Why its too late for me

Post Reply New Topic

I agree. I tried settling out of desperation once and it ended up being the greatest regret of my life. There have one or two opportunities for me to settle for someone I wasn't attracted to since then, and I refused. But that doesn't change that I feel depressed and frustrated at the fact that I will almost certainly be alone for the rest of my life while I watch everyone else around me getting married and having children and starting families and to them its the most natural thing in life.

You mentioned your church family. So this might be a good opportunity to mention I don't have any church relations since I'm an atheist.

And I'm not worried about copying neurotypicals. There are strict biological timelines and once I miss certain milestones it becomes too late.

You've mentioned you speak Arabic and that you're an ex-muslim Atheist, your situation is very similar to mine.

Let me guess....you're probably from a war-torn country, Iraq? Syria? Yemen? No legal residence, so you're probably a feeling political refugee. You don't have to say which, just nod.

How, specifically, have you tried?


Another question: Do you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area? Is there an urban area you can easily get to, if you don't live in one? (That would affect your social prospects a lot.)


If you've met only two women in any given category, of course it's unlikely that they would have a romantic interest in you. To increase your chances, you would need to find some way to get to know at least a few dozen (maybe even a few hundred?) women with whom you have multiple things in common.


Yes, I too had lots of men pursuing me when I was younger. But my longest-lasting relationships have always been with people who were probably on the autism spectrum (although they weren't diagnosed; ASD and "Asperger's syndrome" weren't well-known things back then). My current boyfriend, who I met in late 2008, was diagnosed with "Asperger's syndrome" back in 2001.

Also, I never cared if a man was a bit shy. I never valued smooth talk. (On the other hand, I always have valued intelligence and the ability to think deeply, and I always valued common interests and values. Also, I've always highly valued a strong sense of camaraderie rooted in fellow oddball-ness.)


Yep, the idea of a total "cure" is a controversial topic, and one that (along with other divisive topics, like politics in general) probably should not be brought up in support groups, IMO.


Why? Because these people believe that only women and girls can be sexually assaulted? (So it would seem, judging by your remarks here.) If so, I'm shocked and puzzled that you got such a reaction from anyone other than, perhaps, some of the more doctrinaire Dworkinesque feminists on Twitter. It is certainly true that the overwhelming majority of sexual assault survivors are female, but not all. I thought this was a well-known fact, especially to advocates for sexual assault survivors (see statistics here). It also seems likely to me that autistic boys/men would more likely be targets of sexual assault than boys/men in general, just as autistic girls/women tend to be more vulnerable to sexual assault than girls/women in general.

I hope the reaction you got isn't generally commonplace. I'm pretty sure you would not have gotten such a hostile reaction on this particular issue had you brought it up in any of the support groups I'm aware of here in New York City.

In any case, I'm very sorry to hear that you encountered such rigid categorical thinking.

Not quite. I was born in the US and I'm white. My mother converted to Islam and married a man from Libya when I was a kid. We moved to Libya when I was 7 and I lived there until I was 20. That's why I never had Libyan citizenship or legal residence.

I actually consider myself to be very lucky in that regard.

I'm not sure what you expect me to say. I'm getting tired of people every time I tell them that I tried saying "yes but did you really try?"



I haven't met a few dozen single women I have multiple things in common with because there just aren't any. I've tried different avenues to meet people over the years and none of the women I met in a decade have ever been single.



Again, there aren't any women like that anywhere I go. At least none that aren't already taken.



I don't know for certain why people reacted the way they did. I can only speculate.



I don't live in New York City, and there's no way I could ever afford to.

Oof, I feel that.

Same age here. Meeting very few people who share my intetests. I sympathise. It's hard for me to find female friends with similar interests, so I imagine trying to find a woman to date with obscure interests is even more difficult.

That explains your career.

My sons were born when I was 44 and 46. Neither they nor I care about that.

Funnily, I just watched an interview with a local actress, and she was asked why she never had a child - she was like "Anyway it would be unfair now, I am now 45, If I have a child now, I will be 60 when he's 15; I will make him struggle with my diseases of old age". Exactly my thoughts.

Maybe you don't care, but a lot of others do care.

60 isn't the drop off point for becoming decrepit. I know quite active people in their 60s and 70s, disease free.

Of course it's a personal decision.

What I'm wondering is what specific strategies you've used, if any, to expand your social life. For example, have you tried Meetup groups pertaining to any of your interests?

The question is not "did you really try." The question is whether there are any potentially fruitful avenues that you may have overlooked, perhaps because you just didn't know about them.


What were those different avenues (or at least what general kinds of avenues)?

I don't know if you are already aware of this, but there are groups for atheists that attempt to replace the social functions of a church or other house of worship. Examples include Sunday Assembly, American Humanist Association, and Ethical Culture Society. Have you looked into whether there are any such organizations with a chapter or affiliate near you?

EDIT: From what I've heard, some of these church-for-atheists groups have a high male-to-female ratio, while others have a closer-to-even sex ratio, although atheists in general are predominantly male.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 20 Dec 2020, 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm sorry to hear that that relationship didn't work out for you.


When I was born, my father was 42 and my mother was 39. I didn't feel bad about this.

Admittedly that was a different time and place, the U.S.A. in 1958.

Interesting, thanks for explaining that, Mona.

Oh it worked; but then she immigrated.

Well yeah, didn’t work due to distance at the end.

Music taste especially It's incredibly frustrating when most of the women you find attractive prefer this kind of music


and your musical preferences skew more towards this: