Resigned with being alone

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Yeah, there comes a point where the learning curve associated with an experience can reach no theoretical amount of usefulness to warrant the decline in quality of life what is learned causes.

-Frank

This is very simple to me. You have to ask yourself ONE question: What kind of girl am I looking for?

You have to answer this question with some reflection and honesty. You can't answer this based on an idealized version of yourself, but rather, how YOU would answer this.

After you answer this question, ask yourself: Where would a girl of this type hang out? Where can I find her? Where does she go?

For example, if the girl of your dreams is a Bible thumper, then obviously, you might want to obtain membership at all the local churches of the denomination of your choice. But this is an easy example, I admit.

NeoPix: According to that logic, I would have to look for my soul mate in a cemetary. I had a dream when I was 9 that my soul mate was killed during a war. That shook me up for some time until I had a dream when I was 13 where I, as I walking down the ailse, the scene shifted to my funeral. I have morbid dreams.

Seriously, I want to date, but a part of me wants to be independent. I also have my father's temper. So, I've resigned myself to living alone. I cannot get the two sides of me to co-exist very well, so well, I've resigned myself. And then there's my medical issues - there's always something going on that requires either an emergency plan/plan of readiness/restriction or some medication. Due to my diabetic medication (I think), I have no interest in sex. Males live off of sex 24/7. I don't want children. Most men want children and families.

I'm 26. I figure I only to have put up with myself for another thirty years. I can achieve a lot in that time - just not a relationship, family, or other typical stuff.

It's not because I am autistic - it's because I want to be independent and not smothered. I also don't like being touched and that usually winds up being a huge issue in 99% of relationships.

I would suggest keep looking, if it's something YOU want and not something society is telling you that should happen. I have a good way of determining if a guy is single: strike up a conversation about food. Single folks are more likely to live off of ramen noodles, leftovers, or take out. They are also more likely to know how to cook for one. However, be careful - some people are great manipulators!

Thank you...I really think a lot of it is frustration more than anything else. As I said, I am incredibly persistent, and I'm going to continue to try. Someone mentioned meeting people at activities...that's a good idea, but the problem is that, like most Aspie's (and guys in general), I am terrified to death about stepping up to the plate and asking someone out. I'm not too good with small talk to begin with (esp. with strangers), so that is why I stick to internet dating sites (namely, eHarmony).

I guess it still really worries me...reading these forums...about how many Aspies in their 20s and 30s simply are incredibly pessimistic about their dating futures. I mean, I know it's tough, but this ubiquitous malaise hasn't really made me more optimistic about my chances.

I'm close to giving up on the whole dating thing. I did have a gf for nearly 6 years, but I haven't had a date, kissed a girl, had sex, etc in years. The meet-people-at-activities thing has never worked for me, not once, neither for dates nor for friends, so I frankly see it as pointless in my case though I have no problem admitting that it works for many other people. I'm useless at meeting people at pubs, parties, etc - and in any case I don't want a party girl. As for internet dating, the profiles of girls where I am are all nauseatingly the same. I'd rather clean my toilet than go over the profiles of girls in my area.
All the girls I'm ever attracted to are always already taken for the long haul, so there seems to be little point. As for girls being attracted to me - let's face it, I'm a nonwhite, Third World citizenship, student in something unglamorous and not exceptionally lucrative, not crazy about music and dancing bores me - not exactly a winning combination for attracting girls.
I know the type of girl I'm looking for - the problem is finding a girl that even vageuly fits that that isn't already taken for the long haul and is actually interested in me. Since that appears to be impossible, I think my life will be a solo flight.
Finally, there is also an ethical point: what I'm looking for is a serious long term relationship, and as soon as I finish my studies I'll be going back to my country. How could I ask a British girl to go to a foreign, Third World country for my sake?

Hurrmark55, I have a feeling that if you do end up 51 and single I'll probably be right there with you a t 48. After years of socially hyperanalyzing myself, getting after myself to fix every little thing I found wrong with the way I came off, I realized that what it is in my own case is a form of personality issue - as in some of us have more mating geared personalities, some of us really don't and its not something as simple as just doing things right or wrong. Social cognitience quite often has less value than conformity of personality as well as how well you can fill out the cave-man aspects of the male gender role (not bluntly in our day and age, but manifestation of 'having it' is make-or-break and if it can be 'gained' you had it all along and just weren't exercising it).

