Plausible Aspie Girl Behavior?

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I haven't been on this forum in a while, but I'm currently in a situation where I would very much appreciate your opinion.

So, I'm dating someone. Well, the word "dating" may be too strong, but at least we meet on a regular basis.

I've known her for almost 2 years now, and I when I first met her, I quickly realized I was interested in her, so I arranged a date. Even though things seemed good, it didn't work out at first. We both enjoyed talking to each other, but the problem was that she hardly replied to any messages I sent her; sometimes it took her 2 weeks and sometimes she did not react at all. After a few weeks, we lost contact.

A few months later, I tried again, and she agreed that we would meet. This time, things worked a little better; we met a couple of times and had some phone calls. Alas, we lost contact again after a few months, basically for the same reasons as before.

Well, we did not lose contact completely; she continued to write me approximately one text per month, but it was always very unspecific and I still felt hurt, so while I did reply, I kept things unspecific as well.

A few weeks ago, she wrote me an e-mail: "I've been thinking about you a lot lately. Maybe we can meet for lunch again or something? Oh, and in other news, my laptop is broken. Can you help me with that?"

Of course I would fix laptops, but initially I wasn't sure if I wanted to see her again on a regular basis because she did really disappoint me last time. But when we met, the conversation was very pleasant, so she kind of convinced me to give it a third try.

In fact, things are a little better now. She replies much faster and we have been meeting in real life at least once a week. But I feel that the fundamental problem remains. Planning the next meeting/date is still a real hassle; I know she is a busy person, so I usually ask her to message me and tell when she has time. She always agrees to do that, but then she doesn't keep that promise. Consequently I write her a message myself, and now she does reply, but it still seems like she is delaying it as much as possible.

Ideally, I'd like to talk to her more often than once a week, but when I try to call her on her phone, she doesn't pick up most of the time and doesn't call back. Well, the latter isn't completely true—sometimes she actually calls but only rings twice, so it's very hard for me to pick up.

Sometimes I tell myself that this behavior probably means she isn't really interested after all. On the other hand, I know that she is very shy and her general social behavior is absolutely consistent with Asperger's Syndrome.

While I ought to know the Aspie perspective, I'm not completely sure... If you like someone, can it be that hard to talk to them? Her messages sound so formal that it makes me feel like she is writing to a government authority, and she probably spent one hour phrasing them. Concerning phone calls, I'd preferably like to talk to her at least every second day; even if it's only 10 minutes, that would make me really happy, and she should be able to spare 10 minutes although she is busy. But to me, it seems like she is avoiding it on purpose.

Does this make sense to anyone? If so, can you tell me what's going on?

I think all of this makes sense from an aspie perspective.

Talking on the phone, and especially calling somebody can be a huge undertaking. I'm sure I did let just one signal pass as well, and then hang-up many times as younger. It's kind of like I did dial that number, and then I got second thoughts about it all and quickly hung-up again.

I'm sure texting could also be a huge undertaking for some people, especially if they are a perfectionist.

As for the frequency of meeting, I have a strong suspicion that two months is the "I feel awkward about this" limit, and thus if no contact happened before that, I'd feel guilty and try to make contact again if I felt it was my turn. Before that, I'd just procrastinate.

Once a week is usually an optimum amount of time for communication for a busy Aspie unless they end up becoming too busy with something that is very seriously work-related. Also, I do not like others trying to help me with doing work, not unless they are VERY well-qualified, otherwise I find that the quality of getting my projects done suffers, and in such cases I would prefer everyone to go away rather than interfere with doing my work the right way which I consider to be important.

Try to find out which time is best to contact, assuming she's not too busy, certain days might be less occupied out of the week, like this one girl I used to call, Wednesday evenings were always the best for her, and we would often talk for 1-2 hours at a time back in the day.

Thank you, that is about what I presumed. The paradox is: In real life, we don't have these problems. I mean, of course talking one-on-one is awkward, but at least our conversations are quite fluent now (unlike one year ago), and we are even beginning to look in each other's eyes.

What should I do? Call again until she picks up (I don't think she deliberately ignores my calls, but apparently she has a habit of leaving the phone where she doesn't hear it)? Or wait for her to call me? I'm not sure if the latter is going to happen.


Meeting once per week for lunch doesn't really qualify as dating for me, though.

