Older women and younger men?

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One thing is - it really isn't dodgy to fancy older people (unless we're talking people with senile dementia). We all did it when we were younger. When I was 11 I fancied someone who was 31 - kids develop crushes on teachers and celebrities and baby sitters. Thing is, at what age is it ok to do the fancying/pursuit the other way around? (Certainly not 11 haha- I think a 21 yo fancying an 18 yo is all right but for huge 20+ year gaps we ought to be looking at the younger partner being in mid 20s or older, by ages not stages level, someone who has experienced life, made a go at the job market or higher education & either moved out or found reasons not to while contributing to their family home in a way they didn't as a kid).

Autistic people are different to NT people so age gap relationships in one way or another are inevitable: either in terms of stage or age. I advise we enter into ones where we're a similar stage even if that means dating someone a little bit younger than ourselves in terms of actual number.

One thing I have noticed from a slight distance (child of a woman who was in an age gap relationship with an older man): Do not bring up age as an insult during arguments! This really set my parents off. My stepdad would call my mother 'juvenile' or 'thinking like a kid' or 'immature' and my mum would say 'you're ready for the retirement home' when he was only in his 50s or say 'stop being such a stuffy old man' or 'we weren't all born in the dark ages'. If you're dating someone younger or older, they're still the age that they are, stop comparing 50 somethings to elderly ppl and 30 somethings to children because you will just set off your partner into a long argument if you do that and the issue won't be resolved. You chose to be in a relationship with a younger/older partner & you know their age, so don't use it as an insult or battering ram.

Nonsense, as long as we do what we like, it shouldn't matter if it's pop culture related or not.

Categorising people by age or location or gender based on this stuff: yes. Autistic people should feel free to do what we like, regardless of all that.

I went to a school with & shared a special needs class with an 11 yo autistic boy who loved Rugrats. Was obsessed by it. That was him being himself against social pressures to hate it because it was for 'babies'.

with our disability, if we are alone and don't want to be, we should take advantage of whatever opportunity that comes our way if we want it, and it isn't illegal, hurting anyone, consensual.

I wish I had known I had ASD when I was younger, i wouldn't have been so picky, and perhaps would have been more forgiving on myself, while still maintaining a decent level of integrity.

What I really mean is: if we have a hobby it doesn't matter if it's 'childish' or 'for the other sex' or 'why are you watching baseball? you're British'

All that nonsense that NTs put on things is just cliques. NTs sometimes feel the need to watch shows just because they're the target age group. That's going to limit their options & then if they're in a perfectly consensual age gap (or even just heterosexual - 'action movies are for men'/'rom coms are for women') relationship, they'll have these cultural gaps and feel like it matters more than it does if you just watch what you enjoy and introduce your partner to some of that stuff, no judgements involved.

If you enjoy something, including a show on tv/movie, just watch it. No shame in knowing it. My only exception for this is little kids watching movies that aren't suitable for them. We also shouldn't worry if it's popular - I wasted so much time avoiding television because 'everyone watches TV I want to be unique' (to be fair, before Netflix, TV was pretty much crap imo)

Also people who are autistic sometimes quote stuff. I think ask an autistic had a name for this which I forget. We quote it more than other people do. Distanced echolocalia or something like that.

Being autistic means I have to be more picky actually. So many people are out there and want to cross my boundaries and being autistic means I've let them in the past cos I couldn't see through it

I liked "Rugrats" when I was in my 30s. That's when it came out.

Had I learned as a child that I was "supposed to" attend Special Education classes and act like The Rainman, I might still be single.  It may have been a good thing that I was first diagnosed as an adult.

I didn't see him mentioning "pop culture", he wrote "NT culture". I think they don't mean the same thing, at least they aren't the same thing to me. So your response turned out to be a straw man argument.

Considering the kind of thread we're in, when I saw him mentioning NT culture, I thought of vanilla dating, casual sex and the likes, not someone liking cartoons or comics.

I hate the idea that because we are disabled we have to be "less picky". Why shouldn't I have the same reasonable standards as anyone else?

We were talking about cultural references which is like if a 20 yo knows for eg who the Beatles are. And if it might create problems in an age gap relationship.

I don't think it should do. It's just a nice thing to introduce the partner to. Relationships should enhance what you already have and one way to do that is for eg 'oh you like American Horror Story? Have you ever seen the Twilight Zone I think you'd enjoy it'

I'm more picky.

1 My boundaries are easier to violate.
2 I'm content alone.

It feels very forced to me, lacking spontaneity. And first and foremost, to me it is way too verbal to feel like something genuinely ND. It's just not something that's got a tremendous impact on a relationship, IF and when it can already be called a relationship, i.e. if those people with (or without) the age gap are already infatuated with each other. And more often than not, these things like preferences regarding music, food or even exercise habits sort of "magically" turn out to be a match for NDs that are attracted to each other.

Walking together hand in hand or side by side, kissing and hugging quietly, enjoying each other's company in a sort of buzzing, hyper-stimulated way is more like it.

Ah ok, it might depend on how verbal you are.

I'm pretty much all words, no body language etc. And physical stuff is easily overwhelming/boundary breaking for me. So we have different ND perspectives on it probably.

My mom liked watching Rugrats with me when I was a kid & early teen & she's 30 years older than me. She was a pre-K teacher(she's retired now) so she had a convenient excuse She took her class to see one or two of their movies when they came out. Did you watch their spinoff series All Grown Up where those babies were preteens I didn't watch it then cuz I quit watching Nickelodeon around that time but I've seen a few of the eps a couple years ago on Teen Nick's 90s Nick segment. Those eps were OK. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch em but I'd like em if I was trying to find something on TV to watch.

I’ve watched a couple of episodes. They’re okay.

Now that's a topic all in itself. In a nutshell I think aspies should be less picky but it has limits. If you're an excellent programmer and make a whack of money every year allowing you to provide a lot of security and stability, then that aspie has a perfectly justified reason for being more picky. If an aspie is fat and sits at home all day.....not so much.

Being an aspie is no doubt a negative trait in the dating department but it's all about cancelling it out with positives.

My favorite.