Dealing with Rejection / Moving on?

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Since I was about 15, I've had to deal with feeling strong emotions and not fully understanding them at all. I didn't know I had AS until just a few months ago, but it certainly makes my past a bit easier to put in perspective.

Looking back, I realize what I was feeling is what's typically called a "crush," only sometimes a bit stronger. I've fallen for at least four different people, possibly a fifth very recently, and I wouldn't make this thread if any of them had worked out for me.

The cycle goes: meet ; become friends ; become closer friends ; talk all the time ; I realize I have feelings for that person ; I tell that person ; they say they don't/can't reciprocate ; things become awkward ; our friendship eventually ends and we stop talking.

The worst case was someone last year - I was too scared to even let on my feelings for her and didn't recognize them anyway, and got too clingy to the point where she now avoids me at all costs. The first experience I had with this was someone I had and have never even met in person; we're still acquaintances but never really talk.

Lately, I had to deal with someone I've liked since July suddenly dating a good friend of mine and telling me she never wanted to be anything more than friends with me. I feel like I've wasted the past two semesters trying to understand my feelings for her, and it's all for nothing. We still get along, but it's a bit awkward knowing that she and I both know I'm still very attracted to her.

This kind of attraction has also cost me my best friend of two years. He now wants nothing to do with me.

I suppose I want to know how to deal with rejection in a more immediate sense, but also in the long term. How can I "move on," as people say? I've heard the "plenty of fish in the sea" line far too many times. Lately I've realized that I fell in love with these people, and those feelings just don't die like I feel they should. It sounds strange, but how do I fall out of love?

I'm sick of being alone. I refuse to be alone and have no close human contact, but I'm also sick of losing friends (because needless to say, I have precious few). I'm sure people here have some tips on dealing with this kind of thing, and I'd really like to know.

I think it might be helpful for you to build a "mental wall" between friendship and romance. The transition between friend and more than friend is notoriously fraught with awkwardness and difficulty. My suggestion would be to meet some new people through dating, this makes your status as a potential romantic partner explicit while still being casual enough to avoid too many hurt feelings.
Also, it seems like you're already doing a great job of beginning to think about and identify your feelings. The more you develop this skill the easier it will be for you to tell early on whether your interest in someone is romantic or friendly and that info. is a useful tool in avoiding 'friendzoning' yourself.

So you're saying I should start out by asking someone out as opposed to befriending them first?

I suppose that makes sense, since I'm making my intentions clear right from the start. Needless to say, I'm terrible at that, but I suppose I could always try. Something tells me there will always be new chances.

The girl who most recently "rejected" me (by dating a friend of mine she's known all year) actually did go on a few dates with me in the beginning of the school year (ie September) - at least, I called them dates. I'm not sure she ever did. She'd said she didn't want anything serious and frankly, neither did/do I. I'm in an interesting situation, I guess, as I identify as polyamorous and don't really believe in the "friend zone." I don't know what I really want or wanted - something more than friends but less than a relationship, some kind of more intimate friendship perhaps, or maybe a polyamorous relationship. I don't really know, and I hope to find out.

Part of what's hard is recognizing that my beliefs and feelings aren't something I can impose on others in my head. Building a mental wall is a nice idea, but in practice I can see it being quite hard. I'd have to arrange everything I know about my identity around the realization that I'm probably never going to really get what I want. In the grand scheme of things, I guess that's okay; I just hate when things don't work out in any semblance of a favorable manner.

Thanks for your thoughts; I appreciate it.

it is posible for aspies to get "STUCK" on one "crush" and no matter how much one tries one cant fall out of love.
I am still 5 months from being rejected by one of my now best friends who has AS also, to move on from him but i just cannot. And i have had another boyfriend since. (who also had AS, and is also stuck on one of his ex's).

I really wish i knew what to tell you on how to fall out of love, but sometimes aspie love is so strong that its unstopable.

Unstoppable indeed. That's what I can't stand.

I do go to therapy, but all that we've accomplished thus far is establishing that what I'm feeling is heartbreak. While it helps to put a label on it, I can't see any way to move on. In the past, the way I moved on was finding someone else, which of course ultimately ends up with me being hurt by that person's lack of reciprocation. Very much a vicious cycle.

