I hate relationship talks

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I dunno if I'm really asking for any specific advice; this is more of a rant about the confusions of being an aspie who is with someone who is way more NT than myself.

I hate relationship talks. Just talking for hours about stuff I don?t even really understand. It confuses me and I always end up angry. What?s the point? If stuff is still fun, what?s the point in making stuff more complicated by talking about stuff that happened months ago and stuff that might happen in the future? Who f*****g cares? I couldn?t give less of a s**t about the way someone feels about something that happened months ago. Or what?s gonna happen in the future. Or how long it will last. It?s not like we?re married. Who cares?

I?m not ready for this level of personal involvement. Relationship talks are for boyfriends and girlfriends. I don't refer to him as my boyfriend when I talk about him around other people. He's not even listed as my boyfriend on facebook. But he refers to me as his girlfriend sometimes. Having a 'boyfriend' implies a certain level of emotional involvement that I just don't want to have, and conclusively I really don't feel so inclined to discuss or think deeply about the ways I feel about him. But he seems to have a higher level of personal involvement, as he feels the need to think about and discuss things that have happened in the past and what may happen in the future and the way he feels about me and stuff.

Sometimes he has to talk about how he wants to have sex with other people and also maintain our current level of personal involvement. Okay? Am I supposed to care? I hate these conversations. As long as I don't end up with any weird diseases, the emotions involved on either of our ends about who he has sex with are not functionally relevant to me. I just honestly don't really care how I feel about that any more than I care about how he feels about that. Sure, it's kinda awkward if we're having a party or whatever and I walk outside and he's making out with one of my friends, but here's the real reason why it makes me feel uncomfortable: I don't really understand. Sure, there are many times where I feel inclined to kiss him, but I just don't do it. Yet there are girls who don't know him as well as I do who can just do that on a whim. I'm jealous of their ability to understand how to do that. I have no idea what steps are involved in going from having a normal conversation to making out with someone, when that person is NT-like. Consequentially, I am not incredibly inclined to have a rather NT a 'boyfriend' when I feel less comfortable making out with this person than my NT friends are.

I have been sexually involved with one other guy, but he is just as much of an aspie as I am, so it was pretty straight-forward. No mixed messages and no weird relationship discussions and no confusion about when kissing is appropriate because we were pretty much on the same page with all that. This time, it's different. This guy has a lot of autistic traits, such as having special interests and certain textures he really likes and he has a rather non-standard approach to social situations and becomes stressed out by a lot of social involvement, which is a big part of why we are able to get along so well normally. However, he is very naturally charismatic and has no problem forcing himself into very uncomfortable, complicated and stressful social situations. As a result, his social skills, though nonstandard, far surpass mine and are of NT-level competence. He can see things that I can't. He has a very different idea of when kissing and sexual play are appropriate. It's very intimidating being with someone who is so NT.

I don't feel that I have the adequate social skills or knowledge to have an NT boyfriend. I feel like a nerd trying to date a jock or something, even if beneath all his 'coolness' and social adequacy is a whole lot of nerdyness. I'm not a cool kid, I'm just strange and really into computers and I really feel 'out of my league' in this situation. I have no idea what I'm doing, ever, in general. I have no idea how to think of the future, or the past, for that matter. I'm just good enough at math to do some calculus in my head, which now that I can do I don't even find very impressive anymore, and I can also fix computers. He on the other hand is not only really smart and with encyclopedic knowledge of world history, but he understands people. He's not stuck isolated from other people like I am.

He's on a fundamentally different plain of reality from me, yet he likes me enough that he wants me around all the time and wants to talk to me about my feelings. I don't like talking about my feelings though. I'd kinda prefer they stay safe in my own head. But he thinks its very important that they don't.

It's all very confusing.

You probably need to think about how you define your relationship. It is not always fun or easy to do, but it helps keep relationships healthy. You also probably need to tell this guy you do not consider him your boyfriend and why not. Is he just a "friends with benefits"?

He is wanting to be at least somewhat intimate with others. You describe him as a jock, and you as the nerd. Are you sure he is not taking advantage of you?

