Unable to Read and Understand Your Own Romantic Feelings

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First, a disclaimer. Since straight men are usually the ones having the most difficulties finding dates/relationships, so this thread will be centered on them. (Also to spare the awkwardness of repetitive "he or she".) However, input from women and LGBT's is welcomed. The same descriptions apply to everyone; simply adjust the pronouns.

Here's an interesting topic. Anyone else here just not know how to read and understand how they feel about potential romantic partners? That is, when finding yourself dating a new lady friend, after she showed real interest in you and you acted on it, you just don't know whether or not you're really interested in her. Instead, you simply ask yourself: (1) Is she faking interest to mess with me? and (2) Will she do damage to my life during or after dating? Once you determine that both of those are "No", you proceed with the dating, feeling thankful that someone likes you, and don't feel like it's your place to worry about your feelings.

Let's be brutally honest here: aspie guys' sexual market value is abysmally low. We usually don't have the luxury of choosing who to be with. I myself was extremely thankful to have a girl show interest in me for the first time in my whole life during my freshman year of college. That girl was quite unattractive, to the point of me checking the city map to avoid areas where my friends hang out, and sneaking peeks over my shoulder when out with her in public. (I know, that's really bad, but I was as conflicted with my feelings as much as you're displeased with my actions.) But since I felt like no one else could ever like me again, possibly for the rest of my life, I dated her and was very thankful it, and was even willing to be in a long-term committed relationship with her.

Similar patterns continued with my future relationships, until well into my 20's. Each time, I dated whoever showed interest in me, focusing only on how she felt about me, completely ignoring my own feelings. A few years ago, I started to break the habit of dating whoever showed interest, although I didn't start dating supermodels, either. Instead, I added a third question to the two in the initial paragraph: (3) Can I find at least one physically attractive part of her? It could be her hair, her tattoos, her breasts, her clothes, anything at all; it just must be a physical element. (On a side note, escorts use the same mental tactic when they're with clients they find unattractive.)

To make matters worse, many of us aspie guys had girls mess with us by pretending to be interested, only to set us up for embarrassment later, although a few had the decency to say it was a joke one-on-one, rather than publicly. As a result, those guys, myself including, had no choice but to control their emotions extremely well, effectively nipping any kid of romantic feelings in the bud, since they always backfired. So when a real romantic interest does come along later, they've already trained themselves out of feeling anything romantic, even toward real romantic interests.

Time passes. Some people grow up; some simply grow older. But at least in my own experience, my inability to read and understand my own romantic feelings is still going strong. And questions remain.
* How common is this among aspie guys?
* What method do you use to get around this?
* Were you unable to do this since puberty, or did you develop this inability at a later time?
* Did you ever date a girl you weren't attracted to, after she showed interest first?

I can relate to a lot of what you have written. I did not start dating until I went to university and, at least initially, I would go out with pretty much any woman who expressed an interest in me, irrespective of how I felt towards her. I was rather clueless about the whole thing, and I had a hard time sorting out my feelings towards these women. I also experienced a lot of stress and anxiety as I struggled to fit these relationships into my life, especially around school work. In some cases I initiated the break up, due in part to the stress. In other instances, she initiated the break up once she figured out I was never going to turn into the type of man she really wanted to date (i.e. turn into a non-autistic extrovert ).

On the whole, these relationships were negative experiences which have left me distrustful of both other people and my own judgement.

That was my experience too. When that college girl first showed interest in me, I "knew" that she could be my only chance at a relationship in my entire life. (Aspie black-and-white thinking here.) So I dated her, and was totally willing to seriously commit to her long term, somehow stopping short of the idea of marriage. At the same time, I was aware that she was quite unattractive, and wasn't sure how she'd fit into my life, either. Because it wouldn't be fair to her if I didn't introduce her to people in my life. But I was also worried what they'd think of me. In the meantime, I resorted to stalling tactics, like checking the city map to avoid areas where my friends hang out. These consisted of the shopping mall, the big park downtown, and all areas north of a particular street. The saving grace was public transportation; me and her took city buses everywhere, and I knew my friends wouldn't be caught dead on a bus.

Needless to say, this caused me a lot of emotional conflict. But again, since I thought she was my only chance at having a girlfriend, and I might not get another for the rest of my life, I decided to keep seeing her anyway. (I now realize how unrealistic my fears were.) She ended up losing interest two months later, without as much as kiss happening beforehand. I was unable to get another relationship for the rest of my college career.

I continued the same dating behaviors after college, only I wasn't as concerned about what my friends and family thought. My first real girlfriend, with sex as part of a relationship, happened at age 23. With whom, again, I stayed with solely because no one else showed interest in me. While I kept that part to myself, I was honest with her about not planning to settle down at this point; we lasted about three months, and she gave me sex anyway.

To this day, every time a woman shows interest in me, I respond in kind. I still never know how exactly I'm feeling about her: if I'm attracted to her body/face/mind/whatever, or if I'm attracted to her being attracted to me.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 01 Jun 2015, 1:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I had some similar experiences. I always was only attracted to women who were attracted to me. They had to be be very obvious about it or come right out and say it otherwise I wouldn't know so I didn't date a lot in high school until I turned 18 and a lot of my mom's friends would come on to me. I never could tell that the relationship with the older women was supposed to end when one of us went home.

The less attractive women I knew in school were less afraid of expressing an interest in me. One girl would even pick me up and carry me around the class because I was so skinny at the time. The teacher yelled at me for that, every-time. I suppose I missed an opportunity to avoid being picked up but I never could figure out what it was.

For me, a related problem is what criteria does one use to select a romantic partner? A lot of people talk about "chemistry" or feeling a "spark", but what does that really mean? There is some research to suggest that people get along better with people that they are similar to, and it is obviously desirable to have some shared interests to engage in with each other, but how much similarity is needed? Of course there will be some differences, but how much difference is tolerable? Some characteristics, such as abusive and manipulative behaviours, are clearly unacceptable, but everyone has their flaws and aiming for perfection is unrealistic.

Aspie1 - You sound like a jerk. You magnanimously agreed to an exclusive, long-term relationship with a girl in college despite finding her totally unattractive.

You are looking for advice on whether you should just suck it up and date girls you aren't attracted to (note: you make no mention of how attractive/unattractive you are) because you think it's an Aspie's lot on life.

My advice would be HELL NO. Those supposedly "unattractive" girls deserve a million times better than you. Please please please don't date out of "sympathy" or desperation.

(It's also worth considering whether the girls you claim strung you along to mess with your head might have initially liked you but changed their mind once they got to know you better. Which isn't manipulative - it's just dating).

You're being too nice. I'm all for being tactful, but you're going overboard there. I can take criticism too, you know.

Some of us don't have the luxury you have. We have to make a hard decision of either dating someone we don't find attractive or being alone our whole lives. If you do have that luxury, you will NEVER understand what it's like. So don't start making snap judgments about something you have no experience in: being ugly and undesirable.