Has anyone actually experienced love?

Post Reply New Topic

Heck yeah! Finding the right person may take a while, but it's definitely possible.

I've often wondered how to determine what love is. I've had a serious crush but nothing more in the romantic sense. In the non-romantic, my sister did have a runt of a cat she abandoned and I looked after for a few years and I would get increadibly worried if the cat was missing at night etc, and love to play with it, I think that was love. Still over the years she went blind and when my parents said they couldn't look after her a year after I moved out and had to put her down, I was able to accept it on the spot and move on, whereas my mum (who didn't like the cat) was crying for 3 days. I think I love my parents and family but it also feels sort of like a group of strangers I grew up with, and am on good terms with, and am fairly attached to. I could not say with honesty that I know I love them.

I think I know what you mean. I mean, I like my parents a great deal and I think they're (along with my brothers and rest of my family) are very high quality individuals, but I don't have that NT connection with them or an emotional connection. I remember that for a long time I wouldn't tell my mother that I love her because I didn't know whether or not I loved her. Eventually I just gave up my stubbornness and I started saying it even though love is a strange and meaningless thing to me. I like my family a great deal, but I doubt I would cry if any of them died, as screwed up as that sounds.

I've never experienced nor fallen in love, and I don't know if I ever will. I've never felt attracted to another person. Sometimes I have thought I might, but I don't think of it as true "attraction"

in response to the original post and without having looked at any of the responses so far.

Dude, we have AS, we're not robots or Vulcans!

Yeah, I love my wife and my daughter deeply and I feel another kind of love for my cats.

pardon me but I have to:

DUH!

I know it's difficult to admit because it does sound very screwed up. My sister acused me of being emotionless or something similar sometime after my grandma died. When it happened she burst into tears and I went on watching the simpsons..

I did care I just handle it differently, or don't care as much, I can't tell which.

I had some bad relationships including two failed marriages. I decided to date this guy that I hated for 14 years, because things couldn't get any worse! I am twisted. When I saw him a few years ago for the first time, he had matured a lot. Plus he acts like a clown, so that won me over. Now we are married and have a baby. He is the greatest step-dad to my HFA son, and I think that takes a super kind of person. He is also talented at dealing with all of my quirks. I am in love, even though I hate to be mushy. So, yes I think love is possible.

I think I always mixed up 'infatuation' with 'love'. There have been many times when I thought I was in love, or confused the 'thrill of the chase' with love. The reality is of course that as I don't love myself (total self-hatred is closer) there is no way I'll ever be able to give or receive love. Until I reach an acceptance about who I really am, it just ain't gonna happen....

Ive been teased with love many times before. When I believed it was the most amazing thing on Earth. I can only imagine what it feels like for someone to actually feel that way about you.

I have always been the kind of person that was in love with the very idea of love. A sign of anything more than friendship was very confusing to me and I got wrapped up in it. I am an extremely loving, caring and nurturing person. I love to help people in need and wanted so desperately to think that others were capable of such things.

There was definitely a time that I felt as if would never know real love. I questioned whether or not I was capable. I questioned whether or not I would ever be what another wanted. I questioned whether or not my extreme honesty, "moral police" reaction and my desire to fix things was ever going to allow me a functional relationship...but in the end, I found I was chasing the wrong dream.

So, that said, I absolutely love and adore my children and there is no denying this fact.

And it wasn't until a few of years ago when I was researching my daughters "symptoms" of AS that I found my complete and utter love, online. He IS everything I am, apart from being very uhm...NT. It is hard to even imagine a time where I lived without him, I am so happy. He lived in England and I lived in Canada. We now live together in Canada, have a child of our own and a new foster baby and plan to get married in Europe next summer.

I have never received a love of it's kind and can honestly say, looking back, that I have never known true love until now.

It is possible and happens when you least expect it.

We all know what they say about true love... "you'll know it" and well, I am sad to report that I haven't got much better advice!

I am least of all patient, so telling you to have patience simply would not be fair, but...

it'll come...

Last edited by makelifehappen on 20 Sep 2007, 7:09 am, edited 2 times in total.

