Which political views are more aspie-friendly?

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From people on this board, as well as other places on the internet, I been hearing two things:

1. Liberals are more aspie-friendly than conservatives
2. Feminists are more hostile towards nice guys than others

Apart from the fact that 1 and 2 contradict each other (feminists tend to be liberal), I disagree with each of those two items on its own right, as well. Let me tell you why I disagree with those items:

1. I had a conservative girlfriend who really didn't mind my Asperger at all, but when I was invited to a party (which happened a year and a half into relationship) it was a problem since she thought partying are immoral. Now, she was raised in the devote southern baptist family and she was sheltered and isolated (she was still living with her parents even though she was in her 30s) thats why to her my own isolated lifestyle (caused by Asperger) looked normal while being invited to a party was not. Now I realize that an anecdotal example would not prove a big point, but what I am trying to say is that -- before you talk about what attitude would liberals or conservative have towards something -- you have to ask yourself whether that "something" alligns with the principles they promote. If it alligns with those principles they would be friendly towards it, if it contradicts them, they would be hostile towards this. In this particular case, aspie lifestyle alligned with her principles while NT lifestyle (partying) didn't, hence she was aspie friendly. So if you are going to tell me that most conservatives are hostile towards Asperger and that girl was an exception, the question is: in what way does Asperger violate conservative principles? Conservatives tend to be Christian. So do people with Asperger sin more than NT-s do? Well, I guess its true that a lot of people with Asperger are atheist. But not me: I am a Christian. So why am I, as a Christian aspie, given an advice to live in liberal states? If Christian conservatives are disliking CHRISTIAN aspies, I am back with a question: how exactly having Asperger violate Christian principles? Now, the context in which I was told that liberals are better for aspies was when I said that when I lived in Berkeley people were a lot friendlier towards me than elsewhere -- which is also true (and no, that conservative woman was not in Berkeley -- she was in Nebraska). So do you have any explanation why people at Berkeley (which, as we all know, are liberal) are so much friendlier towards me as an aspie? Well, I guess part of the answer might be that I am not going around with a sign "I am a Christian", so do people just assume that if I am an aspie I am an atheist? Or, if not, what is the logic behind it then?

2. As far as feminists and nice guys go, I have a logical reason to think that feminists should be more accepting of nice guys (in sharp contrast to being told that they are more hostile). You see, the only "problem" with nice guys is that, in society's eyes, they don't fulfill their "manly" role as men. But I thought feminists are against gender roles. So if you abolish gender roles altogether, then wouldn't nice "people" be better than hostile "people" which implies -- in gender neutral context -- that nice guys would be better, too?

So, to sum it up, my question is the following: my logic tells me that feminist+conservatives should be better for aspies, yet I am being told that patriarchy+liberalism is better for aspies. I realize that both of those statements are rather contradictory (since feminism and liberalism tends to go together) but since humans are complicated I guess those "weird" combinations that those statements are focused on might be "possible". But the "weird combination" my logic tells me should be good (feminism+conservatism) is diametrically opposed to the "weird combination" that I keep hearing should be good (liberalism+ opposition to feminism). Do you have any explanation as to where I made mistakes in my logic and why the reality is different?

The apolitical point of view -- belong to no one political party, don't vote, and don't care who is in office.

A compromise approach may be to tune out the noise and decide who to vote for just before the election.
And tune out again after the election.

I wasn't talking about voting. I was talking about whom is it easier to befriend or date? Is it easier to befriend/date liberal or is it easier to befriend/date conservative? Or where should I live in order to make friends? Should I live in liberal area such as Berkeley, or in conservative area such as Alabama? If I don't mind living among people who disagree with me politically and my sole goal is to get friends and date, where should I go?

By the way, practically speaking, I "can't" go anywhere, since I am a student so I have to be where my school is (which happens to be in New Mexico). But I guess I am still curious since I been moving around as I was doing multiple degrees and got different treatment at different places.

Dating? Say nothing about your political POV until you find out hers. Even then, it's best to say as little as possible.

I wasn't talking about expressing my own views. What I was talking about was this: if girl A is liberal and girl B is conservative, which one should I pick? To make things simple, lets pretend I like them exactly the same and I don't care about their views either, I just want them to say yes. Who is more likely to say yes: liberal or conservative? And, to clarify further, I won't say my view. I will just say "I am an aspie". For which of the two is this more of a turn off?

I don't know. The prettiest one? The smartest one? The one whose father has more money?

There is no certainty in predicting whom to choose or be chosen by for a relationship. Women are not products on a shelf to be compared and judged. If you get along better with a liberal "hippy-chick" than with a conservative "church-lady", then go for the liberal. Otherwise, go with the conservative.

