I need love if I want to live.

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I think the odd pity party is fine to get it out of your system like a good rant does. I agree with the others here to go for friendships first, perhaps join a few clubs of things you find interesting to meet like minded individuals. It may also be that your giving off bad first impressions, in which case something like a club where the interaction is more long term might get you past that first hurdle. Look after yourself personally, shaving, hairstyle, clothes, etc, try not to try too hard but also don't let opportunities pass you by. I wish you luck.

Brusilov,

I don't know if you have looked at aspieaffection.com, or if it's relevant to you, but it might be worth a try?

All the best wishes to you.

I've never used disability as an excuse and still I've had very little success. Actually, I was only diagnosed 18 months ago and I had no success from the ages of 15 to 23, my few romantic successes came after diagnosis. So I couldn't have used the disability as an excuse as you characterature AS as doing.

People are extremely unique and you really are making huge generalizations. As he pointed out later, Brusilov does make a lot of effort. In truth, succeeding romantically usually needs effort and luck. I've made the effort, really trying and succeeding with moving beyond what I felt comfortable with socially but I've had very little luck. Meanwhile, plenty of normal people don't make much of an effort, they merely just do what they feel comfortable with and people just want them, they have luck more than effort. I'll keep trying because perhaps luck will come in my favour and then hopefully my life will improve. So perhaps you and the other people with AS who succeed romantically have just had good luck and all you are doing is confusing someone who you presume makes no effort with someone who actually has had very little luck. Not only is that ignorant, it doesn't do wonders for someone's self esteem.

If romantic success does require luck and effort then someone with AS needs more of both of these than a normal person. So it will take time, meaning there may be years of emptiness that other people don't have. Secondly, for some people it might never come together, who will always be alone due to AS. I think both these points are worth talking about.

Don't forget there are plenty of NTs who have trouble finding love. If it was so terribly easy for them there wouldn't be all the internet dating sites etc. Imagine if you were NT. You wouldn't have any explanation for why you were having trouble. You would just have to accept you were to blame. Wouldn't that be worse?

I'm right where you are Brusilov, though I'm trying to not get frustrated about it. I saw this guy I liked on the train and I just froze. I kept looking at him and him at me but that was it. Argh! I wish I could at least give a little smile.
Another thing I've got to stop doing is judging someone by their looks.

I am very impressed by your posts. You have to fake NT a bit I suppose!

Fall in love with yourself and someone will fall in love with you.

It is that simple.

Dude:

it's WORK.

There are theories that autistics have "extreme male brains" see: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/518449 - so NT women may not see the initial differences. That is why so many men are being diagnosed at a late age when their marriage falls apart. The book "Alone Together" (Katrin Bentley) the wife figured it out after 17 years together, when he was age 37.


In fact, in my own failed marriage, more than a year before I discovered AS, I got a book on NT relationships and the need for women to deal with "extreme men". This may be exactly the kind of thing that undiagnosed AS men start out with: http://www.amazon.com/Proper-Care-Feedi ... 0060520612 "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" by Laura Schlessinger.

I'm starting to work on my own book about this, each day it becomes more and more clear how complex the human mind is and how intolerant people are to each other about different ways of thinking. Be it homosexuals, asexuals, nerds (see movie Revenge of the Nerds), furires, autistics, tourists from other countries [especially when visiting xenophobic USA], vegetarians, etc, etc.

It isn't just outside stuff like race, skin color, beauty on inside, fat or thin. I will close with a wonderful music song from the 1970's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NvgLkuEtkA

And people are allowed to have pity for themselves - you are not nominated to be a corrective force to that effect. You can give feedback; if it were in the Haven, I would find your response out of line, but as it is posted generally... all I said was that I disagree with what you said, and moreso, how you said it.


M.

Alright ZakFiend. I'm standing up for the OP here. You are a bully, you jerk or troll.

I question your fundamental understanding of AS. Asperger Syndrome is a BRAIN issue, it is not something you can wish away. It is LIFELONG. And yes, you can overcome it on the short term and behavior issues - but not like neurotypicals can.

I sum it up like this:
1) Aspies can do anything
2) Aspies have to work a lot harder than NT's on social things
3) Hard social work is EXHAUSTING, and often results in DAYS of recovery needed for an Aspie.

How can you explain that the baseline divorce rate is 50%, but that AS diagnosed men have an estimated 80% divorce rate? Page 42 of the book "Asperger Syndrome and Long-Term Relationships" discusses this higher divorce rate.

Your mis-informative answer: Just because all these men put 'zero effort into it' (your words).

