For all the female aspies with a boyfriend :)

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Hello dear aspies,

I am a 21 year old girl and I've never had a boyfriend before. I'm from Europe btw. I was a bit curious about the female aspies that do (or did have) have a boyfriend.
I have some questions:
-Where did your meet your boyfriend? How long have you been dating? How old are you?
-Is he an aspie too, or is he neurotypical? (or something else)
-How did you roll into the relationship? Was there a connection right away? Was it hard for you to 'initiate' the relationship, because of the social impairments that usually come with aspergers syndrome? When did you know he liked you? When did you call it a relationship? What part does your aspergers play in the relationship now?

Can't wait to read your answers !

xxx
Café

I'm assuming by boyfriend you mean long-term committed relationship?

I know married Aspies,would they count>

Yes, they absolutely count. And yeah I mean a committed relationship.

I met my boyfriend at a party thrown by a friend I have had for more than 10 years. He had also known my friend for a looong time, but somehow we had never met. I should add that everyone in my group of friends is a bit odd in their own way...I think most of us on here who are able to have friendships would say the same...and their friends are a good place to look. We just clicked, and talked to each other all evening, ignoring everybody else at the party. About a month later, I had a small dinner party when he was in town visiting my friend, and I asked my friend to bring him. At this point I wasn't thinking romantically at all, just that he was fun to talk to and I wanted to hang out more. After dinner, we all went to a bar, and the rest of the group intentionally left before we had finished our drinks so that we had to walk home by ourselves. He asked me out then. We've been dating for a year. I'm 32 and he's 33. He's neurotypical, but works as an IT manager, so he knows how to deal with Aspies. He definitely has his own special interests (computers, astronomy, and music) and is an introvert.
He doesn't think my special interests (language acquisition and psychology)are boring, either. We both are interested in politics, so we talk about that a lot. He deals with relationship issues by making logical arguments, but isn't unemotional about it the way some Aspies are (my second husband was an Aspie, and part of the problem with that was his lack of emotional warmth). He understands and accepts my Aspie traits, like not having mastered back and forth conversation and either interrupting or saying nothing when it's my turn, or just sometimes not being able to follow. He understands that my facial expressions don't always match my mood, and that sometimes when I get overloaded, I need to leave whatever I'm doing immediately to avoid having a meltdown. These are all things that make it hard for me to make friends with the average person, but he doesn't seem to mind. Even before he knew I had AS, he understood that it wasn't malicious. When I'm having a meltdown, he knows what buttons not to push to make it worse (my first husband did that). He also indulges my sensory needs, by providing deep pressure when I ask and avoiding light touch, letting me rub my cheek on his chest (fuzzies!) and letting me smell him My advice would be to look toward nerdier types (smart, well-informed, with several special interests of their own) they are not only more understanding of social awkwardness, but they are more interesting overall.

here.

18 months

40

aspieeeeee

hmmmmmm this part is complicated. i was separated from my husband but bucephalus (boyfriend) didn't know that yet because i didn't discuss that on the forum. but i had been in an open relationship for some period prior to that anyways. i had noticed his posts because he tends to try to see stuff from other people's point of view, and is generally much nicer than me. he also gave really helpful music advice and seemed to care about people's feelings.

we got talking on the forum and switched over to PMs, then over to FB. eventually i explained my marital situation and over time we decided to go for it. after about 6 months of chatting, we went exclusive. then a year later i moved to his country (i had a visa to work here already, so it wasn't a stretch).

it hasn't been any harder to be with an aspie than with an NT, in terms of communicating interest. he definitely understands me and is more willing to work with me than anyone else i've ever met. he is very affectionate and loving, nothing like a stereotype.

I met my bf on OkCupid. We have been dating for 6 months. I am 22.

He isn't an aspie, but he isn't NT either. He has some traits. We joke that he is half and half.

We "roll" a little crooked, but we make it. We had an instant connection, we moved very fast. I realized he had actual interest the first day of messaging. I realized he had true feelings and wasn't just leading me on or using me later on. I don't remember when. We used the gf/bf label after a month and some days.

AS comes into play a lot. I told him upfront. My manifestation is too obvious and I didn't see the point in wasting either of our time if it was an issue for him. He didn't know much about AS, but I have explained it as we go along. I misunderstand a lot. He has trouble realizing how detailed his explanations need to be when he tells me things. He is learning slowly.

-I met my boyfriend here, on Wrong Planet. We've been dating almost a year now. I'm 21.
-He is an Aspie who's been diagnosed, unlike me. He made me positive about my self-diagnosis.
-We had an instant connection from the first time we spoke. The most difficult part was that we were 12 hours away from each other. We knew the moment we met each other in real life that what we felt online was the real thing. We both try to understand each other and figure out what makes each other have sensory issues, and so on, so that we can deal with them when the time comes. Asperger's is something we both accept with open arms, flaws and all. It's as significant as it was when we first met.

