Online Dating

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After 8 years of marriage, I recently found myself single again.

I've gone through the posts here and have come to the conclusion that re-entering the "market" is going to totally suck, and I'm looking for a ray of hope.

Online dating seems to be a good option (at least theoretically) because I'm pretty sure I want to try finding an Aspie Girl which you usually don't run into at the usual places.

Anyone have any experiences to share, good or bad?

My advice for AS-AS relationships:

Find out what her quirks and sensory issues are, and consider yours as well, and try to work your way around hers, and come to sort of common ground.

Realize that you may have to step out of your comfort zone occasionally, as with NTs.

Respect her need for alone time, and allow yourself the same.

You shouldn't have to change for anyone.

Thanks for the advice Tim,

Actually, that sounds like heaven to me.

I don't want to do everything together!

Ideally, I want to get together for romance/sex/whatever, and then just have the space to be our Aspie selves. I would be totally faithful and happy with this arrangement.

She could even sleep in another room if she wanted to, as long as she didn't mind an ocassional visitor ;o)

I met my husband on-line (match.com). I like on-line because one's "cards are all on the table" so to speak. In other words, there is no vagueness that you are looking for a relationship. In your case - you can specify more specific criteria. Potential partners can read your profile, consider whether they would be a good fit and share their profile with you. Once you think that you both have the potential of being compatible - you can meet.

I recommend e-mailing through the system for a few conversations. After that, have a face to face meeting over coffee in a coffee shop in a well populated area. This gives you a chance to see if there is any real spark (it is hard to tell if there is "spark" over e-mails - even with recent, accurate photos). If there is no "spark" or either of you are disinterested in pursuing it further - that's okay. You didn't waste a lot of each others time and you didn't build a sort of "fantasy person" that you only knew online. If there is a "spark" you can start dating and discuss other issues that are important to either of you (and have fun dating... that's what it's all about after all

My general recommendations - stick to your own age group (your in your forties - so you might want to have an age range of late twenties to early fifties. Also, try to stick to women who live in your general vicinity (say, within 100 miles or 50 miles or ??). There is no sense communicating with someone who lives thousands of miles away - it is hard to meet up and a pain to maintain a long distance relationship (I've been there and done that - don't recommend it).

Anyways, best of luck to you.

Only bad experiences here.

Then again i've only had bad ones IRL too.

Some of the more popular organized pay sites at least do a good job of making sure you aren't getting complete nuts, that said though I'm not 100% sure how much you want to sweat the AS/NT line; afterall if someone's matched that well for you they're matched that well, when that happens to be an NT you'll likely have just as many pros and cons as with an aspie.

Online dating worked fine for me, as long as at it was a "pay" site such as eHarmony. It is definately a way to broaden your pool of available people, and as the other posters have said, a well worded profile will help you weed out obvious conflicts.

I've tried online dating, but haven't had any success. I don't have any good/recent pics and I suck at writing catch/interesting profiles.

I found with online dating that most men who wrote to me were not good matches or have anything in common with me they just found me attractive. I think for a lot of people they do not place enough importance on similarity and think that it doesnt matter as long as they find you attractive, I think they lack good predicting of outcome.

I found the guys who were good matches only wanted to be friends.

I found okcupid the best as it is free and has lots of quizes to do which was fun. I found aspieaffection really not good.

On WP is quite good as you can pm people who make 'like minded' posts and get to know them and let things develope naturally (with no pressure) I found the romantic pressure of dating sites very straining and keeping up with all the emails very stressful.

I have to waive the distance requirement, as there is nobody in the San Antonio-Austin area that I connect with. In fact, strangely enough, I connect more with the members in the northeastern U.S. and Australia than I do my fellow Texans.

Tried it several times. I met some women, but I have yet to seal the deal.

The odd thing is, all I've had in the form of relationships have come from online, talking to friends of friends from other places.

It's led to 3 relationships.

1 was amazing.

The other 2, were awful, as I got cheated on by one and the other was very controlling and I never felt she cared about anything but sex.

Thanks to everyone who responded!

Not too sure about his myself, but the AS thing has real consequences in a relationship and they need to be "on the table" out front.

The biggest issue for me is the fact that I don't really have/want/need any "friends" in the NT sense of the word. I am not a misanthrope, I am friendly and polite and I enjoy helping people when I can. But my idea of "friends" are people that participate with me in pursuing common interests and not much beyond that.

This is obviously going to be a problem for someone who lives with a cellphone glued to their ear and Twitters the details every time they go to the bathroom.

I think an NT may be an option if they are independent and not "clingy", but I am thoroughly unqualified if they need an emotional babysitter, and in my experience this is very uncommon.

Online dating can be great.

Looking for an aspie girl can feel like the perfect way to go as you can both understand eachother in that way. However, after knowing many aspies both online and offline (my college had the only 'aspie lounge' in the country), I can say that they're either not going to be your type just as an NT won't be, or they are your type but they're not single and/or are too frigid.

Though that's just my experience, perhaps you'll be lucky.

Yes I had three experiences and they were all bad. #1 I married and she was a sociopath - I had been blinded by marrying after my wife died of a brain tumor, and being the typical Aspie I could not really read her - she told me what I wanted to hear, then proceed to steal money, have an affair and use drugs. That marriage lasted 90 days I kid you not.

#2 was a Long distance relationships that blew up when neither of us could pull off moving to the other's State, plus she was bi-polar and would not take her meds, so one minute she was happy, the next, crying for no reason.

#3 was a bad situation in that we would also have had to move to the other's town and I teach music lessons here so that didn't happen either.

For me three failures out of three ties sums it up nicely - online is a BIG mistake for most people.

BTW I met my current gf by just having the nerve to chat her up at a bus stop and that is the true way to do it - not in bars, not thru friends/family, not thru speed-dating, just IRL and just DO IT.

I tried a half-dozen sites. None of them were of much value. Perhaps it's may age cohort, but the expansion of opportunities that online dating represents seems to have convinced many women that there is no need to compromise on anything. Perfection in dating is just a matter of living long enough to winnow through the possibilities.