Thinking about disclosing my AS on OKCupid.

Page 3 of 3 [ 47 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3

Previous topic | Next topic

Jono
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,650
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

28 Jan 2011, 5:58 pm

Zur-Darkstar wrote:

I've emailed a couple people on there and gotten some replies. I put my AS in the "most private thing you're willing to admit". I haven't had any dates yet, but girls are still talking to me despite the fact I'm open about AS. I talked to a girl on another site where I don't put on there that I have AS, and when I told her I had it, she is still talking to me. The decision to disclose or not would not seem to be a significant factor. Perhaps the way you state it makes a difference. If you come across as confident and well adjusted (not apologetic), people may admire you for overcoming adversity.

Further, I'd rather lower my response rate and find better quality people than be deceptive and secretive and get lots of people that will run as soon as they find out the real me. That strikes me as a stupid and inefficient way to go about things. Save the "that's how the NT world works" speech. I'm well aware of that and don't particularly care. I'm not so desperate to be in a relationship that I'll try to be someone I'm not just so girls will talk to me. I'm fine the way I am and if girls don't like that, then I'll be fine alone. I no longer have the inclination to pretend to be anything other than what I am. Regardless of the reason, money, love, status, w/e, it's just going to cause problems in the end. The people that are open-minded enough to consider someone who is not "normal" are the only ones I'm looking for.

What I don't understand is, how is not disclosing your AS on a dating profile any less deceptive than say, people who do not disclose that they're infertile or something? I'm not interested in people who would turn out to be judgmental and prejudice when they found out I had AS either but someone who doesn't know what AS is all about may have pre-conceptions and may change their mind if they met someone with AS in person.

Jono
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,650
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

28 Jan 2011, 7:29 pm

ShadesOfMe wrote:

I say go for it. especially if you are looking for someone else with asperger's. If it doesn't matter to you if they are on the spectrum, I might wait awhile.

I agree with this. Although I that limiting myself to people with Asperger's just lowers my chances of finding someone. No, it doesn't really matter to me if they're also on the spectrum as long as they are willing to be patient with me and are willing to accept me despite my AS.

Zur-Darkstar
Deinonychus

Joined: 28 Nov 2010
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 332

28 Jan 2011, 9:44 pm

Jono wrote:

Zur-Darkstar wrote:

Some of that is just my personal choice. If someone isn't open minded enough to look past a condition like AS, chances are I'm not going to like that person very much, because they probably aren't likely to tolerate other things that break whatever their ideal of the perfect partner happens to be. I'm not the sort of person that reacts well to being held up to an arbitrary standard of what a person "should" be.

You're right about how some people might change their minds, and if you're up for that sort of challenge, go for it. I tend to take people as they are and not get into trying to change their opinions of things. I just accept people as they are. That's my style. If they're a sort of person that wants to be judgmental and say, well he has AS, so I'm not talking to him, then I accept that, and move on. I'd rather have that than try to fight with people's prejudice. I just have no patience for it, so I'd rather avoid it entirely. Again, that's my choice, and you should feel free to make a different choice. My original point is that if you WANT to disclose your AS, it won't make you such a pariah that you have no chance.

Jono
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,650
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

29 Jan 2011, 2:10 am

Zur-Darkstar wrote:

Jono wrote:

Zur-Darkstar wrote:

I understand what you're saying now. Yes, I think there still might be people who message me despite my disclosure of AS. However, I think it will be a lot less than now. Also judging by the fact that I haven't had much success to begin with, I don't think it will work to my favour. However, I'll see what happens if and when I decide to disclose my AS.

Jet102fm
Blue Jay

Joined: 22 Jan 2011
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 94

29 Jan 2011, 6:53 pm

Jono wrote:

Alright, so I've been a member on OKCupid since September 2010, that's 5 months now. I haven't gotten to meet a single person in that time and only had promising conversations with 2 people. After Grisha's success, I'm now thinking about trying to experiment with disclosing AS myself, although I highly doubt that mine will be as successful as his. In fact, I still think it might lower my chances. However, I don't think I've got anything to lose since I'm not really successful anyway. I've sent messages to a few more people, so I'm going to wait at least until the weekend, just in case.

What do you think?

This I disclosed myself on there. I don't care either way what my outcome was though. I actually talked to a woman. It was great so far until she canned her account without warning. Hmm, perhaps she got scared off by asking her in one of my first messages if she knows about AS?

