Failing at relationships

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Hi,

I'm kinda new here and I don't often post anything online but I think it's probably time I reached out to some people who probably think a bit more like I do.

So backstory. I'm 28, female, live in New Zealand. I've had one relationship back in my late teens, early twenties that lasted for four years. It wasn't a good relationship, he cheated, isolated me and I was just generally miserable. Since that relationship ended (2014) and after taking about a year and half to recover from it, I've been trying to find another one (off and on). I moved over to London for two years, had several dates and one five week relationship. I did a bunch of travel, saw some cool stuff, did a bunch of things, and it was in England when I was diagnosed with Asperger's. I got played many times by several men and the trend has continued after returning to NZ.

Basically after having the same kind of story play out for me yesterday with my most recent attempt I'm at a loss as to what's happening. I've put a lot of work into myself over the years working on my social skills and my mental and physical health. Now any remaining confidence that I had in myself is gone. I actually feel unlovable and that as I'm the only common denominator in all of this that it's on me. I feel completely incompetent. I know I can sustain relationships as I have a handful of friends that have stuck around for several years but as soon as romance is involved it falls to pieces.

I believe I have lost all hope.

Has anyone been through similar experiences and feels comfortable enough to share?

Alas, this is the story of many peoples’ lives here.

I wish this wasn’t true.....but I’ve come to believe that there’s an element of luck involved in maintaining relationships, rather than a “lack of competence.”

I’m sorry you’ve been “played with.”

What happened with that 5-week London relationship?

He was probably a creep, anyway.

How did you “overshare”? Did you talk about your bowel habits over dinner or something?

Sorry this happened to you.

I don’t think you did anything wrong here.

I get that you are worried that you are the common denominator but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are the problem.

People have strange reasons for dumping people. It can happen out of the blue when things appear to be going great. Sometimes you get the hint that maybe something is wrong, they deny it vehemently and accuse you of overthinking, then they dump you anyway. And sometimes, if you press them, they reinvent history to distort what happened between you so that they have a “legitimate” reason to pin it on, which sounds like what he may have done here. Trying to make sense of it will just leave you feeling more frustrated.

“Over-sharing” shouldn’t have been a deal breaker for someone emotionally mature.

Without more information I can’t say what the solution is. Stay strong and keep progressing with your other life goals until you meet the right person.

If you already were to the point that you were meeting each other’s relatives and were planning on going away for the weekend, I don’t see how you could’ve been oversharing. Those things would suggest a lot of intimacy. I don’t think I could be sexually involved with someone without having a lot of openness What does he suggest you were oversharing about?

Since this is your first post, welcome to Wrong Planet.

I have no answer for you except just keep trying. I went on few dates in high school or college. I figured I would wait until after college and I had a job before I began to look seriously. But the problem was that beginning at Junior High Schools boys and girls became romantically interested in each other. So by the time I landed a job, the typical NT had a decade of experience on the subject, where I had none. There was a lot of catch-up to do on my part.

I will pass onto you one little bit of experience that I learned along the way. When I was in college, I had a girl who took pity on me and showed me how to kiss. She was from South America and the girls there are much more adept in that area. She explained to me all the different types of kissing such as the simple kiss, the French kiss, the truly romantic kiss, the kiss that leaves a mark (Hickey Kiss) and we practiced each technique.

But the most important kiss of all was the truly romantic kiss. The secret is that it is all done with the eyes. First you need to be alone and remain perfectly quiet. You need to look deep within their eyes until you can see the shadow of their soul, then you slowly move your faces together without breaking eye contact. And then kiss the girl on her lips. She demonstrated the technique and I could see her point. I would have never known, not in a million years.

Us Aspies can have problems reading other people & problems recognizing & noticing warning/bad signs. It's one of the side-effects of having a disorder that includes BAD social skills. NOT saying your social skills are bad but Aspergers is known to involve bad social skills. What I'm getting at is that you probably just got together with the wrong or bad people. This does NOT mean it's your fault or that your a problem. The guys should NOT play & be more respectful. It might help to get a good NT friend to set you up & try to learn to notice some of the warning signs to look for in people before getting together with them, an NT friend could be helpful with this.

When I was in my 20s, the concept of the autism spectrum didn't exist...at least it wasn't widely know, and definitely not diagnosed. So I constantly wondered what was wrong with me, specifically why I couldn't maintain a relationship with a woman.

I was quite good-looking then, worked as a model, so I had attractive women initiating flirting with me, or else I'd have had no sex life at all. But after anywhere from one night to one month, they'd realize just how weird and incompetent I was and run. Socially, I was essentially having adolescence in my 20s. Very depressing.

It got better as I learned, through trial and error, what to do and what avoid doing. I've now been married for 12 years. 2 kids. Progress can happen.

Our social innocence is very easily detected by evil people. There is a dark triad - narcissism, sociopathy , and psychopathy. These are disordered personality types. People who are vulnerable due to being lonely and understandably needy are easily read by these types of people and are used by them. If you already feel awkward, they will make you feel worse and the more you are around these types, the more you will second guess yourself and think that they are superior and you are inferior. Read about narcissism, sociopathy, and psychopathy in order to protect yourself. If someone breaks up with you, but doesn't take anything from you, doesn't insult you or hurt you in any other way than the breakup itself - that's actually normal. Anything else is predation. Feeling sad after a break-up is normal. You shouldn't feel "stripped". You shouldn't have LESS money than before. You shouldn't feel used sexually (don't have sex, you don't really have to). You shouldn't feel broken emotionally. You should NEVER be battered. Read as much psychology as you can about how to detect evil people. You've done enough improvements on yourself. Start protecting yourself against others who can't improve upon themselves because they are hard-wired awful. Please learn as much as you can about those three conditions. You're not failing at anything. Don't blame yourself. Don't allow someone to blame you or make you think there's something wrong with you. There's something wrong with everybody. No human being is perfect but narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths swear they are. Study them well and stay far away from them as possible. Stick with people like yourself. Also avoid folks with a diagnosis of ADHD and the mentally ill.