Neurodiverse courtship and relationship hypotheses

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I hope I get to see it. Because there's a lot that strikes me as off about this, and much as I can voice general philosophical concerns, I'd like to get into the data and methodology to see if I can work out what the issue is for me.



So you, so far, have been the one test subject on this? You don't think there may be a little bias to the whole endeavour? It doesn't concern you that, everytime a neurodiverse individual expresses 'yeah, but that's not how it is for me, that wouldn't work for me', you can handwave it away by describing them/their preferences as 'neurotypical'? That's what I meant by 'circular reasoning'.

There's an obvious bias to the whole endeavour in the assumption that there is the one single way for the neurodiverse to succesfully court. My 'alternative scenario' is simply whatever a particular ND person makes work for them.

I succesfully courted a neurodiverse girl - and again, neither of us knew we were such at the time (or had even heard of the term or notion). We knew we were weird, and accepted each others idiosyncrasies with our eyelids remaining unbatted. I don't recognise anything of our courtship in your method, nor anything in it that would appeal to us or have worked for us.

i think i can summarize my opinion by repeating something i've already said before:

if you ask a question to actual people, who will most likely interpret it in a natural and instinctive way, and you expect a response based on a theoretical construct that they're probably not even aware of, you'll inevitably misinterpret the results

Not one. Two strangers successfully went all the way from not knowing each others using their natural behaviors, and didn't have any conversation during the procedure that might have biased them. Because as a single individual, you have no idea how somebody of the opposite gender would react or what they would do, so you alone cannot get any insight into the natural courtship. It will just be guesses. Besides, the majority of my discoveries was what the girl does, not what I do.

Actually, this is almost the same method as a researcher would use to figure out the courtship behavior of an animal species. You need to study the procedure under natural circumstances and figure out what the triggers are.

Also, in nature, courtship procedures have virtually no variance in them, which means that you actually can figure it out with a single case study only. Of course, provided it is part of a phenotype that has been broken up (see more below).



The results from factor analysis are FACTS, and these traits you talk about both are related to the general NT phenotype, as well as the NT relationship traits. So, if you want to attack my method, doing it by questioning traits that have been proved to be linked to ND/NT status is just stupid, and not something I'll comment on further.



I never claimed that. The original phenotype in ND courtship was the norm in Neanderthals, but since it has been introduced into a different species, and mixed-up with modern human courtship preferences, we don't expect it to exist as a phenotype anymore, rather as a spectrum of traits that are linked.



That's not a courtship procedure.



OK, so write down the scenario, pull out some traits that you think relates to it, and I'll test them.

There are multiple things wrong with this:

1. If you tell people about a theory that in itself will bias their answers. That's why checking new items in Aspie Quiz is always done by mixing these new experimental items with standard items in random order.

2. There is no theoretical construct. The model is purely empirical.

3. You can only misinterpret the results if you evaluate things manually, and factor analysis is an objective method.

The method used in Aspie Quiz is already published:
http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/3/3/2158 ... l.pdf+html

What I meant is that the relationship issues haven't been published.

but i'm not talking about letting participants know about the theory. i'm talking about specifically acknowedging the assumptions being made, and making sure the method accounts for its own limitations

not everyone will interpret the questions the way you would expect them to, and there's a very significant chance that a high percentage of the respondents actually don't interpret certain questions the way you expect them to. a very high degree of ambiguity and subjectivity is inherent to the medium of anonymous questionnaires, and you have no way to verify if each individual answer (or what percentage of all answers) is given according to your intended or expected interpretation

when you apply statistical analysis to that dataset, the only thing you're analyzing objectively is "people's responses to the questionnaire". it says nothing about the validity of the assumption that the answers given in response to the questionnaire correspond to a particular fact. this thread exemplifies how many of those questions can be very confusing for at least some of the respondents, and how the answers may not reveal or signify what you expect them to


if we're talking about causative assumptions based on correlational analysis, then that's a theoretical construct. and if the method doesn't account for what i outlined above, then even more so. does the analytical method account for these assumptions and limitations?


it's objective within its limits

I think the below is mostly related to methodical issues in Aspie Quiz, and I have no intention to answer these here unless people first read the Aspie Quiz article, and based on that, provide reasonable critics. Otherwise, I'll just be rewriting the article here.

As for interpretation of questions, that is validated by their linkage, or a high amount of non-answers. If analysis of linkage shows strange results, it's likely people are interpreting the questions in an unexpected way. If I provide a set of questions that I assume are related, and they turn out to be so, then the hypothesis that this is caused by misinterpretation is highly unlikely.

