How does a guy like me with aspergers get a date/girlfriend?

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Okay here is my story, I'm 17 6'7 and I have Asperger's Syndrome. So far in my life my peers my age have in the past have made fun of me rejected me and hurt me emotionally, physically and mentally, they have scared me. I have never even had true friends in my life because when I was in like Kindergarden till like 3rd Grade I had a friend or two but then in 3rd Grade they turned their backs on me and made fun of me and to this day I have not had ANY friends (Outside of School) Then to make it even worse when I was in 3rd Grade in 2001 my Dad was diagnosed with Cancer and from then and for 4 years after that my dad was battling with cancer and had to go into the hospital to get two organs removed because they with full of cancer, and then in the end of January of 2005 my dad got sick with what we thought was the flu but the next day he was so weak he could not get out of his chair so we had to call a abalance and then he went to the hospital and then he stopped breathing the next day and they had to shock him back to life but then he went into a coma for 1 week and then they told us that when he stopped breathing his brain got braindead when they shocked him back so I lost my father on February 5th 2005 when I was only 11 years old and was only in 6th grade! I miss my dad sooo much we used to bond and do stuff together and go places every weekend I miss him so much! Okay and today I am scarred from that and when the kids turned there backs on me and rejected me. All I want in life now today is a girlfriend and to be in a loving relationship with her and for her to love and care for me and for me to love and care for her. I have never even been on a date with a girl yet because whenever I like a girl they reject me and tell me they don't feel the same way about me and then I cry. Also I am a virgin and I have not even had my first kiss yet Will I ever find a nice pretty girl who will accept me and my aspergers and who will accept me for who I am and will nurture me and love me and kiss me and hug me and who will take my virginity? So Is there a girl out there for me?
Also all I can think about is trying to get a girlfriend and being in a relationship with her and kissing her and hugging her and making love to her What Should I do?

First of all, I'm sorry about your dad. No one should have to go through all that, but unfortunately quite a lot of people do.

Secondly; I don't doubt, that you will one day find a nice girl, who'll love you just as much as you love her.
However you have a lot of issues you have to work on, before you're likely to have a successful relationship.
At the moment it sounds as though, the main reason for you to desire a relationship is, that you're hurting and you need the comfort.
Also I suspect you need some social training. Perhaps you should join some evening courses, do volunteer work, etc. Get out and meet people. I'm not saying you ought to be extrovert and a social bee, but friendship is precious and most (note, I said most) of us benefit from friendships, and since you mentioned never having had any close friends, you probably do too.

Thirdly; don't rush yourself! I didn't have my first kiss until I was 17, lost my virginity at 18. There nothing unusual about your situations. You might think, you're all alone in this, but you're not. Most of my friends have never had sex or had relationships and they're all 18+.

Just, find something you enjoy and do it. Think about it; if you get a girlfriend, then what? Will all your problems disappear?

Chances are better that you will... AFTER high school! My experience has shown me that anyone who's the least bit out of step with the prevailing norm for their social group will likely have trouble finding cool romantic partners in high school. Still, try not to get too hung up on magazine cover physical beauty. First, people who resemble the traditional ideal of beauty often gain some measure of social status from their appearance, and they may choose partners like fashion accessories to protect that stature. Second, those covers are often more drawing than photo anyway...

My final tip: stop looking. People who aren't looking for a relationship often find opportunities more frequently presenting themselves than people who do. The "looking vibe" creeps many people out. Love yourself first, then find ways to become whole within yourself (work out, do creative things, study spirtuality, etc.).

Best of luck!

I'm so saddened to hear about you losing your dad, that must be very hard to get past. I'm sure you miss him every day. All you can do at this point is to try to show the world how wonderful an influence he was on you and be the best man you can be, so that the best part of who he was lives on.

