Do you have the six sixes?

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I'm a 5 ft 2 skinny autist. According to incels and black pillers, i'd be completely screwed. Yet, I have a nice and loving girlfriend.

If my short scrawny ass can find a girlfriend, you can too.

Did you have to lower your standards at all?

Sometimes people just start out with healthy standards.

Then explain why I haven't had a girlfriend in over a decade.



Nothing is unhealthy or unreasonable about my standards.

I don't recall commenting on your standards since I have no familiarity with them.
I didn't quote you because I wasn't responding to something you had said so I'm not sure why you immediately defended yourself from something that wasn't addressed towards you.

I'm commenting more broadly on the excuse that some people use guys like us only get relationships when they lower their standards when that's not true and reflects an unhealthy mindset towards relationships.

The most immature version of this notion is where one cringes from the idea of needing to reconsider what they're after but at least that probably leaves that person single; the next most is where they consciously 'lower their standards' because viewing that way suggests that one views it as pursuing a partner of lower value rather than changing what they value.

I am not assuming anything. I know how they talk about each other. Attraction can happen in many ways; we don't all like and prioritize the same things. Sometimes someone who is generally unattractive can have the sweetest and most generous disposition. Or great eyes. Or be amazing in bed. Or be super funny. Or uncanny about knowing what you are thinking. I also know couples where one was classically attractive and the other not at all, but they love each other.




There is a difference between "not looking" and "not being available." To stop looking does not mean you stop being available to new people and possibilities.




True, you don't know him, but he is the reason I am a member here. I joined as a parent trying to figure out how to help him so, despite what you assume, he is most definitely autistic with a strong disgraphic co-morbid. He has a job that is not full time and currently earns poverty wages. He does not own a home. I have no reason to believe that his peers consider him handsome at all. His sister doesn't. But he does have qualities his peers notice and appreciate, not the least of which is that, at least until the job market started wearing him down, he has always exuded a positive energy. He also is intelligent, and has graduated from college. But getting a career job ... that is an area where the burdens of his autism are weighing him down more than his gifts are lifting him up. So not some obvious dream catch, no. But he's a really good guy and he has gifts that we still hope will help him create a good life.

His current girlfriend is also autistic. Their autism was the first thing to bind them. As a parent, I do worry about how many weaknesses they share, but we find her easy to like and do what we can to help them navigate the waters of life.



I started dating my husband when I was 34, got married at 36, and had my children at 38 and 41. If you do the math, that left with me many years frustrated and wondering if I would ever find my person. My younger sister married at 42. We most definitely are a family that knows how it feels. I wouldn't speak on the topic if I didn't. I'm telling you the concepts I wish I had integrated during my frustrated twenties and early thirties.



I think you're leading here into a lot that has to do with the dysfunction of society in general. The dysfunction is very real and I am sorry that you feel so trapped by it. The problem is, you cannot expect another person to make it better for you. Feeling like being with someone will be the magic answer does, in fact, make it more difficult to have a relationship. Hence all the advice to tell you to stop looking. Relationships are two broken people coming together and loving each other anyway. If you are looking to someone else to make your life bearable, you are putting a burden onto them that they cannot carry. I remember the feeling when I was single and I met a man who had too much need; it feels tangible, and its a turn off. I had my own baggage; I was willing to share baggage, and carry the burdens together, but I was never in a position to pick up someone else's and carry it solo. That is what it can feel like, meeting a man who thinks a relationship will somehow right the ship of his life: like he is trying to take from you. Not share, but take. It's strange how men didn't have to say it; I could FEEL it. And I ran from it.

You can share life's frustrations and bond over them. Share the poetry of misery. But you need to shift your own mindset so you are no longer looking to take so much emotionally from the women you meet. Share, not take.

I am sorry you feel so much depression and frustration. It really is a trap: not being in a relationship makes you depressed and frustrated, but being depressed and frustrated make you less attractive. So I know I handed you advice that sounds trite and meaningless, but the path you seek really does lie in that road. I do feel I've been there, and that I do know.

I cannot promise that anything will work to give you what you seek because, as we both know, not everyone is destined to have a relationship. But you can improve your odds. And the same things that will improve your odds will make you happier in the life you currently have.

You're socially awkward, you're not very good looking (to women), you're getting up there in years. All together, you seem too far behind to most women, which turns them off.

Those are the honest reasons.