I am AS and married to a NT woman. She is very compassionate and I love her more than I care for myself. We have been together 10 years now. We have a 2 year old son, who I also love deeply, and we have a second son who will be born within 1 month.

I have known many women but only loved one other, it was a 4 year relationship. When that ended it took me over 5 years to fall in love again. The things they have in common is that they are both very compassionate, understanding and loving women. I think that is a must to make a relationship between an Aspie and a NT work.

I am indifferent to most relationships but completely loyal, caring and loving when I find a special woman. True love is definitely attainable for Aspies. You must first learn the courtship game. Observe others and practice, practice, practice. And once you find someone special don't try to possess them, use your humor to entertain, and show them you really care for them and you will look out for them always. Be careful with your words, as we Aspies can react too quickly and be too blunt. If they don't value you when you offer these things then don't waste your time, they are not the right one for you and you should move on.

We all have things to contribute and we are all worthy of love, when you truly believe this others will recognize that worth in you and be attracted to you.

It was through much trial and error that I prepared myself for my wife. It was a difficult road filled with many detours and difficulties but ultimately the prize for my effort is the best thing in the world, my family.

The most wholesome and well-rounded healthy real love i have felt is for Flakey..and we went over alot of bumpy roads to get to this point...I am so lucky to be capable of getting there despite all the troubles i (and we) have gone through.

I have, in my life, been prone to rediculous all-consuming infatuations that have really really messed me up. The major one lasted for 5 years...and seriously effected me to the point where I felt like I was going mad from it. I could not get this person out of my head for the LIFE of me. It was a Horrible horrible OCD brain virus...and the guy was a total as*hole who basicly used me at his convenience and tossed me aside on multiple occasions when it suited him. I got lots of songs and poems and scratchy comics out of it...but it was as if my whole life revolved around this person who couldn't care less for me. I tried analysing it and dissecting it...I wrote a rediculous manual on how to cope should the same thing happen to you..I tormented him with obsessive compulsive letters and gifts..I was accused of stalking..it was awful.....I am so glad it finally evaporated...and it did just sorta vanish one day.
The second one was an unrequited nuisance for a while...that when finally reciprocated, turned out to be a disaster...and actually more of an echo of the first one....(the guy had the same name...similar negative outlook and alot of similarities to the first....)

I threw away a perfectly decent relationship with an awesome guy who remained my total best friend and savior (only person i could talk to)for years afterwards because I could not escape from the first said horrid infatuation.

For the second one I broke up with Flakey...(this was last year..I have been back since December)

I have this weird sort of empathy deficit that seems to come into play sometimes....I don't know how to control my emotions....(the infatuations have only happened a couple of times, but have been really powerful)
I have been in an endless string of long term relationships since i hit puberty. I seldom find anyone at all attractive other than my partner, but in the rare occasion that I am attracted to someone outside of the relationship and it evolves into a "crush"...it can be pure torture...because once something like that is in my head, I find it very hard to get rid of it. I simply can't be in a relationship and be attracted to someone else, so I have to end the relationship....even if the relationship is good and steady and REAL etc....and what I am leaving it for is bad or even non-existant.....

I know that I sould like a terrible horrible person for this. But I think I finally understand the difference between love and infatuation...and I have fixed this broken emotional mechanism within me.
Hopefully it has stopped with Flakey. I only find myself loving him more, and things between us are alot more stable since I left and came back....(it had been a rollercoaster since the beginning...and it was the second time we had broken up..the first time he broke up with me..)
We are edging towards the 5 year mark on our relationship...I am pretty sure the bumpy weird stuff is behind us, but if any more should come along, I think we are more equipped now to handle it...and it is totally worth it.

Yes, I love my husband very much - we've been married for 21 years this October.

I also love my dogs. It's a different kind of love, but I don't think it's any less real.

I experience the friendship kind of love with my girlfriend.
I can't actually fall in love with someone, and be totally crazy about them like others do.
I do slightly experience the falling in love thing.
But it tends to be with a different women every few weeks.
So i don't really seriously pay attention to that.