Not seeing red flags.

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Do you think that aspies are easily "suckered" by would-be romantic partners that the majority of NTs would know to stay well away from?

Do Aspies stick around beyond the point that the average NT would know to run like his or her ass is on fire?

Are we too dense/scatterbrained to see "the signs"? You know, "red flags"? Do we overanalyze and make oursleves pretend the flags are yellow or orange and not blood flaming red?

Are we "easy marks" for abusers, psychological/emotional and not just physical?

Does our lack of dating experience (well, many of us) make us a little too "desperate", and therefore prone to ending up with people we ought not end up with?

These are things I've pondered on for some time, because it happened to me several times in a row. Maybe it was just me?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
No.

QFT - and it can be even
worse, when it's happening
from both sides.

Though, I don't know if it's a matter
of NOT seeing the flags, so much as
ignoring them; at least in my case.
I wish to hell I could control my emotions.

I have been in enough bad relationships to know this as true. I look back on them and think "why did I stay?" or "what made me do that?", but I didn't see the warning signs, I stayed too long in bad ones. I didn't know how to handle those things. I would often retreat into my own world and try not to deal with the issues ( i don't like confrontations).
I consider myself lucky that I ended up with the man I'm with now--- we started as friends long before we became a couple, and he feels at odd with the world like me. We talk about things that we each thought no one else understood!
It's not just you, believe me. I don't know about luck, really--- but it was just by chance. A good chance.

yup, these are the correct answers

I can't help to agree. I've only dated two people, but the first guy was seriously needy and touchy. I didn't know what was normal. I didn't have any red flag in my head when he asked me to lay in bed with him one morning before I went to work. Or how he always wanted to shave my legs and when he tried to talk me into certain things.

And I kept this guy totally secret from my parents but they knew something was different and wrong. And they confronted me I freaked out and broke it off with him over the phone and never saw him again. He still tries to contact me but thinking back now I am so relieved because I know now that if I had stayed with him I probably wouldn't be a virgin and probably have done some stuff I wouldn't have been comfortabel with.

Even back then, I wasn't comfortable with kissing him or sitting on his lap but I was kind of desperate for something and I did pretend alot.

But now I feel alot more comfortable the with relationship I have now. And I have learned from my mistakes and this guy is totally different and its really nice. Maybe because he has alot of AS traits, but he doesn't try to shove his tongue down my throat or touch me in a sexual way. Pretty much the only touching that we do is like a goodbye hug or oddly wrestle a bit. Seriously, but its more like when he tries to get my legs off the couch and he keep them on and he has to really work to get my legs off. And then he gets into it and my legs against his arms. And I totally win. The other day I seriously had him pin on his stomach on the floor with my legs pinning his arms on his back. Oh yeah. Its really fun. Look ma no hands. And its really nice to hear him say that I have freakishly strong legs.

Any other type of touching I know I am not ready for and I am confortable and I have learned now that I can say no.

No, I don't end up with anybody.

I do also think that the people who take advantage of those of us who are a little to 'socially naive' to see that we are being treated badly, should take some responsibility for their actions.

No-one makes such people treat us badly - it is their CHOICE, and I find it difficult to understand why some people simply cannot resist the opportunity to take advantage of a vulnerable person.

Yep...sounds right. In my case, I've been left sometimes years later smacking my head saying...."why, why, WHY can't you SEE these things?"

I think that would support the theory of the social world as a dog-eat-dog one. I can't really disagree with what you said, and it really DOES make you wonder why people would do that kind of stuff to "less-conditioned" people.

However, I suppose it's because they know it's easier TO take advantage of people like us (for lack of a better pronoun), so they'll do it for the "perks," whereas they know that it's going to be generally harder to take advantage of an NT for the same thing. That's the best answer I got.

Yes to all of those for me, pretty much. I've found myself to be easily taken advantage of, to the point to where I'm pretty disgusted with myself. I stayed in an abusive relationship (my first) for over two years because I didn't think I could get any better than that. I've learned a lot from the few relationships I've had, but every time I realize after a relationship had ended that I'd been stupid for sticking around and I only stayed because I didn't know any better. I had to set up a "dating committe" with some friends because I knew I wouldn't be able to tell if somebody was a bad idea, but a few people slipped through the cracks. And then I lost those friends so that fell apart.

Luckily I've found a good guy who will be sticking around for awhile. When we first started dating I gave him my disclaimer, basically telling him I was socially ret*d (I didn't know about asperger's yet, so this is what I called myself) and he said he had the same issues. So maybe that's why we get along so well?

*lights up a pipe, and leans back in a comfy recliner*

I know I was back in school -- one of the girls apparently was the "hero" of her clique for playing around with most of the boys in the class.
The whole "love and dating business" is a mine field of subtle hints and social cues -- exactly the stuff we aspies aren't good at. No wonder many of us wind up with badly hurt feelings -- my heart goes out to all of you whose sex drive keeps pushing you into aforementioned mine field...!


Dang right! As I see the whole Asperger's thing, the central issue is that the "social compass" part of the brain (exactly the bit that alerts the NTs about the kind of situations you refer to) has been rewired for other purposes (e.g. something "savant", or just deep thought at a level that illudes all the NT sheeple).


This can also be explained by my idea of the missing or low-functioning "social compass": Very few of us have any problems understanding and following clear and fair rules, but if we don't get the cues to which those rules must be applied, how can we follow them? Imagine the NTs "coping" in traffic if someone decided to change all the traffic lights to only emit invisible infrared and ultraviolet light...


Most likely, for pretty obvious reasons (easy to poke fun at someone who "doesn't get it"). That being said, I'll like to remark that bullying is simply the "negative application" of the social compass on the side of the NT bully -- that's what they used to call a psycopath...


Dunno ... but if that's the case, I'd reckon that the "degree of desparation" would vary just as much amonst NTs as it does in us...

But all in all, it seems it's not "just you" --

Happens to me, has a lot of times.

Damn it scramjet, now I need a smoke.