Gender double standard and Autism

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I am going to try something. I am going to question him until I can understand his assumptions. If I perceive his assumptions as faulty I will ask well how is x so? Why do you believe x is this way? Try to do what I do?

I still want to know why having a romantic relationship is the be all and end all of autism.

Sure, I have a relationship. I'm open about this. Yes. I have problems because of being autistic with my relationship. Sometimes major ones. Some of them I will not talk about on these forums. But I have a successful relationship with someone who supports me despite me struggling.

What's this have to do with anything else?

What's this have to do with anything being "easier" for me other than the fact that I was lucky enough to find someone who worked with me despite my struggles?

I still can't work, struggle to eat, meltdown, shutdown, lose speech, can't drive, have a mess of social interactions, and don't know what I'm doing socially, or not socially.

I still struggle.

Relationships are such a tiny part of life. Everything else is so much bigger.

Why is the relationship part larger than eating, or working, or driving, or being able to walk to the store and buy food? Why is getting a romantic partner the thing that people argue about over and over and over about, saying how people have it easier because they are in a relationship?

Yes. I'm in a relationship.

Does this make it easy for me, despite the fact I can't drive, can't work, can't take care of a home, struggle with making my own food, struggle with even getting food to make, that trying to take care of simple tasks required to live on my own is something I struggle with?

Because I have a boyfriend?

Am in a sort of relationship, but it is not what is defined as "romantic".
My partner and me are connected through special interest (he is somehow BAP or mild autistic as well).
But I am not able to being "romantic", he is to an extent, which is a conflict.
Now we do not have same special interest anymore and he wants to separate, as he is more sort of "care-giver" for me.
Now I need to find residential living, but I do not want to be in strange place with strange people, but there are no other options.
I am in permanent overload at the moment.

This as described by Tuttle.

moderate and severe aspie:don't drive,learning disable,more immature,can't blend in,
usually single or dating another disable or autism person,very rarely dates an nt person.
have more than just social skills trouble. can't live on their own. have caregivers,parents,
other family members helping them. they are difference from mild aspie
who can marry nt,average i.q,can live on their own, and can raise a family.

Okay, here are the qualities for me.

a. I can drive.
b. learning disabled-it depends on the subject matter at hand. Some subjects I can grasp quickly and some take me longer.
c. I do have difficulty with blending in.
d. I am married but I still have communication issues with my wife. We have our good days and our bad days. Relationships are not the end all be all.
e. I can hold jobs. I have difficulty getting jobs
f. my parents are sending us financial support

You set a criteria for moderate to severe aspie. Why can't I be mild in some areas, moderate in other areas and severe in other areas? How is it logically possible to construct these labels that you do?

Some thoughts:

1) Bones vs. Zack Addy is not a good example of the difference between male and female Aspies in romantic success, because of two confounding factors: richness (wealth/social status) and hotness (good looks). Bones is at least much richer, if not also hotter, than Zack Addy. Richness and hotness - especially together - usually make getting sex and initiating relationships easier for both males and females. So to make the comparison valid, one would need to match the male and female Aspie in question for these two factors. Also, of course, they're both fictional characters.

2) Being quirky and female does not necessarily make finding good relationships any easier, as many here have mentioned. My own experience (as quirky but not autistic) has been that I haven't actually wanted to pursue relationships that much with non-quirky guys (first serious boyfriend was Aspie and second has OCD). I felt I could never give typical guys what they needed, or be what they expected, although perhaps I took my mother's and other people's warnings about the risks of typical guys a little too seriously as well.

3) Even classically NT people tend to have trouble actually making their relationships work out. Hence the divorce rate and such. All that getting laid and being in love and being happy, it doesn't usually last. The kind of relationship success most people long for is a rare accomplishment no matter what your neurotype.

your mild,you can drive,have an nt wife.

That's great, now I can tell my psychiatrist that I'm moderate to severe, because I don't have a licence and I'm not married.

You didn't answer my question. How did you come up with your labels?

Are you freaking kidding me? You don't know what issues my wife and I have between us. Right now, I am unable to get a freaking job whatsoever. I have held jobs in the past though but I was fired from my latest one after a week and a half. My parents are still sending us financial support. I don't know how to coordinate myself with doing different things with my wife and other people. Let me tell you something billiscool, the grass is not always greener in a marriage or relationship. In addition, I have difficulty getting things done that truthfully need to be done.

Do you think I am as high functioning as you think? That's beside the point. My point is you don't know what any of us have had to deal with and currently are dealing with in our lives. You're assuming without obtaining the facts and data.

How did you come up with your rubric? What logic and reasoning did you use? Did you do a statistical survey of big enough sample space on here? Can we see your data?

What a pile of tosh. You are very blinkered. Do you think life is just x, y & z? No, It's a multitude of things, experiences, encounters, situations, living conditions, desires, dislikes, ad infinitum. All of those things can be affected by being on the spectrum. Just because someone can do x, y & z (perhaps with a massive struggle and huge amount of anxiety and Lord only knows what problems whilst doing them) does not mean they can do the rest of the alphabet. Do you see what I am saying?

