Telling a date you have AS, ADD etc..

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Well I've been chatting with a bird online, so I havn't meet her in real life yet. I told her about me having Autism and ADD, she didn't reply for a while. So yeah it might not have been a smart move.

But I just got a msg back saying she wants to meet me.

Well some subtle behaviour I may do may get taken the wrong way, if she knows I have AS she will understand me better.

It will be one of the first things I tell when I really start to like a girl. If she reacts badly when she finds out or if she rejects me for it, then it means she was not the right person for me anyway. Anyone who claims to like/love somebody should accept the person as he is, so in a way telling you got AS is a good filter to see how caring the other person really is.

Regardless of the filter issue, I just like to tell it soon because
1) people do notice there is something odd about me, by being open about the real reason for it I don't need to wear a mask and can just be myself when I am in their company
2) if you really like a person as more than a friend, then you should be open about issues like this and not feel a need to hide your AS

I think it is very good to tell. People are so used to the NT way of thinking, they might think you are offending them by acting aspie. I had a aspie boyfriend, before I really knew about asperger, and he acted "mean". That is, doing things other people do when they want to really show they don't care. However, this guy just didn't have a clue of what he did I think. I would have been easier if I knew he hadn't a mean purpose behind his actions, that he just looked at things another way.

Tell - but maybe not on the first date, show your personality a little bit first so the other person don't think you are ret*d or something.

It should not be a big thing anyway to tell. To me, AS is a part of my personality just like being vegetarian or having blue eyes is a part of the total package. I have no taboo sense or shame whatsoever about my AS and talk very openly about it even to strangers. So telling straight away is not hard at all to me. I must say I would not talk about my anxiety and OCD issues to strangers, so with that I may wait until I feel that anything serious is growing, I wouldn't tell a nice girl about my OCD during a first date.

I think you don't tell a date you have it, tell your girlfriend (if you catch my drift... I

dated someone once, who told me 6 months into the relationship that she'd been committed and put on thorazine..but by then I could handle it. Of course, later I realized I should have run (from her...there are lots of nice people out there who may have a past)

I see it as a good screening process to be honest about it. I would say I have HFA as a intentional means to deter those unlikely to be my type anyway.

I am not really dating really, I don't like dating just for some fun. I look for commitment so any girl I would go out with (which happens not often though) is a potential girlfriend to me. So why would I hide my AS for her, if I want to take things further she has to know so why not tell her straight away?

But as I said, I don't hide my AS in general, colleagues can know it, even strangers can. I don't see why I would hide it, I don't feel ashamed to be an aspie.

Not telling someone that you have AS isn't the same as hiding it from her. She will get to know you over time. She'll learn about why you do what you do. If later on you tell her, "Oh and there's this syndrome that describes traits that I have," it wouldn't mean anything.

Maybe after a month or two of dating?

id wait to maybe see if you two at least get along well enough. it's who you are... not being dishonest, unless you're hiding everything up until you tell them...

I deal with AS like its coming out of the non gay closet to me ya know
its a secret I must keep and I only tell those i trust
point is-give it a bit of time
until you know the person

Hmm, I wouldn't go out on a date with someone who didn't know I had AS and sensory defensiveness. If they can't understand it then why should I bother getting more romantically (and therefore emotionally) involved with them?

Exactly.

To me coming out for AS does not feel like coming out of the closet. Maybe telling about OCD would feel that way, but telling about my AS feels little different than telling someone what football team or food I like. It should not be a taboo, if someone reacts badly then (s)he is not worth your attention anyway.