The REAL reason why you don't have a girlfriend/wife

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True that, a lot of members have 0 friends here and fail in making friendships, most relationships in the nt world start through socialization (ie. friends of friends, outing with friends, activities with friends....), social ineptness certainly affects that.

The mistake is actually that I tend to go out on Tuesdays.

Tuesdays are weekdays, meaning that whatever I choose to do I still have to wake up early in the morning.

Anyhow they are there every week and I ll try to join them until later now that summer is here

So that's the REAL reason you don't have a gf, you should go out on weekends.

Nice, MacDragard. Nice.

We can blame all of our problems on Asperger's, and that works just fine for justification and sympathy on this site where everyone knows what it's like... the rest of the world, though... they don't give a damn. That just means we have to work a little harder and try to have a little more courage and resiliency than everyone else.

Asperger's also makes it really, really easy to turn to removing ourselves from social situations as a solution to our problems, since we don't have the same level of need for regular social interaction as NTs seem to. That's a temptation I do my best to resist, because I know it won't help in the long-term.

That's some good advice in general, but may not always be enough on its own. I think understanding Aspergers is the key to changing it, at least on the surface to the point at which you can try to limit the typical "awkwardness" that comes from it.

Back when I was in University, I didn't know I had Aspergers yet, but I could tell I was abnormal in that it was hard for me to form close relationships, despite wanting to really badly. Usually the typical reasons for this tend to be labeled as shyness or not enough social experience. Although I don't consider myself particularly shy, I knew that I did sometimes feel intimidated by talking to people, so I decided to try to take things into my own hands based on that. Even though it was uncomfortable, I basically forced myself into social situations (like joining school scoial clubs), and also made a specific effort to talk and get to know at least one person in every one of my University classes.

The results were a bit mixed. A lot of the time my talking to people never really led to any sort of friendship with them at all, maybe just an in-class aquaintance at best for the duration of that class. In a few cases I was able to make some temporary friendships that lasted beyond the class semester. On rarer occasions I was able to go out on a date with someone as a result of my class interactions with them.

The problem is that because I didn't know or understand Aspergers, my self-led assertiveness training never addressed the real reason I was having trouble socially. It wasn't shyness, because my anxiety regarding talking to people seemed to actually be lower than most NTs. But the Aspergers awkwardness still existed despite a lack of shyness or social anxiety. So the ultimate problem continued and I didn't really have any serious relationship through most of my 20s.

So ultimately, I think it comes down to two things... one is what you mention. Don't just become a hermit, you do need to try to interact with people, even though it will be uncomfortable. The second equally important thing though is gaining enough knowledge about the autistic condition to be able to recognize what you're dealing with in yourself. Aspergers doesn't always mean shyness, it's a lot more complicated than that, and as my story hopefully shows, can still be a big hinderance to social ability even when shyness is mostly eliminated.

A lot of people still seem to be claiming their Asperger's is a hurdle towards getting a girlfriend because of problems with understanding others. But are you lot thinking of problems with understanding all girls? Or just NT girls?

Every NT girl I've liked, I haven't been able to get them to like me in that way. Or I just haven't picked up on it. However, girls who I've strongly suspected are aspies are generally (to me at least) a lot easier to read and therefore a lot easier to tell when they've liked me. My girlfriend is an aspie and we understand each other so well. When I look into her eyes I can see so much love for me, and she can see so much love for her in my eyes.

Anyway, my point is a lot of you seem to be completely ruling out aspie girls as potential girlfriends, for some bizarre reason. Aspie girls are more likely to be totally honest with you about how they feel, instead of fannying around and being all cryptic like a lot of NT girls. Why not at least give your fellow aspies a chance? You might be very pleasantly surprised

Because the opposite sex uses me as a punching bag.

I think you'll find the reason you don't have a girlfriend was evident in how you answered a couple of the threads in this section. People are jerks, men and women. You need to work on standing your ground, instead of whining and doing nothing about it.

^There's nothing that CAN be done about it.

Why not? Many members of WrongPlanet have gone to great lengths to not let their Aspergers beat them into a dead end, and have come to great successes. Or are you saying the situation is out of your hands for a different reason?

(Bear in mind, I'm playing Devil's Advocate here and going with the selfhelp hooha that has been spouted).

There's nothing that can be done about it, because in the end, it will amount to null. It will inevitably prove to be for nothing, or for worse.

And is this from experience? If so, what kind of experience? How do you feel the OP's points mount to nothing? Surely when you seek companionship and find a companion (for however long), you've succeeded in attracting someone and therefore it didn't amount to null but rather what you set out to achieve.

soo much fail i dont even no where to begin...

Interesting post. My experience was quite similar to yours, although I largely stopped trying at some point when I realized what I was trying didn't seem to work for some reason I couldn't figure out. How did you address the issues caused by Autism though? If, for example, your processing speed in social situations is pretty slow (or there is too much input, whichever way you look at it), this looks like a dead end to me. You'll never be able to play the social games adequately because of that. Sure, you can try to get used to certain things and try to train yourself to filter, but it's a very clumsy process that just doesn't seem very promising considering the dynamic nature of social situations.

horatio alger is just an old feelgood tale. the only reason I have a sweetie now [after 5 decades in the wilderness] is because another WP member took a shine to me. IOW she did the social work that I was not able to do on my own.