The current issue with her laptop is that I took it to my place and set everything up, but it fails to establish an Internet connection at her place. Because she earlier offered me to visit her at home (where she lives with her mother and a large number of animals), I wrote: "OK, should just I come over and have a look?" But she didn't reply to that—perhaps she got scared of her own proposal.

Another thing that causes problems is her lack of body language. Again, I know it's normal for Aspies, but how are you going to hug someone who just stands there in a frozen and indifferent manner?

When I do hug her (which is not easy for me), she cooperates a little, so I hope she likes it, but it always feels a bit like I'm violating her personal space.

I am not particularly eager about things like kissing right now, but a little bit of physical contact (like touching hands, arms, shoulders) would be helpful to establish some sort of intimacy. I kind of doubt this works in public, but once have some privacy, maybe I can just ask her what she likes?

Aspies use stims for their body language, and you can more or less get the same information from stims as from normal nonverbal communication. It just requires some practice, and possibly help from her in decoding them.



Make sure you give her firm hugs.



No light touching if she has sensory issues!

What stims are you exactly talking about? I haven't seen her stimming; I just noticed that she is bad at keeping eye contact and her hands are shaking sometimes, so she must be very nervous.


I'm not sure if she has them.

Myself, I don't have any sensory problems with hugging, but it feels way too intimate to do it with a stranger or even a family member, so I usually just freeze when other people try to hug me. That's why I'm very flattered that she cooperates (most of the time, at least), but she hasn't initiated it herself.

My "vibe" is telling me that this friendship is never going to blossom into a full relationship. That's how I feel from reading the post. If this woman was into you, attracted to you or wanting a real relationship she would be taking things further and faster, even as an unsure timid aspie. Take my word for it as someone who over the past 15 years has had many close aspie female friends (with a variety of personalities and co-diagnoses) and seen how they treat men they are crazy about and how they treat men they want as friends but aren't sure about. Not saying I'm definitely right, but that's my instinct. Just enjoy the friendship and company for what it is. Also I would stop trying to push contact like hugs.

I may have missed it in your initial post, but have you told her directly that you are interested, and would like to get to know her better? While I can't speak for anyone but myself, I can find it extremely difficult to figure out if someone is interested in me from a dating perspective unless they are very straight forward about it. Reading emotion or intention from someone can be next to impossible for me in those cases. I really prefer, and need, a "Hey, I really like you, would you like to go out on a date?" to get it.

So it might be worthwhile, if you haven't done so, to state your interest clearly and without ambiguity.

She is definitely very unsure, and her self-esteem seems non-existent to me.

I haven't mentioned that I did point out my romantic interest quite explicitly last year; she could have just said "Oh, sorry, you're only a friend to me" (note that this once happened to me by an NT girl), but instead she started talking about whether she could fulfill my expectations and things like that, and she seemed very awkward about it. I said: "Well, I don't really have an idea what expectations you are talking about—maybe we should just give it a try?", and she seemed OK with that.

Given that information, I hope she understands how I will interpret it if she writes: "I've been thinking a lot about you and we should meet for lunch."

The best-case scenario that I imagine is that she is interested in me but very awkward about the idea of dating. I know this very well because I was the same about 8 years ago, when I was interested in someone else but at the same time mentally prepared for how to refuse her in case she asked me out—guess what, it was about "I certainly can't fulfill your expectations", because although I didn't know about Asperger's, I started thinking there was something "wrong" with me. Maybe she has similar thoughts?

Alas, it's of course also possible that she is not interested at all but is desparate about making friends (she doesn't have any other friends AFAIK), so she is trying to make my romantic interest go away by ignoring it. Bad news for her is that even if this plan worked, I don't see how such a friendship is going to function. I expect friends to respond to messages, too, and without any regular shared activities, we would lose contact quickly again. In fact, without romantic interest, I would have given up a long time ago.

If you're seeing each other once a week, then she probably likes you! That's the frequency that I see most people when we first start dating. How many times have you seen each other since she re-initiated contact? With regards to talking in between, some people just don't like talking on the phone or texting. If things are going great in person, its probably nothing to worry about. If you'd prefer to have more contact, bring it up to her and see if she's receptive. From your posts here, it sounds like you're both painfully shy...the reason for her lack of contact could simply be that she can't think of how to respond, or that she's too shy to do so.