Thank you for posting the PDF. It's going to take some parsing for me, as a lot of it (obviously) ventures beyond my technical understanding, and I want to be able to put my concerns in a technical fashion. Again, looking at your output from the research and what you wrote in the first post, something strikes me as awry. For now I'll stick with the broader, philosophical concerns that stand out to me.

So, two test subjects in one test. Which is to say, it worked for you. Which we'd expect, given how it was based on your experiences. It doesn't seem like something to base a theory as to the 'natural neurodiverse courtship method'. Indeed, to presume there is such a singular method in the first place.

Has any other neurodiverse individual expressed recognition of the method? That it is close to how they naturally work, that it sounds like something that would suit them much better? Because so far, on this forum of neurodiverse individuals, I haven't seen it met with anything but confusion.

It seems like a tautology to me. You define a singular 'natural neurodiverse courtship' into existence, then dismiss anything that doesn't match it as 'neurotypical'. Yes yes, there's doubtless a strong correlation with the results of your questions, but it really looks to me like somewhere along the way you've reified and abstracted too much, and/or theorised out from that abstraction/reification through a series of unwarranted assumptions, without allowing for other assumptions. Quite possibly because you were drawing from your experience.

You presume there is a singular 'neurodiverse courtship method'. If there is actually no singular 'neurodiverse courtship method', you're on a hiding to nothing. The answers on this forum would suggest to me there is no singular 'neurodiverse courtship method', and that a different tack to the question might be called for. If the only way to keep your coursthip method 'safe' is to dismiss any other experience of a neurodiverse individual as 'neurotypical' - well, I don't see how that is not bad science.

I would suggest a better method, rather than relying on yes/no answers to open-to-interpretation questions (see my response to 'do you like to travel') would be to ask both neurotypical and neurodiverse individuals to write about what they've made work for them, what they've found their natural inclinations to be, and what their ideal courtship would be. Then, see if you can discern any common patterns that may suggest anything underlying a common difference in approach.

I suppose it makes no odds, in the end. I don't mean to sound wholly dismissive, and if I do its a reaction/counterpoint to your swaggering certainty as to its validity. I am a pluralist, and a pragmatist. There are many ways to consider and investigate a matter, and the one we should take is the one that takes the facts in the world as we find them, and that, when tested, works. Your method may work for some people, and for that it will be good and right. But if there's one thing we've seen from the responses to your method, it's that many other neurodiverse individuals will find their own path to a courtship that suits them, just as many neurotypicals do.

The Neanderthal theory provides the background for why we would expect a singular method.



That's not how I reasoned. People pointed out how they had all these neurotypical relationship preferences, and then I claimed they had a neurotypical outlook on it. I think that was fair. If they had pointed out neurodiverse preferences instead, I wouldn't have dismissed it as 'neurotypical'.



Actually, I presume the neurodiverse method was once a phenotype in Neanderthal, but that it has been split up into a spectrum. That means a few people might have the complete method, some have traits from both the ND and NT method, and some only have the NT method. Also remember that historically, humans have not relied on natural courtship for relationships, rather marriages were typically arranged, which says something about the lack of effectiveness of human courtship.



The idea that there is no singular method is unprovable (and thus not a valid hypothesis). OTOH, the idea that there are only two original courtship phenotypes, split up into spectrums, is provable, and therefore a valid hypothesis.



Unfortunately, I don't think that is a usable method. As it is now, I've not seen a single individual here describe in enough detail how they approach relationships, so the result of this is likely to be an enormous amount of raw data (remember that I can collect 1,000s of responses about this), with a minimal amount of it containing anything of interest. That's not my idea of a useful method. Still, if you want to do the analysis, I'll think about it.

Besides, the trait to obsess over a crush has a large correlation with ND relationship traits, is frequently discussed here, so is definitely pretty common. Not only that, but I've shown with mediation analysis that this trait is causing a fast attachment process, so has a real function. It's also the case that attachment for NTs is gradually increasing with time together, while for NDs, it quickly goes up to a high level very early, and then slowly decreases. So my claims that this is an important issue for NDs certainly has merit.

Another thing is that I've always thought that impressing on a girl is something you don't do, and I'd never done it either until I got triggered. After that, I spent months on trying to impress on her in many different creative ways. It was almost like a new special interest. So if that hadn't happened, I'd still claim I'd never impress on a girl, and other ND guys that never had this triggered might claim the same.

