Gay Aspergers !

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I have a weird question. Do you guys think that gay aspies are better socially than straight ones? It's just a hunch but I know if I were straight, I would never go to clubs or bars. Being gay makes you a stronger person mentally in general (AS or NT) so I think it could make us more social. I'm not meaning to offend any straight people, I just mean we have to go through a lot and most of turn out pretty strong minded people. I also think that since there are less gay people, we know a relationship is less likely to just fall into our laps. That means we have to go out and find one ourselves by forcing ourselves to meet new people and socialize. This is just my life experience...what about all of yours?

lol. My experience:
I am 23, never been in a relationship, and have no one that I can really call a true "Friend".

Despite having never been in a relationship, I have experienced a hell of a lot of messy hassle when it comes to relationship issues... how I managed that without ever actually being IN a relationship at all I don't know.
I struggle with the idea of socialising, and only jump at the opportunity to "go out" when we are "going out" to a nightclub. So it means I can do my stim of dancing to music all night, and not really bother socialising much.

On the bright side, I am quite a strong person for what I've been through in my young life, and have developed a lot of knowledge, understanding and intelligence about life, people and relationships.
I even know a lot about love and relationships, through OTHER PEOPLE'S relationships.

I just cock up when it comes to myself.

This sounds a lot like my life experience. I didn't mean to say we were better at relationships. I just meant we are more likely to go out and try to meet new people. This being because most of us only know a handful of gay people and if we're friends with them, chances are we're not attracted to them enough to date. So we have to try to meet new people if we ever have any hope of finding the right person.

I've never been in a long term relationship. The longest any of them have lasted has been 3 months. I've watched other people go through the motions and get their hearts broken. I've learned a lot by watching them go through it. The closest I've ever had to getting my heart broken was when I was led on by one of my best friends. We never had a relationship though. I think it was because he told me I was awkward all time. Anyways, I'll keep trying because I have to. The only way to keep trying is to go out and force myself to meet new people as painful as it sounds.

I understood your point my point was that... despite all my knowledge and experiences and strength etc... I still really struggle with the idea of socialising.

*clones some of your strength and inserts it into myself*

i'd say in some ways we will socialize better because 97% of people we're not sexually invested in so we can just talk to them about whatever and not care. where as if we were straight we might be nervous talking to women and even straight guys are nervous talking to women, we can just talk to them as friends without caring and same with straight guys.....we have less of a pool to pick form for relationships but a bigger pool to pick from for friends. And women seem to love gay guys generally and since they're more empathetic they may not be as bothered by the aspie traits especially if they know we're gay and not going to come on to them.

Yeah I think this makes a lot of sense. I can relate. I've definitely met some straight girls who get excited when they find out I'm gay. Lot's of straight girls want a gay best friend I think. I've never really had a best friend though. Not since I was in middle school and even then she didn't refer to me as her best friend.

That actually makes me think of another point though. Is it easy for some of you to talk to other gay guys? I would say at first it's fine and I'm not generally nervous but once I become attracted to one, I become nervous when we're talking. Also, it's hard for me to approach people. The only way I make myself do this is by telling myself I HAVE to go up to at least X number of people in one night. I force myself.

Hey guys, just recently joined this site and fell upon this thread.

Gay aspie here, just gonna say I feel, from my experiences, that being gay and having aspergers can be tough thing to cope with. It's not really the 'social' part of the aspect that I'm having troubles with it's the 'finding other guys' aspect. I dropped out of school a few months ago and don't really drive, There's no real community areas near my home, so I'm kinda stuck with the internet-to-irl way of making relationships, which most of the time end up unexpectedly well. My ex boyfriend and I met online and he lives less than 10 miles away from me, were together for almost a year until family related issues forced me to break up with him (abusive mother). We shared a lot of interests and he was really accepting for being NT. Just don't let things get ahead of you and take things slowly, I learned that the hard way.

Anyways. Glad to be here, and I'm pretty surprised to find this thread.

hi *hug*

I'm a pansexual NT, do I count?

No you don't count as a gay aspie, because you're a pansexual neurotypical lol.
But you count as being in this thread so hi5 and hug

Yay!