As far as the girlfriend issue goes, I know exactly what you're feeling, so I know this is not what you want to hear, but its the truth and you asked. Having a girlfriend will not solve your problems and while it might make you feel good for a little while, first relationships never last long (especially when one partner is as needy as you clearly are) and losing said girlfriend would only leave you feeling worse than you do now. I don't say 'needy' to be mean, its evident from your writing that you're craving another person whose presence in your life will help fill that aching void left by your loss, and that's simply not possible. The loss of a treasured individual is a loss that is irreplaceable, one just has to learn to soldier on and the pain will lessen in time.

As far as being a 17 year old virgin, if you think you're an endangered species you're falling victim to the empty bragging of teenage boys who almost always LIE about their first sexual experiences. Many of us went well beyond 17 virginity intact, and there's no shame in that. Where sex is concerned, arriving early is never the goal you want to aim for. Certain life experiences just can't be rushed, they happen when the time is right for you, and wishing and fretting won't make it happen any faster.

At your age however, you might as well get past crying over rejection, 'cause buddy rejection is a fact of life that you will experience many, many times over in many venues and it doesn't always have anything to do with having AS. I can tell you this: neediness is not a quality that females find attractive. It quickly becomes emotionally cloying and suffocating and strangles a relationship faster than just about anything else, short of outright betrayal. You need to realize that you can handle life in your own way and on your own terms and you don't have to have another person to make you complete -as the song says it's nice work if you can get it, but you have to know that you're a whole person in and of yourself first. Almost everyone longs for a partner to lean on, but no woman wants a half a man.

In any case, you need to find other things in your life that give you a sense of meaning and purpose, 'cause there's no telling when that 'first girlfriend' milestone may occur (notice 'first' means 'not the only one for all time', implying eventual loss) and the 'first sex' may not happen for some time after that. Nobody ever likes to hear "just be patient", but honestly, nothing that's truly good and wonderful in life ever comes quick and easy.

Just remember, if you think rejection hurts when you're turned down for a date, just imagine how it feels after you've been dating for months.

Concentrate on healing from the one loss before you set yourself up for more of them.

Luck and Happiness Brother!

Aw, Babe,

I don't think it's easy for any aspies to form relationships but it is possible, loads of people on WP are in relationships (I say this despite the fact that in 32 years I've never managed to do it myself)... But my Dad has AS too and he found my Mum and my Mum is a prized catch hehe she's really nice and really looks after him and loves him.

Like Willard says, annoying as it is, it isn't a race to lose it and noone can actually tell that you haven't so you can always be sly about it and if people ask if you've got a gf just never give a straight answer and say you've got several cus NTs are dumb and they'll get tired asking eventually.

Then... I guess you'll be leaving school soon so you'll be free of all the horrible people there who pick on you and in the real world people won't know your past and you have a better chance at making a fresh start and finding someone who likes you for who you are.

I was seriously contemplating actually going to a social group to meet other people with AS because I just think maybe it'd be easier to have a relationship with another aspie rather than with an NT?

Dunno though

I have doubts about whether that is the case, but if you want to expand your social circles to this end, you could do worse especially since the majority of the group will be comprised of men, and most of those are likely to be single and looking.

Yeah, I have to agree with this. Having a relationship isn't going to just make your problems go away. I used to think that before I got my first girlfriend. There wasn't any reduction in the problems I faced in life at all.

However, in my experience, having a girlfriend did increase my resolve... I tried harder to get by in life, because I had a reason to get by in life. I ended up getting a 3.4 GPA for last fall's semester, the highest semester GPA I have ever gotten in college. So, while a relationship may seem like the holy grail to make your sadness go away, it isn't. You still have to do the work, it's just that ideally the relationship will make you feel more empowered to do said work...

Sometimes, you just need, time, patience, keeping busy, all those things.

When I was dating last May, I noticed that I was so happy to get up every morning, it was almost an euphoric feeling that lasted for almost a month.

Your in High School right? In a couple years you'll be in college. College, if you haven't been there before, is so much better than high school, so many people are like, "I can't put people down, that takes too much time and effort, and I got all this homework!"

