At what age did you give up trying to attract men/women?

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I've given up for the time being, but only because I have a gorgeous fellow-Aspie girlfriend (yes, I'm a girl, too) who I will have been 'dating' for three years come next May. Where I am right now, I don't see myself ever 'resuming' my search, but who knows what'll happen in future?

Congratulations! I keep thinking maybe a fellow Aspie would be a good match. If nothing else, we'd at least be understanding of difficulties, etc. Unfortunately I don't actually know how to meet any fellow aspies.

I never gave up.

Tim

I stopped trying to attract men when I was born.

As for women, I've had lots of girlfriends. Does it make a difference that I never went to dinner with, interacted with, or was even noticed by any of those women, or that they probably didn't even know I was alive? I don't think so.

I don't remember exactly when I gave up on finding someone, but I think it was a little after my 21st birthday. Some time after a birthday party for my best friend (one day younger than me, party was on my b-day), I broke into the money I was saving for my future girlfriend/wife/whatever and started spending it on little things that really didn't mean anything, like drive-through fast food and whatnot. I've given up on actually finding someone special, but I still look for just about anyone who even pretends to be interested because I don't know how not to.

I gave up years ago in principle...

I keep telling myself that in giving up I have opened myself to whatever possibilities might occur of their own accord.

Hasn't worked out the way it was supposed to - I just feel single, dangling, lonely and afraid, no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise.

I applaud those who can somehow truly stop caring, but I cannot, and I can't stop thinking that my inability to disconnect is somehow my fault, and that I am therefore responsible for my current state...

Seems like a terrible contradiction - all you have to do is stop caring about the thing you care about most in this world... How do you do that? How does one give up the only thing that provides succor - hope - and then magically find the thing that you gave up hoping for?

The whole world is insane.

Nick (who is not feeling particularly sane at the moment)

Oh yes. I love those self-help books that teach you that you:

WILL ONLY FIND LOVE WHEN YOU LOVE YOURSELF SO MUCH IT WON'T MAKE MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE

I stopped when I discovered that all men who approach me are either kerb crawlers or pimps.

Yes, I'd love to meet another aspie.

I don't accept the assumption implied in this question.

I don't intend to entice men specifically in a sexual manner, because I want the man I am going to live with (and hopefully to marry) to be my friend first and foremost, and only then everything else. And the *least* thing I want is to attract the attention of men who approach women with the sole aim of having a sexual relationship. As a result, I don't pay much attention to my looks, except for the most essential things, but mind the way I treat others and look for people with whom I can share a meaningful connection.

But this does not mean I have given up finding somebody, or that I intend to do so.

Yes, I tried quite hard when I was 13 and 14, actually the only time in my life I had a set of fashionable clothes, tried talking to girls.
I can distinctly remember, and around the age of 15 as well, giving up on the realisation that I didnt have the nessasary skills.

I did get to meet a few girls in my 20s due to them approaching me, but I would soon dump them.

I was probably about 35 when I gave up on hope as well.

I never "gave up trying". I also never really tried.

I met my first wife when I was hanging out at a bowling alley, because a group of BBS users in that area bowled on Friday nights, and I hung out with them.

Ten years later, when my first wife had left me for a more reliable meal ticket, I was involved in a local-area chat room on AOL. One of the young ladies in there had recently been through a rough time, and I'd provided a sympathetic "ear" online. She was willing, in turn, to listen to my tale of woe, and, well, we kind of got to know each other, which proved to be a good thing, and has been for a decade now.

So, you see, I never tried, so I never gave up trying - it all happened, as Fanny Brice said, "at the very moment when it was right that it should be so, and not a second sooner".

never gave up. On my 2nd marriage, that's a bit rocky, but I didn't know then what I know now.

I was concerned in that the qualities I thought women wanted (someone who would 'be there', and I didn't even have a 'there', who could 'give emotionally', which I wasn't sure how to do, etc)
I can come across as friendly (obsequiously so), and that comes across as a 'nice guy' bit, but eventually they get tired of doing all the 'heavy lifting' in the relationship, and get tired, or even sick.

I wouldn't give up, but sometimes being a lighthouse keeper seems an enticing prospect...

No plans to give up at all...in fact, in the past couple of years I seem to have "expanded my operations" in this area somewhat into attracting women, as well as men. I am even told I am rather good at it (I have to be told, because I haven't got a CLUE)...

Attracting people is some of the best fun I know, it's only when I am faced with a situation where I have to figure out how to actually interact with and relate to them in terms of that attraction that I need to leave town...

I am not afraid of rejection, as long as I can actually see it clearly and unambiguously, it's quite relaxing, actually ANYTHING clear and unambiguous is quite relaxing (I realise that I will probably have to live my WHOLE life without EVER having the first idea of "how others perceive me" let alone whether they actually want me around or not. Fortunately I am too Schizoid for that to be any kind of "big deal" or it would probably drive me nuts.)

I am not even afraid of love...I can *do* love...just not in the same room (town/county/landmass)...it's WAY too complicated and stressful.

M