I don't know how much advice I was really expecting from fellow Aspies. I've certainly learned by now about the tendency to focus on one person regardless of how little one will get in return. Even knowing that it's hopeless, and that she's with someone else (a good friend of mine, no less), I can't kill those feelings no matter what I have tried thus far.

I can't really contribute much because of my limited experience.

But what i do know is that this focus with one person you have now as a negative trait might become one of your strengths one day. When you do succeed in finding someone that reciprocates this it will be a strength not a disadvantage.
Ultimately everyone is looking for something long lasting. I would rather have this quality of not being able to fall out of love then being unable to hold on to it. Even if it means going through dozens of superficial crushes that have you in a mad emotional turmoil repeatedly. See them as opportunities to gather more information about your emotions and learn from it.

It's pretty easy to move on from rejection.

I get it a lot myself, but I just shrug it off easily after the things friends have done to me time and again.

Crazy your mates are c***s.

I lost my best friend recently (18 Feb) through a very painful interaction that was definitely a form of rejection, and even though I do still miss him terribly, I've moved on from the initial pain he caused me. It hurts being ignored, even when I sent him a short message saying that even though he treated me terribly (objectively, he really did), I still love and care about him. I never got a reply.

What he'd told me, when I visited him at his uni, is that he "needs his space" and proceeded to leave me alone in his dorm with people I don't know whilst he went out to parties, which all day we'd talked about doing together. I spent $60 to have my heart broken. He has not made any effort to talk to me since or explain anything. He's sick of me and wants me out of his life - my NT friends even agree, and some of them know him personally, so I know this isn't just my paranoia.

So, with that in mind, I do know that I can move on. It's just really difficult when there are stronger feelings in play that the other person does feel, but for someone else. Someone I happen to know. I get the impression this doesn't happen all that often. It just seems like this kind of thing always happens to me!

I guess I wasn't really expecting many fellow Aspies to be able to offer in-depth advice and tips, since as a group we're pretty bad at dealing with interpersonal anythings. But it is nice to at least get my thoughts out and see what others think.

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As far as the last two posts are concerned, that's interesting...I've also been asked why I continue being friends with people if it ultimately causes me pain, or if it's a one-sided and unfulfilling friendship. The answer is I don't have a damn clue. Whatever I tend to see in people, they don't see in me. But on the flip-side, if I found someone exactly like me, we'd likely not be friends at all. Does that make me someone hard to befriend? The few who do consider me a good friend would strongly disagree...and now my brain explodes.

I have a different way of handling things like this, but it most likely only applies to anyone you feel for in the future. Just accept that you have feelings for that person, and get used to it. Don't make a big deal out of it, and don't have some kind of dramatic conversation during which you reveal your feelings to the person. If they want to know, they can ask. As far as you're concerned, it's no big deal. If you want to (and you think you can pull it off without being obviously upset), you can casually mention it. This might make your friend a little uncomfortable, but it won't make things SUPER AWKWARD like if you "Confessed Your Undying Love" and asked for a relationship. Just don't try that anymore. It's what I do!

This isn't likely to get you any dates, but it is likely to help you keep your friends, which is better than not having friends at all.

You're definitely right about not having a dramatic conversation. With one particular person it just got to the point where I had to tell her I was attracted to her a lot - but that was only after knowing her for a month or so.

The other rejections I've had weren't even really because of attraction...it's just that it DOES happen to me because of attractions and the like, and I'm sick of it.

Your idea is nice, but for me, it's extremely difficult to keep my feelings bottled up. I eventually explode because I can't take it anymore. It might even get to the point where I'll have panic attacks from just being around that person. =/

Bottled up? I didn't notice that it could work that way. I don't really hide it from people, but I kind of play down the dramaticness. Also, I make sure that my friends are real friends that I can trust and that they care about me for who I am, whether or not I'm attracted to them.

Do your friends know about your Autism? I hope they do; that will help them understand you better and help to ensure that they truly care about you for you and not some social persona they expect out of you.

