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I agree with this. I think this is why so many people (here, and elsewhere) have self-esteem issues, and other problems with relationships...there's no healthy support network to guide and comfort them.

I know for myself, my family have/had mental issues, so there wasn't much support from them, and having all of these problems myself, forced me to learn and do everything on my own, which has been extremely stressful.

Actually, I suspect it's the opposite, at least for anything except financial support. I have to qualify this by saying I only really speak for myself here, but I think guys almost take for granted always having "mommy" figures in our lives to nurture us, even if not consciously. Whereas women, who are expected to fill that role themselves, may tend to do this less (although some still may). And in fact all of us aspies have a tendency toward obliviousness regarding the need for emotional give and take in general--but in my experience the females among us are a lot less often apathetic about emotional connection in relationships.

I'm guessing that's what janissy was referring to with the Freud references, at least from what I'm gathering on this thread, anyway (men seeking a motherly presence in their lives would definitely make sense in my case)... On the flip side, it would seem that women want the fatherly presence, which would explain the attraction to the men who provide. Yes, it's a big expression of the traditional gender lines. But it makes sense if you ascribe to all the stuff about biology in relationships and attraction...

I also second this and I kind of identify with silverstar here. I lived in a chaotic home and went homeless for a good period of time. I think maybe as I look back now there was some good that came out of it even though times were tough. There was a lot I learned from people amid the crazy environments and shelters. Experience is really a better key than observing. However it is still tough for me to get out of my shell and I admit that it does take probably a bit more stress than the average person. Reading people as well communicating articulately will probably still be a challenge with me among other things. I try and go by that philosophy without using the word god by granting myself the ability to change things I can and accept the things I cannot change.

As for family, I think my dad and most of the men in my family made it confusing and hard for me to trust or understand men in a healthy way. I think the net helped me more than anything to understand that not all men behave badly or only want a wife or girlfriend to rule over.

Well, but I'd think that women on the autism spectrum would be likely to seek a motherly presence in their lives, like typical men, because the typical "mother" type attributes are in many cases the things that are weak in autism. Though, maybe they realize at an early age that either they have to be passably good at these things, or else they totally flounder and have much worse things to think about than how to find guys to date/sleep with.

Hi biostructure -- I've posted a lot about this phenomenon here, at least with regards to the female side.

Yes -- women definitely change priorities as they mature, usually somewhere in the 20-25 age range (a 19 year old doing so is probably very mature for her age or has a lot of foresight). Their priorities switch from choosing the strongest, most popular, or handsomest guy, to one who is loyal (and treats her well), has financial stability, and wants children eventually. This makes biological sense -- women want a guy who will support their offspring, and not leave them hanging.

That being said, there is the possibility that a woman will marry a guy who is stable, like the above, but actually secretly have a child with another man who has the genetic traits she is looking for. This is one cause of infidelity in a relationship, and they say about 10% of all men are not really the father of the kid they think came from them.

On a historical and evolutionary level, I can't help but wonder what effect this change in priorities has had on our development pre-civilization, or pre-strict moral codes. After all, it is very possible that before formal marriage or monogamous, long-term marriage came into being, a woman might have children with the handsome alpha male when she is just hitting her early fertility (13 and up), but then switch gears and also have children with the "provider" type later in life, leading to two tiers of children -- those who are aggressive, handsome, and impetuous, versus those who are cautious, stable, and resonsible (but maybe not the best-looking).

We do see this in modern times, but not as much, as most of us can be convinced to delay child-rearing until later in life. Not so in impoverished areas -- we do see a lot of teen pregnancies and women cranking out kids for men who won't support them (but the government will), so it is almost as if the ghetto is a social and evolutionary lab. We have to ask ourselves -- do we like the results? Given the high degree of gang violence and aggressive, antisocial, and irresponsible behavior from folks born in our inner cities, my inclination is to say no.

Those of us who have boys and in particular children of each gender learn this quickly. Boys are much more fragile emotionally. They stay "young" longer, needing help emotionally and they develop mentally slower than girls - they also require physical help with coats, shoes, buttons, etc.

