How Many Girlfriends/Boyfriends have You Had?

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I apreciate the compliment.

Oh if only it was just Christian men. I've only met a handful of them. It's all single men. Only married men give me any attention. Aspie girls aren't a hot commodity.

Sorry, Prometheus about the personal question, but it's not something I can ask men I meet in person.

I'm perfectly happy to answer those sorts of questions where there's a constructive purpose to them; there usually isn't, on this site, but there was in the instance above.

I like to point out how coars and common it is to ask those sorts of questions out of mere curiosity (the usual reason), precisely because it's a point that seems to go over most people's heads here.

You just wrote down the exact thoughts I have on this one, I couldn't phrase it better. I am a Christian as well, but when other Christians, in response to my concern about my single status, tell me to "focus on the Lord", it just pisses me off. I mean THEY are happily married, so apparently they aren't following their own advice. It just feels like their ACTUAL thought is that I don't deserve to date much less marry due to my Asperger, but they don't want to outright say that, so they tell me to "focus on the Lord" instead.

In any case, I think Asperger is what hinders me rather than my faith. Its true that I don't believe in sex before marriage, and its also true that most girls I dated didn't share this commitment -- but they were still willing to accomodate my beliefs and not have sex. The real issue, however, is that very few girls gave me time of a day on the first place. And no it has nothing to do with my beliefs -- how would htey even know about my beliefs if they never even talk to me? It is something about my non-verbal languge that pushes girls off and keeps them from approaching me.

Yes! Exactly. It's always the ones who got married who say that. But, I think that they just can't relate and are just trying to say something positive.

Strangely enough I've made friends with this lovely retired couple and it was actually the husband that said to me that he understands how hard it must be for me. I just started crying because that was the first time someone listened and said that they understood rather than trying to pet me on the head and tell me platitudes. That really lifted a weight off my shoulders. I just need to be heard.

Dating is hard. I hear you.

I don't know what about me if a bit off. People seem to like me in general. I do know that I am different. So, I think we all just need to find someone a bit different like us. Or if we can't, we need to at least look after each other.

I've moved to a city. It seems that odd balls like me move to the city. I've made friends who are in the same situation as me, quirky, geeky women and I'm a lot happier, but it's hard when you maybe can't move or can't go and join up with some volunteer thing due to lack of energy or stress etc. There's lots of charity things I could help with and meet people, but I can't handle it. Too many people. I can't guarantee my health will be good enough on the day of the event either and I don't want to let anyone down.

I've been worried that how I dress was a turn off. So I've been buying what were expensive clothes on ebay for really cheap prices to jazz myself up. Other women have noticed and say they like my clothes. Still no interest from men lol.

Thank you. I genuinely do wonder about this, because in my age group a lot of the men gave up their faith, actually a lot of women too. I haven't always been a Christian. Long story. But some of those I knew when I first got interested aren't around any more. In my more darker moods I wonder if the ones with social skills found what they wanted elsewhere and bounced off, and those of us with less of an interest in social things stayed because our focus on life is a bit different. I stick at it because I really believe it and I had to fight to get it. It wasn't handed to me on a plate. I really thought about whether I wanted this kind of life. I really delved into it.

And so why do I wonder about what motivates men. Well, men my age who are still plugging away at their faith don't want anyone. Yet there are more women in the UK who are religious than men. And none of these women seem to be enough for them. I'm not talking about your age group, you just enjoy being young (I sincerely mean that), I'm curious about men in their 30s who just don't want anyone. When there are plenty of reasonable, down-to-earth women to choose from, they're even pretty too!

