are you married/in a relationship?

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I don't know about the statistics so I'm not sure how many percentage of people on the autism spectrum are supposedly married or in a relationship. However, what you see here might not mirror reality all too well. I mean, only 37 people have voted and that's not nearly enough people to get some kind of accurate result.

EDIT: Also, it's lower than 67 % now.

Last edited by rebbieh on 26 Nov 2014, 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Nope, and that's fine.

I sincerely hope you're right.

That's not really a possibility for me.

No disrespect and I know this isn't your fault but we live in a world that has many different double standards and this is one of them. No girl is ever going to ask me out because guys ask. And I realize there are also advantages in being the one who asks. I got more choice in who I go with. I'm sure there are girls who suffered from wanting a particular guy to ask him but then he didn't and then some different guy asks her out, etc.

I know I should just bite the bullet and accept the possibility of rejection. I should say that I'd get better odds from taking the chance of failure then from accepting the guarantee of failure that comes from inaction. A major stumbling block for me is when I meet a girl, I don't know if she's already in a relationship or possibly single but likes being single. All of the dates I've gotten where off dating sites because I know a) the girls there are single and b) they're not singletons intent to stay single. I don't mind getting rejected as much based on my merits but if I asked a girl out and found out she wasn't single, I'd feel like a sleaze.

Now the thing is I could've passed by ten lonely girls who were in your situation. For all I know some of the times when I saw some girl and I thought "I'd better not ask her out because she's probably already got a boyfriend" she could have been depressed because she was single and hating it. And then like two ships passing in the night we went our separate ways.

Like this Specialisterne thing I'm in now. there's only one girl in it (not counting staff). So I don't know if she's in a relationship, content to remain single, wants a particular guy to ask her out, wants me in particular to ask her out or wants a guy in general to ask her out. For all I know she has a boyfriend she hasn't yet mentioned, she's depressed about being single like you were or she's single but doesn't particularly mind. She seems to be reasonably happy but I know from experience depression can be hidden. Or maybe she wants to be asked out yet isn't depressed about it.

Anyway, again I run into the problem of, if I asked her out I'd feel like a bit of a sleaze. I mean, she's the only girl in a group consisting of guys most of whom have girl troubles. It's like what one of the staff was saying, she said how mad she got being fawned over because she was the only girl in her software engineering class. I don't want to act like that but would she be into me? I can't say. She laughs at my jokes but she laughs at everyone's jokes. We've had brief conversations but I haven't been partnered with her (at the moment they've partnered me with a guy who seems to hate me for some reason). She appeared to be flicking her hair at me today but I'm not sure if that was flirting or just something she does normally. I could ask her out but I don't want her to say in front of everyone "You're just asking me out because I'm the only girl here you sleaze!" Maybe I'm just paranoid.

I also have this fear that if I do enter into a relationship I might find she doesn't have a compatible personality yet I stay with her anyway (stuff like that has almost happened to me in the past, some of the dates I screwed up where with girls I later realized wouldn't have been right for me). There's no guarantee that the first woman who accepts me would also the one who's right for me.

Anyway I hope that one day my circumstances will change but I think it will be a challenge for me. Yet I'd rather focus on how I can improve my prospects than be bitter about it.

In an excellent, stable relationship with a likely Aspie since 2 years ago, and I have good bonds with a few family members and friends, although I don't see them often.

The road to all that was very long and mostly rough. I was clueless when I began, and failed a lot.

I agree it's rare, and that used to drive me mad, but girls often make the first move in other ways. It's just difficult for autistic people to see when that's happening, until they've learned how to "read" people better. Girls do approach men but not usually by directly asking for a date. One might contact you for no obvious reason but company. I think it's good to just enhance the friendship and watch to see if she prioritises you socially or if you seem to be just another guy to her. If you had casual friendships with a few guys, you'd likely think nothing of asking any of them to go to some place of mutual interest together, because the proposition isn't loaded with any mating game connotations. You might just idly ask, "what are you doing this week?"