As a society we push boys based on a belief system we have about the male of the species - and the belief system has no foundation in science really. We have a set of hardcore myths about the male of the species and we push boys along through them. Then, when the boys are emotionally distant, unable to function well in relationships, society judges them for the rest of their lives for it.

Considering myself well versed in the cultural issues facing women, I was embarrassed and surprised to learn about what boys were up against after becoming the Mom of a boy. My son is 4 and my daughter is 9.

There are some excellent books on this topic - the best is "Real Boys".
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Boys-Rescuin ... 0805061835

The attraction to providers is about biological helplessness in pregnancy and caring for human infants.

The irony of this is that in the long-term, men generally (there are always exceptions) develop superior spatial and mechanical intelligence, though at the expense of inferior social intelligence compared to women. I am in total agreement about boys being emotionally fragile and having a hard time picking up some of the self-grooming skills, even with the case of buttons and zippers, which one would think boys would have an advantage in (but they don't yet, girls do much better at crafts and creation at that age).

It's also pretty well-known that boys and men lag by about 2-3 years behind their female counterparts emotionally, physically, and mentally. But we all seem to equalize in the end, maybe around 24-26.

Well said. Moreover I think that not only would society judge them for the rest of their lives for that, but also there are significant ramifications with respect to how these men behave as fathers. They may not relate well with their kids, they may be too self-centered instead of providing, etc.. They may lack the maturity to be as selfless as a father really ought to be for his own kids. A genuine travesty is that many boys these days grow up without good male role models, without responsible fathers. Young boys can try to learn from their mothers, but that's a really tough job for the mother, who wouldn't have the same life experience a father would. And then without the male role models, these boys grow up to be irresponsible fathers, perpetuating the vicious cycle. When I had first read biostructure's statement that "guys don't change that much", what came to my mind was actually, "Men can change, it's just that many men don't grow up."

And I see us aspies as hyper-boys in this sense. We stay "young" even longer than the typical boy, sometimes throughout our lives. I feel like I still am "young" even as a young (pardon the pun) adult. Not that it shows in the way it would with a kid, as I live independently and have a quite low need for attention from other people. But it comes up in the type of relationship I'm looking for, which seems more like what others look for in early adolescence or even childhood, except for the sexual emphasis.

I wonder if the lag you're perceiving in boys' mental development is more a delay in being able to socially convey that development. In my case, I talked early, and had a strong spatial/mechanical bent from the beginning, being interested in maps, machines, etc. My mom told me that when I was 3 or so I was able to somehow announce exactly which store we were going to in the car as soon as we made the first turn that was unique to that route. Seeing as I would have been too little to really look out the window, and only could have seen overhead signs, shadows, etc., that's pretty remarkable.

Being spatially and mechanically precocious, and verbally a little ahead of the game, while being socially impaired, started a kind of positive feedback loop that kept me technically advanced yet socially uninvolved. This has its advantages, in that being a childlike adult (I feel) allows one to be more creative and less preoccupied with petty things that other adults seem to talk about all the time. But on the other hand, it makes it hard to get relationships, because there are so few women who make it into their 20s still "young". And any who are seem to be in an awful rush to get older, or be in relationships with those who are.



I have to dispute this on some level. Yes, in some sense this is true. But I think it's also true that biology makes the typical female brain more emotional and people-oriented and the male brain more mechanical-oriented. But there are exceptions to the last two, so I think there must be exceptions to the first. And women whose brains are more masculine on a cognitive level still often seem more needy in terms of relationship commitment that men, so I look elsewhere for the reason.

In our society it is no longer "fashionable" to attribute differences in cognitive traits to biology (see about Larry Summers for proof), but it still is seen as perfectly fine to say that biology makes women want marriage and babies and be more reluctant to have sex than men. I think both of these have a definite biological component, but there must be other issues at play here. I think that right now our culture is trying to minimize the intellectual differences more than the emotional ones, so it is reducing the cognitive gap more than the mating psychology gap.

I was only addressing financial support. That's the baseline, I guess I think this way because I've been so poor all my life. All the other stuff is just gravy, which I hadn't really considered. Now I'm intrigued so I guess I'll think about it some, I was just talking about basic genetic drive that motivates you to avoid having your children starve.