Recently in the past few years I've sort of given up on trying just because the absolutes seem to be:

1). I talk to someone IRL, I'll either be intimidated my social cross-currents if they do like me or I'll be attracted to someone who isn't interested. (mostly on the veneer - I have certain standards of my own behavior but physically can't keep the energy up 24/7; I get the feeling, not that women won't understand that, but they're literally not supposed to based on the fact that its a false front of genetic health)

2). Once in a while I'll have someone interested enough to make the jump but, regrettably, rarely someone I'm physically attracted to. Some of these girls I still talk to, I like them as people a lot, though because I can't make the physical spark from my side it seems incredibly unfair of me to try acclimating to anything more than friendship with them.

3). Talking to anyone online leads to 2 or 3 rounds of conversation and then bam - nothing. Never met a single eharmony hookup IRL. At the same time though, I'll admit that just looking at the profiles, I still haven't seen anyone where I vibed that it would happen IRL and a few times I did have someone talking to me where I'd be thinking "I'm going along with this but I really hope this drops somehow" - while I'm more than happy dating NT's there's a right and wrong kind, and it seems like Eharmony really wasted my time with either lots of people who weren't for me or alternatly people who were too distant or too fragile. The one thing I will admit - my profile set me up as sort of an artsy, intellectual, and different sort of guy - when you do that you get the pitfall of attracting a lot of people who are let down when they find out your also a typical guy at the same time.

4). I'm a slow-starter. To feel attraction and REALLY feel it, to feel initiative, women have to grow on me and understandings have to build. What natural law dictates as the 'right' way is 180 opposite of that - it could still work if I was more of a social butterfly but anymore, after years of forcing myself to be out there and meeting new people, I'm too tired to want to do it much anymore or at least for a while (it wasn't fully zero return but the net result's been pretty demoralizing).

5). The times when I have met someone where we both had a lot of mutual attraction, times where I felt like I'd met a girl who'd be perfect (which I always played it chill and made sure to show initiative in the right ways and times) - for some reason the girls I'll feel this way with are attractive, often artsy or emotionally alternative in some way, but quite often brittle with people and have no luck with guys themselves. That last bit I'd be understanding of, I'd be able to get them to talk a little, I'd get some likely aspiish responses in terms of them shelling themselves off a bit out of anxiety, but when they came to and showed the same initiative it would be at times when I wouldn't be prepared and when I'm not taking the charge I can be that shy myself. We'd basically keep hitting each other up back and forth and getting no result .

I'm the kind of person where I would *much* rather think its my fault in some way shape or form, thinking that way at least gives me the hope to keep trying. In my push to actually refine myself and fix everything that bothered me about myself from when I was a kid and a teenager though, I noticed that while some things I was able to eliminate - other things are here to stay and anything I do to change those aspects, the effort put in just bleeds out over time and I end up back at square one. I'd hate to think its natural selection hitting everyone up here indefinitely but unless some huge opportunity to radically change my environment comes up I'll probably be stuck out here through my 30's and likely my 40's as well.

I have all but resigned myself to the same fate. It is strangely liberating and depressing at the same time. I can think of allot of benefits to solitude, but the benefits of not being alone outweigh them, at least to me at this time. Still as time goes on I see more and more benefits to just giving up, and less and less to trying to be the kind of person that someone might be interested in. I just have so far to go to be a mature and functional "adult" that it seems hopelessly overwhelming to me. If I can just carve out my own little niche in the world that brings me some level of happiness, then that will be enough, be it with or without someone else. I don't think that is an unreasonable goal to shoot for, anything beyond that would just be gravy.

Well for me, usually it's the latter...outside a few people who I simply knew were absolutely bad fits, I never really had an experience where someone actually was "attracted" to me.



Oh, there are plenty of girls who I am physically attracted to. But physical attraction isn't exactly the end-all-be-all. I really think it's what's inside that counts.



I have had plenty of dates with eHarmony. I have been on it for seven of the last twelve months, and in that time, I went out with nine different women. Overall, since I started dating (October 2005), I have had dates with 17 different women (all from online sources). All of them I have actually documented, and sadly, all ended in failure.



I generally would feel attraction right away if someone seems like a good fit. I know I had a good feeling about the last girl I was with, so I was thrilled that I got a second date out of that.

I guess I met a few who had no luck with guys, but apparently, I didn't meet their standards.



That's the thing...I simply cannot accept that I will be single for the next twenty years, if not my entire life. It boggles my mind how so many people can just give up the ghost so soon...I absolutely don't know how I could live with myself if I was convinced that there was no one in the world who I could be compatible with. I seriously don't. This hope keeps me going as the weeks and months go by.

