Fear of being prejudged (Asperger's) and Cassandra

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I don't think there's anything wrong with not revealing AS, especially in email correspondance. If you ever meet up with a person from the site, you may wish to disclose your diagnosis just so they understand you better, but even if you don't, it won't make much odds

Your mum has a point. I remember reading a story once about a guy who met a woman on the internet and they emailed for ages and he'd seen her profile picture etc.. but when he met up with her, he found out she was in a wheelchair and didn't want anything more to do with her. She was angry because he was discriminating against her, and he was mad because he felt she'd lied by omission.

Basically, if you post that you have AS, it may limit the number of people who contact you, but those that do may be more accepting. If you don't mention it, you may have more replies but those people may not be as accepting of your personality, so you will have wasted both your time.

I think it is perfectly appropriate not to reveal Aspergers. I don't think it's anyone's business but yours until some actual face-to-face relationship develops for awhile. People DO judge. My brother is a 20 year recovering alcoholic who is a successful businessman. He does NOT reveal to potential dates "Oh, yes, I'm a sober alcoholic 20 years". Because people have a preconceived idea of what that means - irrelevant to what he is actually like. Now, if it looks like a real dating relationship is developing, he talks about what this means for him.

A a Mom myself, I can see your mom is likely trying to protect you by giving this advice.

I do think it's helpful for a person online to give their 3d personality some context. For instance, if I meet someone online I might say I am very outgoing, talkative, and an extrovert. Mr. Rath when we first dated certainly said he needed his downtime, and was very introverted and overwhelmed by a lot of people and stimulation. He indicated he found phone conversations awkward and preferred written communication. I "got" all those pieces without him spelling it out.

This is a re-posting of a topic that might of been the cause of a spammer coming on here earlier. I'd like to thank makuranososhi for allowing me to re-post this. Let's try this again.

This morning, I spoke to my mom again about internet dating. She asked me if I would tell the other person if I had Asperger's. Then I said no, I wouldn't. Now, what I'm saying is just that I wouldn't want to mention that until I met and got to know that person. The only reason is because I don't want them to google Asperger's and find websites like FAAAS and ASpartners and hence be pre-judged. Even though people do withhold some personal information about themselves on dating sites and only tell the the other person when they meet, my mom seems to think that leaving something like that out is tantamount to lying. The main question is, what is the difference between withholding personal information and lying by omission? The problem is that those so-called Cassandra women say a lot nasty and bad things about their partners with Asperger's syndrome in places like ASpartners in Delphi forums. I read a thread on ASpartners a while back where a woman asked if she should pursue a relationship with a man with Asperger's syndrome. The vast majority of replies said she should absolutely not. The only thing she needed to know about him was that he had Asperger's and nothing else. I don't want to be pre-judged.

My apologies for the slipshod work, but I tried to recover the conversation from earlier for you.


M.

I tried googling "dating a man with Asperger's Syndrome" and the hits it gets look pretty mild. It's mostly hits on forums where women say things like "how can I get my Aspie partner to open up to me?" and mild stuff like that. No mention of Cassandra Syndrome (I know what it is from somebody else's thread) or how horrible it is to date a man with AS or anything that would make a woman say "no way!!".

Pre-emptively describing your quirks sounds best to me. Rather than saying "I have Aspergers Syndrome" and being at the mercy of google (even if the hits looked mild to me), describe your quirks. That's a lead-in for describing Asperger Syndrome at a later point. And it also shows you as an individual rather than having the woman guess about you based on a google hit. You aren't "hiding" Asperger's Syndrome. You are describing the quirks that are likely a result of AS and explaining where those quirks came from at a later point.

Just out of curiosity, I prominently disclosed my diagnosis in my profile at a well-known dating site, as well as describing some of my more prominent Aspie quirks.

I would say that interest in my profile (judged by views, messages, "winks", etc) dropped by at least 50% after I included it.

Nevertheless, I managed to start one conversation with an attractive woman. First I found myself downplaying my AS (I am reasonably well-compensated at my age) and she seemed to be OK with that. We exchanged a few messages before she stopped responding completely - I really tried to write well, but I think she just got too "weirded out" by me.