It's good to be able to ask, and it doesn't have to have the weight of a marriage proposal. You can just put out feelers, vaguely advocate a little more contact with her and see how she seems to feel about that. I think people normally take small steps in that way to mitigate the embarrassment of rejection. You have to make it easy for her to back out or slow things down without having to be rude. It helps to keep in mind that neither of you has fallen in love, that any hanging out together is only taking a look, not particularly expecting it to lead to anything more. For me, knowing that kind of thing helped a lot, though I still had one problem: I felt desperate, and had to fight that feeling to stop myself acting desperate. That wasn't easy.

I know, I'm sure I've disappointment lots of girls who thought they were making clear signs. Some of the time I was totally ignorant of them but some of the time I suspected girls were hinting that they were into me yet I didn't act because I wasn't "100% certain" and I didn't want to offend them if I was wrong (partly for their sake but mostly to cover my own ass). On the other hand there have been a few times when I suspected a girl was into me, didn't act due to fear of explosive rejection and then later found out she wasn't into to me after all. There's that benefit. Does the benefit outweigh the cost? Certainly not. Would the rejection have been "explosive"? Not necessarily (that was just the way I imagined it).

I've heard people say you should befriend a girl before entering into a relationship with them and I've heard people say you shouldn't. Maybe it's a matter of time. If you spend years being friends with them it could be a bad thing. Think of your long time friends of the opposite sex. Now imagine yourself in a relationship with one of them. Does it seem kind of weird? Probably. Because you've spent to many years being friends with them.

There have times when I've thought, how illogical it is that we have wedding rings and engagement rings as symbols of fidelity (though nowadays couples are considered to be in a monogamous relationship long before they're engaged) and yet we don't have some kind of ring that symbolizes the wearer is both single and seeking a relationship. I come up ideas about having a silver ring to worn on the pinky but then I think, that would help me but the majority of the population would find it unnecessary.

Except it doesn't amount to the same thing. When people aren't even addressing themselves towards you and they happen to have something positive to say on this subject, it's a good thing. We should be happy for them. What she said was that she couldn't imagine it happening before it did, not that it absolutely would happen to you.

Seriously, folks get pessimistic and caustic here, and we shouldn't be dragging down autistic people who have found success in this regard. They should be congratulated because we of all people understand how confusing and difficult it is.

Don't tell me how I should feel, m8. You're not the boss of me.

Yeah but you can boss others right? Telling them what you do and don't want to hear.. etc.

Not just about you chum.

I was one of the platituders telling Joe90 it can, and I thought it would happen. But I don't tell everyone that. I read many of Joe's posts and just had a strong feeling it would work out. It makes me happy to hear it did.

Most all people here already have had a difficult time irl. Some have had a very difficult time. Fair warning to not be adding to it.

I don't really have any friends I talk to online or off & I never had a close relationship with my family but I do have a girlfriend I've been living with for two years that I met here on WP. I was pretty lonely & desperate before her when I was in between relationships with my two exes.

I'm really glad for you. I noticed you sound more relaxed and happy in your posts lately.

No. Never have been, either. The two times I've come close to a relationship I was used and/or lied to. One of them in particular was extremely manipulative and mean, and in the end I had to threaten her in order to get her to leave me alone. It was pretty freaking horrible

I'm sorry to hear you had bad luck at finding love. :-/ I hope one day you'll find a relationship that won't be mean or manipulative.

I suppose the only time it's made that clear is on dating websites, and I think it's one of their strong points. I like the idea of having a ring for it. If a male and a female start making small talk, I think prior attachments are usually declared pretty quickly, e.g. "my boyfriend and I really like that place." Desire for a relationship isn't usually so readily declared, but if both people are getting on well, they might start talking about relationships in general, and exchange the info that way without any drama. People seem to sound each other out in ways like that.

Joe90? She's the one who has made 10,000 posts whining about how much she hated Asperger's, right?

Edit: Yeah, it's true I react badly to platitudes, mostly because the people who trot them out tend to be imbeciles. It's small talk at its worse: patronising and banal. I certainly won't be told to cheer up by WP's whiniest poster. I also won't be told by anyone else I "should" feel happy for her, when I couldn't care less: I'm not here to celebrate people's happiness. In fact that's the last reason why I'm on WP. There's tons of touchy-feely sites already; I don't want to be a member of any of them.

^
You've just broken the WP conduct rules, the part about not posting offensive comments and belittling other members.

I really don't care.