I've found that when I have dated someone who I was attracted to on the personality level but not the physical, no matter what I tried to do I just couldn't turn off the dissonance that I felt with that. On dates, I'd find myself looking at other girls and almost feeling embarassed - that's the kind of behavior that, before I knew it of myself, I used to think was deplorable and stupid of other people - at this point at least I know a huge part of it is autonomic, its not really a personal choice but something more compulsory. Being that if I really like and respect someone like that I'd never want to act like that with em, I do unfortunately have to be honest with myself and say while looks on their own are worthless to me, a certain minimum has to be there with personality for me to keep myself in formation.



I think a lot of people have to just to save their own mental health. Hope can be a powerful tool but when you're really in a trapped situation it'll eat away at and destroy you more than anything. That said though as much as I've tried to beat it down in the past its still a major struggle and one where of course, when I'm on a functional upswing, I tend to go right back to it. Some people don't mind living single, most do though, and aside from that - NO one wants to look or feel weak and that's why you probably won't hear it too often. Life shatters dreams left and right like its nothing.

Wow. A lot of you seem to be having at least some luck with e-Harmony. I tried to join years ago and got the old

F**k e-harmony!

[quote="techstepgenr8tion]
I think a lot of people have to just to save their own mental health. Hope can be a powerful tool but when you're really in a trapped situation it'll eat away at and destroy you more than anything. That said though as much as I've tried to beat it down in the past its still a major struggle and one where of course, when I'm on a functional upswing, I tend to go right back to it. Some people don't mind living single, most do though, and aside from that - NO one wants to look or feel weak and that's why you probably won't hear it too often. Life shatters dreams left and right like its nothing.[/quote]

You see...a lot of people have the same problem. Even NTs have it difficult (most young people are trying to find the "perfect" match; one flaw and that's the end of the story), and many of them say they don't know if they'll ever find that "someone" and they need to take a break from dating. However, it seems that Aspies, even early on, are absolutely sure that their case is hopeless, and they decide that celibacy is the way to go. I wonder if Aspies are the new monks of the world.

E-harmony rejected me, too. I even faked the questions to make it seem that I was happier than I was at the time!

Taking a break for personal development can be a good thing, or if you've been living in the fast lane with relationships taking a breather just to get your bearing back on who you are as an individual outside of relationships and what you want in the long haul can be a good thing as well. I'm really not so sure how much it changes, my roommate's mom passed on last year and when I talked to his dad about the dating scene at his age what he told me seemed to indicate that even with age it really doesn't change much - people are largely still just as fickle. Part of me at least is waiting to meet new groups of people that have a bit more of an alternate grip on life, maybe a bit like my own. When I do get a good connection its from the heard and like I said, it takes a minute to warm up to people on that level - I'd like to be in a place where that kind of thing can prosper. Other than that, I very seldom meet anyone that I'd want much to do with myself. As for other aspies, you could be right - many do defeat themselves before they start, I guess my only advice to them is to take their off time to build as much self-assurance as they can; its something they need regardless and of course since the relationship world is riddled with landmines it takes a good deal of core inertia not to be thrown around by it all.

Wow, I really have to wonder WHY sometimes...................Why is this dating/mating things SO Hard?
The are THOUSANDS of poems and songs written about difficulties with relationships-if not finding someone who's a good match than coping with ALL the Baggage that goes along with a relationship. I dont understand how with all this difficulty humans have with romance that we still manage to procreate sufficiently for the survival of the species. Some people seem to survive, thrive, and find happiness either without someone OR with relationships that last for a while and then fail. It must be so VERY RARE that 2 people find each other and form an seemingly unbreakable bond that lasts a life time AND that they Die in. I often think tom myself that dying in love is Better than living long enough to see it come to an end. Ive read recently that the natural thing for most humans is not lifelong monogamy. That humans naturally have many different parnters throughout their lives-some which they will procreate with, while most they wont.Ive always been the Hopeless Romantic type-wanting to find that ultra-rare person for whom I will actually DIE in love with and last the rest of our shared lifetime . What I want most from a relationship is emotional stability. The thing about physical attraction is that its "necessary but not suffient" its not the end-all/be-all but it Cannot ever be truly disregarded. Thats not very idealist but its just a FACT. BTW Techstepgenr8tion, and for the rest of you as well: WHAT kind of personality type(s) are *mating geared*?

It kills me, but the thought that I may be doomed to forever be alone is bothering me again.

I used to let the thought bother me, but now I'm just resigned to it..
Still though, it's always nice to have a crush now-and-again.