I'm in my 40's so I am not sure I can answer as being a 30 something year old any more. I had a rather unusual conversion into Christianity in that at the very moment it was put to me I wasn't looking, though I had been looking... For me, when at school a few of us missfits used to hang together. We were different in charactor to each other but it gelled. Those who live in the UK, think of "Last of the Summer Wine" and you get the idea.
The problem was for us that the leader who was like a "Seymor" character would attend these Christian Union meetings at lunchtimes on Fridays, and the two of us left tagged along as we didn't seem to have any common ground without him. He was a character who brought us together. I was more like "Norman Clegg".
Now at one of these meetings, and I do not know the mans name... I don't remember what he looked like... The guest speaker gave a talk. We were at the back of the room almoat missbehaving... We didn't actually missbehave too much but we would go to wind up our leader in our humour. He liked it really as he would usually get his own back! Haha! Anyway. While we were there this man gave a talk that made so much sense it was as if he was talking directly to me. He then said "If anyone wants to accept Jesus Christ into your hearts come forward". I was far too shy to do that! The man said it again, but he said to put your hand up... "No way. I am shy!" was how I took it. Then he said "There is someone here who wants to come to know the Lord. When you get back home, find a quiet place where you can be alone and pray asking Jesus Christ into your heart".
When I got home I did just that, and that was the start of my Christian journey. I was about 13..Maybe 14 at the time. I think 13. In all my years of schooling, it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and that is no dissrespect to any of the teachers or anyone else, but I can not think of a single event in my whole life that made such a difference and impact on my whole life as that moment, when Jesus came into my heart.
Outwardly, I still have the same struggles in life that anyone else has. Mentally the same. But right deep down in my spirit there was a change. It is very hard to describe as I don't know how to describe it. I felt a change. Then bit by bit miracles started to begin... But that's another story!

My family's Catholic but not majorly practicing & I went to Catholic skewl from 5 to middle of 6th & my 4 years of high-skewl. I went to those skewls because I was having lots of problems in public skewl but I had lots of problems at the Catholic skewl I went to for 5th & half of 6 too. I consider myself a Secular Humanist thou, I'm not gonna go into why here. When I was single & searching for a romantic relationship I was wanting someone who wasn't into casual or random sex. I'm sort of demisexual & not into sex outside of a serious romantic relationship. I'm also OK with waiting till marriage or never having sex. I wanted to find a woman wh o related to that or at least would respect that about me but it seemed like the main people who were like that were religious conservatives. I would of been fine with dating someone who was a religious conservative as long as she would respect that I'm not. However religious conservatives also tended to want relationships with people who also were. The people who weren't religious conservatives tended to be the wild partier type who were into hooking up when they were drunk or on something.

You value the companionship side of things more?

In my case, I don't even have friends -- in fact I don't have people that would even talk to me for 5 minutes -- so my situation is more difficult than yours. And yes, even if I couldn't date, at least having friends would be a huge help. Just watching people being friends with each other and realizing I am left on the side is really painful.

However, there is one example of a somewhat-friend: I ran into a woman whom I knew from 15 years ago in Michigan in church here in New Mexico and she was really excited to see me. But then I felt inferior to her because she is married and I am not. Thats part of why I am not buying the advice of "first learn to find friends and then date". I think both should be done at the same time, that way I don't feel inferior. In fact I even tend to think "first date then friends": I hope maybe the girl I date would introduce me to her friends. My past girlfriends didn't: the first one was too ashamed to, the second one assumed I didn't want to, the third one didn't have friends herself (she was devoted Christian and was still living at home even though she was in her early 30-s). I guess "maybe" the "first friends then dating" would have work if said friends were more sympathetic to my single status. But in my experience they don't even ask me why am I single, they just assume its how it is supposed to be. And the question is WHY? Are they assuming I am undatable?

In any case, I do hear what you say that you feel like people don't hear you -- I feel the same way. I guess in my case people complain about "me" not hearing "them" either, which is why they feel its okay to "not hear me" back. But it never crosses their mind that maybe the reason I don't hear other people has nothing to do with the fact that Asperger makes me unable to but, instead, it has to do with the defence mechanism in the reaction to perceived ostracism "from them". Maybe if they were to treat me as a person, then I "would" hear them. But they don't get that.

As far as moving around, in my case I am getting multiple degrees so the places I move to are pretty much determined by which university accepts me, which is a very limited choice since most universities don't accept me. There were times when I was transferring -- for academic reasons -- I was secretly hoping to have a fresh start at a new place, which never happened. But still the reasons for transfer were academic, and transfering for any other reason will probably be a bad move from the point of view of my CV, which I wouldn't do. So I guess I am left waiting for the next transfer which would only be two or three years from now. I can't really afford to wait, as I am already 39. So I guess I need to find a way to change things while still here, although I don't know what to change or how.

I go on dating sites sometimes and I tried long distance relationshps before. In fact, the last one out of the three relationships I had was long distance: it lasted for two years, the marriage was discussed, yet we only met twice. But still, even over the internet women don't seem responsive. So I am not sure what to do.

I think in an age of feminism of the sort that all but criminalises things like flirting, men are afraid of women; at least the decent sort of men, who don’t want legal trouble or harm to their careers. The antidote to this is to provide them with a great deal of reassurance about how you feel. It shouldn’t be necessary, but in today’s world, it is. It’s only “bad boy” types who don’t fear the law and don’t have any career prospects who will give you any attention spontaneously, but of course no respectable woman wants to associate with those sorts of specimens.

