Just avoiding the subject here.

Post Reply New Topic

mee too.

The idea that I can't reason my way out of this paper bag when it comes to relationships is terrifying. It's like being raised in a social minefield means I can never leave said minefield.

All I ever experienced was my family falling apart.

I don't even have words for the awful feeling of revisiting my nonexistent love life. I want to think this over but all indications say I shouldn't bother.

in the middle of middle-aged, when i finally had to lower my expectations of life (IOW "ok, self, being a hermit is not my favorite thing, it is holland when i much preferred the french or italian riviera, but at least it's not the gobi desert or something similarly hellish), what came at me out of the blue, was another WPer most improbably took a shine to me. but it ended badly, this taught me the important lesson that i just don't have "the right stuff" for relationships. Cberg, i hope you don't have to wait as long as i did to find out the extent of your relationship mettle. you are smarter than me by far, i believe your intelligence can enable you to "brute force" think your way through a relationship in a way i could not do.

I don't want to logically place myself where it seems I should be, I just want to get there naturally with some sense of belonging intact. So many people are ignoring basic human dignity when we're talking about my neurological condition & how it affects loving people. I'm afraid I'm among them without knowing.

Realistically I don't think there's any chance anymore. I'm sick of spending all my energy never being enough for anyone.

I'm sickeningly ashamed of my condition. It's literally a matter of not being as good as other people. I'm alone because people prefer that.

i hope you can get to the point of being alone because YOU want to be, IOW you decided that people are more trouble than they're worth.

It's more that it feels like I'm more trouble than I'm worth to people.

I'm kind of already there but I don't want to be alone this often. People trouble me but that doesn't mean they're not worth my time.

I miss everyone, regardless of how I'm treated with ASD.

you have renumerative cognitive talents i don't have, i pray that you find your groove soon. i think you will. but you will likely be in a rough patch just like i was, but i don't think you'll have to suffer for as long.

All the messages I've been getting lately just say that I should conform in all possible ways, show as little of myself as I can.

I don't think there's much of any healthy social norm left anymore, it's all dotcom this & FB official that. There's actually no way to get by via showing people love. It's nothing but suspicious behavior coming from me.

I'm hiding from that but I'm not walling people off. Ultimately I have little to nothing in common with the culture I'm always being told to follow verbatim.

well at least there is WP, without which i would be bereft of communicating with others of my ilk.

Hello cberg,

Getting back in touch with friends sounds great ... if your anxiety is in the way, think who already knows about it and might accept that this will limit your interaction sometimes or often. Start with that one person or two.

Do not expect your friends to know how you think and/or feel if you have not told them. No matter what. They cannot read your mind, regardless how in sync you feel with them.

This includes telling them that you miss them and that you want to be friends even if your job/life circumstances/anxiety/need to have alone time/[insert other] kept you away from them for a while. And be prepared to repeat that if you need a lot of time for yourself in between contacting your friends. Some people need repetition to learn or might misinterpret your silence for disinterest if you do not tell them otherwise

Your friends cannot read your mind. And you cannot read their mind. Take into account that your assumptions about what they think about you are your assumptions only. Just try to accept this as a new possibility.

I think social media platforms are not really social but superficial online places without real connections. I would not attempt to build a close friendship from only there. And the "norms" that are popular there ... just suck.

I don't know if you like getting hugs ... I like giving hugs, so here's one for you if you want it. You don't have to take it, it is purely optional

I'm definitely working on this & I need to be more vocal about it. I think they know my silence results from a lot of anxiety & that we've been walking on eggshells around each other as a result. I think my years of trying to follow social norms well enough to pass as normal did nothing for me. I don't give any thought to unwritten rules anymore considering the fact that society is basing it's decisions about relationships on a silicon valley corporate agenda. I'm not popular or chauvinistic enough to drive ad revenue ergo I'm not dateable; it's not sustainable to live for the whims of some instant messaging companies instead of for people I love.

Those people don't care what I think about this.

It's not that we (autistic) folks on the spectrum are incapable of love and functioning in a relationship. It's navigating all of the unspoken rules we are supposed to innately understand, read and respond to the social cues and body language that seem obvious to most people, and navigating the intricacies of intimate social relationships. It's often so, so baffling and frustrating. When I feel like I've learned something from yet another failed relationship I find myself asking more questions than I started with. I've come to accept that my romantic relationships may not look like the norm. Relationships don't have to look a certain way. People don't have to text each other every two minutes. People don't have to live together to experience lifelong intimacy. People don't have to get married to spend many years together. People don't have to love one person at a time; they can love as many as they want to. There doesn't need to be any kind of end-goal or plan. I understand that most people want more than what I am willing to/able to give them, but at the end of everything, that's on them and not me. My value isn't diminished because I need something different from what's considered normal. Yours isn't either.

Edit: I know it sounds like a weird segue but I've read this thread on/off for a while and couldn't put into words how to respond until now, so there ya go.

My favorite friendships I have are those where we don't speak forever and then suddenly we're hanging out again after months or years.

I have to second that. Freeing my brain up enough on a regular basis to fully consider the implications of such a completely open ended reality is a practice in its' own right.

I think it's important to bring others to this realization before I really do much of anything.

It's still not easy to fully recognize all that myself.

I [wishful thinking?] believe the process of acknowledging martianprincess' point should also be integral to making women more comfortable in my life & me in theirs, which I really need to work on, though I'm sure that's not the only factor.

My #1 wish is that the women around me knew me better. My brain feels unchecked without the reality of people being great around me. I'm just running between computers...

The most important things are reciprocity and listening/engaging. The rest will follow. Of course, the other person also has to "buy in" to this process, and you can't do relationships without that reciprocity. I think that's a big problem sometimes. It's also one of the reasons why my marriage ended.