And of course, all of that aside, what inner struggles a person has, what anxieties and depressions they have because of being on the spectrum is a subjective thing. The same thing can cause a different response in two different auties/Aspies, and who is the person who can judge how the other feels or is affected? Who can say "mine is worse than yours", because no-one is inside someone else's head and mind to know.

You need a bit of life experience to learn that you are talking like someone who doesn't have the first clue - and yet judges with everything he's got.

Exactly, I have had encounters in my life that I don't fully grasp. For example, I was told bill that I was fired from my latest job after being a week and a half there. There are certain circumstances in it that I don't grasp.



Talking about inner struggles, you hit the nail the head. For example, we're told to be honest with people especially employers but at the same time we're told to put on a front.



BillisCool, She is right. You do have a lot to learn my friend. You know nothing of my struggles, whirlingmind's struggles or anybody else struggles on here. Dude, life isn't just about facts it is about the human interpretation of these facts as well. You want to know what I get in my country. All I get told is that it is common sense. They can't even accept another interpretation into their psyche at all or the possibility of another interpretation whether it is faulty or not. Their interpretation is the only interpretation in existence. Therefore they won't tell my why their interpretation is more sound than mine. My country sees itself as the whole world. This is what I am dealing with BillisCool. You're behaving like some of the people I've had to deal with in the USA who completely have blinders in place.

Wow

I'm back on Earth, and sex is still an important issue

I don't think I can add much to the topic because I am 1) a "mild case" and 2) female (envy me OP )
Anyway,

I couldn't have sex until 20 or so because I was too weird socially and totally isolated and misunderstanding all these things like flirting etc.
Then I improved a little because I found an acceptable environment at the university, and I had some occasional sex, and I found it BORING. I mean, I liked the process, physically, but it involved too much interaction. You just have to run right after you cum or else you'll have two awful hours talking about shopping, sports, movies, or whatever.
I'm afraid people who have lots of occasional sex waste too much of their time on clubbing, partying, shopping, fitness etc., hence the low IQ.
And then, you get all those funny infections.
So I decided: NO MORE occasional sex.

Then I thought I would be happier in a stable relationship. I had two relationships (with men), and both were a mess. I can't claim te guys were abusive; I just can't live in one place with another person. I hate my things being touched, I hate TV, I hate to be told what and how I should do, I hate people walking round the house naked, I can't eat the new food they want me to try. I need to be left alone at least for 3 or 4 hours a day, or better for the whole night. I melt down whenever it comes to a row. I hate jealousy and being another person's property.
So I decided: NO MORE living together, no more obligations.

One more thing: if you're autistic, no matter how mild, you're never sure about the other person's intentions. You don't know if they are flirting with you or bullying you; if they "love" you or just use you. You only know what they say.

So, what do we have?
I was unhappy because I had no sex.
Then I was unhappy because I had sex.
I was unhappy because I had no relationship.
Then I was unhappy in relationships.

WTF

Why would I still let all this affect my life?
I think it's more about accepting yourself the way you are. For some people, being lonely is natural. We're not in a Hollywood movie, there are lots of things to do in life.
I regret I wasted so much time and effort on playing the gender games.

Last edited by FirstDay on 19 Jul 2013, 6:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with what you say about people being "shy". I've seen plenty of shy women easily intergrated into a group despite making visibly almost no contribution. Someone once said to me that women tend to act as one unit when they are together in one place and I think that's a true and helpful observation. So if you're a man and you're shy nobody is going to band together to make you welcome and just automatically integrate you into the group, that will probably never happen regardless of wether or not you have aspergers. Also women seem to cling to attitude relics and do not approach men as we know. So yeah maybe it's harder for men with aspergers because they "seem" shy but what you say can apply to anyone not just aspies.

So yeah double up on the hardness but as for aspie women I can't judge their experience because I'm not them and I've not known many asperger women but from what I read I have seen some really common complaints like "people don't believe I have aspergers" or "people just don't get it" etc. And some do say they have issues being part of a group. I've also known some shy and quiet men to integrate a lot better than I do. So I think in general being shy and male is a real issue but you can be not shy and have aspergers and still have the same problems as shy men do or just way worse problems.

TV does seem to solidify (or even create) stereotypes in peoples minds or reflect real stereotypes, and does worse to influence the way people think too.

Well maybe that's right, but this "unit" is very uncomfortable to be in. There's a lot of gossiping (which I find mean), talking about emotions and relationships (boring! + confusing because you're supposed to tell your "secrets"), kissing and hugging (! !!), - too much intimacy, more than I can cope with.

Whenever I happen to be in such a group (it happens only rarely, just a few times in my life), I see how far I am from the female stereotypes.

Not even remotely accurate.