will@rd wrote:
Duh. I haven't been married and divorced three times (six if you count the relationships that were never made legally official) because I don't care about intimacy.
However, now that I have a clearer understanding of the neurology of autism, I have less and less hope of ever achieving the experience I've been seeking. In fact, I'm not sure if it's even possible for someone with my condition. I'm fairly convinced at this point that it's simply not possible for someone with autism to ever have that kind of connection with another human being. Not really - not fully, in the way that many neurotypicals are capable of.
We might occasionally have those momentary bursts of passion that forge a Romeo-and-Juliet sort of temporary fusion, that burns out like a flare gun in the night sky - but the long term, two-becoming-one pair-bonding that lasts a lifetime, like the sweet old couples holding hands on a park bench - no. I wish that were possible, I really do, but I just don't believe it anymore.
Our very condition keeps us locked inside our own heads, and makes us incapable of maintaining awareness of other people's needs. We will always be a disappointment to those who attempt closeness with us, because their reality will never be quite real to us. We cannot anticipate their needs, we rarely recognize their needs, and even when we do, we often are clueless as to how to respond to those needs. No matter how wonderfully a relationship begins, no matter how perfectly we pretend to be normal, eventually, our true nature wins out, and it's just not what regular people need, because real intimacy is beyond our capacity to create and maintain.
This makes me so incredibly sad because I love someone who views this like you do. He doesn't love me back, and it's because of ^^^, and if not for that, I know he would. I think that somewhere in that heart of his he does. But because of what you said, it will never matter. He pushes away anyway.