Good point but I think that desperation can sometimes be attractive to other desperate people. I'm attracted to desperate women or women I thought were desperate. Couples get together for all kinds of various reasons besides physical & mental attraction like economical, political, & social. Lots of people can have sex with someone even if they are not attracted to them. Also some people do not care that much about having sex. Even if somebody does care a lot about having sex they may decide that it's alot better to be in a decent romantic relationship with no sex than to be alone & single on top of having no sex. It's about settling which is something most people do throughout their life. For example most people want jobs where they make a lot of money & have a lot of power & respect &/or they want to be a famous celebrity but those jobs can be extremely difficult to get. Most people would settle for a job that just pays their bills instead of being homeless on the street because they refuse to work all jobs that are not their dream job. If you hold out for perfection you will spend your whole life never finding it. You could always potentially run into somebody better who checks more of your boxes or is more physically & mentally attractive. I guess I just reached the point where I would take what I could get rite now instead of what I could possibly potentially find some point in the future.



In reference to the shopping part, there are plenty of people who go to the store with a short list & leave the store with 3x as many different things that were not on their list. They maybe saw a good deal on something or they saw something that seemed interesting to them or saw something they forgot about. I seen both my parents do that, my grandma, my girlfriend, & I heard various relatives mention that. I worked 28 months in retail, 25 at WalMart & 3 at a regional sporting goods store & I worked while the stores were open. It is very common for people to get things they were not planning to buy when going in. The reason stores keep things like single serve candies rite by the register instead of on the candy isle is because people notice em while waiting in line & decide to buy them then. Very few people would plan on getting one small bag of M&Ms when they write/type out their shopping list & when walking into the store.

Moving on from the shopping analogy
I met my 1st girlfriend when I was not looking & had little interest in romantic relationships. We had some weird things in common & got along very well & quickly became best friends & then she told me she liked me. However I met my other two girlfriends by aggressively searching. There were times when I was mostly living my life like focusing on my work & stuff & I never got any girlfriends that way though I coulda had a fling with a gay guy Anyways I heard LOTS of contradictory advise for getting a girlfriend which sure was very confusing. Going against the advise I got most often ended up working for me. That advise was to quit acting depressed & desperate. Acting depressed & desperate was the hook/angle that got me my current girlfriend. I had to figure out how to use it to my advantage though like seeking out women who were depressed & had various issues. Being supportive is my strong point within a relationship along with my sense of loyalty & protectiveness of my partner. i guess there is so much contradictory advise because very different things can work for different people. Women can be quite varied just like two Aspies can be quite different in some ways.

Those reasons were very true of me when I was single except the getting up there in years part. What ended up working for me was seeking out women who were the same way. I'd much rather be with someone on my overall level or much lower than someone who is a bit above me with most things. Someone above me would start to think of me as a burden. It's fairly common in Aspie guys / NT women relationships for the NT to feel more like a mom & caretaker for her Aspie than his romantic partner. The NT quickly starts feeling resentment that keeps festering & just gets worse & worse. Then after the relationship ends the NT paints all Aspies with the same brush as being heartless people. Me & my mom had a horrible relationship until I moved out at 30. She's done much more for me than most parents would do for their teens & adult kids but she made very d@mn sure to let me know how lucky I was for her to be doing all that stuff for me. The LAST thing I would want is to be a burden on my romantic partner the way my mom made me feel I was to her & dad. I'd much rather be with someone who makes me feel loved & needed as much as I love & need her.

I really hate it when parents pull guilt trips on their kids, or make them feel like burdens. If we're doing things for someone because we love them, we should accept it as our own choice, something freely given with no payback required.

The same is true in relationships.

And you're assuming they're telling the truth. People in these situations are often more desperate to convince themselves than anyone else. I know this because in the one relationship I was in, I had settled for someone I wasn't attracted to out of desperation. And I was desperate to convince myself that she was a great catch when the reality was that there were many other women I'd rather be with but just could never get a shot at.

Of the things you listed, I've had plenty of women say I'm interesting, funny, kind, etc. But every last one of them still wanted to be "just friends". I've been complimented for my eyes many times, including complete strangers randomly stopping to complement me. But that still never made anyone want to date me or have sex with me. As for being amazing in bed, nobody ever wants to have sex with in the first place so how would they ever know?!



I've always been available and open to possibilities. But nobody has ever been interested. I'm like that one item at the store that nobody ever buys. It's always just sitting right there where everyone can see but still nobody ever buys it. It goes on sale but still nobody buys it because nobody wants it in the first place. So it just sits there until it has to thrown out because it's approaching it's sell by date.



Except for being disgraphic, pretty much everything that described about him applies to me. And I somehow doubt that my penmanship is what's driving all the ladies away. He is probably younger than, and I likely have had more years and hardships to weigh me down much more then he currently is. But even when I was younger I was not getting any attention from women.

