Something I might add here, and I'm staying as far away from the flamewar as I possibly can.
In my own experiences in my early 20's, working a restaurant job as a busser. The strange thing about me back then, where my headspace was at. I was in the grimier side of the raver crowd, I was internally more on the harder intellectual side - just trying to give you a context as to where the rest of this is going and where I was in the head.
What happened to me with women though had a lot to do with sheerly the disability and overload effects of my AS. Like when I got overloaded, I looked fragile, I looked and came off like some sort of toy or disney character - and there was little or nothing I could do or say to really counterbalance or counteract that just because I was throwing all my energy at driving through it but had no energy left for the guile and all that (almost like trying to type after your hands have been under ice - numbed and fumbling). What I really wanted was just crisp interaction, to be able to flirt and feel the chemistry but have a girl I was talking to be able to say something real sharp and cerebral, for us both to be able to balance the two at the same time (and yeah, I was in my early 20s, I realize that's kind of naive).
So, lots of women generally did take a liking but more on how adorable they thought I was, some would giggle when they talked to me till they were in tears. Its something, based on my nonverbals, I knew they couldn't help it much. I, on the other hand, had the dilemma of being a completely different kind of person than I looked like. Anytime I played it a bit stoic or tried to be crisp and politely steer them and our conversations more onto the ground where I wanted it - they didn't really get it and if anything it just came off as disinterest.
Ever since I turned 25 or 26 that whole thing has luckily gone away. My AS still has that effect on me where I vibe up and look kind of cute and passive but I'm able to offset it just by vibing up like enough of an NT guy and saying the right kinds of things where they see what they need to - I have that cute side but I'm also an incredibly multilayer person emotionally and as a person; as far as I'm concerned they need to have a good grasp of that AND like that about me and want to explore it for things to really be on rather than tackling me on one facet and ignoring the larget 80 or 90% of me.
The only thing that still scares me off when women do get that really elated vibe about me being a 'chick' or whatever, while I know its not a diss and I know its a legit level of attraction just because there are some very definite physical sparks still in there - I know what my guys friends would say about this and their for the most part right. A lot of times the girls who do react on that level are the ones who are a bit more wrapped in their own world, not quite as analytical in their analysis of people, and the trouble with girls like this when they see a nice guy is they do a lot of things - unintentionally, that are a bit on the caustic side. A lot of girls who go gah-gah over a nice guy have dated as*holes and have a hard time finding nice guys but in the end that history of having as*holes has made them lazy in terms of self-regulating their behavior; they had guys who'd sort them out and consequently they leaned on that and got used to it. For me, partly just on ethical reasons and even when its due AS issues, I don't like to have to regulate and babysit - in a few years time if I can ever emotionally get my emotions around the idea of compromising and taking it gratus that I'll have to 'regulate' I can, but part of me just isn't ready for all that yet.
I'm not saying women are stupid or anything, just that I think what people are used to seems to shape them a lot and when some girls go for a nice guy they don't have a full grasp of what that means or the fact that rather than being autocratic fixers when things go sideways a nice guy can't and won't tolerate certain things - more likely than not he'll just walk. When I do see girls tripping out about me on that innocent level, by all means - I try to be fair, analytical, give them a chance, but most of the girls who I mesh with like that I realize that the same thing that has them attracted to me would also be the same thing that would have their side of the interpersonal equation set in a place where they're used to being a bit overbearing and setting the pace for my dynamic rather letting it be an equal give and take (which of course would stifle me, make me feel more and more disenfranchised with the relationship, it s dynamic I really have to be alert to and learn ways to correct it that work for me).
That's something I know I have to get better with, not so much asserting myself when its cut and dry that I need to but all those moments short of that where I could completely roll one way or another depending what I'm thinking of it at that point and I could very easily have no one in the room agree - that's the nasty side of AS self-monitoring, its a lifesaver when it comes to getting on with people, making friends, and not having your life crushed by the outside world but after a certain basic amount of that is built and after you have the intuition to go along with that, you have to realize that being compromising in a lot of situations short of again - the black and white easy stuff - is still seen as a sign of weakness and lots of people decide a persons roll and how they will and won't act right in that gray area where you could more easily talk yourself out of unnecessarily being a dick as opposed to naively saying "sure" and having it taken as a cue that anything goes.
Ladies, don't get me wrong, I love you and all but a lot of this is stuff that's unfortunately rather inflicted on us guys - we have certain rolls to meet, otherwise things do go sideways on us (and, even with women who do react well to nice guys, literal not the quote-unquote, it can still be a bad situation).
28 Feb 2008, 4:19 pm