Jono
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,650
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

29 Jan 2011, 7:11 pm

Jet102fm wrote:

Jono wrote:

The last person I was hopeful about meeting also deleted her account without warning after we had been chatting for 3 weeks. I didn't reveal my AS though. Although the last thing I did tell her was that I still lived with my parents and she initially replied saying she was ok with it.

leozelig
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 30 Oct 2010
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 283

30 Jan 2011, 12:09 pm

I just wanted to add, that I also made an account on OKCupid about a month ago. I didn't make a lengthy profile, it's pretty minimalistic and I added a picture. I've received messages since then which makes me feel good, but I'm not sure if the people would even like me if they met me in person. The reason why I made the profile in the first place is to make friends, since I can't seem to utter more than a few words to strangers when I go out.
I have no diagnosis of AS and have only just began to learn about the subject. I told an intimate partner that I'm socially ret*d, which was the easiest way I could describe it at that moment. He's extremely direct when speaking to me now, which I appreciate, although there are some misunderstandings and he does make immature comments sometimes, saying I'm learning disabled. Sometimes he also talks to me like if I'm a child. It does not hurt my feelings, fortunately, although it can be annoying. I just think I need to explain better, or at least know what I'm talking about before trying to help other people understand me. I'm still trying to understand it myself.
I'm not sure if I'm complicating myself more by bringing ASD into the picture.

Jono
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,650
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

30 Jan 2011, 1:21 pm

leozelig wrote:

With regards to people liking you, I have friends who try to understand me and have no problem with my AS. Meeting a new person is scary for most people, not just people with an ASD. You just need some time to get used to them.

Your boyfriend doesn't need to talk to you like a child, he just needs to be clear and concise, and refrain using metaphors. ASD people often interpret things like idioms and metaphors literally ands thats the kind of language they can have difficulty with. Also I'm not sure anything with the word ret*d in it is the right way to describe it since ASD people can be quite bright.

leozelig
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 30 Oct 2010
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 283

30 Jan 2011, 2:03 pm

Jono wrote:

leozelig wrote:

I didn't mean it derogatory when I said it. I'm still very new to the topic of ASD's and AS. I kind of blurted it out because he pointed out that I was oblivious to someone being rude to me. I said it in a joking manner, but he took it like an honest answer. He even said he wished he was more like me. I think you're lucky you have friends who understand you. I hope I can find at least a few more friends like that, but I am lucky enough to have one person that I consider my real friend. He was the one who recognized the possible AS.

Jono
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,650
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

30 Jan 2011, 4:09 pm

leozelig wrote:

Jono wrote:

leozelig wrote:

I think you misunderstood me. I don't think you were derogatory, I was justing stating a fact. I don't make friends easily, most of them are colleagues from the university where I work.

leozelig
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 30 Oct 2010
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 283

30 Jan 2011, 4:51 pm

Jono wrote:

I think you misunderstood me. I don't think you were derogatory, I was justing stating a fact. I don't make friends easily, most of them are colleagues from the university where I work.

Oh, OK. It's interesting you mention your friends being colleagues from work. I've kinda been thinking that working might help me to learn to make more friends, or at least less anti-social. I went back to college and it helps to just be around others but I still don't know what to talk to them about.

bucephalus
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Jan 2009
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,847
Location: with Hyperlexian

31 Jan 2011, 9:26 pm

leozelig wrote:

Jono wrote:

I think you misunderstood me. I don't think you were derogatory, I was justing stating a fact. I don't make friends easily, most of them are colleagues from the university where I work.

I think it is quicker to make friends at work as opposed to college. Re topic, I've now disclosed AS on my OKC profile. I figured that those that can get past such a filter are probably well worth knowing. The crazy thing is the Internet will know one thing more about me than my closest friends

Jono
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,650
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

01 Feb 2011, 3:42 pm

Update: I've just announced this in someone else's thread, but I've been chatting to someone on OKCupid in the past few days and this is the third person I'm hopeful about getting a date with. I guess that means that any plans I had about disclosing my AS are postponed, for now.

Moog
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 25 Feb 2010
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 17,671
Location: Untied Kingdom

01 Feb 2011, 5:18 pm

Jono wrote:

Good luck Jono.

_________________
Not currently a moderator

Bethie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Jul 2010
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,817
Location: My World, Highview, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, Earth, The Milky Way, Local Group, Local Supercluster

01 Feb 2011, 8:33 pm

I'm "out" on OKCupid,
and I get a lot of messages.
Although to be fair, a lot of them don't seem to have read my profile,
based on other things.

But I still say go for it-
it'd be something to talk about.

_________________
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay.

Page 3 of 3 [ 47 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3

Jump to:

Thinking about disclosing my AS on OKCupid. Post Reply New Topic

Thinking about disclosing my AS on OKCupid.