Aspie females Getting into Relationships

Post Reply New Topic

By relations, do they mean marriage?

They, or she (Lorna Wing), meant marriage and romantic relationships both. It states that it's only really the highest functioning males who have a special interest that's more marketable and have a decent job who go on to form these in most cases. At first I thought that it ran counter to social norms, i.e., the normal male looking after the atypical female, but nope, it seems that normal males do care for normal social behaviour and actually expect it. This does makes sense to me in regards to my interactions with males in high school and beyond, who tended to discount anything that was outside of the norm no matter the context.

It's from the book, High-functioning individuals with autism (it's from a Rain Man level of HFA to near-normal like Schizoid PD/NLD/mild AS in scope (the latter being the highest functioning individuals), so it's objective in its depiction of "high-functioning autism", rather than just focusing on the severe end of HFA).

Interesting information. Because the book was published in 1992, I suspect there is still a functioning bias (towards lower) in the case of the diagnosed females studied. I also suspect the passive female subgroup would have been under-represented. I can't get hold of the actual data right now to look at the number of females studied etc., so can't examine the methods critically.

I speculate that the pre-1992 data on the females in the high-functioning population studied is questionable in terms of it being representative of AS females in general.

I've had a few relationships. Although they were very atypical, the above data would put me in an exceptionally rare category or neurotypical (which seems less likely than the supposed unlikelihood of me having a relationship, if that sentence makes sense ). I've described my experiences in the women's forum, but for interest, can summarise them here.


Case Study: Me (Note: just about all of the males I was with were fellow students at the time)

-School years: No boyfriends. And very little interest.


-Early adulthood: Approached by a stranger (from another culture). Just went along with it, not knowing his intentions. I would remain mute in his company for hours, when he did seek my company (it could be months at a time with no contact); I would never initiate contact. He showed me to his friends a few times, but briefly. He showed off to one how he could get me to go well out of my way at his request. There was no sexual relationship.

-Approached by 2 more strangers over a couple of years (both from another culture). Again, I just went along with things. I'd be ignored for months at a time. There was no sex.

-Approached by someone from the same culture, but who had mental health issues. Just went along with things. He was a virgin and embarrassed about that, but dumped me without having taken advantage sexually. He was considered incredibly weird by others, yet found me too odd to care about within a few weeks.

-Approached by many men on the streets throughout these years, but I would tell them I had a boyfriend. Many were from another culture and thought I was too (a couple commented on my poor English).

-Another with mental health issues initiated a relationship with me. He accused me of being in my own world, embarrassing him, and having very annoying and weird traits, yet he kept me around a few years (and was a bully). His father asked me whether I realised how off my social behaviour was.

-Another male with atypical traits pursued me and didn't care how weird I was. It ended up being a carer/patient relationship rather than an equal adult one.


-In my 30s/the present: Experienced a strong emotional attachment for the first time (unrequited love), and am unmarried (as intended).

Perhaps it is somewhat outdated, but she does specifically include "mild" AS, NLD and Schizoid PD in her manifestations of HFA. So, if she has a group of females with various manifestations of HFA, and pretty much none of them have ever formed relations, and she's using the same definition for these disorders as they do now, one can assume that it wouldn't be too different today.

But anyway, it's one piece of evidence that counters the argument that men with AS have it harder in friendships and what have you.

("One night stand" type things probably relies more on looks, drug ingestion and the position of the moon than any disorder someone may or may not have or what sex they are. So these don't count for relationships.)

outlier,

Your experiences seem to jive for someone with AS, especially as it all occurred in a mechanical setting (school being the big one), and they approached you. That actually sounds just like how high-functioning males tend to experience it (i.e., females approaching them). It's an anecdote that shows you being female haven't had it any easier than males. Your current one may be an outlier, but hey, sometimes people get lucky and everything aligns just right.

It really is easy for almost any woman to find a relationship, albeit probably not a meaningful relationship, those are tricky, but contrary to what some ladies believe it doesn't matter what they look like if they present themselves as available enough. Not that that's wise, I would recommend holding out for a meaningful relationship or just not getting into one at all over a sh***y relationship.

makuranososhi wrote:

MR_BOGAN wrote:

It's biology, females are more picky than males. So dating in general is harder for males.

That argument seems counter-intuitive to me.


M.

What he's talking about is a proved scientific fact and not some idealism bla bla.

I wonder whether lots of people don't keep on waiting for tomorrow, don't they know tomorrow never comes?

I'm in a dilemma myself. At a crossroads, to do that most un-Aspergian thing, speak allegorically. I'm miserable with my experiences with women. I've not met one woman who I find intellectually attractive. I've only ever been attracted to female's appearances and the appearance they were some intellectual being they really weren't.

Not that I'm branding women. I've not men a single man who is intellectually satisfying either. I've been waiting to find a best male friend too who's never materialised. I suppose I'm at a point where I either decide to continue looking for what I think needs to be looked for: decency, ambition, flair, artistic awareness, humor, a grand perspective. Or I just give up, become a laudanum addict and get my kicks out of satisfying gay men to fund my flights of fancy into the ether.