Do you have "characters"? Do they affect your dating?

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I fell short of most obligations and social situations when I was young. It was no surprise to me that I eventually developed a series of "characters" or alternate personas to get through these moments that would normally be too awkward or embarrassing for me.

They are designed to please others and not make me look like a fool by drawing from behavior I've seen in the past to be more believable during the moment.

There is the angry me who will lunge in for a kill all aggressive to protect loved ones.

The sensitive girly me to be there for females when they need to talk.

There is the "bro" me to not creep masculine guys out too much.

The geek me, to seem smart when I'm around intellectuals or attending college.

And there is the romantic me - who is meant to shower a guy with love like a man does his wife or a wife does her husband.

The problem romantically speaking? It's that I interact with most people in a VERY disingenuous way. They get a role, and a character very much like Roger from American Dad. If I decide to share that persona there is no need for anyone to earn it,I simply commit to sharing those characteristics,whether it be sensitivity, aggression, or intense love.

I had a guy cut me off recently just as we were really starting to click. He said he felt bad because I seem to attach too quickly and he just wasn't feeling that same kind of spark yet. It felt disproportionate to him.

The truth is that I wasn't attaching too quickly. It's just a romantic persona I convert to in order to let guys know that I'm interested. Otherwise I would seem withdrawn and ambivalent and then he would think I'm not interested or weird.

Does anyone else have characters and personas they rely on? Or is this unique to me?

Can relying on personas be a bad thing because you are showering people with affection and behavior that Neuro-Typicals don't display until they truly have a meaning for that behavior, other than this is what you do when you are in a relationship?

When I was in high school, and a little after high school, my (ex) fiancé and I used to role-play sexually and non-sexually.

Roleplaying is one of the best things that Aspies can do. It gives us the opportunity to observe human interaction and work on our social skills much more safely than raw exposure. It is also normal for people to wear at least a few 'faces' in their life: the Work Face, the Parent Face, the Buddy Face, the Romantic Face.

Your specific issue is that it had a negative impact on a relationship you care about. This really depends on how comfortable you feel wearing that face -- it seems to bother you since you describe it as disingenuous. Give your next relationship a try without wearing that mask to see how that makes you feel, then compare the two. If you feel much more comfortable when you are not wearing the Romantic Face, then you can develop some honest scripts to make the 'real you' less awkward.

I try to get rid of the characters.
I have a few "cloaks", which alter a few details (like where i draw the time for inappropriate jokes/comments/touching), but i no longer have full personas.
To equate to Roger: i will change the glasses, but not the rest of the costume.