Living with singleness (and liking it)

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I'm going to side with Frank here. I'm nearing 40 and have run out of hope myself... I feel the last 20 years or so have been a complete waste of time and energy... I had set a goal of staying around to 40 but now I'm struggling to make it through the day...

I meant mainly experience-wise, the older you get, the higher the expectations (both in initially when meeting someone and later on), so if you're awkward and inexperienced at dating, like most males with AS are, it starts to count more and more against you the older you get.

Ah yes, the idea being that you're supposed to know what you're doing with this whole dating women thing now.

Personally, I think that if there's any reason it would be easier to date as a teen than as an adult, it would be that teens have no real idea what they're getting into.

-Frank

actually Frank has a point. Expect nothing, and gain the world. Too often we short circuit what is coming down the pipeline to us because we have different expectation of what it is supposed to be like. I wasn't looking for any of my husbands and I loved them all. Just because they were not 'forever; one died in Vietnam in 1970, one died on the Oakland/Emeryville freeway in the Loma Prieta in the 1989 quake (we were separated at the time) and the last one was just a mistake by both of us. But my point is I wasn't 'looking' I was just single when I met them and so were they. We were both into it and we went for it.
I had no idea I was AS, and neither did they. I had no idea I could not feel the love they had for me and I often think I could have been stronger for myself through our relationships and perhaps they would not have lost respect for me when I caved to their needs with out standing up for mine. So I recognize it now and now men don't want at thing to do with me because, as one of them said"what do you need ME for? You have become the man you wanted to marry!"

I don't even want to go into how I felt about losing any of them. Maybe that is what colors my advice to not get too close because parting is sorrow, and it is not sweet.


but Frank has it right. I will welcome death and no, don't get your panties in a twist, I am not looking to fling myself in front of a bus, (today) but it has been a long and full life. I am a Medicare councilor in my employment and I have heard plenty to look forward to. I will know when it is too much.

Merle

_______________________________
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound or foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell;
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

""What good is a long life to us if it is hard, joyless and so full of suffering that we can only welcome death as a deliverer?"

Well, but Freud was talking about something else completely. He was talking about the justification for psychotherapy. And it was a different age. And (not to minimize being AS) but there are far worse things with which humanity suffers, and constantly....in his day, polio, small pox, scarlet fever, stuff we read about but most of us have and never will see. And hunger....and a repressive class system. I can understand what you're saying, but there are all kinds of suffering.

Remember, Freud lived in a time when a noble could walk up to someone on the street, in full of all, and beat someone to death with a cane for no reason, and get away with it. Try living in fear of that.

A life of suffering can always be changed, well, not always, but most of the time.

Beentheredonethat

Suffering gradient arguments always presume.

At what point is life so full of suffering we can only welcome death as a deliverer? Is is being a poverty stricken untouchable? Is it being more actively oppressed, like a concentration camp? Is it a more immediate and inescapable suffering like incurable paralysis from the neck down or chronic pain? Does emotional pain count? Is a lifetime of loneliness equal to or less than a lifetime spent clinically depressed or constantly afraid from acute paranoia? What about feeling like an alien on a planet that seems fundamentally broken to you, almost designed specifically to thwart your every move to interact with the people on it? Who gets to decide where the threshold is? Is there a ranking system, and who gets to design it? Is it you? Who are you? Who are any of us to presume that we can judge for someone else when life is full enough of suffering that they are not even allowed to look forward to the relief death will bring? Wherever you draw that line, woe to those who fall just short and are just baaaaaaaaaaareeely not suffering enough to look forward to the day it ends.

-Frank

I think Joseph Stalin put it better: "Death solves all problems. No man, no problem."

Yeah, Ive heard that before. But the way Frank put is makes suicide look like an exceedingly logical option. Look Im not afraid of death or unwelcome to it-but I personally Am NOT DONE LIVING. There is MUCH to be done in my life AFAIC. A life along and/or one of solitude is just NoT acceptable to me! Im going to KEEP Trying. Im not there yet but I think that I have made a lot of progress. So Merle, yeah people tell me not to look for it and just be single. But you STILL have to have something in your life to keep your mind occupied and to work at. I realized about a month ago that I was making myself SO miserable by fuming over what I dont have that I could really be missing out on the hear and now. Live like you only live once, even though it may not be true. But dont take my word for it, chumps! You live YOUR life the way YOU want to but Im through with living my life that way cuz its a total f*****g waste.



Now That is truly good Advice!

Apparently, I'm advocating suicide whether I like it or not because, were I not, that would be too inconvenient for your argument.

You'll notice that there is hope within me. Upon accepting that I'm probably aspie, I found a substantial source of hope. Not a wellspring, but a logical and sound one. Asperger's takes out the confusion and the superstition of one's circumstances. You stop wondering if there's a God and he simply decided to poke you with a stick for his personal amusement throughout your life. It instead reaffirmed the life-affirming atheism I've been gravitating towards because Asperger's fits in perfectly with a world based upon evolution instead of intelligent design. Enough with the religion stuff though.

In another thread, I explain why the possibility, however remote, of a relationship with an aspie woman is positively bursting with hope, especially compared to what I had before.

