Something is wrong with me. Its the only explanation.

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I'm glad you are, at least, content in your job.

There are many people who have difficulty finding love, yet are content in their job.

I don't find adopting an ideology wherein you feel like some sort of victim serves any good purpose. Especially since you are not a victim. You're quite viable, in fact.

Stop thinking in your mind that "something is wrong with you." Because I don't believe that statement is true. You're performing a useful and productive purpose by educating and taking care of severely and profoundly impaired people. I would have difficulty with that.

I guess I would be frustrated if I had difficulty finding love. But, at the same time, I would feel good about myself because of my success in other areas.

I feel like your odds will be in your favor as you approach your 40s.

I do feel good about the work I do. But that doesn't make feel any better about areas of my life in which I am grossly inadequate.

Just because someone is not succeeding in finding a long-term partner doesn't mean they're never getting laid. They could very well be having plenty of hookups or friends with benefits. But in my case, no woman is interested in having any of those with me.



Problem is that by then it will already be too late. I missed out on being with young women when I was younger, and it is still important to me to experience that. And while I don't mind the idea of being with a woman over 40 at some point in my life, the idea of having never been with anyone younger than 40 at all upsetting me severely. Besides, at this point a woman my age will have been through several relationships and at least one divorce, and will have been raising children for nearly 18 years. That is a huge disparity in life experiences and I could not relate to someone like that nor do I believe she could relate to me at this point. And while I don't mind dating someone with little kids, the idea of dating someone with kids who are 14 or older weirds me out. Plus, I just don't find myself attracted to most women my own age anymore, and the very few who are attractive will always have significantly better options.

If you don't think it's autism symptoms & physical fitness/appearance (which I believe it's both.), then what do YOU think the constraint is to you having a successful dating life?

I think its autism symptoms combined with some other factors.

I grew up in a Muslim society that was heavily gender segregated; social interactions between unrelated men and women were extremely limited, nobody had opposite se friendships, boys and girls went to separate schools, homes had separate guest rooms for men and women. When I return to the US and started university when I was 20, I had to learned how to talk to or interact with women. And because of my religious upbringing I had it stuck in my head for years that I shouldn't get involved with a woman except to get married, which tends to weird people out and scare them away.

In the decade following my graduation from university, I struggled to find and maintain stable employment. I did not have a vehicle or a driver's license for a number of years. And I became homeless because of unemployment several times. So for a large portion of my adult life I just didn't have the financial stability for a relationship.

I have a long history of struggling with metal illness, including emotional breakdowns and suicidal ideation.

I am an atheist, and formerly a Muslim, living in the Bible Belt.

Obesity has likely been a contributing factor in some cases. But I was in better shape when I was in my 20s, and I still got consistently rejected by women.

Ever since I broke up with my ex, it has been difficult to meet single women. 99% of women I've met in the past 12 years have been married or in relationships. And I'm not attracted to or interested in every woman I meet who is single. Most of the times when I met a single woman it was pretty obvious she's single for a reason. On the rare occasions when I did meet a single woman that I was interested in, she wasn't interested in me.

it is not digital, not "either/or." you WILL feel better once you no longer are obese, you will move better and have less aches and pains. you will have more pride in your appearance even if you are still lonely. that is worth something. some of us just weren't made for social functioning. lowering one's expectations of life is one way to be less sad. much suffering in life [buddhist viewpoint] comes from expecting. stop expecting, and one source of suffering is gone.

You and I are VERY similar!! ! I grew up in a school where boys and girls were in separate calssrooms and I had almost zero interactions with girls my age until 6th grade. At that point though, the girls became sexual and the only attention from them was sexualized.

that is very well said and very useful way of putting it. I took a small jog today and it made me think how I had forgotten how good it felt to exercise outside.

Some of them need to be visible public figures, but not all of them. There are also important roles that can be done in a largely behind-the-scenes way.

Also, the most effective political activist groups typically exist as one relatively small part of a much larger organized community (subculture) that serves its members in a wide variety of ways. That's true of most ethnic minority communities, for example, and also the LGBTQ+ rights movement, and also other disability communities (e.g. for blind and deaf people).