It could also be the case that he was far from the first choice of his girlfriend, but she just got no attention from her preferred prospects. And it is also possible that she was far from his first choice as well.

I can only think of two ladies I've known in my life that exhibited signs of being on the spectrum. Neither of them was ever interested in me romantically, and one of them was attractive to me at all. I have not met any other women that were noticeably autistic nor do I know how to. I tried to get involved with the local autistic adult community, and it didn't go well. Given how few autistic women I am likely to encounter, the odds of meeting one with which I share mutual attraction are very low. I have no problem having a relationship with a woman on the spectrum if she is the right woman, but I resent the implication that I have to limited to only dating women on the spectrum.



You were still 5 years younger than me when you started dating. I had no prospects at all on my horizon when I was 34. And when I was at that age I was still far from the point in life when I started feeling like I'm getting too old and running out of time to find what I want.

What I've generally noticed is that when most other people talk about feeling frustrated about not finding something long term, they are still going out and dating and having plenty of sex.

And please forgive my bluntness, but if you and your sister were both struggling to find anyone who wanted to date you for that long, it is highly likely that is because neither of you are appealing to men.

I am not suggesting you are only limited to dating women who are autistic. I am only saying it is what connected my son with his current girlfriend. The one before that was not autistic.

My son prioritizes shared interests and things to talk about over all else in a relationship. I noticed it even in fiction stories he was writing in middle school, if he created couples as part of the story. That is who he is, and from that perspective this relationship is probably the best option he has encountered to date.

But why focus on "first choice?" People aren't like a store where you find a dress you like and then see if it comes in your size. Everything about a relationship is a two way street. A relationship BECOMES your first choice because the more you get to know the person, the more you realize how well they suit your needs. In good relationships that evolution is likely to happen to both partners at the same time. It's a process, not a shopping list.




Hm, I don't feel like how attractive either of us are or aren't is really relevant. The older I get, the more I realize that attractiveness is very much in the eyes of the beholder, and nearly everyone is attractive to someone. Plus rating myself would be an exercise in futility. I encourage you to drop that metric. What I know looking back is that both my sister and I subconsciously threw up barriers that kept us from connecting with the type of men that could suit us for the long term. That is what I worry you are doing: subconsciously throwing up barriers. And that is what I'm trying to steer you away from. If I could impart knowledge to my younger self during those years it would be the many ways I got in my own way.

I highly shared values and interests. But some level of physical attraction is also important to me. But feeling attraction doesn't require that she has to look for a movie star, and I do not have any specific standards other than that she isn't ugly. I just know when I meet women whether or not I find them attractive. But it is also extremely important that we have shared interests. I would not have any interest in a long term relationship with someone physically attractive that I share nothing in common with.

My problem with women my own age is where they are in life compared to where I am. People my age generally are more settled in their careers, have more financial security, and more than likely own their homes or are making mortgage payments. They typically have children who are 16-18. I don't mind dating someone with little kids, but getting involved with the parent of someone is or is almost a legal adult really freaks me out. As someone who's never been a parent, I would not be able to relate to someone who's been dealing with that responsibility for nearly half her life.

Besides, the vast majority of women I've met in the past 10 years have been married or had boyfriends. And nearly all of the few that have been single have had no romantic interest in me at all. There have only been 2 or 3 who seemed to express interest, and they were all ones I knew I didn't want. For example, one woman who heavily hinted she was interested was huge, burly, and masculine.

In college, there was woman who way too obsessive over Christianity. She was the type who freaked out over Harry Potter as well anything else that was popular that she considered too "worldly" and had a lousy attitude toward anyone who wasn't a Christian. She expressed that she was attracted to me, but would not get involved with anyone who isn't a Christian.

A woman I met at work attempted to flirt with a couple of times. To put it bluntly, she was ugly. She sat with me at lunch one day, and told me about her ex cheating on her. She said that attractive people don't get cheated on. This indicates that she herself does not consider herself attractive, and strongly implies that she didn't consider me attractive either. She also told me she has 8 kids, which is way too many.

A coworker one day started acting playful with me. We had known each other for years, and she had never expressed any romantic interest in me, and this just came out of nowhere. As far as I and my other coworkers knew, she was still in a relationship. We were doing work and I complained that she was interfering with my ability to do my job correctly. After that she refused to speak to me at all for months. Some time later, she remarked that I don't understand anything about women. She was not unattractive, but had a reputation for being "crazy".

These are the only types of women who've ever expressed any interest in me. And it's even rare for anything like that to happen.

20K monthly, what a loser; she "deserves" better.

Man, it would be cathartic if he found that post and punted that parasite out the door.