Living with singleness (and liking it)

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Noo, find a spot of land and take the time to build it your self, like, why not? alls you got is time.
and as for interests, find something a bit more creative then games, something you can look at years later and say hey, I did that.

No offense to anyone who's had success with online dating, but here's my broad generalisation from my experience with it:

It seems to me at least that online dating is a low-pass filter, a kind of last resort for desperate people who aren't able to attract potential sexual partners or meet them through normal means. If you believe the conventional wisdom, the vast majority of the population (those that aren't single) date people they've met through friends, co-workers, or someone taking the same course as them if they are students (so they have a good idea of what the person is probably like before they decide to pursue them). So even if you manage to beat the odds and find someone who's mutually attracted to you online, they themselves probably aren't going to be terribly attractive, either physically or personality-wise (look no further than all the "creative" camera angles of pictures people post on dating sites that don't give a good idea of their physical attractiveness). Additionally, the ratio of males to females on dating sites is afaik huge, in the neighbourhood of 5:1 or something equally terrible, so if you're a guy, you've got that much competition (from NTs, even, which is worse, because they have the advantage) for the few attractive single women that are on a given online dating site and live in your area and are in the same age range, so the odds are stacked against you for finding someone even reasonably attractive.

I haven't found any success solving the lonliness issue, other than temporarily by lowering my standards so that I managed to be in a relationship even if it wasn't a very good one, and that's not something that could last. I'm also confronted with the dread that almost all the people my age that are any good are already taken, it's one market that's fairly efficient that way. Too bad I can't roll back the clock to my late teens when everyone was on a level playing field.

I've all but given up on finding "someone special" especially after five of the last eight times I've gone out in public on my own (That's a year's worth), I've had women/girls flirt with me as a joke, dare, bet, etc. One may have been sincere, but the setup was the same as all the others and I was in no mood to be mocked that day. I'm still mentally kicking myself over that for not being completely sure.

Anyway, the real reason I'm posting is because I've found a bandage of sorts for the unending loneliness. My nearly 2 year old niece is at the point where she can communicate pretty well, not always in words and is just unbelievably adorable, so I've been spending every minute I can just doing stuff with her. In my experience, it's easier to bond with a toddler than someone my own age, because the toddler is literally a new person and in one sense has the same social abilities I have.

I would like to find a girlfriend, get married and maybe have kids of my own someday, but for the present, I have a way to stop feeling lonely for a couple hours a week.

with my mentality? oh damn ....are you accusing me of being an anti-women rights? I just gave you an example of a successful woman who earn more than her husband (my mother and father) if i was really an ant-women rights I would hide this fact and I would feel ashamed for it but I don't in fact I feel proud about it , don't accuse people based on assumptions you create in your head especially when you know nothing about them.

I didn't deny the struggle of the women during all these decades till today but I think that 60% is an exaggeration and I think a part of the problem is the inferiority complex:you don't need a man to be financially independent , that idea alone can back you off if you believe in it .Damn, you live in US and not in KSA. Where I work women are getting paid exactly as much as men (comparing 2 with the same positions).

How old are you btw?

then why are you so driven to find a relationship?

you do know it is a vestige of the neurotypicalness of the hormones produced by your body, don't you?

Merle

oh, please! you must be joking!

The playing field has never been level. Not for aspies. Not when we were kids, not when we were teens, not when you're twentysomething, thirtysomething, middle-aged, golden years, or in the nursing home just wishing someone would visit you. You see, it is a playing field, playing implying a game. Not only are we bad at this game, we do not usually even perceive that it being played when it is. According to my friends, I've had waitresses flirting with me a few times. They may be messing with me, they may not. I'll never know, though I certainly wouldn't take it too seriously with waitresses as this can simply be good tip-getting strategy.

As to wanting a relationship being simply a vestige of the neurotypicalness of the hormones produced by your body, whether true or not, this is of little comfort. If it is true, I'm curious as to the evolutionary rationale. Wanting to play the game to get companionship and having it fit the specific model of marriage or male dominance or what have you, yeah, but the very idea of companionship for the purposes of sex and reproduction itself? I doubt that's vestigal, as nobody's arguing that the average aspie's sex drive is any less than the average NT's. As for having children, if we're not hard-wired to want them or be able to have the opportunity to have them too often, then the genes that make up aspies are not ever going to become major players or even have a serious chance at long term survival.

-Frank

Like I said, I think I have conflicting programming... at least that's my best theory... The neurotypical social instinct is interfering with my Asperger's anti-social instinct... and while the Asperger's tends to win out, I can't always help it if I'm a "lonesome loser."

Are you sure it is a "social instinct" rather than your sexual instinct?

Well, where does the need for affection and acceptance come from? If it was purely sexual, I don't think I would continue to want for it after... ahem... dealing with private matters.

It's useless to think about it Cyberman, just try to spend your time of doing useful things, learning new skills , focus on your job ...etc

Survive, survival instinct is stronger than any other.

........If you have an instinct to survive.

Wow Frank, that must be really reassuring to cyberman . First of all: DO NOT GIVE UP(Hope), EVER!
If you simply feel lonely might I ask if something platonic with a woman would be at all satifying to you? Though its not love/romance it might help ease the loneliness you feel .

The mere fact that it is comforting to think a thing does not make it true. My statement may be cynical and pessimistic, but it is also honest.

That said, hope is necessary to functioning in life. Self-delusion may be necessary from time to time in order to have that hope and this could be considered as a necessary evil. Be careful to not take such self-delusion too far though. Ultimately, the truth about yourself, others, and the real nature of your situation will be self-evident. As to real hope, know that that will require trusting others. If you're prepared to risk that, it's more than I can say.

-Frank

But Frank, HOW can you know whats going to happen in Cybermans future OR that he really IS going to be single his whole life?
Futhermore what makes you think there's nothing he can DO to increase the chances of him finally finding someone?...........
Yes you're being cynical, but I DONT for the life of me think that you're being realistic.

Perhaps he won't be single his whole life. Perhaps there are things he can do to ensure that he won't be. I will grant you these things.

The original context when I made my offending comments was that it had just been argued that if he does not make the effort to become part of a couple, then on his dying day he would regret it. I question this. What if you spend your whole life getting your hopes up, taking great pains to maintain such hopes at terribly draining cost, only to fail? Then will you not get to your dying day and rue so much time spent in vain? I'm coming from the perspective of someone who maintained a relationship against all reason, against all sanity, against all truth, for a year and a half just because I wanted to be in one so badly. Am I glad I at least tried? No, in point of fact, I am not. I would have been far better off spending all of that time and effort playing videogames. Certainly no theoretical amount of Grand Theft Auto would have damaged me as significantly as the relationship itself or the effort put into it did. So I think you are acting as though YOU know what is going to happen in Cyberman's future and that you know he will not be single his whole life.

Deciding whether to dedicate a tremendous amount, or even a marginal amount, of effort to coupling is Cyberman's alone to make, but there's no reason to pretend that any effort made towards such a goal is guaranteed not to be effort in vain. Think about if the effort is in vain his whole life. If he is on his deathbed and he looks back upon all that effort in vain, do you honestly believe it's realistic to say that he'll think, "Well, at least I tried." I maintain he'd look back at all the time that could've been spent on friends, family, videogames, and dusting the blasted lampshades in his home that was spent on a draining lifelong quest that actually got him nowhere. That's not to say that will happen, but to insist that the, "at least I tried" outcome would be the result if it did is nonsense.

-Frank