Possible ways to help many autistic people find love?

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I once knew a guy who weighed 500 pounds....who married someone of normal weight—and they kept on being married until both, unfortunately, passed away. Over 20 years of marriage.

The guy was in a similar rank as me in the civil service—a clerk. The woman was slightly higher on the totem pole.

Losing weight would be quite beneficial...but you’re not 100% doomed if you remain 300 lbs.

I'm inclined to agree with this.

Yet another reason why we need a much better-organized autistic community than now exists.

Actually, it would be helpful if you could just tell the story of how you succeeded, without sermonizing about how everyone else should be able to do likewise. The latter is what is offensive. Just telling your story is not, and might actually be helpful to some (not all) people here.

That's a good point. But the problem is that my weight has never been the main problem. Long before I gained this much weight, I was still constantly being overlooked by women because I have ASD and low testostrone.



I'm more concerned about how my weight affects my health than how it affects my love life.



Even if we succeeded at establishing that, it would take at least a decade before it reaches the point where it has any effect. And by then I'll be at least 50. So even in the best case scenario it will come too late to help me.

I definitely agree with the part about being overweight affecting your health.

People seem to be looking only for confirmation of their prejudices, not answers for their problems.

Actually I think most people are looking for both. I think most people are open to potential solutions to their problems if said solutions are NOT presented in a way that invalidates their current perception of reality. They are even more likely to be open to a potential solution if the person presenting it shows empathy for their current situation.

It will take at least a few years, but hopefully less than a decade, if enough of us are willing to get involved in building it.

I disagree.  Personal experience has shown me that when people complain about something, they want affirmation of their feelings and confirmation of whatever narrative they have created to explain why their problems are the world's fault, and not their own.  Then I come along, relate my story, and tell them that they might resolve their problems if they try some of the same things that worked for me.  Suddenly, I am the bad guy for suggesting that effective planning, personal initiative, and self-improvement would help resolve their problems.

Tell my story?

Again?

Forget it.

Mona, c'mon. How long have you been on this forum? It's the minority who take advice.

Partly because they are caught up in a cycle of despair and depression and hopelessness. Which I have sympathy for.

It's really tough being an aspie. The problem is a lot of advice doesn't actually work. A lot of finding love is a pure fluke of being in the right place at the right time.

The advice "successful" people give us very biased to their experience.

My friend keeps telling me to stop looking and I'll meet someone because that's what happened to her It was a pure fluke she and her future husband were at the same party a week later. She didn't do anything, or change anything. Just turned up.

She gets annoyed that I "won't listen" to her

One older woman who is happily married to a wonderful guy and has been for 50years told me that I just need to be loving to find love. My sister was fuming. I have a reputation of being very loving. Yet another pile of poo, subjective piece of "advice".

I'm already doing that, but you (people who want to give advice) don't want to actually listen to what's going on in my life you just want to throw tropes at me.

What works for one person won't work for another due to individual circumstances and personalities and irritating voices and so on.

Last edited by hurtloam on 15 Feb 2021, 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I didn't say his story would be useful to everyone, just to some people.


Right, and only a person with sympathy for them can possibly offer them any truly useful advice.


That's certainly true, which is one more reason why any advice should be offered tentatively, with humility, not a preachy victim-blaming attitude.

The problem lies not in your story, but in how you "tell them that they might resolve their problems if they try some of the same things that worked for me" -- that's where you often come across as preachy, arrogant, and victim-blaming.

The reason advice like "stop looking" and "just be yourself" is so popular with NTs is because for them that means going to social events and mingling and meeting and engaging with new people on a regular basis. Thus increasing their opportunities to meet partners.

But they don't understand that's not how things work for us. For me at least, "not looking" and "being myself" usually mean I'm at home reading or playing a videogame. I have no motivation to go out to overwhelming social environments or force myself to start talking to strangers if I'm not looking, and if I am doing that then I'm most certainly not being myself.

I notice that lots of people tend to not want to hear about others issues & problems. Look at the way society treats depressed people. Others want to just throw meds at the depressed & send them off to counseling because depressed people deserve to be happy. Or others tell the depressed that they need to go to work & keep busy instead of dwelling on their sadness & problems. Others don't want to really help the depressed person actually work on the issues & problems that cause them to be depressed, instead they push the person to quit acting depressed. They say things like "Nobody likes a downer", "Who would want to hang out with a downer", & "You need to be happy with yourself on your own before you can expect to be happy with somebody else". (I know that the ladder is BS because it was NOT true for me & my current relationship) Then when the depressed person does not comply & does not shut up & put on a happy facade, the depressed person is accused of just wanting to be a complainer. People don't stop to think that maybe if they would of tried being real friends with the depressed person & accepted them the way they were & took the time to understand what the root problems were & woulda asked the depressed How can they help them, the depressed person might gradually quit being depressed. I know 1st hand that that approach can sometimes work. I also know 1st hand that depressed people can be very frustrating to deal with sometimes but that should NOT give the non-depressed an excuse or right to take out their frustration on the depressed person, that just makes the depressed feel worse & compounds the problem. In that situation the non-depressed should try taking their own advice & step back some & do their own things for a while. They should not get angry at the depressed person because the depressed refused to take their advice which never was really meant to be helpful advice in the 1st place.

I can get why you'd be upset by hearing that phrase. I highly doubt you were ever majorly complaining about being single. I sure was very desperate but noone ever really tried setting me up. Some older people told me things like how they wished their daughter or granddaughter would be interested in going out with someone like me instead of losers & some people around my age said how they wished they knew a single girl who woulda been interested in going out with me. I actually just remembered that when I was 19, I was using instant messenger programs to chat with various people & my best friend from high-school had me start chatting with a girl he knew who was like a year older than us. I actually did meet her & hang out with her & my friend 1ce but I was not majorly interested in the idea of a romantic relationship at the time & I was super shy. She was a good friend thou. Rite after that, I started chatting with my 1st girlfriend online. My 1st gf had more in common with me & some ways which was kinda what I needed to really want my 1st relationship. The other girl started dating someone around that time & they got engaged pretty fast & then I quit hearing from her. I quit chatting with my friend around then as well, he was very focused on his schooling & stuff. I tend to forget about that thing when posting in this section I guess cuz it was so long ago & so close to when I started my 1st relationship.

I do think there is some truth in that phrase thou. People who really are desperate for a romantic relationship should try to have realistic criteria. I know you get frustrated by members complaining about being single when they have very high requirements. I get frustrated by them as well sometimes but I tend to try stepping back & not touching that one. I find myself doing that a lot on this forum these days. It's easier said than done thou. I start typing a reply & then stop & delete it cuz I feel I'd be wasting my time or it would rub some members the wrong way. Sometimes I actually post the reply & then decide to delete cuz I know others would likely be offended by it.

I've never used any dating sites. I'm currently in a longterm relationship that began in mid-2012, with a man who I met at the end of 2008 (and who had been diagnosed with "Asperger's syndrome" back in 2001).


In the real would as I've experienced it, various oddball subcultures have had their own social dynamics that are/were sometimes radically different from the mainstream world. These nonmainstream social dynamics were partly intentional/planned and partly unintended/spontanous.


Perhaps you are best paired with an empathetic compassionate NT woman, and that may well be the case for many autistic males -- but not all. Some autistic people prefer, and function best in, relationships with other, sufficiently compatible autistic people.