I'd put forth the idea that AS men put MORE effort into "getting laid" and relationships, and the very stress of that extra effort causes the relationship problems they have! So the harder they TRY at it the "wrong ways" (NT ways), the more likely bad behavior will surface for an Aspies. This very theory that stress causes many AS problems is put forth in the book Alone Together (the last sentence on page 113). This book is written by the NT wife of an Aspie man after 17 years of marriage.

You are welcome to your own ideas, but don't spew them out in such a one-sided hateful fashion... and show your ignorance. Your own words say you see it directly by saying "Most guys with AS". Stop thinking autism can be WISHED AWAY.

The biggest irony is that the OP (Brusilov) started this thread on WP, which is essentially on-line group therapy - so he is working at helping himself by asking the right questions and describing his past failures.

I suggest you go get a cup of coffee, take a short walk, then come back to the support group and be more constructive. Brusilov, I suggest next time you try posting such a topic in the WP forum on "Love and Dating".

Before we beat ol' Zakmeister into oblivion....

I think his intent was to say we don't want to become victims.

His approach was - perhaps not thoughtful and ill-considered at best - and the personalization and assumption aspect was poor form.
Yet the concept has an element of veracity.

And Brusilov took it and kept his poise, so he's not doing the victim thing.

.

You know what helps me when I'm depressed? A Chick-fil-A sandwich. There's something about Chick-fil-A that cheers me up so much. There's one by my house and it's got to be one of the cutest places and the Chick-fil-A sandwiches are sooo good prolly one of my fave things in the world. I went to the drive thru and I looked inside (it's one of the busiest places around here so I guess I'm not the only one who loves them) the restaraunt while waiting (there were about twenty cars in line) and I noticed something really cool. They put a different variety of fresh flowers on their tables every day. Last time I was there they looked like mums so I asked the woman working the drive thru if they were real and she said "yes they are" and I thought "hmmm".
So, while waiting in line this time I zoomed in on the flowers and saw some kind of daisies on each table. Yellow daisies. Isn't it cool to know they go thru the trouble of putting a different variety of flowers on the table daily? Not just any old flowers but fresh flowers? It's a little extra something they do just for their customers and it's not a common thing.
It's neat nonetheless.
Next time I visit their drive thru I am going to guess before I get there what flower they have out and see if I'm right just to make things more interesting and fun.
There's another cool restaraunt around here that has a vintage soda bottle theme. It's a locally owned cafe, a small business but it's so innovative. That's rare for around here. These kinds of discoveries cheer me up when I'm depressed, sometimes.
Anyway, I hope you are cheered very soonly in whatever way cheers you the most.

Ana, I enjoyed reading that.

It's not about luck, it's about skill... there are resources for both of you guys out there right now, you have to figure out what it is you're doing wrong and there are other guys to tell you. I know I've been through it. What you both need is a guide. Romance is not about 'luck' it's about improving yourself and getting to understand what it is you're doing wrong.

You are correct, while to others I may seem a bully, the thing is I used to be the way he is, and that's what I would tell my former self - to wake up from the dream of self pity and pessimism. There are resources out there for these guys to improve themselves the thing is they just need to be guided in the right direction. And yes I regretted coming of so intense, but the core truth is - you can't let yourself give up and use AS as an excuse.

Having AS means at least to some extent ADAPTING yourself to other peoples needs, one thing AS guys do is that they don't think of other people before themselves in terms of their EMOTIONAL needs, they come off as insecure and needing approval, which comes off to a woman as being scared and a wuss. From an evolutionary perspective, woman's instincts are tuned to weed out men who are weak hearted. A woman's subconscious evolutionary processes is constantly trying to assess whether a man is going to be a good father for her offspring, so she is going to unconsciously assess a man with AS and if he's just whining about life and hasn't figured it out yet, so to her that's going to be a major turn off.

Now this is not to blame people with AS, my problem is that there is a communication barrier between human beings (AS, NT or whatever), and everybody thinks their perspective is the correct one, or there are 'multiple valid perspectives on everything' but this is not true. There is an over-arching core truths about people that people with AS seem to live in denial about - evolutionary processes were honed over millions of years, therefore a person with AS should if he is serious, at least learn about the needs of the other person.

That's where most AS guys go wrong, and it's mosty because they are LOST, and without a guide, and often too egotistical / pessimistic to listen to those who've been through it, who've "been there, done that, and got the T-shirt". So us older aspies get frustrated seeing that. Everyone crying 'everyone is a unique snowflake', shows just how little life experience they have and they shouldn't be dishing it out advice.

Just because something is repeated in the culture 1000 times doesn't make it true - it's what works and what gets results that matters, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

The last thing he mentioned is that he's done everything online - he's avoiding socializing, he's still scared and anxious of real human interaction, he has to put himself out there, using the internet as a shield to prevent him from learning to socialize.