This describes me perfectly. Being able to befriend girls when I was young really helped me out with practicing my social skills, such that I'm now decent (but not entirely comfortable per se) at striking up conversations with both men and women. However I'm suddenly all tongue-twisted or mute when approaching somebody I'm attracted to.

One thing that has always struck me as kind of curious is something related to what Joshandspot mentioned earlier: those of us who aren't straight in some ways will socialize better than those people who are. Has anybody noticed how many more posts there are on WP about a straight guy constantly asking how to get a girlfriend, compared to a GLBT person wanting similar? Of course there are the two simple (and perhaps simplistic) reasons for this: more straight people than GLBT people, and/or it's inherently easier for a non-social skill reason for a GLBT person to be in a relationship... but I dunno, not to knock on straight AS people but I too get the impression that generally speaking we have better social skills. Maybe it's because we get more practice at it, maybe it's that we are more comfortable with ourselves and with our sexuality to be out and that confidence gets projected outward, I'm not sure. But it's precisely those things -- social skill practice and development, confidence/positive self-esteem -- that seem to be the big hurdle for many of the lonely straight AS folks on WP...

At any rate, Happy New Year to all you awesome nonstraight people!

yes this is what I was thinking. Yet I don't have a relationship, the initial meeting of guys isn't so hard. Especially in a big city. The hard part is after they start noticing some of your quirks...do you tell another gay guy that you have a neurological disorder? I can't see one my own age ever understanding, but you never know.

My guess would be that if you were to tell most people that you have a "disorder" or a "syndrome", that they would think that there's something utterly wrong with you. Words like "disorder" and "syndrome" are pretty much like "disease" in that they carry some significant negative connotations (particularly "unhealthy"), and it's that negative image that immediately pops into people's minds. Even the word "autism" is like "disease" in most people's minds. So would I tell a gay guy I liked that I have a "neurological disorder"? Only if I thought there was a chance that he would have a more balanced view of ASD and people on the spectrum. Otherwise I would refer to the spectrum differently and carefully so as not to conjure up these negative images. In practice however, it's kind of a rarity for me to have to resort to the "otherwise..." scenario, since I tend to weed out those against neurodiversity early on in the friendship process. This makes things a lot easier for me, as wording things differently and carefully is not something I do very well.

Ultimately though, I don't really think of ASD as a "disorder" or a "syndrome", but rather that you're born into this world with a different set of strengths and weaknesses, just as everybody has strengths and weaknesses. In that way we are no different from anybody else. And whether you're on the spectrum or not, the whole point of life, at least to me, is about trying to overcome one's own fears and weaknesses to become a more mature, strong, yet understanding and responsible human being. I honestly didn't understand that when I was 23... I was still immature and cocky, and I wasn't truly independent and self-supporting then. Little did I know that within just a few years my outlook would be so radically different.

Is that you in the picture? I wish I had that kind of flexibility. That's really impressive!

I cannot agree with you more if I tried.

All those anti-Autistic NT's seem to think that by curing Autism, suddenly all Autistic people will lead miraculously joyful lives, completely devoid of challenges, problems and difficulties.

EVERYONE on this planet is disabled to some extent, in some way. Everyone has challenges and difficulties and problems to face.

Accept who you are (whatever kind of a personality/brain/mind you have);
Understand yourself (including your difficulties and flaws);
Love yourself;
Create your life and live it.
Harm no one, and love all, even if from a distance.

We are all individuals - there is no ONE way to live life.

I am, Rikki Sho. GOODNIGHT!

I break hearts too much.

A guy I've been flirting with online has been constantly fighting to have me over some other guy he likes in real life.. From my experiences and the situation I'm in right now there's no doubt we would never last anyways. So I end up telling him we'd never last anyways and we shouldn't really discuss about being in an e-relationship anymore. So he ends up being all sad about it, leaving for a couple of hours, and returns saying he told the other guy that he doesn't want to talk to him anymore, and tells me he wants to be single.

This guy's a bit younger than me and lives on the other side of the country. The only real boundaries separating us is money and abusive parents, other than that we're alright. But nothing like that will happen any time soon. Jeez, what's with my obsession with meeting guys who confess to wanting polygamist relationships, this is unacceptable. :C