Remember: Love is where you find it, not necessarily where you think it should be.

Okay a better question: where should I live in order to increase chances of getting a girlfriend? In red state or in blue state?

It doesn't matter. If you're poor, uneducated, unemployed, physically unattractive, and behaviorally 'different', you are not likely to attract anyone, no matter what kind of state you live in. If you're wealthy, educated, employed, physically attractive, and behaviorally 'normal', you are likely to attract someone, no matter what state you live in.

Mona Pereth told me I would be better off living in liberal state, which is why I have this question. But she said she didn't want to discuss it in original post and was preferring I do so in politics forum, which is why I posted it.

As the male half of a healthy relationship, and diagnosed with AS, I am very conservative. When deciding to seek a mate for life, I sought someone like me but later decided that would be foolish. I re-met a girl I met and had strong feeling for back when we were both in a 7th grade class together. I married her 3 months later. We have been married for 27 years now and have still never had a fight.

She figured out early on that I am seldom wrong and decided to accept that. Despite being highly intelligent herself, she does not have AS. She is very NT. Politically, she was just barely right of center when we re met, but since has slid much farther to the right. Especially in today's situation. Turns out, the farther she moves to the right, the more she discovers that I am again correct.

As for feminism, I have always been a feminist because I do not discriminate. My female coworkers are no less talented or capable in my mind, so I believe that meets the definition. Before becoming much more conservative, my wife was less of a feminist. Now, she is much more so.

As a last thought for you, consider this: Our faith in Jesus Christ (not to be confused with organized christianity) is also a leading factor in our relationship success. We each know our God given assignment and there is never an argument regarding our roles in the family or home.

Best regards,

I'm a feminist and I'm not hostile towards nice guys. I think the latter idea comes from two things:

1) Feminist activism tends to attract more than its share of women who have had traumatic experiences with men, causing them to feel very suspicious toward men in general including even nice men. Not all feminist activists are like this, by any means, but such women certainly do exist in the movement.

2) The feminist movement, like progressive causes in general, tends to attract what are often referred to these days as "social justice warriors" (I think a better term might be "social justice fanatics") who have some very annoying and counterproductive tendencies. Again, not all feminist or otherwise progressive activists are like this, but they certainly do exist within these movements.


You have to look at more than just "principles." You also have to look at social dynamics of progressive/liberal-dominated locales vs. conservative-dominated locales. More about this below:


More generally, conservatives tend to prefer cultural homogeneity. In the U.S.A., this happens to mean desiring the preservation of Christian hegemony, among other things. These days it also means being anti-immigration, or at least very immigration-restrictionist, partly for the sake of preserving cultural homogeneity.

In my experience, it's much easier for autistic people to get along in a culturally very heterogeneous neighborhood, with immigrants from many different cultures all over the world, than in a neighborhood dominated by just one ethnic group. This is even more true in the experience of my boyfriend, who not has only an Aspergers diagnosis but also a speech impairment.

We live in a neighborhood where there are lots of Christians but also lots of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and practitioners of African diaspora religions. There are also people here with lots of different foreign accents (so people are less likely to get impatient with my boyfriend's speech impairment) and lots of different cultural traditions regarding eye contact and body language (so our oddities in this regard don't stick out nearly as much as they would in a culturally homogeneous neighborhood).


Under a very strict interpretation of the First Commandment, having a special interest could be considered a form of idolatry. This was actually a problem for me when I was in my early teens. (I was brought up Christian and gave it up at the age of 15.) Fortunately, however, most Christians don't interpret the First Commandment that way, as far as I can tell.

There are also some extreme Christian churches that believe that autism is caused by demons, and who try to "cure" it via exorcism. But that's not a mainstream Christian belief either, as far as I can tell.

Apart from the above two issues affecting only a (hopefully) very small minority of Christians, there's no intrinsic reason for Christians to disapprove of autistic people.

But that sort of thing not what the problem is for autistic people living in a conservative Christian-dominated region. The problem is the cultural homogeneity of such places.

I suspect that the people you would probably get along with best (since you are a conservative Christian yourself) would be conservative Christians who live in culturally heterogeneous, progressive/liberal-dominated places.

More about this later.

What people are usually talking about when they complain of 'nice guys' isn't males who are genuinely kind. Its more referring to guys who will act nice towards a woman that they like....but if it turns out that woman isn't into him that nice-ness disappears. So basically it never was genuine kindness it was kindness with the expectation the woman date him and if she doesn't then she's 'betrayed' him. A genuinely kind male would be kind to a woman without expecting they pay it back with a relationship or sex.


