumped into it like an Olympic diver (go Sochi! ) into the pool. Chat rooms at first, then dating sites when I turned 18. I expected it to be the way the media romanticized it: people falling in love with each other's "real you" before they met. What I got instead was big mess! Messages from escorts and Russian brides that I didn't catch onto until later; deep, intense online romances that were obliterated by a single wrong phrase on chat; last-minute date cancellations after I invested months into the "relationship"; and prolonged online-only friendships with girls that went nowhere.
Nowadays, online dating is like night and day. Sites are well-established, there is no stigma to using them, and people meet within two weeks maximum, rather than spending months talking to each other beforehand. Perhaps once your sons turns 18, he can try his luck in at it. After all, online dating is a much different world now than back when I was 18.

One thing that bothered me is the statements "buy a bathing suit for her" and "tickle her". (I assume he plans to do that after it's clear beyond all doubt that they're boyfriend and girlfriend.) They sound like unrealistic expectations at best, and like fetishes at worst. (Side note: how familiar is he with women's bathing suit styles? ) But given the fact that he's never had a girlfriend before, and probably has no idea what a relationships involves or requires, I suppose that's forgivable.

Well, I don't know how much what I can say will or won't help but I'm gonna say it. I am the diagnosed aspie in the family although I think my youngest son, who is 18, is one too. For years and years when his friends were having girlfriends and going on dates, he played video games and hung out with his friends. Thats not the reason I think he's an aspie, but it's one of them. Anyway, for a while I thought he might be gay, but he's not. A few months ago he said he has a gf. Then he brought her over for a few hours. The next day he brought her over for the night. Then he brought her over again. She hasn't left. She's brought her things here and isn't leaving. Apparantly he now has a live in gf. She has a job, yet he's still Peter f*****g Pan. He plays video games all day and goes out and hustles up money somewhere or other but she is the provider there. He's found a girl to take care of him. Which is NOT AT ALL what I wanted for him. I wanted him to find a girl and decide to take care of her, get a job, any job, shovelling s**t if he has to, just to pay the bills. But no. We have this now. She cleans crime scenes and disaster areas.

Be careful what you wish for. That's all I'm saying. I love her to death, but he doesn't have to do anything while he's with her. She's just like me. She will fight his battles for him.All thats going to do is up his score in whatever video game he's currently playing.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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