As a candidate AS guy married to a, I presume, NT woman, I recognise a lot of what is being said here.
I want to add a slightly different perspective, however. I could be mistaken, but in terms of moving forward with this type of relationship situation, I take there to be an emphasis being placed on the 'emotional deficiency' of the AS man, rather than on the 'mistaken' NT woman. I've put it in those crude terms in order to get to the point I want to make. I am new to this forum and relatively new to learning about AS, and I suspect a lot of what I am saying is well rehearsed.
I don't consider AS or any psychological disposition to be a deficiency, although I think this is debatable. For me, there is no standard by which to make such a judegement, rather, there are only differences. Sure, there is a majority who are more or less similar but this does not imply the existence of an objective standard by which value judegements such as 'emotionally deficient' (or some more subtle version of that) can be made, although I recognise that such are made, including by myself, in many areas of life.
That is like saying that the typical differences between so-called 'NT' men and NT women are actually 'deficiencies' or 'lack of capacity' on the part of one or the other. Indeed, as I think has been said, we don't need the NT/AS distinction here to understand the different orientations regarding emotionality and physicality between typical men and women.
The way I see it is that men are, from an evolutionary perspective, naturally inclined to desire physical-sexual interaction. It is the success of such an orientation in terms of reproduction that is the reason why we are here today, and here today with that very same orientation, one that I can only see becoming stronger as evolutionary time progresses. Men are not generally inclined to be so concerned about fulfilling a woman's emotional needs in the long term. Reproduction only requires capturing the short-term interest of the woman.
That's a bit tangential. What I set out to say was that we just are how we are and there is no reason in nature why we should be any other way than that. In general, and in the context of this discussion thread, the woman who wants her emotional needs met before puting-out has a need that men are not wired to provide. Conversely, the man who wants his sexual needs met before puting-out emotionally, has a need that the woman is not wired to provide.
This talk of how can I make it work, bla bla bla, fails to take into account the conflict of interests that are built into us as separate halves of the human species. I say, cut the crap. Why should I try and change or fake emotional interest in order to get my sexual wants met? That's disingenuous. If a woman wants disingenuosity then it seems to me she is mistaken. That is her look out. I am prepared to provide the genuine emotion and authenticity that I have, face and accept the reality of who I am (at least, who I take myself to be at the present time).
I hope I've conveyed something of interest.
21 Dec 2011, 8:52 am
