Can Aspergers/High Functioning Autism be a deal breaker?

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I think you'd get very biased results to your poll on an autism site. Lots of the members here have autism & thus may be more able to relate & understand someone with autism. Also some members here are in relationships with autistics. I think you'd get much more accurate results if you were to ask the general NT population instead of people on an autism site.

I do think autism can be a deal-breaker for some NTs thou. Where I come from people think of autism as a less sever form of mental retardation or something like Rain Man & thus lots of people wouldn't get in a relationship with someone they know is autistic due to the negative stereotype. If the NTs know someone for a bit before the person reveals they're autistic, the NT might not believe the person is on the spectrum.

The sad truth is that, yes, it is a deal breaker for a lot of people. Maybe even most people. The truth is that people thrive on shared emotional and social experiences, and autism directly interferes with that. It is possible to make a relationship work while autistic, but the fact of the matter is that the disorder itself directly negatively impacts all of the most important fundamental tings that most 'typical' people need in a relationship.

Is this always the case? Going by this, if held to be true in all cases, essentially there is nothing ever to be offered by a potential autistic partner.

Would it follow then that a lifelong commitment to singledom is the best answer, if an individual knows that they are on the autism spectrum?

After all I would not accept a partner who offers no positives, simple absence of negatives isn't enough. Any consideration of physical looks aside, I would consider a true impossibility to bond as being a no positives situation. No reasonable adult can be expected to consent to a relationship that holds no positives. Any relationship has costs at least in terms of the effort to establish and then maintain the relationship, therefore a zero benefit scenario loses out right away on cost benefit analysis if we were to say that we know there are no positives.

I do personally desire emotional intimacy and bonding so there might be degrees or differences in where on the spectrum I am at, I'm not at a point where the concept of emotional intimacy does not exist for me or a concept that is impossible to comprehend. I've had a lot of psych testing done(Psychology is something of a special interest for me, I am fascinated by all of it) and I can confirm that I do not score higher than the general population in sociopathy or psychopathy or in general measures of Dark Tetrad. I specifically wanted these tests after hearing it claimed that Aspergers can be defined as simply as classical autism plus Dark Tetrad(No conscience, inability to feel love or empathy as in these concepts are apparently impossible to comprehend) which then leads to development in specific areas of intelligence. I question the notion that this definition can be considered an axiomatic truth that is conclusively true to everyone on the spectrum.