A last thing is the turn-off of the approach block and being able to interpret things as they happened. This happened from one day to another, and the difference was so big I simply couldn't miss it. I also did approach her a while later, so it was not just in my imagination that I no longer was blocked from approaching.

You are the only person I have ever seen use the terms ND or NT relationship preferences though, as far as I know there really isn't a specific one size fits all relationship preference that can be applied across the board based on neurology...at least not accurately.

yes. maybe you're clear about that in your research papers, but so far your statements here had been suggesting that there were no such assumptions, and that only widely known and accepted facts were being used as basis


it is not. when you talk about (nonhuman) animal behavior, that means outside observation. you don't interfere, and you don't make abstractions (other than for the assumption that the design of your observation method itself is good enough that it doesn't influence to a significant degree the behavior being observed). but when you talk about human behavior dissociated from culture, that's automatically a huge abstraction. because both the observer and the ones being observed will be highly constrained and influenced by cultural bias no matter what. so it's not biology or pure statistics, it's social sciences. and social sciences don't have the power to prove anything. all it gives you is clues and theories

like others have already pointed out, i'm not saying that there can't be meaningful findings from it. but i am saying that the degree of certainty you seem to be attributing to it is unwarranted

It's been too hectic a day to deal with the heavier stuff, which is really just going round in cicrcles a this point but, seeing as you asked:

I have no interest in pulling out traits, as I don't think there is a neurodiverse courtship outside of any given courtship conducted by neurodiverse individuals.

I met Mrs Hopper when I was 18, she 21.

We met through a phone dating thing. She responded to my voice ad. I'd mentioned liking philosophy, books, writing and such, and she'd never met a peer who had such interests (nor had I), so sent me a message. We exhanged messages, then phone numbers, having very interesting conversations on the phone (I sometimes forget how damn good I used to be on the phone. Ah, youth). After a few weeks of phone calls and mixtape exchanges, I went to visit her at her parents' house (about 2 hours cross city travel by bus) as she was agoraphobic at the time. This suited me as I was terrified of having to take someone out for a meal or drink, which is pretty impossible due to my limited diet and being teetotal (though many years later there were occasional clusters of days spent drunk to try and get through periods of great emotional distress).

Our first meeting, I wasn't all that nervous. I honestly didn't have an idea that anything romantic or sexual was possible. I just really liked talking to her, hearing her perspective, how she saw the world. I liked how well we got on, how easily we understood each other. It lasted a few hours, sometimes breaking off from talking to listen to music.

I had no idea she was interested in me, thanks to a mix of chronic low self esteem and obliviousness to flirting and signals and overtures. She thought I was playing hard to get. After a few weeks of (still great) phone calls, most of which ended with an enquiry as to when I would go round again, I did. And we talked and listened to music and something felt different, felt right, and then we kissed. And that was that. Over the next few months I went round a lot more, and we felt very at ease being weird around each other, and we moved in together about five months after first contact.

We were both troubled young people, and we had our bumps, but things were pretty good for a fair while, and at intervals over the years. The courtship went pretty swimmingly. In time, we learned things about ourselves (and each other) that we could only learn from the experience of being in a relationship, things that suggested our needs and wants can't be met within a romantic relationship with each other.

But the initial getting together was very easy and untroubled. I do think we both initially brought ideas and expectations about courtship that were prevalent amongst our (NT) peers and wider culture, but pretty quickly dropped them and just did our own thing. Neither of us had any inkling we could be autistic. I have been diagnosed. She hesitates to go for diagnosis due to social anxiety, but clearly has lots of traits.

For myself, this was a clear example of how attraction and bonding functions. Thinking is very, very important to me. Taking ideas and notions, turning them round and inside out, knowing there is always something more to be thought, something more to be said. Conversation is finding someone like-minded enough that we can think together, following each others' thoughts as though they were our own. I love that. A perceptive perspective.

Attraction and bonding starts with this. In the initial stage, if I can have a conversation with them, and we want to do more of that and with regularity, I consider that a friend. If for whatever reason there is something in their physicality or personality that puts me off, they remain a friend (though persistence and permanence in human relationships, friend or lover, is something I have trouble with). If there is nothing offputting about them for me, it is very easy for me to consider and desire them as a potential lover or partner. That's just the next obvious step for me.

Interesting, Hopper.

The "neurotribes" book contains an quite interesting female "show-off" that is similar to what I've noticed:

It ended up in a marriage, so was successful. The keys are that it shouldn't be too direct, but still recognizable, and it should go on for some time.