Granted there are also people who think kindness, isn't 'manly' or whatever and might say things like 'nice guys always finish last' so I suppose it can be a bit confusing.

I think terminology like "phony guy" or "phony nice guy" would clear up this confusion. I confess half the time when people are talking about nice guys, whether they're talking about guys who are kind, or whether they're talking about "nice" guys.

But this would apply to as*holes too. In fact, it would apply to as*holes even more so than to the nice guys. So why is it that feminists are more hostile to nice guys than to as*holes?



But you were the one telling me that liberals are more friendly towards aspies? And I thought that "social justice warrier" is the same as liberal, just a different degree?



Well, in this case what you said can also be reduced to "principles" -- just the different ones from what I been thinking of. Namely, what you just said is that the "principle" is to preserve homogeneity and the "colorary" to that principle is wanting to be a Christian since most people are Christian. Am I understanding you correctly that this is what you said? If so, then for one thing they would never admit it, since Christian doctrine would never teach "well, you should be a Christian since that would preserve homogeneity". But I guess I can see how people might do things for reason A and say they are doing them for reason B since verbalizing reason A would be too weird. So I guess I could follow you that far.

But that still doesn't answer the following question. What would happen if their "homogeneous" neighborhood is moderately right and someone comes in who is far right? Are you saying the far right person would be better off going to the left neighborhood as opposed to moderately right neighborhood since he would "disrupt the homogeneity" in the moderately right neighborhood while the left neighborhood wouldn't care about homogeneity? Or even better question: what about the last election? Hillary was very much pro-establishment while Trump was anti-establishment. So if conservatives like homogeneity, the logic would imply that conservatives would vote for Hillary, but this didn't happen did it?



So are you saying its not just Christian thing but "any" one-group thing? Like when I was in India, are you saying that it would be to my disadvantage to be in a Hindu-only area as opposed to an area where Hindus and Muslims are mixed? Even though I spent 5 years in India I don't really have any data on this one since they look way too different for me to even be able to tell the difference between those two kinds of neighborhoods. But are you saying that if I try to remember the places where I felt more accepted and then look up their demographics over the internet, thats what I would find?



Its funny because during the first year I was a Christian I would take things too literally, so at some point I was worrying whether I was sinning by studying physics since Jesus said in Luke 9:61,62 that you shouldn't take your mind off the Lord even for few minutes that it takes to wave farewell to the family, so how much worse would it be if I spend several hours studying physics? Now, that were my own thoughts, nobody ever told me that. But since physics is my life time goal ever since I was 9, I wasn't going to get rid of that goal. So, instead, I kept asking Christians to explain to me why is it Luke 9:61,62 doesn't apply to physics, and why I should be okay if I keep studying it. Now, every single Christian I talked to told me I am perfectly fine doing physics -- although they couldn't convince me where I was wrong. Only few years later someone pointed out to me that Jesus was a carpenter and Paul was a tent maker and also I realized on my own that the verse "whoever doesn't work shouldn't eat" addresses my question as well. But yeah, it took several years of struggle for me.

Now, contrast it with the following. When I complain about not having friends or a girlfriend, then Christians very much DO tell me that fixating on it is an idolatry -- but I don't buy it since it seems like just an excuse for them to tell me to give up on seeking a partner. I mean, look at the following two questions:

a) Its idolatry for me to want a partner yet its not idolatry for them to have their partners

b) Its idolatry for me to want a partner, yet its not idolatry for me to do physics

So both of those things point to the idea that what guides them is a *secular* principle that "people should do what they are good at and give up on what they are bad at". But instead of simply stating it this way, they are selectively applying the biblical principle about "putting first the kingdom" -- only -- to the things that you are bad at and not to the things you are good at.

And by the way I don't think the answer to "b" has anything to do with sexual purity. For one thing I don't believe in sex before marriage so the relationships I am seeking don't include sex. Even though I might not mention it in every corner, I think they just assume I am on the same page with them on this one since they never brought up the sexual purity thing, they just keep telling me how I should "seek first the kingdom of God".