On the subject of Aspie girls being a commodity – the only woman I ever felt anything approaching “love” for, mentioned above, was almost certainly an Aspie, and had more severe social anxiety than anybody I had/have ever met. It’s the guilelessness and meekness of that sort of woman that makes her attractive to a Christian man.

Meekness/humility is the Christian virtue par excellence in my view, and particularly attractive for a Christian, like me, whose greatest obstacle happens to be pride. Even when I was an atheist, the only women I found truly enticing were the demure, “shrinking violet” types.


The Christians offering the advice in question are no doubt perfectly well-intentioned, but don’t know what constructive advice they can give. It’s a shame that there are no effective networks for Christians to “date” each other. There are probably websites, but they’ll be ineffective and undersubscribed like every other. The problem of ensuring that Christians aren’t forced into involuntary celibacy for want of suitably Christian prospective husbands and wives – is, I think, something the Church (in my case, RC) isn’t doing enough to deal with. Of course, it’s a very modern problem, in the sense that in past ages, where everybody except a small elite adhered (closely) to Christianity, any wife at all would have been good enough.

I, like you, get the feeling that even if I lowered my standards and were willing to fornicate with atheist women, I’d probably be rejected anyway. I have to admit that I think I’m rather good looking (in fact, better looking than any other man I know of my age, though not very tall) and well dressed, and women seem broadly to agree, but there’s something just too odd, too eccentric about me for most women. I think it’s more fear of what their friends might think if they were to date somewhat so “weird” than it is an actual lack of attraction. Either way, I’ll only date a woman who shares my values, and will not engage in sexual intercourse until marriage.

Everyone except a monk wants a normal, married life with non-sinful sensual pleasures, but ultimately, if this isn’t possible, one only has recourse to stoical resignation.



I understand everything you’ve said, and will happily withdraw the platitudes.

Per dress, I do agree that most women dress very badly nowadays – men dress even worse, though. Slovenliness is a virtue on the pseudo-proletarian value system that grew out of the 60s Cultural Revolution. Personally, I see right through it and wear suits and ties as much as I can, also making sure I’m clean shaven and well-kempt. I’d love to see women return to wearing nice, pretty, modest blouses, skirts and dresses, but I know it’s not going to happen, and I know I’m not going to convince anyone here that it should happen, given that I have at least three and a half arguments about it on this site every week.



People give up their faith because they’re slaves to their desires rather than their reason, and are scandalously denied the guidance and wisdom that would be required for them to realise that this is wrong; indeed, the depraved pop culture today tells them that being cruel, sensual, sadistic, egoistic and vain are virtues and, in the absence of a culture worthy of the name, such as would once have been passed from one generation to the next as a matter of course, they have nothing to suggest to them that that pop culture is objectionable. This is why there are so many relativists on this site who believe that Eminem is just as good as Mozart and Banksy is just as good as da Vinci. It’s comforting because it saves them the burden of having to obtain real culture, and it also allows them to extend their judgements into the moral sphere (intimately linked with culture) so that they can sin without feeling the appropriate guilt.

Ultimately, you have to concern yourself with your own salvation; it’s the only salvation you have the infallible means to obtain. If only 1% of the population is saved, then as long as you did your bit – so be it.

I don’t know how old you are (I would estimate you’re in your thirties or forties, but it’s none of my business one way or the other). The men your age who still have faith almost certainly still want to marry (this is true of men of every age group), but have resigned themselves to celibacy after years of trying fruitlessly to find women who feel the same way. I'm basically already resigned at twenty-three. At this point, if a decent, Christian woman came along and offered marriage to me, I’d accept, but I’d never bother looking for one, because I know it’s a hopeless task. Maybe as much as 1% (a generous estimate) of women my age share my values, and maybe half of them are single and maybe 10% of those would want to marry me – that’s .05% (one in two-thousand) of women my age and an even smaller portion of the female population overall. What hope is there?

I don’t know what you mean by “enjoying being young”, but if it means what people usually mean by that phrase, then I’d really, really rather not, and the fact that that makes me an extreme eccentric for someone my age is something I find profoundly depressing.

I’m less familiar with the 30s age-group, but there seems to be a similar dearth of devout, Christian women there too, though if I ever do marry, I expect it to be after I reach thirty.