My #1 suggestion would be to try and have more open communication and conversations with her. I find that when you put things out there, it makes things less awkward for everyone involved (although they may be slightly more awkward in the moment). Tell her that you'd like to talk to her more in between dates, either through phone calls, e-mail, or whatever means you both prefer. You're also going to have to take some romantic initiatives if you want to advance the relationship. You don't have to kiss her yet if you feel you're both not ready, but you do have to make sure she knows you're attracted to her and interested in her in that way...maybe start with a playful compliment or two, and some light physical contact. Since it's been several months since you last saw her, it's possible she re-initiated contact as a friend rather than with romantic intent...you have to reaffirm that you're still interested in a relationship with her.

Last week it was actually 4 times. Well, it was basically because she gave me the laptop and I gave it back, but still. I haven't kept track of the total number, but maybe 10.


Well, if I always call her and she doesn't respond, how can I increase the frequency of contact? But shyness is definitely a major problem. When she wrote that e-mail to me, it was like: "I've finally found a reason to contact you again—my broken laptop."


How exactly? "Oh, by the way, I noticed that you are very shy and have some autistic traits. But you know what? Me too." That sound very awkward to me.


I tried to signal that by hugging her again, but I'm not sure if she gets it.

Sometimes I don't hug her if the situation is bad (too many people around) or I just don't feel like doing it (if her body language—or the lack thereof—makes her appear uninviting). I wonder how she feels about that, because she never initiated hugs herself.

I'm concerned about the hugging. I would suggest don't keep hugging her. You say she never initiates a hug herself -- it's probably best if you don't either.

Someone I know at the moment, who is not someone I feel close to at all or whom I want to get further involved with, keeps violating my space by greeting me with a hug and a cheek-kiss, in a setting and a level of acquaintance that makes this pretty inappropriate. I've been so annoyed I couldn't even SHOW how annoyed -- I was more shocked and stunned into silence by the momentum of "polite discourse". I'm getting ready now for the next time to just say "DON'T DO THAT!"

You and this girl may be in a completely different place, but the thing about how you keep giving her a hug really stood out to me because of the person in my life at the moment who is doing more of that than is comfortable for me, but I have been silent.

Also, even though making or taking a phone call can be very anxiety producing for someone on the spectrum -- it used to agonize me -- it may not be for this reason that she is bad at keeping up communication.

When I've been hard to get hold of regarding a guy, it's always been because I wasn't interested but did not know how to break that to the guy without hurting his feelings. In hindsight I realize it hurts a person's feelings more to string them along. I never intended to do that, I just was at a loss as to how to get rid of the guy.

Whenever I have been interested, it was a whole different story and I was answering my calls and having no problem getting back to the person. Just a thought there. She might not be as interested as it seems.

When you receive an unsolicited hug, do you reciprocate? Myself, I don't, basically because I can't, even though I'm trying to force myself because I appreciate the other person's intention.

When I hug her, though, I notice that she actually hugs me back. It's a bit awkward but clearly mutual. Is that only politeness? But why would she be polite to me if she wants me to go away? (Note that it took a really long time until she even said "hello" to me.)

Of course I'm very concerned about treating her right, but handling her with kid gloves seems wrong. What if she is disappointed if I stop hugging her? That's at least an option to consider.


Speaking for myself, my Asperger's doesn't go away when I'm interested in someone—it's more like the opposite. When I was younger, I was totally freaked out by the idea of dating, and if someone had shown some interest in me, I probably would have done a lot to scare that person away, even if I was interested, too—maybe my methods would have been slightly different, but I've been in a number of situations where I made up excuses to cancel meetings when things became too awkward to handle.

My instinct after reading your posts and having many friendships with As women myself. This woman likes you as a friend. Ask yourself can you honestly picture her French kissing you, sleeping with you. AS does not mean she is going to slowly warm up and become sexual. That's my honest opinion.

Actually, I can't picture her sleeping with anybody—admittedly, I don't typically think so much about how other people have sex, but with her, it seems to me like she is just not ready for anything like that right now.

This implies that even if things work out, it may take a year or so until anything sexual happens, but I'm OK with that because it's not my priority. On the other hand, saying "Well, then let's just be friends" would certainly be very easy, but it wouldn't work—our contact will die if we don't intensify it.