What am I doing "wrong" to explain why I'm single?

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I seem to feel like in my twenties I should have been going partying and having sex with multiple people and have this ridiculous assumption in my head that the reason I see other people together or look like they must be in a relationship must be because they met each other in a nightclub or something when it might not be the case. I also seem to I just wasted my time or "missed out" for not going to those places when I don't understand what is so exciting about these places when there is playing which I don't like, it's noisy, lots of flashing lights and people getting hammered and taking selfies. It's always being made out as though it is a "must do" for young people and that those who don't have little chance in meeting someone.

A lot of autistic people find a partner and get married and have kids. But I think being some James Bond-like playboy, seducing a lot of women in night clubs is not a reachable goal for most autistic males. And it's not a life-style that suits most autistics if you ask me.

Why do you feel like you missed out on doing something you wouldn't like to do and don't get the appeal of?

You should never try to be someone you are not.

Try to be true to yourself, as much as is practical or possible.

I've never been to a nightclub like that in my life.
The men I know haven't, either.
It sounds like hell, tbh.

I don't think it's a worthwhile goal for nuerotypical men or any men in general.

The belief that if you look good and find the cheat-code to being charismatic, people will throw themselves on you and you'll be this prominent figure is a fantasy that's unrealistic.

Especially for straight men, in many cases, they are the ones that are expected to make the first move.

Start conversations with people. Get to know them. Ask them questions. Take a genuine interest in them as a person. And if it's an engaging conversation and they seem interested, ask for their # or ask them to meet up sometime.

Nobody has to be that male playboy fantasy; just being a decent sociable human being can go a long way.

Your very right about that. For example there's a member on this forum who's special interest is going to bars trying to find a romantic partner. He often posts about bad experiences at bars & it's been suggested LOTS of times on here that he might have better luck if he quit going to the bars & instead tried to focus on meeting people by other methods.

You should go to a day program like me

It is helping me meet people!

ah, those "shoulds" "ought to" "supposed to" words are all traps!

When you use those phrases in self talk or hear those phrases and words from somebody else, please understand that these are not social rules or expected goals written somewhere in the rules book of life.

In every single case "shoulds" and like phrases are expressions of other people's goals, agendas, wants or needs trying to pressure others to conform to those ideas, wants, etc.

If a person says you should be doing something, know it is their own agenda and there is absolutely no need for you to conform to it whatsoever.

Society and persons we run into who use "shoulds" are trying to manipulate you into doing what they see as important to them. It may not be important to you at all.

When you say "I should", you are reflecting statements that have been made or impressions you have got from others about almost any issue in life, but "shoulds" are almost never laws or rules that absolutely must be responded to or obeyed.

When I started listening closely, I learned almost every "should" was somebody else's idea about what to do with my life.
Its not up to them. I get to choose for myself.

Clubs probably aren't where most people meet their partners.

Many people meet through:
Mutual friends and social circle.
Work or college.
Dating apps.
Events (i.e. meetup, eventbrite)

First and foremost, you are doing almost nothing to find yourself a girlfriend. You need to get out and meet people. You'll never find anyone writing on here about you never find anyone. You need to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and be a man.

Where are you going to try and meet people? Sitting at home waiting for some woman to knock on your door looking for a boyfriend probably isn't going to happen.

Dating apps probably are real useful for Aspie men either.

Umm that's actually kinda how I got my 2nd & 3rd(current) girlfriend. I think I posted a lot more than just complaints about being lonely thou. I described myself, what I felt my relationship & other strengths were, & the type of person I felt I wanted or felt I'd have the best realistic chance of making a relationship work with. I also met my 1st girlfriend on a forum for a common interest when I was posting about having a hard time with life & was not even looking for a relationship; we she had some things in common & related to me some. I tried putting myself out there lots of other ways after my 1st relationship ended & I never gotten so much as a single date from that. People with autism & other issues are a lot more relatable to me & I can be fairly accepting & try really hard to be supportive of my romantic partners thou I go about it in a more logical straightforward way. My area was kinda rural & NOT autism friendly so that may be why I've had better luck on online forums. In regards to the be a man part, I do not conform to the male stereotype & had various phases where I felt I was born the wrong gender so the be a man mentality makes me think of more traditional gender roles which I do not fit. My 2nd & 3rd girlfriend do not conform to the woman stereotype either.