In my opinion, the autistic rights movement's biggest weakness is the lack of a sufficiently organized larger autistic community (subculture) for it to be a part of. Whatever strength it has seems to be derived almost entirely from its connections to the larger disability rights movement, rather than from the autistic community (what little there is of one) itself.

Of course, the very nature of autism makes it hard, for us relative to other categories of disabled or otherwise marginalized people, to organize an autistic subculture.

But we need to find creative ways to do this, IMO. Hence the Autistic Peer Leadership Group. See also my articles Longterm visions for the autistic community and Autistic Workers Project.

At the present time, the various proposed career-oriented groups mentioned in the latter article will need to keep their membership lists confidential. That's an unfortunate reality, but, IMO, the single most important thing we need to do is simply to organize. To that end, the organizations need to be maximally useful to their members in their immediate personal lives (apart from any longer-term political goals), and they need to avoid harming their members in any way (hence the need for confidentiality).

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 28 May 2021, 11:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.

also being a minority (not white) can either limit or change your dating prospects if you live in a Western country, and so can being from a Muslim background. people have all sorts of biases, where they won't say it, but they won't consider dating someone of a different race or people from certain nations or religions.. maybe you can have more luck trying to date women from the Muslim community or with a Muslim or similar background or ethnicity.. not saying it would necessarily help, but trying various approaches can help sometimes

Surely you're not the only immigrant who has gone through this kind of culture shock? Have you ever had any contact with Ex-Muslims of North America or any similar organization? (I think I asked you this once before, but I don't recall your answer if any.)

That’s not true at all; actually things get far more extremely awkward.

Since I hit age 37 (I am now 39), every younger woman I talked to (27 and upward) asks me why I am still and why I never been married. The typical cliché responses such as “didn’t find the right one yet” or “I am still not planning it” don’t work anymore.

Hell, even the women my age who are usually single moms or divorcee ask this question and wondered why never been in a formal (engaged or married). It is as if you’re put in accusation/weirdo light the moment they learn that.

Sounds good intellectually, but easier said than done. Any advice? How did you go about doing it?

This is a little complicated to explain and people always seem to get confused by it. I am white. I was born in the US and both of my biological parents are white Americans. When I was a child, my mother converted to Islam and married a man from Libya and we moved there. I lived there until I was 20 and the rest my family (my mother and brothers and sisters) all still live there. I am a US citizen and I do not have Libyan citizenship or resident status, so it is difficult for me to go there. I am not legally an immigrant in the US. What I share in common with many immigrants is that I'm geographically separated from my family and haven't seen them in years. But aside from that, I just look like a typical white guy and it never occurs to anyone that I come from another country or have a Muslim background. And I don't have any association with the local Muslim community since I left the religion. So it really has very little impact on my social standing if any at all.

I am open to dating black, Hispanic, and Asian women, and in fact generally prefer them to white women. Needless to say, I've been consistently rejected by women of all races.

As an atheist, I avoid women who are serious about religion, whether its Christianity, Islam, or something else, as I see that as a compatibility issue. When it comes to Muslim women in particular, their culture is very strict about not getting involved with non-Muslim men. Plus they are not allowed to date, and instead are required jump straight into marriage without spending much time to get to know their future husbands beforehand. And of course any sexual relations prior to the wedding are strictly prohibited. Personally, I am not fond of the idea of having to commit blindly to marrying someone before I can even get to know what she is like, either as a person or in the bedroom. I've considered dating ex-Muslims, but I don't know any who are single.

I have tried to contact EXMNA, but I never got a response from them.

I think you meant "binary".

I agree that losing weight will improve my health and make me feel much better, and it is something I need to do. But it will not help me when t comes to my dating problems. I've already explained at length why, even if I successfully turn around everything else going wrong in my life, its already too late to have the relationships I want at my age.

Why should I have to lower my expectations regarding an area of life that nobody else has to?! Is it because I'm lesser and unworthy of love?! Is it because I'm a freak?! !

Last edited by dorkseid on 29 May 2021, 5:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

Why should women lower their expectations and date an autist? Women want to be like everybody else and date an interesting and exciting NT guy, not a boring/cold/lonely autist man.