"Special Friends" not "Friends With Benefits" - need assist.

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If you want the rather strange background to us then you can read it at the end. I'm going to refer to this woman as Tinúviel because reasons.

Anyway, there was interest and mutual exchange of this via words and some kisses. Then a period of a year past with complications meaning we were not in contact much (see background). After this ended, Tinúviel very graciously accepted me back.

We've spoken about some shared mental health issues and my own upcoming evaluation for ASD (probable for reasons). Tinúviel explained that she wants to be friends with people before getting in a relationship. I understand how she feels as it seems like mine begin quickly and it is always terrible. We both suffer from traumatic disorders and maybe that will explain why I was so unsure. Either way, I had to work out whether she liked me or was being nice and between my awkwardness - mutism trying to sneak in too - and her real difficulty with emotional talk, we actually were able to lay out important points.

We both feel the other is beautiful, intelligent, interesting, funny, and we want there to be a chance in the future for a potentially deeper relationship. I've had this swung by me before as nonsense so I asked if it meant we were special friends, friends who flirted and were allowed to be honest about those thoughts. She said, "Most definitely". Tinúviel is scheduled to see a psychiatrist soon; for some time she had been trying to deal on her own but she realises this is not ideal. Of course, I have my evaluation and, however that goes, I'm still in therapy for my comorbid conditions. We both feel it is important for us to "get better" or whatever you would call it before committing further and we both have reasons which, while different, mean we'd rather not rush sex. Sex would ruin Special Friends anyway.

Tinúviel has been lovely and patient with me, very caring, and listening to me as I am in a dark place right now. I do the same for her and find her useful resources which she said was quite touching and which she's going to go through properly soon. She even brought her therapy colouring book and let me keep it a while. She didn't set the limit on how much I could use but I told her I'd only colour three pictures and I worked out the best pages and told her I wouldn't touch those.

Anyway, I'm babbling. It's not been too long since we've reconnected but all the previous feelings from our time a year before came back and wiped out all the lies I'd been told about her.

I'm having trouble with what is acceptable as "Special Friends":
We give each other compliments, we've actually flirted and even in a sexual manner for a little moment or two, I've tried to re-clarify a little now and then, we hug, she let me lean on her in a hug manner, another time she seemed comfortable with me stroking her shoulder when she had her hands on my waist, we give each other little gifts, and when I want to say something I think might be inappropriate I say so and ask. Tinúviel lets me go ahead and has yet to become uncomfortable or even disapproving.

Today I was excited about her and wrote a haiku. I made it public as it was about a daffodil, my favourite flower, but really it was about her. I sort of rambled vaguely about it being symbolic but me feeling weird, not mentioning her. She commented with her own one, a flower-themed haiku with the same sort of idea (one of support), with her own favourite flower. Since she just said she wasn't sure if she's "haiku'd" right, I don't know if that means she understood. We spoke today here and there about other matters and it's been good.

I'm upset though (I came of my hormone pill so I think it's messing with me). For the first time I cried at the thought that I may be an aspie and that no matter what is said, I know I am on the spectrum somewhere as there is direct bloodline three generations back of strong traits and my brother showed lots of signs of PDD-NOS which the family ignored. I cried because she has been hurt in life and as such has trouble with... a few parts of it but is still essentially a person who understands matters which I don't. At the moment she will either assume I get something or will think I'll ask and I would ask if I wasn't scared she would run away. I feel I won't ever fit in.

Posting on forums of various mental health types and aspie forums such as this also lead me to feel like that. Even though more understand me in places like this, I still appear to be fringe. I don't want to be entirely along and I don't want to continue winding up with men who are bad for me and who are, in the end, not my preference. I'd rather manage to make it with one like Tinúviel, a woman who will give space when it is needed and who will listen and try her hardest and help while accepting my own help for her.

I'm scared to do anything wrong or move too fast. I don't want to swamp her and it's hard enough to let anybody set the pace, let alone a person who has been hurt as she has and who possibly wants the other to do it for her. I want to just inquire but I don't know when to do that, how to do that, what the names for subtler emotions are, WHAT all emotions are, how to describe what I don't actually comprehend, and how to explain my feelings while at the same time making it clear I still want to go at her speed even if I don't understand what is and isn't okay.

It's hard for me to keep back what comes to mind. Tinúviel, even before that year, felt like some sort of crazy fictional miracle. She's beautiful and she approached me. She seems to accept me even when she doesn't get it. I don't want to mess up here as I always do. Though she uses female pronouns, Tinúviel is genderfluid like myself. I've only attempted dating ciswomen and they are terrified by me.

We're not actually dating though, are we? Definitely not. What are we doing? I kinda feel nauseated and dizzy now. Don't know if it is worry or simply because I'm ill.

I'm asking people to tell me what they think, especially "NTs" who are around. I'm 25 and she's 31.


Some background:

I will put it in bullet points to attempt to get through it as quickly as possible.

- There is a man we will call Saruman.

- They were together for a a couple years and lived in the same flat for a while after they split.

- I had been attracted to Tinúviel since the moment I saw her, being homoflexible, and didn't recognise I found Saruman attractive until much later.

- I had kissed Tinúviel at a party they were both at after their split and he glared at her until she felt so uncomfortable that she had to leave. At the time I though he was glaring at me.


- Skip ahead some time and Tinúviel began to show interest in me, perhaps because she was now feeling stable or whatever else. Saruman began to message me to ask me how I was a lot of the time even though we were acquaintances.

- Tinúviel and I told each other we had feelings but she lives in another city. This was before I really looked into Aspergers (evaluation on Friday) and so instead of asking her about how she acted, I tried to guess. Now I know she's quite reserved for reasons I'd suggest are trauma-based (we're both C-PTSD but I display differently).

- Somehow it skipped my mind and so when I was asking Saruman about another guy I liked (I'm poly) and mentioned Tinúviel was there, I told him I liked her. A week later Saruman noticed me drunk online, offered to pay the cab fare to his after I had requested he come to my carer and I's flat, gave me more drink, got tipsy, and we seem to have had sex. I don't remember but I had stated in the past week sex was not casual for me and he knew it, so relationship.


- Saruman said he was fine with me dating Tinúviel. This was hard as the new relationship was going to take priority. Tinúviel stays over here at the flat at times when she is through in this city for the monthly Live Action Role Play game and I would ask to stay at Saruman's because it is a small flat, I was shy, and all the input. He may have taken this as an unwillingness to see her.

- He began a smear campaign and for a few months she's pop up in conversations around about once a week. At first I would argue against his irrational statements and conclusions. That became tiring. So I asked Saruman to stop talking about Tinúviel. He switched to pronouns and nouns to really bad talk her and, when I was confused enough to ask who he was talking about, he'd say he'd "Thought I already guessed,".

- Saruman kept that up for a few more months until he had me convinced. I believed he wouldn't lie, twist, or omit the truth but he did to extremes. I stopped talking to Tinúviel online but couldn't work out how to explain why. She wasn't the one to communicate and I've found out that it's generally because she worries about irritating people.

- Tinúviel has told me she didn't pry because she thought I was either enjoying my relationship and she didn't want to disturb or, on worse days, that he had said something. She wanted me to be happy though, so left it alone.


- Saruman dumped me, I learned a lot about him from various people, and Tinúviel was pleased to be back in my life and wasn't even angry at me for having listened to him. In fact, she blames herself about what he was like to her and, having had it happen to me, I know that's nonsense.

/End of background