The jury is still kind of out, but I have concluded preliminarily that it is probably best *not* to disclose, because you will have a hard time getting a first date.

But on the first date my AS becomes pretty apparent anyway so I (usually) can't get a second date.

But I think I *will* get a second date eventually, so that's what keeps me going.

well there is pluses and negatives, I worry that if I reveal my AS that it would put people off especially as there has been high profile bombers and murderers with AS. People can be very ignorant, when I got my diagnosis I niavely revealed it to friends who quickly dumped me as a friend.

however this brings up a good point for revealing the diagnosis, as it will scare off the judgemental trivial people thus saving you from getting attatched to people who will ultimately hurt you or reject you or shaft you in some way.

I'm certainly no expert, and I don't have a lot of practice in this sort of thing... but this is what I had put for myself in the "Eligible Odd-Bods" page: Click here for Stinkypuppy's profile!

The basic thought I wanted out of my dating profile was that it be both honest and balanced. The honesty is of course to ensure that people who reply to the profile are not misled into thinking you were somebody that you're actually not. The balancing is really to show that you actually have what it takes for a healthy, long-term relationship. After all, if you aren't a balanced person yourself, at best your partner and you will end up in a co-dependent situation, which isn't all that healthy. Unbalanced profiles don't look appealing: overly-glowing profiles look totally unrealistic and perhaps vain, whereas overly self-critical profiles look unhealthy or even dangerous. A mix of pluses and minuses make you look like the real human being that you are. It's honest and balanced.

While this basic thought seems simple enough, it's more than sufficient for the profile's intended purpose. In fact, this thought is quite difficult to pull off effectively. When I wrote my profile, I tried to make sure that I never mentioned a bad trait without spinning it in a good way (If you see me face-plant while snowboarding and you laugh, well I'm glad I can liven up your day a little). This is intended to show to the reader that firstly, my bad traits can actually be good (in the snowboarding case, hopefully humorous), and secondly, I have enough wisdom to know that good and bad are two sides of the same coin, i.e. there is a balance. Similarly, I tried not to mention a good trait, without putting in some kind of contrasting, self-effacing remark (I may be an Ivy Leaguer but I'm extremely down-to-earth T-shirt and jeans kind of guy) to show humility. Finally, showing contrasts when you make comparisons can show that you aren't a one-dimensional person. (I love being active outdoors, but also appreciate taking time out to gaze at the nighttime sky, being in a PhD program and yet trying to be a jack-of-all-trades), and so on.

This all being said, it's good to put an overall theme to it, so that your profile doesn't look totally random. For example, although with all the contrasts I might appear to be unfocused, there is an overall theme of learning, discovery, and indomitable spirit that I tried to project in the profile. This provides the overall profile with a sense of direction, and indicates underlying motivation and drive.

How you style your profile depends on where you are posting it, and who is your intended audience. Balancing is a good way to cast a wide net, so to speak, but if you are highly discriminating in who you want as a partner, you could go a bit easy on the balancing. The flip side is that you might pre-emptively weed out people who actually might be a good fit for you. My WP profile is written with AS folks in mind, so it's probably a bit more explicit about AS than your profile would be. I also swear a little bit, but some of it is (hopefully perceived as) humorously self-directed, and to provide contrast since most people think I write very formally. I also do swear on occasion, so it is honest.

Hopefully that provides some ideas for starting up your profile! And don't stress out too much in writing your profile. You can always edit it later.

I wouldn't include any mention of AS in any dating profiles. Leave it up to her to evaluate one's abilities to hold a conversation etc. You can't count on people to correctly understand what this means, especially given the bad publicity AS gets. The whole Cassandra thing seems blown out of proportion too, at least as how I see its possible application to me.

I imagine a person in the role of "Cassandra" might say: "Why won't he meet my needs? I expected every day to be more exciting and romantic than the last, and that he should just instinctively clean up all the drama and trouble I went out of my way to create to test him at every turn. Why won't anyone believe me when I blame his AS for my disappointment? If I can't be a poor helpless victim, I can't go after that other guy I've had my eye on without looking bad!"