So I told an aspie I like him...

Post Reply New Topic

Concerning the age difference, many people on the spectrum have a hard time dealing with people that match their age, and have an easier time with someone younger or older. So it might actually be a good thing.

I would agree that friendship is the basis for romantic love. At least, that is true for me. It may not be true for all Aspies. It is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. I can't imagine being in love with someone WITHOUT having developed a friendship with that person either before dating, or while dating. My preference is to be platonic friends first and get to know each other slowly while assessing each other for compatible values and personality traits. For me, it's very intense to get involved with someone romantically. Moving into it slowly mitigates some of the intensity, which is caused by sensory overload, difficulty defining my own emotions, difficulty recognizing interest/believing someone likes me, and anxiety over screwing up the relationship through social misunderstandings. Your friend might not be able to articulate these things, but they may well be factors for him also. Kudos to you for being interested in understanding one of our kind. We don't get that nearly often enough. He's a lucky guy.

First things first, meet him first.

YOU might not like him in real life.

It's too early to talk about love at this stage, in my opinion.

You're making this out to be much more complicated than I think it is, lol.

It's like this. Suppose I have two female friends. I'll have feelings for both, but the one I can trust more is the one I would want to be with. The better friend someone is, the more I am attracted to them. That's not to say I wouldn't be attracted to the other... it would just be less of an attraction.

I've never had more than one female friend at any given time, so this problem has never occurred to me. The person I'm interested in is always, always, always my closest female friend, provided that there are no significant discrepancies in age.

Idk. Even though my husband and I now have relationship problems, we were "together" way before meeting. His personality was so great, that I didn't care. When we met, I figured it would go one of two ways: really awkward, or really great. It went really great. I felt completely myself because I already knew "him" before we met.

I would take his "joke" as face value. It sounds like he learned how to hint at things to gauge your reaction. I've also learned this. He wants to see how you reacted to the idea of meeting up. You probably will have to initiate that.

As far as getting to know each other, a lot of autistic people need others to initiate first. Judging from what he has said so far, he seems OK with this. You can ask him how much space he needs if any. If you want to be direct, ask him "Do you have any sort of negative feelings towards me messaging you all of the time? If so, explain how often you would like me to do this."

It's best to ask very direct questions. If not, we are prone to misunderstanding. A lot of us think literally. It's kind of like talking to a child. A lot of children don't really understand implied meanings until they are a bit older. So, when you ask them something, you have to be extremely direct.

He might have anxiety with initiating conversation, and may not know what is socially appropriate. To be fair, a lot of men will give the advice to "let the woman come to you". He may have had bad experiences with talking too much in the past, and thus decides to wait for you so he doesn't get in trouble for being annoying himself.

I would think of this as give and take. You will probably have to be the one to give conversations, but he will take that and then continue it so long as you keep giving. If the conversation stops, he may not know that he is supposed to "keep going". A lot of us have trouble with small talk, so this is one of the reasons why it's easier when someone else initiates. I literally don't know how to start a conversation most of the time without saying something so "deep" that people think it's weird.

Chemistry and sexual attraction aren't something you can get from an MMO game and even if it was, your in game character won't notice his woody...

Unless someone invented a game where you can get a woody

Just tell him you like him and proceed to have in game cyber sex.

From your post I can tell you that this is not a matter of differences between aspies and NTs. Its a matter of differences between men and women! And men and women do percieve love differently and we certainly have no such thing as a "friend zone". And in a long term relationship that leads to marriege, I feel that all men want to maintain some sort of friendship with their partners.
So no. People with aspergers do not percieve love any differently than anyone else. I actually am a little puzzled and insulted that you would ask such a silly question. Particularly when your post makes me wonder if you are really an NT.

^ The brain differences between men and women are most probably greater than between AS and NT of the same gender.

Far greater. I feel I have allot more in common with NT men than aspie women!

Although I would love to think that all is well, and that he won't mind me being 9 years older than him, I still have some lingering worry that he may be looking at everything through rose color lenses right now. He is 22 after all. He has never had a girlfriend before, but he tells me he was in love three times in his life before he met me. One when he was 9 another when he was 12 and the last was when he was 15. Anyone who reads this may think he probably doesn't really know what he wants. He may not even fully understand his own feelings for me, and that it could just be limerence. It makes me sad to think that. At his age he is very mature in other aspects but I am afraid he may not have enough experience with relationship to really understand what it takes to maintain one. I've been through a terrible heart break before and I am not so sure my heart can take another one. I do like him a lot, but at the same time I am also terrified.



I don't think I am comfortable initiating a meet up yet. I am concern he may run the other direction if I ever did. I would like to at some point initiate a meeting. That would also mean that I would have to drive 5 hours to his city to meet him, and if anything goes wrong during the meeting that would put me at a very awkward situation.



Ok, gotcha I didn't mean any harm by me asking the question. I'm sorry you were offended.



Nope definitely can't do that with mmos, but it doesn't matter anyways most of the games we play are fps. Also, we we've been chatting outside of our games. A lot of our interaction are actually not in-game base. I only brought up the whole gaming thing because it's something we have in common and it's probably the very thing that brought us together.



I appreciate the insight. There are times I am really not sure whether or not I am initiating too much. I don't want to come off as too strong and too "clingy". I did mention to him one time that if he ever felt uncomfortable with anything I do or say to please let me know. He hasn't yet. So perhaps I shouldn't worry too much about being bothersome. I can't help it some times because it is what I am use to in a nt/nt relationship.

Last edited by Snail11 on 06 May 2014, 2:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

I understand. In my experience, a lot of NT men are different. A lot of autistic people are more "blunt" or "direct".

By the way, I think a lot of us like clingy people. It depends on the person, of course, but we are used to being rejected. I know even though my husband sometimes needs days or weeks alone, he still secretly enjoys me being clingy. It's annoying to him, yet it also lets him know he is not alone in this world.

NT men are probably more prone to playing social games. While some of us know these games and can try to play them in order to gauge behavior responses, it's usually pretty obvious. As in, a lot of us aren't able to be very manipulative or secretive. I would take what he says at face value unless he says otherwise. If you are still concerned, instead of saying things like "Let me know if I'm too clingy", ask him a very direct question. It seems like he doesn't know you are expecting a response. He even went back and apologized for not giving you an answer, most likely because he didn't understand you were implying you wanted one. LOL

Based on experience, I personally don't believe in the love over the internet. I see it as illusion developed in mind that may turn to something true but mostly won't.

Believe it or not I held the same belief for a long time. But try as I might, I can't help but feel the feelings I have for him. Oxytocin is intoxicating and difficult to resist.

I do want to take things slower, but he was the one who told me he "loves" me and that threw me into a loop. I like him a lot, but I don't think I am at the point where I can say definitely that I am in love with him. I really just want to understand how he process his romantic feelings for me. And how he came to the conclusion that he loves me.

And btw everyone. I asked him two days ago to define love. And his response was. " Love is defined by you".

I could be wrong, but it sounds like he means that you define what you mean to each other. Love is merely a word, after all. The feelings associated with that word can only be defined by the people feeling them (if we are talking about romantic love between humans). If he is like my husband, he means he loves you as in cares about you in a romantic way.