Do You Seem Gay?

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I have had people question my sexual preferences, including women that I was very much attracted to. It's not easy being AS with sensory issues. It is far less easy when you are undiagnosed. I never could understand why the more attracted I felt to someone, the more socially awkward I felt, and the stronger the drive to pull far away, or act like an ass out of fear.
I used to feel so awkward that I would go out of my way to avoid women that I felt attracted to. If I did find myself close to them, I would often appear rude, insensitive, uninterested, or all of the above to women that I wanted to be able to act sensitive, interested and respectful towards. I just didn't know how to be an Aspie and be in a relationship. Heck, I didn't even own that I was an Aspie.

I am slowly learning to own these fears, and to grow past the need to run or act rudely because I am feeling socially awkward. I am slowly, slowly beginning to grow. WP helps a lot, especially this forum.

I can see how my old behavior would have caused some people to question my sexuality, but I can assure you that I am 100% heterosexual. I am just a heterosexual male who was utterly terrified of engaging socially with women that I felt attracted to. I am an Aspie after all.

Oddly I feel that fear growing stronger in me these days. Then again I've known I was aspie since I was 11, hadn't really helped that much. Just today I was going to class and walked past a cafe area of the school when a table full of friends from other classes pulled me over (2 or 3 of which I hadn't seen since last semester and had been somewhat close with). One of the girls in particular I got along with real well, at first had been a bit intimidated by her but ended up not only realizing that she was a really good person but she held a lot of values I really didn't think women possessed these days anymore. Turns out I was talking to her most of the time I was over there, started to feel that unease (like I was getting way more respect from someone than I'm comfortable with), and desided to wave and walk on. I went outside for a cigarette thinking "Wow...this is messed up, I'm even closing off people who do like me..." when her and another friend came out for a smoke as well. We ended up talking again, she introduced me to her friend, and during the course of the conversation she ended up dropping her opinion that I was the smartest person she knew there which comming from her jarred me a little. The conversation played well and I once again was reminded of the fact that yeah, some women can still know me past my front and still like me as a person - just a shame that getting that kind of positive input or having people feel or think positively of me somehow just feels wrong...I guess it's that trepidation thing we talked about before.

I'm thinking that owning AS is far easier when someone has that inner-geek who loves rollplaying games, loves Star Trek, is pleasantly optomistic and oblivious to what AS really means in society, because what they have is a very positive form of game in and of itself; others of us really are almost like damaged NT's with broken NT dreams and it's not like we're trying to run from our inner geeks, it's really us being us. Sounds like your handling those issues head on and I wish you luck.

Thank you techstepgenr8tion.
That was probably one of the most amazing pieces that I have read here, full of hope, feelings of despair, and a sense of impending joy. I found much that I could relate to.

I wish you luck with your new friend.



Personally, I've found that having eight years experience living the principles of a 12 step recovery program helps too.

Well, I kinda feel like it served as a bit of a wake-up moment. The crazy thing is I've been in a place now for the last few months where I've really felt like too many of the societally-condemned things about my outward appearance, speech, and mannerisms (negatively condemned in the sense that they have you sliding through the cracks for eternity it seems but not all out tweeked on) were completely past my control and like as much as they were holding me down I might as well forget about women period. There's still some truth in the fact that overload sketches me out but it may not be as true to think that my outward appearance is universally condemned and that the slight blunting effect it has on my social skills is really the kiss of death with everyone. I guess people with integrity and who respect those 'virtue' type things are rare these days and even when I do see em, I'm still afraid to let myself take it as acceptance.

We first have to embrace ourselves with a very deep level of acceptence.
Then we are able to accept others, especially accept others accepting us.

I can not control my feelings of being overloaded.
I never will be able to control it.
What I can control is how I work with my feelings of being overloaded, and what I can do about it.

Here is a story from something that happened at my work (school) today.
There is a kindergardner who is in the class next to the one I teach in who has a Neural Disorder.
At lunch time he wanted to play with the students from my class.
He walked over to them. He watched them for a while. I could see that he could not figure out how to participate with them, so he threw the objects in his hands at them, and started laughing. (He was asking them to play with him in ways that a person with AS could intuitively understand and possibly relate to.) His aide came running over yelling no, no, but offering no assistance for his felt need for someone to play with. I told her that I would take care of it, and proceeded to play with him for the rest of his lunch period. At the end he was worn out and happily transitioned to the next activity. I think that him and I both got a lot out of our time together.

I can draw strong analagies to this childs behavior and the way I have functioned around women. I saw them and I was fascinated. I wanted to interact with them in meaningful ways, but didn't know how. Finally, out of desperation, I threw an insult at them, and walked away smiling.

My aspergers has prevented me from reading social cues creating hightened feelings of discomfort. I am not accountable for these feelings, I am accountable for what I do and have done with them.