Not sure I can truly love

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I can be attracted to someone, I can relate to someone sometimes, I can feel empathy, I can enjoy spending time with someone, I can be thoughtful and do something nice for someone ....but....
eventually they do things that either don't make sense to me or are outright selfish or thoughtless and I start to lose interest...whether it's a lover, a friend, a family member, whoever...
I get to a point where I just don't want to be around them anymore. It pretty much happens with anyone I spend significant time with. If they don't get disinterested in me first I will eventually lose interest in them.

This leads me to wonder if I've ever actually had the capacity to love anyone in the first place.
I'm not a loner by any means. I was married for nearly 14 years and now have been in a relationship for almost 5 years. I'm just not sure now if I really loved either of these people or how I could tell. It seems that complex emotional and relational states are lost on me. I've had other people I've dated tell me I was missing something they couldn't put their finger on. That they just didn't feel a "closeness" or a "progression" that would be expected to happen. I hear of bonds between people but I've never really experienced it or know how to facilitate such a thing. I do not have a bond with either of my parents. My mother has described me as "independent" and "stoic". I'm not really sure it's fair of me to keep involving myself with others if I'm not so sure I'm capable of giving people what they expect in a relationship.

I hope I don't come off sounding cold and non-committal. I have given it my all at times and have been dismayed about the outcomes. I'm just trying to be honest and see if mine is a unique experience or if it's common among Aspies.

You seem to be a bit too judgemental of others. I was probably the same way before, but became more pragmatic. I don't think this is necessarily just an autistic thing, but a common issue, people are becoming more introverted in general.

Last edited by Vomelche on 12 Aug 2015, 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

In a true, committed relationship, it is ideal that one person give the other "space" sometimes.

You have your private things, the other person has their private things.

And don't keep track of each other by text all the time!

You don't have to tell your partner that you're in the bathroom.

Hard to say, but typical dating or sex doesn't create feeling for me, I need a crush in order for that to happen. So if you have built your relationships mostly on friendships or dating, and never had that initial crush, that could explain it.

You sound like my one Asperger friend - he didnt feel close with anyone including his parents. He said that he had absolutely no feelings, but he remained in relationships for several years. He told me he felt nothing for these women. He had been diagnosed with Aspergers (and I could tell just by talking to him he had a lot of traits) and he was diagnosed with mult personality disorder. He could feel anger but no other feelings. I think the mult personality disorder was to blame more than Aspergers. He said he would never even think of a person if they were out of his sight. He didn't even miss his Pa that had just died even though they had a great relationship.

love is a vague concept to me. if i am content with the presence of someone, i will not try to excuse myself from them, but if i have no impression of a person, they may as well not exist in my mind.
love is something that i have never understood, but i see little need to understand it because i am doing ok as it is.

So don't be around another person that much. You're not required to date or marry.

Okay, so you say you lose interest when people do something you don't understand or find selfish. Have you ever tried confronting people about these actions? Communication is key in any relationship. People can't read minds.

From the traits you have described that you do exhibit, I would believe that you're capable of love, and if you do lose interest in a person so quickly, how did you manage a 14 year relationship?

Space would probably be helpful. Thinking more about it, I can see that both my ex and my current partner have insecurities that lead them to be more clingy and/or controlling than I would prefer. Things have gotten a little better in my current relationship regarding space but it's still not where I'd like to see it.

In order to love someone, you have to be able to connect with them. When you find someone you connect really well with, the love part will come naturally. In the mean time, stop for a minute, talk, and listen to what other people have to say...you may find you connect better with them than what you think.

Communicate is what I try to do but it seems to have limited effect, if any, most the time. My current partner is NT so it's almost impossible for me to make any sense of what's going on at any given time.

A frequently held discussion in the car:

Me: "Why do you yell and curse at other drivers when they cut you off when you do the same thing to other drivers? Wouldn't it make sense that you not display the same behaviors you dislike?"

Her: "That's different."

Me: "How?"

Her: "Stop analyzing me, Sheldon!" (as in Sheldon from Big Bang Theory)


There seems to be a lot of disingenuous dialog between NTs in general that drives me batty. They make promises they never intend to keep and then I get sucked into all this falseness by association.

I (now) believe my ex is an Aspie with OCD. The irrational behavior part was mostly absent but then there was other idiosyncratic things going on that was logical to at least one of us.

The reason I stayed in the marriage past the first year was that we were from a conservative Christian background and it was beaten into our heads that you never get divorced. Our families and various counselors and clergy members over the years continued to urge we work things out. The two states of our marriage was either fighting or apathy and I wasn't happy with either so after all those years I decided to pull the plug despite condemnation of certain religious individuals. I'm sure my ex gets lots of pity from them still and enjoys it thoroughly.

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Tori0326: You put in words what I have tried to grasp for a long time.

Although I cannot lay a finger on any specific moment when I find that person turning into a complete stranger to me. I wonder if what happens with me is more like they feel I am missing out for so long a time and hinting about it without me perceiving that their attitude/behaviour eventually turns to be almoust hateful, and then I notice that something is wrong. Since I have no idea of the context (all the previous hints), I find the intensity af their reaction hard to understand.

I also noticed that I rather have to remember showing affection where it seems to come naturally to others. When I do, the reaction I get sometimes overwhelms me (either it seems positive or negative, "that was about time..."), which makes me more insecure to express myself, and thus forms an evil circle.

The concept of spacegiving is probably the key, only that I seem to need unbearable amounts of it when I need it, and it is hard for others to accept that I cannot tell aforehead for how long I need it, which makes me too unpredictable to seem committed. As far as unpredictability goes, I have wondered if that is what makes people get interested in and fall for me, since a certain amount of it seems to be part of that whole dating game in the start. Only that I just don't do it for play. I simply am myself, and once they notice that this is nothing which ever will change, they turn from obsessed to offended. It is always the other who initiates, I never pursue relationships, but often find myself "trapped" in one, once I realise what is going on, and then I just try to make the best out of it, like give it a try, whatever.

At the moment I, too, have reached a point where I think that maybe I should better not play along anymore and rather keep myself out of trouble until I understand more of the whole concept. I just don't learn the rules of the game "as I play it" without others getting hurt, and that cannot be how it should be?

It may be better for you if you find a partner who thinks like you or at least accepts your ways, which would be pretty hard, otherwise you have to be willing to compromise a little.

You shouldn't learn any "rules of the game". Relationships should be something you enjoy naturally without learning any rules, and if that doesn't happen then you go about it in a completely wrong way and target the wrong people. So, be natural, ignore all the dating rules, and then when you connect with somebody you know it is the real thing, and you can enjoy it so much better.

The fundamental rule is: Relationships are something you should enjoy, not something you must have.

And don't rely on "dating statistics." They are not applicable to individual situations.