Here are the arguments I have against suicide, if you're curious. There are likely people who would miss you and just as aspies can understand moral obligation in many contexts, if not necessarily emotion, they can also understand the obligation to not cause others severe emotional distress. Finding you in a pool of your own blood would be traumatic for them and would cause property damage that you will, by definition, not be around to pay for, so you're effectively stealing money from your landlord or your family as they have to replace the carpet or some other kind of flooring. Besides, there's no guaranteed method of suicide. Freak cases of people surviving falls from airplanes, gunshot wounds to the head, and excessive intake of poison are known to have happened. If you attempt suicide and fail, you will have failed at one of the more pathetic things a human being can fail at, and you will be held in contempt for it by everyone who knows of it for this reason. Also, whatever degree of independence and people leaving you alone you had before will go away and stay away until they're damn sure you're not going to commit suicide again. There's virtually no situation in life so horrible that a failed suicide attempt wouldn't make it worse. So suicide is a gamble, and one with stakes too high for me, besides being immoral for financial reasons and because of obligations to those who care about you, keeping in mind if you're an aspie you may not necessarily realize if people care about you. This argument has the advantage of discounting suicide as a viable option without asserting half-baked notions that life is worth living. Life is not, in fact, necessarily worth living. It's just that it's always the less risky option.

-Frank

I've never been suicidal. I did consider methods of ending my life once, and I believe I found the best one. It is possible to create Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) in your own home, using household products. I found out that undiluted Nitrous binds to the haemoglobin in your blood and fools your brain into believing you are still breating normally, when in fact you are suffocating to death. You experience no suffocation anxiety, and you literally die laughing.

Course, I never intended to do it. But i mentioned this research to the wrong person and got placed on suicide watch. Good times.

I understood what you were trying to say, frankcritic, and I don't see it as just being cynical or advocating suicide. You've got a point... If you hang onto a false hope your entire life, you'll waste all that time pursuing that hope, give yourself endless disappointment, and end up wishing that you had put more energy into something useful. In fact, now that I think about it, it may be a glimmer of false hope which is part of what's eating me up inside... the idea that I could be loved on such a deep level, and then going through yet another lonely day which only further proves what bullsh** that idea is.

And I agree with you about suicide... The main thing keeping me from attempting it is the trauma that it would cause to my family if I succeeded. We've already had a recent death in the family, and that's been bad enough.

I suppose your point is 'and get away with it'. I have been beaten, I have been raped, I have had disgusting atrocities done to my body and mind. I have no assurance any of it will not happen again. Those responsible for such transgressions have 'gotten away with it' as only their karma called them to account for doing it. I have all that in my estrogen charged memory so that the mere mentioning it to you on this forum brings it all rushing back again.

So yes, I live in fear of that. Why you think it is all long ago and in the past is what I don't understand.

Merle

Well yes, you cannot change the past. There IS something that you can do Merle to prevent violence against you in the future though, but Im not so sure you're prepared to do it.

Im not going to deny that part of why Ive been single for so long IS cuz Im extremely picky. The few women who have like me tend to be kinda boyish-which I honestly find sexually unattractive.At the very least I want someone who dresses like a woman(wears makeup, skirts, etc).

Last edited by D1nk0 on 29 Apr 2008, 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

oh, tell me great font of knowledge. . tell this poor unprepared woman the pearls of your wisdom. . .


do you have any idea how arrogant you sound?

Merle

Im not trying to sound arrogant but when I have told what Im about to tell you to other women(who were assaulted)-they often reject the idea completely. My advice is to ARM YOURSELF;preferably with a pistol. Last time I told a woman this she responded by telling me "I HATE guns" . Nothing deters a rapist like an armed woman, ESPECIALLY if she has a gun. If you cant stand firearms another very effective weapon is a C2 TASER.

While I agree women should arm themselves, as should all people who consider themselves responsible enough to be armed and not accidentally hurt themselves and others, I also certainly see some arrogance here. Here's the antidote to it.

When you've walked my road and you've seen what I've seen, you won't go talkin' bout rightous men.
You'll know damn well why I want to keep to my sky never cry 'neath noboby's heel again.
I've seen torment raked across innocent souls, seen sane men mad and good men die.
I've been hounded, hated, married, and tricked.
I've been tortured, cheated, shot, and tied.
Won't see no tears when I say goodbye.

These lyrics, which I will attribute to Michelle Dockrey, sum up part of the point I'm trying to make here. It's not about suicide or wallowing in your suffering. What we're talking about here is individual liberty and what preserves it or does not preserve it. Intellectual honesty is an important part of individual liberty, I think, and part of intellectual honesty is facing the horrors of life head on. If you're mature about it, you won't try and sugercoat it, excuse it, ignore it, or only see the parts of it you want to see. What so many seem to miss is that if you've been through what Merle has one of the only things worse than experiencing it is having to deny the reality of it to any extent for any reason. Yes, it could happen again. No, a gun or taser is not a guarantee, merely imperfect insurance. People like to say you could always get hit by a bus. Yes, but when you've been hit by a bus, your perspective on getting hit by a bus is far less whimsical. It's not just a statistic, it's a bone-chilling reality and if you are not to yet have the comfort of death you must find a way to live with it. That starts with admitting the full depth adn breadth of how bad it is and it is sustained by never having to deny that depth and breadth for the sake of anyone else's comfort.

-Frank