I'm not sure in what way he could be taking advantage of me. I've actually learned a whole whole whole whole lot from him, and he's made various personal sacrifices to make sure I still want to hang out with him.

The main problem I believe is he seeks consummate love from me, plus the ability to have sex with other people



But I'm a bit emotionally stilted. I am not good at dealing with having romantic, compassionate and fatuous love all at the same time. I mostly just experience compassionate love towards him. I like him a great deal and we know a lot of highly personal information about each other. We also seem to share a surprising degree of commitment. My own commitment to this is surprising to me. But one point of the triangle seems to always be a point of contention for me in my relationships. In this case, it is passion, the emotion here that is most closely related to sex. I am like a child on the matter of sexuality, having lost my virginity less than a year ago, whereas he is rather experienced in the matter, and experienced with people in general. I am also not generally a passionate person about anything, literally unless I'm way too drunk. I'm either doing something, or I'm not, and I don't feel that it is wise to become overly emotional about anything I do or don't do. I am very curious about passion, and I've felt passion, but it seems to only lead to great pains and frustrations that I am uninterested in reliving.


As far as his desire to have sex with other people, I don't find it to be a very relatable or interesting topic of discussion, and the more he talks about it the less interested in the subject I become, and the more irritated and angry I become when he brings it up. At this point in my life, I am quite aware that people are interested in having sex with varieties of people, and I am aware that I will have sex with other people in the future. I am incredibly sexually inexperienced and have no perspective through which to view this apparent issue, so I am not sure why he is so concerned with how I feel about the subject. I feel it is something I will be able to properly discuss with him once I have sex with someone else, which will definitely happen eventually, as I definitely experience sexual desires just like any other person, even though I don't act on them.

Hi Shai-hulud,

Not sure where to start, since this will probably be similar to one of us speaking French and the other Spanish - we'll recognize some of the words, but may not have a full understanding about what is being said. However, I'll give you my opinion.

First, I'm an older NT man that dated an Aspie woman who was a couple years younger than me. A lot of the things you are saying are similar to things she said. For example, we acted like "boyfriend" and "girlfriend", but she hated that label. She always referred to the guy she dated before me as her "lover". Now, to the Aspie mind, that probably seems logical and like the proper thing to do, but to most NT's, that's a confusing label if you are in a relationship (which they were).

Like you, I think she was committed to our relationship, but wouldn't say that she loved me, even after 8 months of dating. At several points in the relationship, she spoke of the future and marriage, but got stuck on the word "love" - not because she didn't have feelings for me, but because "she didn't want anyone to love her". For an NT, this is all very confusing.

So, what are most NT's expectations that want a relationship (not including people that just want to sleep around)? We expect that we will meet someone, have emotions for that person, including passions and infatuation. We expect that as time goes on, the feelings, emotions, intimacy, and commitment will grow between the couple. After about 3 to 6 months of dating, we either expect that we will "Fall in Love" or not. If we don't "Fall in Love", then our expectations are that either 1) the relationship will end or 2) we will wait for a period of time to see if the other one feels differently in a few months or 3) the dynamics of the relationship will change and even if we continue dating, we may want to date other people (possibly in an attempt to "shake our partner up"). Even if we do "Fall in Love", if there are too many "Red Flags" (among other possibilities), then we might break it off.

So, what I see from your friend/boyfriend/lover, is that he is following basic NT expectations and is probably very confused because you seem committed to the relationship, but on the other hand, doesn't seem to love him or want to call him "boyfriend". That can be very confusing to us NT's (and I'm speaking from experience).

If he's anything like me, he doesn't care that you are not as social adept as him. What he does care about is your feelings for him and your communications with him. So, my recommendations is to sit down and tell him exactly how you feel and what you want from the relationship. If you want to continue the relationship, tell him that right up front, otherwise he might think you are going to break up with him. Sometimes in discussions with my Aspie girlfriend, she would be so serious over something rather trivial that I thought she was breaking up with me. In fact, that contributed to our break-up at the end.

So, it really all comes down to communication. If you don't feel like talking, then at the very least, write it out for him (if you have an NT friend that you trust and would be willing, maybe have them read it first before you give it to him).

Hope that helps.