Now, before you say "see, thats an example of how Christianity can be used against an aspie" let me point out that there is a secular counterpart to it that I hear from non-christians. That counterpart is: "you can't be happy with someone else unless you are happy with yourself first". Christians simply replace "happy with yourself" with "seeking the Lord". But I have problems with both statements. The problem that I have with the secular version is that being happy with someone is a lot easier than being happy with myself all on my own. So if they are telling me I should be happy with myself first, its the same as them telling me that before I can lift 10 pounds I should lift 50 pounds first. It just makes no sense. I guess the Christian version of it makes more sense since at least it is backed up with some interpretations of Bible. But the problem I have in this case is that those interpretations would equally rebuke 90% of population if not more; so why are they selectively applying it to aspies? If they were to follow that verse and isolate themselves -- like that ex from Nebraska did -- then I wouldn't have a problem with them. But since most of them aren't isolating themselves yet are telling me that I should, thats why I find it hypocritical. But once again, like I just said, the secular people are just as bad when they are saying I should "be happy with myself". So I don't see how it is specifically a Christian thing.

Or could it be that what makes Christians worse than secular people is that if they were to use the Bible to back up what it is they want anyway then it would make them that much more stubborn? Sort of like a secular kid would say "I want a candy" while the Christian one would say "God says I need a candy" and the latter one is more difficult to deal with? But that can go both ways too. The flip side of a story would be that the Christian kid would realize that God wants him to examine himself and improve, and thus will not ask for candy, while the secular kid will have no reason to improve and will keep asking for candy. So I guess the difference here is the motive behind Christianity: is the person honestly working on their own salvation, or is he trying to use it as a tool to manipulate others? Are you saying that the latter is more common than the former?

I mean I am not saying either yes or no, I don't have enough experience with people to be able to. I am just asking you if thats what you happened to think? And if you think the answer is yes, can you elaborate on the social dynamics that would make it prominant in the red states? I mean people in the red states aren't thinking "hey I better be a Christian since I need to manipulate people". Rather, they are Christians simply because they were raised that way -- and I seriously doubt a parent would teach a kid to use Christianity to get a candy. So how does this dynamics would work then? Why is it that raising kids as Christians would make them more likely use their Christianity in selfish ways rather than be sincere about it?



I actually had an ex whose spiritual mentor told her that Asperger is demonic which caused us to have problems in a relationship ever since. But no she isn't the one I been mentioning earlier. So the ex that thought autism is demonic is in New Zeland, while the ex that thought that partying is bad is in Nebraska. And the one in Nebraska was perfectly fine with my Asperger, while the one from New Zeland clearly wasn't.

But in any case, the ex from New Zeland had lots of psychological issues of her own, that started from her being raped when she was little. She also kept trying to do cyber sex with me which I didn't want. Thats actually what got me to think about CHristians using God for their own wants. When I wouldn't do cyber sex with her as much as she wants then "God would tell her" that we aren't compatible. Now, that was like 10 years ago. But, as of now, she is in long distance relationship with a guy who is few decades older than her, married, and atheist. So as of now she finally admitted that she is no longer in a good relationship with God, she no longer says Asperger is demonic (I asked her about it like a year ago and she told me that it isn't) and in fact she even asked me to pray for her. At the same time, she DID tell me a SECULAR thing as to how the way I get pushy about things is super annoying. So she DOES have a problem with my Asperger -- but not spiritual one any more. Which again makes me think: was she just using the religion as an excuse for what she would feel anyway?

But in any case, nobody besides her and her spiritual mentor ever told me autism is demonic. So I gathered that it would only be very small minority of Christians that would believe that. And thats why it doesn't really answer my question as to how autism would be relevent to the majority of Christians, who don't hold this view.



Well, like I mentioned earlier, what about Trump? Why do conservatives support him "despite" the fact that his politics doesn't fit into "homogeneity" of political landscape?



"More about this later" does it mean you didn't have time to finish writing the message? So what was it you were going to say?

But what if the "nice guy" would go to the internet to complain about it as opposed to complaining to the girl directly? How would she find out he isn't nice any more?

I guess if you are talking more about withdrawal of attention as opposed to aggression, then I would say both sides do that. I mean, during very few occasions when I was lucky enough for a girl to like me, I would take it for granted until she finally withdraws her affections, and then I would obsess about her when its too late. Now, I realize that I am being hypocritical if I say its okay for nice guys to respond negatively to rejection and yet its not okay for nice girls to do that; but by the same token the nice girl would be equally hypocritical when she would say its okay for nice girls to do it yet its not okay for nice guys to do it. So its not either guys or girls that are being hypocritical, its just humans in general that are.

And this brings me to the following point. If the vast majority of human population are hypocritical, how come the vast majority of them aren't single? What separates the hypocrites that are being punished for their hypocricy from the ones that aren't? And thats where other factors -- such as "nice guy isn't manly enough" -- would come in. Now, if you follow me this far, then the next question is: why would feminists be punishing nice guys for not being manly if feminists reject the whole concept of gender roles?