That I can think of, most of them do know. That is to say, I can't think of anyone specifically who is unaware. It's not like I have a huge number of friends, just that I didn't keep tabs on to whom I "came out" as having AS. It's something I've only recently learned, after all.

I do know specific cases - for instance, one of my good friends does know I have AS, but I don't think she really understands what it is and views it more as a way to explain why I am the way I am. Fair enough. Another friend of mine has AS herself, which has made our relationship rather rocky in the past.

For the life of me, I can't remember if I've told a specific friend I have AS. She's someone I've known for years and not only goes to college with me, but lives about 5 minutes from me back at home. She's one person in whom I feel I can confide, even though we are so radically different. Since she's so interested in things like evolutionary psychology and such (or at least, she definitely was at one point) I suppose it couldn't hurt to tell her. She's very understanding.

Finally, my significant other is well aware of my AS. Just yesterday, I e-mailed zim a 5,324 word letter (more like dissertation) explaining everything about "why I am the way am and how it affects us," and ze was at a loss for words to describe the profound enlightening effect it had on zim.

I consider myself quite fortunate to go to a college where people expect everyone to be quirky and different and maybe even a bit strange. No one expects me to conform to anything...it's actually a rather frightening disparity with the "big scary real world," once one stops to think about it! At any rate, I feel accepted...but that in itself is not a solution to anything, only a nice thing to know.

Unless I misinterpret their understanding, or don't see it the right way, or at all. To be honest, I've never stopped to think about how knowing I have AS will change how other people view and interact with me.



I hate drama. I hate it more when it's me who's inadvertently caused it! So I'm totally with you on that one. I downplay everything. Like I've said, I'm like a cat. I could be dying on the inside, but you would have no idea by looking at me.

By "bottled up," I mean that I'm very hesitant to let my feelings show. This is probably borne from my thirteen years at an all-boys private school, a hyper-masculine environment into which I never felt I fit no matter how I tried to mold myself. The stereotype that "men" hide their emotions from others is definitely true in my experience. But another thing I've noticed is that people in general are scared of strong emotions - or sometimes any emotions at all - and would rather not be let in on the details of someone else's life.

I can understand that. One of the main reasons I unconsciously bottle things up is something akin to politeness and respect for others - they have their own problems, so why worry about me and mine? This is something I tend to do with my parents, mainly, as they have three other kids with various special needs (no autism though) and my father is stressed about work and work-related things (but like me, does not ever let it show) - so I hesitate to tell them things because I don't want them to worry. I don't care if my mother says it's her "job" to worry about me. She's got enough to deal with.

I think most people don't truly and deeply care about the well-being of others like I do. There are people who make a profession and career out of it, certainly, so I'll talk to them. But I've grown to realize that perhaps, sometimes, it might be better to bottle things up and hide my feelings and emotions from my peers rather than open up to them about everything, especially the big heavy things that dramatically affect my emotional well-being.

Perhaps I'm taking the wrong approach. How would I know? I have very limited life experience and am still getting used to this whole "having a social life" thing.

I don't think I have any other helpful things to say, but something did catch my attention---

Are those gender-neutral pronouns you're using there? I've never actually heard anyone use them on humans in practice! I like you now because you seem to be accepting of trans issues, and I'm trans. HEADBUTT!

Uh...I mean, Smile and...happy body language.

My partner and I both identify as gender-queer androgynes. Neither of us wants to transition to the other biological sex, but I suppose we are "transgender" insofar as the word can be twisted to mean "transcending gender"

As if I wasn't "different" enough, right? I mean, I look and act fairly masculine, but I despise the traditional idea of masculinity. I would rather be more neutral or in-between. In a perfect world, people would have no idea of our "real" sex and would certainly be left guessing at our gender identities!

Perhaps it's my quest to throw off the oppressive bonds of masculinity that has plunged me into this world of confusion as far as emotional expression is concerned.

You've made me think a lot. Thanks.

I would like that better than everyone thinking I'm female, but I'd much prefer a male body. I'd take the Oppressive Bonds of Masculinity over these lumps of flesh any day!