The connection to feminism always puzzled me. A feminism means "give woman what she wants". But if she WANTS to date you, then the implication would be that yes, she will date you. So the only way feminism would stop her from dating you is if she doesn't actually want to date you and only does that out of obligation. But why would you want anyone to date you out of obligation anyway? I, for one, want to feel desired and liked. So I don't want a woman to be forced to date me, I want her to actually WANT to. But then how is feminism even relevant here?



I am not sure I follow your "commodity" part. I don't view women as commodity since I want to establish the real connection to them as people.

But as far as meekness aspect, I agree with you. I tend to be attracted to women on the shy side. And it has nothing to do with being Christian: I only became Christian at 22, but I was attracted to shy girls long prior to that. I just feel like shy girls feel deeper emotions, and I can emphathize with them more.



Well, like I said, I can't seem to attract "any" girl, Christian or not, so I don't see how the fact that in the past most people were Christian would have helped.

But, speaking of the past, I think maybe there is some other aspect of it that would have helped. Like the whole issue of viewing outgoing people as superior to shy people is probably really modern. So sometimes I wonder if back in the 19-th century I would have fit in better. Maybe thats why the rate of autism diagnosis went up, since its harder for people who have it to fit in?



Well, in my case, I am NOT well dressed. I am rather messy, and also my hair is messy as well. I guess I didn't realize up till recently that my messy hair and dress has anything to do with it. But now that I realize it, I am wondering what can I do? I am 39 years old, so how can I get back all those years I threw away by walking around messy? I wish I could just go back in time and redo everything.



You just hit the nail on the head in terms of what pisses me off. If I was single "just because I am single" it won't be nearly as painful as being single because I am weird. So, on their end, they don't want to date me because they don't want to be seen with someone weird -- but on my end, I want to date them, so that I won't be seen as weird any more. So the same EXACT thing causes them to have the opposite wish to me.

And here is the other advice I get that really pisses me off. I am told "why do you care what people think, the most important part is to be happy with yourself". But wait a second -- THEY care what people think, since they don't want to date me in order not to be seen with someone weird. Yet they are telling me NOT TO care what people think in order to accept that exact situation they are putting me into because THEY care what people think. Don't you think its ridiculous?

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying I want women "only" for those reasons. I do have the normal reason to be in a relationship: wanting to connect to someone emotionally, etc. etc. etc. But if you add the issue of negative public opinion into the mix then yes it changes things. So it may "come across" like I am selfish or what not, but I am only being selfish because I am defending myself from society's ostracism. If society would stop ostracize me and accept me as one of their own, I won't be selfish any more. I know its too much to ask, but even if one person or small group of people accepts me, I won't be selfish with them either. But most people don't seem to realize this.



I won't engage in sexual intercourse until marriage either. But I am willing to date non-christians, as long as they agree not to have sex with me. And yes, its realistic. Two out of three of my past girlfriends wanted sex, I told them I didn't, and they respected it.

I realize there are other reasons not to date non-chrisitans, besides sex. Like how would we raise our kids if we get to that point? And also Paul said "what company does light has with darkness" when he talked about unequally yoked. But, like I said, I have to be super-lucky to attract any woman at all, so I can't afford to lower my chances by only looking at Christian women.

I guess its true I have some standards -- for example, I only date White women. So I guess I secretly hope that non-christian can be converted into Christian down the road (while of course you can't convert non-white into being white). But I am not that good at converting people, so I guess my assumption is that who knows what will happen in all those years, maybe she will get converted on her own, who knows.

Hmm, some stuff here I don't agree with, but one thing I'd like to pick up on.

I think that having friends of the opposite sex is important. Not so much to find people to date, but just to learn about how women think. How are you going to get along with a wife if you don't know anything about women?

Women shouldn't be this mysterious "other". We're just people.

I agree with you. In fact, I value female friendship more than male friendship -- not just for this reason but also because I like that kind of emotional bonding that I see females having with each other.

I guess the only reason I would be opposed to female friend is if it is in the context of rejecting me dating-wise. But in this case the reason I would be opposed to it would not be so much because of her gender but rather it would be because she has low opinion of me, and why would I want to be friends with people who don't like me? Same goes for -- male -- professors who refused working with me: I don't want to be friends with them either.

On a flip side, I would take a female friend if there is some reason she doesn't want to date me that I don't have to take so personally. Lets say its an age difference, or a race difference, or distance, etc. That would make it easier. Or another possibility is for her to be committed to someone else, of course. But then, like I said, there is that factor of me feeling "not as good as her" since I am single.