Hi Chris, good to meet you. I'm Dave, and I've worked through this exact line of thinking that you're working on here, so maybe I can help you out a little. I hope you'll really take the time to read this and absorb it. I wish I did when I was your age... Probably would have saved me a few thousand hours of misery. I'm not exaggerating. So I think it's worth your 10 minutes of attention.

The club is a place to go if you really enjoy dancing, if you really enjoy loud music. It's a place to go if you want to communicate with others through sharing a space and through moving your body. There are many people that like to communicate that way. If you look at different cultures across the world, something like Dominican for example is extraordinarily rooted in dance. Every single one of my Dominican ex's family parties resembled a nightclub. Even Christmas. They start at 11pm and run til 4am, plenty of alcohol and fried food, the music is far too loud for conversation, and every person there is dancing nearly the entire time.

But that's not for everybody. It's generally not for me. You can decide if it's for you based on your own values. You can imagine being in that environment and see how it makes you feel.

I used to feel exactly as you do. "That's what everyone else is doing, and I'm the outsider, I'm missing out"

But I've tried to exist in those environments and I can tell you right now -- I have to generalize here -- they are the furthest thing from autism-friendly. Music too loud, no personal space, nowhere to retreat, bright flashing lights, no verbal conversation means no verbal context to understand things, and a good portion of the communication is done through body language only. Again, I'm generalizing, but many of the autistic people I know would not find that appealing. Nor do I.

So listen. I'm just finding this out at 39, and you have an opportunity to learn it a lot earlier. I'm just some stranger on the internet and you really have no reason to attach any significant value to these words, but, I hope you can just trust that I actually really care about you as an individual, as I do with everyone. I have suffered so much over this exact question you're asking. Here's what I found. I highly recommend going to therapy, or doing the work yourself, on this topic right away:

I am not everyone else.
I am me.
So, do I know who I am, mostly?
Who am I? What are the best things about me?
If I don't know, that's okay. I can talk to people who know me, and I can ask them what they think my strengths are to help give me ideas.

I do not just automatically want everything that other people want.
I want what I want.
So, do I know what I want?
What do I want?
If I don't know, that's okay. I can talk to people who are similar to me, and I can see what they like to help give me ideas.

If you can spend some time sitting down with that, some very intentional time, I believe it could be extremely helpful to you.

While you do it, be very very careful of internal judgment. "Well, I can't want that, because that's not cool. Well, I can't want that, because that's not manly."

You can want whatever you want no matter how anyone else feels about it. There is literally nothing cooler or manlier than that.

Proof: I once ordered a "girly drink" at a bar on a first date with a girl, and she teased me about it, and I said, "I'm going to drink whatever I want to drink, and this tastes good. If you don't like that, you can just sit there not liking it." She later told me, after we spent some time playing adult games, that it was one of the most attractive things she had ever seen.

So be careful about those internal judgments. We learn them from someone else. Yet we carry them around with us.

If only the opening post had anything at all to do with the thread title maybe we could answer your question.

Just in general, though, it seems odd you'd need to explain to anyone why you're single. It also seems obvious that the number one reason is that you're autistic and thus don't intuitively socially gel with others and in turn have not met a partner because of it.

Mystery solved.

[/quote] Just in general, though, it seems odd you'd need to explain to anyone why you're single. It also seems obvious that the number one reason is that you're autistic and thus don't intuitively socially gel with others and in turn have not met a partner because of it.

Mystery solved.[/quote]

Ya.
Wish it was easier to gel.