Are you naive in relationships ?

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I was really naive in my last relationship, but i hope that i've learned a lot from that.

Wow, I can relate to this, I feel like I tried to summon up the "proper" emotions for half my life! It got to the point that I became totally confused as to what I really did feel, I just knew what I was "supposed to" be feeling. I finally got a private journal and started writing down my emotions about things, just to sort it out for myself.

This is interesting, because I have been trying to analyze lately how it is that I love, and how that may differ from the way other people love. In fact, "love" is a strange concept, because it is subjective; we have no way of knowing what it feels like- or what another person experiences- when they are in love. So, if someone tells me they love me, their definition of love, or what they think and experience may be totally different than how it is for me. This is a philosophical question I´ve asked myself for awhile. In fact, about 2 years ago, I tried to study love- it was a special interest of mine- I guess in hopes to understand it better. Unfortunately, it was hard for me to find reading material that wasn´t full of the typical hype about love- (though I found some). "Love" hasn´t really been studied much scientifically or philosophically, and I came away thinking that people don´t really know much about it.

In any case, I suspect that I love differently than most, though I have no way of proving this. As I said, my most intense loves have been outside of a relationship- (I did love within a relationship once, but it was less intense, and the feelings finally petered out). When I am really in love, it´s also like a special interest, and I get no greater joy than sitting and "meditating" on the person, just in the same way my mind can be overtaken by a special interest and I can have that same meditative, or reflective kind of experience- (in fact, when I have a special interest, my feelings and desire for love seem to wane, almost as if my "loves" come out of the same "stuff" as my special interests. Once one takes over, that becomes my obsession). Somehow, I don´t think other "normal" people are like this. I even wonder if I enjoy this "meditation" of the person more than I would enjoy a sexual consummation....that´s hard to say, as it hasn´t happened yet.

In addition, I wonder if my recent difficulty in falling in love has something to do with the fact that due to experience, I finally understand that being in a relationship with another person means conflicting interests, agendas, ego desires, moods- (i.e., the person has a "personality")...and if this reality has made it more difficult for me to experience love the way I used to?

Ah, who knows, I guess I don´t even understand myself sometimes....

wow morgana - this I relate to. here are my views:

now most people have a period of obesessvie love as a component to their love stages or love process.
we can tend to perseverate on our love obejct and on the love, as if it is indeed a special interest. Somehwere in the literature on Women with AS, that is collecting in my brain, i remember a quote about women with AS treating a love interest as a special interest.

this is what i do. I also think it is what many men with AS do - in that it is about the obejct of their affection and once they secure their partner, they peter off in intensity and passion.... the "object" is now collected and owned. TOny Attwood and Henault talked abotu his last week at the seminar. this is what i did in my last relationship.

THIS is how i operate. I have been able to work on this. BUT I HAVE TO WORK, as Outlier states.

all relationships take work. but mine seem to have required a little more intenese work and attention than most, largely because i just want to be a single person IN a relationship as opposed to a partnership. and largely because once the "object" was obtained I did nto really have a clue what to do.

Outlier's example of conjuring up feelings is also relevant. I still do this. I have to do it mostly with my son - who needs mirroring from me. Sometimes i honestly feel a love for him and a great swelling, but it is generated internally by me. But the process of having complex emotions whilst in a communicating dynamic with someone is very pronounce in me...like a permanently dissociated emotional state. With my son I ACT. i conjure up feelings and i conjure up reactions and response so he gets the mirroring he requires for healty development.
(and the funny thing is, right now he and his dad are at the table eating their breakfast, and i am here on WP analysing human relating as opposed to joining in and DOING IT.)

that is how it is for me.

whislt on the subject of love, I'm still in love with my best boy mate and its unrequited
I don't think I'm going to get over it quickly, as I see him often (he's weirdly related to me I think... something like my cousins brother in law) and we've been best friends since the age of 2 (our mothers are almost sisters)
I'm incredibly naive in relationships. I've grown up a little, but only after having my heart broken so many times. My first boyfriend only used me for sex, then when I started to put out dumped me.

John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, three volume set. The closest I've seen to pure study of love, though, since it doesn't involve sex, some might disagree. Have a hankie handy. It's a tearjerker in spots.

Yes, me too! I think I tried to do that sometimes, but it never worked.

Anemone: thanks for the tip, I´ll have to check that out.

I feel I am naive. I must be. No matter how I end up being hurt, in the end, I still forgive quick as anything. I even forget much of the wrongdoing because it's as if my body can't handle certain levels of hate or resent. I'm not sure why this is, though, but it makes me feel ill and I can't get past it.

Another thing-- In my mind, people have good intentions. So I trust easy, and when this sort of thing happens and I'm not as important to them as I thought, or I find out they aren't as patient with me as they let on-- then it's a real letdown, to say the least.

Similarly to how you describe above, my one experience with love resembled a special interest. Usually when attracted to someone, it won't last very long and/or I have control over it (e.g., I could get over failed long-term relationships within hours or days). But the experience I mentioned had a very different quality; it lasted as long as my intense special interests tend to and there was little control associated with it. I too have little idea what would happen in a consummation situation, whether emotional or physical. Would I shut down? Or the opposite?

I still remain naive in this area, having not experienced something reciprocal. I'm not used to discussing such things as this and haven't even written about it privately. I was also asexual in early adulthood; in addition, I've only recently explored gender identity, so it's taken a long while to develop.



That sounds possible. It's sort of the opposite way round for me; realising that others had different interests and agendas (in my thirties, no less) coincided with me being able to love in the traditional sense. This type of love is the acceptance of something other.

Ditto to the above.

you are describing my experiences. i shall not add as Outlier and Morgana have said it all for me.