The other possibility is to simply never bring up dating. And then I can tell to myself "well, I have no idea whether she would have rejected me so I have nothing to resent". I guess deep down I know she probably "would have" rejected me if I were to ask her out (I mean, simply from the knowing of how women don't like me in general) but I guess since I don't have a hard evidence for it, I don't have to resent it.

Indeed, the very last paragraph is the rout I was hoping to take. But I don't have much luck there either. Women won't approach me and start talking to me, so I don't know where to start in making female friends. But then again, men don't approach me and talk to me either. But I guess lack of female friendship is what I resent more since like I said when I see female-female friendship I kind of wish I had that same emotional bond.

Last edited by QFT on 29 Jun 2019, 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

QFT: why does one of your “standards” involve only dating white women?

1. Feminism in principle should mean roughly what you suggest, but doesn’t. Feminism, since at least the 1970s, has been largely a search for grievances, rather than “giving women what they want”, which as a definition would at the very least have to be heavily qualified anyway. My point, at any rate, was about the overly litigious atmosphere which has emerged in the wake of #MeToo (I feel stupid just writing it).

2. The “commodity” comment was directed at hurtloam (her word). I quoted the relevant remark of hers in the part of the post you're responding to here.

3.


SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS!

4. The sense in which the situation in the past would have helped you is that it was simply so abnormal for a man to reach your age and not be married in those days that you’d have been, in modern parlance “set up” with someone, as a matter of course. It helped that closely-knit communities still existed in those days.

Autism wasn’t diagnosed at all in the 19th century, for obvious reasons, but you’re right that eccentricity is something much less tolerated and much more likely to be scorned in today’s faux-individualist world.

The worship of extroversion is a western aberration that seems bizarre to the more sensible Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. It can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle. It came of age as the stock market expanded at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries and people realised that in order to make a fortune, you didn’t need intelligence or substance, but just the show of those things. I think it was Lao-Tzu who said “He who speaks, does not know; he who knows, does not speak”.

5. Perhaps you’re not well dressed, but hey – it’s the easiest of things to fix. If you’re five feet tall, you’ll never be six; if you’re bald, you’ll never have hair; if your face is ugly and asymmetrical, you’ll never be handsome – but all it takes is the know-how and a little money to dress well. The same sort of thing is true of your hair.

You’ll never get back the years you spent neglecting your appearance, or doing anything else – but you can change for the better, now. Rebirth is central to Christianity.

6. My view is that if a woman isn’t mature enough to go against what her friends think when she knows they’re wrong, then she isn’t worth marrying, anyway. A successful marriage requires mature, adult partners.

7.


I agree with the idea that one’s opinion of himself is more important than that of others, with the qualification that the justified disapprobation of others should concern him.

I think the position the people in question take is ridiculous, but I think it was Schopenhauer who pointed out that the fact that those who accept a certain belief are hypocritical about it does not imply that the belief in question is wrong.

8. The idea of "dating" someone but not having sex with them or intending to at any point in the future seems a little of a misnomer to me, though I don’t have a problem with it in itself.

9. It’s perfectly acceptable to marry outside of the Christian religion, but I wouldn’t do it myself. Frankly, I would strongly prefer another RC, though I don’t write Protestants - far less Orthodox Christians - off. The only woman I know at the moment whom I'd consider marrying is actually a Mormon, if she were interested and a few other conditions were met. Of course, they’d have to agree for any children to be raised RC, as the Church requires in such cases.

10.
I’d be careful saying that on this forum. What you’re saying is perfectly reasonable and not the least bit racist, but there are people who’ll lash out at you over it.

Personally, for largely the same reasons that you’re willing to “date” non-Christian women, I have no objections to non-white women – beggars can’t be choosers. Quite frankly, foreign and non-white women are often much, much more devout than white, western women anyway. I’ve particularly noticed this of East Asian and African Christian women. Eastern European (white) and Mediterranean (white) women are often much more devout, too. Physically, my preference is for tall, plump, dark-haired/red-haired white women, but it matters almost not at all for me.

11. I’d marry a non-Christian if she were willing to convert, but only if it was out of a genuine desire for the Lord on her part – not just lust.

I don't think it's important or necessary, but there's certainly nothing wrong with it. I don't view women as being at all mysterious; I feel I understand them as well as is possible.