Hope this helps. Anything else you'd like to know?

- Where did your meet your boyfriend?
At a Tolkien festival in the middle of Wales, August 2010.

- How long have you been dating?
I went to an event he was running 3 weeks later (10-12 Sept 2010) and we got together that weekend; we've been together ever since and although we're not officially engaged, everyone (including us!) see us that way.

- How old are you?
28; I was 25 when we met (my birthday's in October). He's only my second boyfriend; I didn't have my first boyfriend till I was 23 (wasn't really interested before then; had a couple of interests in women before then - I'm bi - but nothing ever came of it).

- Is he an aspie too, or is he neurotypical? (or something else)
NT, although he's on the bipolar spectrum (cyclothymia rather than full-blown bipolar).

- How did you roll into the relationship? Was there a connection right away? Was it hard for you to 'initiate' the relationship, because of the social impairments that usually come with aspergers syndrome? When did you know he liked you? When did you call it a relationship?

He made it pretty clear during the September event that he was interested in me; apparently he'd been dropping hints all through the Tolkien festival but they were too subtle for me to pick up on! That, and he thought my friend Lynn and I (who I'd gone to the festival with) might be an item. The hints during the September event were so blatant that even I couldn't fail to pick up on them! I realised mid-September event that I was falling for him because one of the other girls there made it very clear she was after him (though she was after pretty much anything with the XY chromosome) and I eventually realised that my brain was seeing her as competition!

I think there probably was a connection almost straight away but it took me until the September event to recognise it, probably because of the AS difficulties in identifying feelings and emotions. The Saturday night of the September event, he walked me back to my room, hugged me, and I decided that I had to know one way or the other if he was interested in me so I kind of just blurted it out! For me it's the not-knowing that's the hardest part - if it turns out someone I like isn't interested in me romantically, once I know for certain, I'd have a bit of a cry about it and then in a day or two be absolutely fine about it. I had to know, so I just asked him straight out. He said that he was interested in me as well; we kissed, and we've been together ever since! I wouldn't say it's any harder initiating the relationship for me than it has been for my NT friends (admittedly they're mostly geeks and folkies and other plain-speaking sorts; I'm definitely not part of the mainstream crowd!) and in some ways perhaps it was easier because my need to know was much stronger than my fear of being rejected.

- What part does your aspergers play in the relationship now?
I do occasionally say things a little too bluntly and although he's fairly used to it now (we've been together nearly 2 1/2 years) it still startles him and knocks him for six a bit. It doesn't help that he's minorly bipolar because when he's in a down patch he'll remember the things I've said bluntly (always the negatives, such is the nature of depressive illnesses) and he'll get really upset about it. At the same time he knows that if I say something positive, I really mean it rather than just trying to be nice/polite.

Sometimes I'll get really confused about a figure of speech he or someone else uses, if I've not heard it before, so he has to explain it to me. Sometimes we'll be somewhere where the noise is too much for me or a noise suddenly goes off, etc. and he has to grab me and haul me out of the situation before I have a meltdown screaming fit. He's brilliant about that. I can't tell if I'm boring someone or if my voice is too loud etc. so he has to point it out to me. He doesn't mind me talking for ages about stuff I'm passionate about but I know (theoretically, at any rate) that not everyone can take it. I'm getting better at catching myself before I go off on one too much but he usually has to point it out to me!

He's very good for me and I'm very good for him (helped him get out of an emotionally-abusive living situation) and sometimes I wonder how the heck we work because between us we have a LOT of physical issues (as well as being on the bipolar spectrum he's dyspraxic and I'm sure he's dyslexic as well, he's at risk of glaucoma, I'm Aspie, dyslexic, dyspraxic and have fibromyalgia and ME/CFS) but in a lot of ways I think that we work *because* of that.

I have never dated another aspie.

I met my boyfriend through similar interests and so we agreed to meet and found that we quite liked each other so we met again, and again until we formed an ongoing relationship.

I found it easy to talk to him because he is confident and we both had plenty to talk about because we both had the same hobbies.

I knew he liked me because he sat close to me and one evening he kissed me and also he respected my wishes when I said no to something.

My Asperger's makes things a little difficult because I don't always get his jokes and if I fidget he thinks I am hinting like NTs do when they are trying to say something without actually saying it. Also I take things literally sometimes before I realise that is not what he meant, otherwise we are like any other couple.

I have found that it is hard to know how much the other person likes you and hard to understand them. I sometimes need quite direct communication or I don't get it.

I don't know if it will last because we are older people and it seems to be harder to make a good relationship when you are over 50 for some reason. I think it is because we are more set in our ways, we have disappointments from the past and we have ex husbands and families to negotiate around.

I love this thread! It's super interesting to read.

I'm glad you started it - it is really interesting!