Planning to do stuff with a girl

Post Reply New Topic

When I try and organising going out with this girl, why does it always go horribly wrong? There's a few things here that appear to be problems.

Firstly, for me to begin to be comfortable with a situation, I need to have a clear plan in my head of what I am going to be doing, otherwise I get stressed, anxious and feel lost. Young people these days (I'm sure most will agree) seem to love chopping and changing plans at the last minute or just not having plans at all, particularly with friends. When I try and establish when she is free, she gives me a vague, confusing reply which I don't understand. As a result, I get angry and upset so decide to give up.

Then, there's always the question, "Is it a date, or not?" I'm never sure where I stand and I can never follow where she is trying to take us. I'm often completely wrong when I think that it is going well with a girl. Also, I can be completely oblivious to someone totally obsessed with me and always flirting with me.

Is this anything to do with Asperger's? What can I do about it? It's been going on for so long now and I just want to get it sorted!

Not sure about the other stuff, but one thought occurs -

If you're feeling unresolved as to how 'official' the date is, or whether they're on-the-level with you, and the resultant anxiety, my suggestion is this:
Ditch the date paradigm. Don't do dates.

By all means, go out and do stuff to have fun with women, but so long as you're thinking about it like a date, and thus worrying about how its going or what she thinks, you're doing yourself a disservice. Anything that takes away your level of anxiety helps you immensely with a woman you're interested in. The more comfortable you feel, the more comfortable she feels. If you're on edge, nervous, if she sees you being self conscious, if she picks up the fact that you're worried about what she thinks, then she'll feel uncomfortable. If she's not comfortable, then everything comes to a screeching halt. Shes somewhere she doesn't want to be, with someone she doesn't want to be around. Comfort is paramount.

So anything you can do to be comfortable yourself is a good thing. Your goal is to be able to have carefree conversation and laughs, to enjoy what happens, and not care about anything else... Including what she thinks about you. (There's a second reason for that last bit, too: If things don't go well, then you wont take it so hard)

Another related bit: Formality doesn't help anything. Ditch formality when possible, and tradition too. It's generally not any more comfortable or fun. Mostly, it doesn't help anything, and it adds an extra thing that you could be concerned over. No good. Ditch the dating tradition. Do un-traditional or casual stuff... The things you might do with normal friends.

Regarding schedules: It's unfortunately true that many people find spontaneity fun. And fun = attractive. If you're not good with spontaneity, well, that's unfortunate. But it doesn't mean you can't get better. So try to let go of schedules and plans as much as you're comfortable with. Consider making plans extremely simple, to accommodate for spontaneity. If nothing happens, and the excursion is short, that's okay. You can always do another. As long as it was fun and comfortable, you're good.

Final note: While you're out with them on not-dates, DO flirt with them. (In an elegant, comfortable manner, of course). Just because it isn't a date doesn't mean you shouldn't flirt. Always flirt. Unless you suck at flirting(read up on flirting).

But for gods sakes, stop making DATES. It's uncomfortable for everyone.
Dates are good for stuff like Valentines Day, or Anniversaries. Not much else.

What's frustrating to me is that there's no element in our modern society working to tear down or subvert this wholly unhelpful, outdated 1950's mentality. During high school, and even college, we with AS generally don't get so much social conditioning/learning as others do, in order to pick up on stuff like this. So as a result, the knowledge we pick up elsewhere gets more emphasis - the things we learn from TV and Movies. And on film, over and over again, we keep seeing this dating BS. Over and over and over! Make it go away!

What it should instead be illustrating is how it really works: You grow a stable of platonic friends, which include multiple girls. As you get to know these people, including the girls, you grow closer over time to the one that meshes with you best, and things just happen.
That's how it works in reality. Not dates.

Does that mean the date paradigm never works? No. But it's a square peg in a round hole.

Thanks very much for all this help guys. You're definately getting where I'm coming from and I see what you're saying. We're going to the cinema but she won't tell me what films she has seen. She has always seen most films out at any time.

My brother says that she wants me to jump through hoops, but I'm not entirely sure what that means.

The other thing is, she is very into dates and formality and things she sees in all these american tv shows; she watches all the sloppy ones. Her nephew has AS and she has a couple traits so, maybe she has the same problem. Maybe?

I jumped through a hoop of sorts and picked a film for us to see. I got the right one! But she said in her reply, "It's a date!" She said that last time, too.

Ignore that. Don't treat it formally. She won't mind. Wherever you have the opportunity, keep it informal. Whatever you can do to keep things comfortable, the better.
Us folks with AS aren't the only ones unwittingly stuck in the 'date paradigm.'

If you do not resist the feeling of defeat, then you will be defeated.
If you read through the various threads on this board you'll see many patterns. One of them being that we with AS have a hard time forging relationships in our teens and sometimes past our twenties. However, many of us do successfully find friendship and companionship in our lives. So you could give up but, well, you're only 18. Press on, brother, and don't let yourself fall into the unyielding negativity that some of us get stuck in.

I think I have been well and truely had...again. I guess we are an easy target advantage taking. I don't know how I will get around this. But, I'll try. This certainly marks the end of it with that girl, anyway, because it has been happening for years. I keep believing 'this is it'. And each time, it makes me more unsure and untrusting in general.

Thank you very much for your words of support. I won't give up.

but wouldn't operating under the assumption that "this is not it" mean that this will never be it?

What? No. How did you ever make that connection?

Have no upfront expectations. That's the lesson. If a long term connection is possible, it will happen regardless of what your expectations were on a first date. If it isn't possible, having no expectations will make it easier to never see that person again. In other words, you won't end up disappointed, depressed and crushed.

Plus, having future expectations on a date comes off as clingy and needy and isn't attractive. Ultimately it is self-defeating and counterproductive.

Yep, what Dilbert said..

See, there's actually a space in between "this is it" and "this is not it," so the speak. I guess off-the-cuff, I'd call it "this is normal." So no, you wouldn't operate under the assumption that nothing is gonna happen. Rather, you try to stay neutral and manage your expectations, because as illustrated, lofty expectations are what leads to the negative feelings when they aren't lived-up-to.

I'll lay out a crude scenario here -

1) It's summer time, and you decide you want to go out to a music show in the big park in town, because you decide that tonight's the night you will meet a cool lady and get her number. You go there, eat some food as you work up the guts to talk to the the person next to you, while laying out on among the many people in the grass who are enjoying the music. You talked to and laughed with a woman next to you for a bit. She eventually left, and didn't give you her number, and you feel like a loser. The concert ends, you go home feeling bad. Not good times.

2) It's summer time and you decide you want to go out to hear some live music at the big park in town, maybe meet people. You go there, eat some good food, lay out on the grass among lots of people, and enjoy the music. You talked to and laughed with a cool woman next to you for a bit. She eventually left. The concert ends, you go home. Good times.

Okay that wasn't very good, but whatever. So there was only one thing different in those two scenarios: Story A) bore lofty expectations that pre-supposes a condition of failure.

Not meeting or connecting with women isn't the end of the world. Everything else is still potentially good, and often times just talking to a cool chick is solid... If you don't block yourself from enjoying the experience on those terms.

Blah I'm tired and losing coherence for the moment, so I'm gonna end the post here hehehe. I'm sure there's some correctable flaws in there but oh well.