I say, use the time you got now to work through your feelings and your classes. When you get into college, make friends (when your ready) and then think about dating.

So to recap:

1) work through your feelings and high school
2) get into college
3) get friends
4) think about dating

And remember the advice given to you before this post, they make very good points.

On a critical note:
Please learn to format your posts. Use line breaks, use paragraphs, use proper punctuation. Mind your sentence structure. Avoid run-on sentences.
I tried to start reading your post but just couldn't do it. Too aggravating.

However, to address your post title, at least: The way us guys with AS can see better luck with dating is by focusing on two things:
A) work hard to become more socially aware, even if just a little bit.
B) work hard to become a person we are proud of, the kind of person that others can look at with respect.

All women want quality men, who's value is apparent in any and all potential categories. So you work to become a quality man, as broadly as possible. And quality is not innate, it is forged.

But people are also very sensitive to social deficits, unfortunately. An area where we're weak. So we've gotta see to filling those social knowledge gaps as best we can. It's an ongoing process, and it never stops. Fortunately, one's social skill is not a binary continuum - It is not a "Have/Have Not" dichotomy. It's gradual, cumulative. So whatever level you're at, the more practice and accumulated skill you have, the better you'll be received. Therefore, there's no valid reason to look at a social deficit and simply give up. Any improvement, large or small, directly equates to better results in some measure.

Trust me, OP, in your current condition, you're better off concentrating on your life and letting the dating happen on its own. Once you've had a girlfriend, and she dumps you because you were too needy, and you likely have developed feelings for her, trust me from firsthand experience, you'd rather be single and oblivious as to what dating a girl is like.

I wouldn't classify that as a given... I went through all that: had a girlfriend, she later dumped me (and the breakup was an on-and-off affair that lasted longer than the relationship did). Yet as lonely as I feel now, I would not trade that experience for anything in the world. I know now, at the very least, I am not a 100% complete total failure anymore.

"Will I ever find a nice pretty girl who will accept me and my aspergers and who will accept me for who I am and will nurture me and love me and kiss me and hug me and who will take my virginity? So Is there a girl out there for me?"

This is the kind of behavior that scares women off. While it's normal for him to feel this lonely, when he sees other guys in his school walking around with pretty girls and he's left with nothing, if any girl hypothetically gave him a chance, she'd be scared off, and he'd think "What did I do wrong?" It's better for him to develop interests that aren't women-related and like life with a girlfriend or without a girlfriend, so when he meets a girl (which he will eventually, might not be the one he wants, but he'll meet one) he's behaving normally.

Hmm... I'm not going to dispute your issues with looking for a "pretty girl", nor the expectation that she should "take [his] virginity". Those are unrealistic expectations, but wanting to be loved and appreciated is not something unrealistic to want, especially if you lost your father at 11. You could take up some kind of artwork as a hobby, but the pictures you create don't love you back. You could start working out or playing sports, but in the end nobody is going to care that you can throw a football unless you're so good you can do it professionally...

Good point. (It sure as heck would have scared me off in my youth).


But of course there actually are plenty of girls who would do that. Girls who are very nurturing and somewhat clingy themselves would be all in favor of hug/kiss/nurture/take virginity of the sweet, vulnerable guy. But of course there's a catch. A girl who swoons at the very thought of kissing/nurturing the vulnerable sweetheart is not going to be able to turn off those feelings like a spigot when he wants huge chunks of "leave me alone, I'm playing video games" time. Maybe he won't need that huge chunk of alone time. But if he does, the girl who wants to nurture is the one least likely to be ok with turning off the nurture faucet when he's not in the mood.

So yes...develop some non-woman-related interests so there isn't such a need for highly emotional nurturing. Unless you're prepared to recieve that highly emotional nurturing even when you feel like spending 4 hours in front of a computer game.

Don't wait for a girl to come rescue you, try standing on your own feet. Be independent.
A girlfriend can be a nice addition to your life, but it shouldn't be a requirement for your well-being.