Why I seem contradictory

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I seem to give conflicting dating advice and here's why...

I believe in stages not ages.

Age gaps can be healthy if you're both in the same stage in life.

That's why aspies ought to be looking for slightly younger partners - although people my age should still not date people still in sixth form, obviously.

It's why we ought to be very cautious when it comes to older partners. And even somewhat cautious when it comes to partners our own age.

Because most people are NT.

Between autistic people, I still believe in stages not ages and that's why I wouldn't want to date someone who's dated nobody and who still lives at home without paying rent and who has no work experience at all rather than some vol work & a job behind them and a couple of relationships behind them and recently left home & pays rent. I would be afraid of hurting them or of them doing something wrong due to inexperience.

We develop slowly when it comes to social stuff. Dating = a form of social stuff.

Predator blindness is a thing but so is predators seeking out people who are naive and don't have much social experience. And so is just two decent people who don't hit it off well because they're in different parts of life.

I feel I am stuck at a certain stage tho.

I guess I'm lucky to have been able to avoid "predators" despite forming relationships with some people who were much more mature and/or experienced, as well as much older, than I was when I was in my twenties. Based on my experiences, I wouldn't make a dogma of restricting oneself to people at the same "stage," although perhaps I was just lucky. Most though not all of my partners were probably autistic or otherwise neurodivergent, although I don't know this for sure.

If you date people in a similar stage, you will learn and grow into another.

Also although it's often viewed as a hierarchy, it isn't. People who are really good at this stuff can choose to use it for good, but they often choose to use it to manipulate etc.

What kind of otherwise neurodivergent?

I feel like I attracted psychopathic types who didn't give a crap about other people.

Not just saying that like a bitter ex. I'm looking in retrospect at how others got treated by them.

I wasn't even physically attracted. I was attracted to 1 being in the group of people who had partners because that's more 'socially acceptable' according to the media and 2 being spoilt by someone who treated everyone like crap because that made me 'special' (honestly in terms of the cycle of abuse though: https://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_morgan ... anguage=en)

Biggest age gap in my adult life was 4 years.

I'm much happier on my own & nowadays I'd only date someone who increased value to my life rather than replacing my life for one with them.

But I worry about others getting into similar situations to me.

History of CSA before that.

Again, I worry about kids being groomed. More likely with autistic kids: https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/girls ... tudy-says/ This focuses on girls (afab kids), I wonder what the case is for boys (amab kids).

I don't think I accept the "stages of life" that NTs have defined. At my age, I should be getting ready to retire, lay down on the coach and die.



If you cannot discriminate between ND & NT then you should not date, regardless of age difference or not.



I would look more at if they are independent individuals and not so much what they have done. I want a potential partner to be able to make it on their own, and actually enjoy it.



Dating in the typical sense is just a way to merge social identites, and it is not something NDs should do.



These types typically want things to move fast, and so if you don't do dating and take your time, you shouldn't have much trouble with them.

You seem to be overestimating the viability of finding a similarly inexperienced partner for an adult, heterosexual, irreligious male who's never been able to start dating despite wanting to. What if finding a compatible woman who's never dated and who would be interested in me just isn't possible?

I don't take your advice seriously because I'm simply autistic not schizophrenic.

I don't want to date but that's not the point.

Everyone lives in reality.

If they don't then they have no business dating.

Stop talking to me. I, like a lot of others on here, am fed up of your delusions.

Then you don't date anyone.

It's that simple.

It avoids you getting hurt.

Probably easier for straight guys than straight girls to avoid getting hurt in a relationship they're ill prepared for but I'd rather not go down that chain of thought since it's rather sexist and female predators, after all, do exist.

I started wanting a romantic partner when I was 12, but it never happened for me. I've become pretty severely depressed over it to the point where if I'm not going to be able to experience a relationship while I'm young, I'd rather just not continue to experience life.

So no, it doesn't avoid me getting hurt. Not dating ensures that my heart continues to ache.

At least you're not in my situation.

You could've lost your virginity to a man in his 30s as soon as you started feeling like that (same exact age). And no, I wasn't attracted, I was groomed.

It would've f****d you up for life. And not in a romantic way.

Get a counsellor and see life differently, romance isn't everything.

How is your friendship group btw? Focus on platonic friends if you're lonely. Focus on masturbation if you're horny.

I'm sorry you went through that.


I have a psychologist. I don't think romance is everything, but it's pretty significant, and something that the majority of us have a strong yearning for, at least at some stage in our lives. It really sucks having to go through life seeing other people experience it, knowing most people have experienced it and knowing that it's abnormal not to experience it despite the fact that I have a very strong desire to experience it. It's just one of those things that makes you go "why me?", you know?


There's a bit of loneliness and a bit of horniness interwoven, but primarily, the emotionally torturous void is created by the unmet long-term desire to have romantic experiences, as well as feel desirable to someone I find desirable. If I can't get these experiences, I just don't see the point.

As for platonic relationships, they're pretty sparse nowadays. Most of my spare time socialisation is with my mum and brother, and there's only one person I'd call a good friend whom I see with any degree of regularity.

I don't mind much though, because in stark contrast with romantic relationships, I'm not particularly motivated to pursue platonic relationships. As far as platonic relationships are concerned, I can largely do without them and be okay with it so long as I have an internet connection.

Yeah that is hard.

I don't think the answer would be someone with loads of experience. I think she might have a bit more than you but would be in a similar stage in life still. Maybe with more romantic experience but less experience in the workplace. Or with more romantic experience but less of the 'hard work' side of it- the visiting a psychologist etc, which helps you know and understand yourself.

Speaking with a psychologist is a big part of what will save you from dangerous people.

Another part of it - again, at the risk of sounding sexist - is being a heterosexual male. Not sure why this is, apart from physical force (99% of people are cis, most men are bigger than most women, most people are straight) & the way girls are encouraged to express their emotions through sadness rather than anger.

I would hate for your strong desire for a girlfriend to be met with some controlling woman who wants to hurt you physically or on an extreme level mentally. A woman who pushed past your boundaries & broke you etc or who made you feel as if other parts of your life were worth cutting out - whether that was your friends or family or specialist interests etc - until there was nothing in your life but her.

I feel like if someone had a lot of boyfriends & was already prone to being a nasty control freak type, she would hurt you.

Now if you were to end up with a woman who had had a few boyfriends, it not quite work out, her being desperate to find 'the one', I feel like that would work better.

If you were to meet the nasty control freak type earlier in her life, she wouldn't know quite so many tricks to hurt you with. She still wouldn't be 'the one' but you would be able to learn from her low level tricks what not to look for in a girlfriend.

If you're like me & only just leaving home etc, someone who has already been through messy divorces etc and has kids would not see you as a potential 'match'. And would likely have baggage you weren't prepared to handle.

If she wasn't a nasty control freak type & she didn't have any baggage, she'd be a good bet even if she'd had plenty of boyfriends. But I'm not sure how many people like that actually exist, then you have to half the number & get rid of the lesbians, taken women etc... Maybe this is me being glass half empty.

Now because you already have a psychologist - I feel like you're probably working on self esteem to a level where this is kind of irrelevant. Predators seek out lonely and desperate people who don't understand themselves. People who don't understand how these things work and have nobody to turn to. People who are prone to believing anything an outsider says about them. That's why autistic people fall victim to this stuff more often than neurotypical people - no support level, even on an amateur level. You're fortunate to have a professional who can guide you on this stuff in a healthy way.

Sometimes (and this is true) people who have been through messy divorces seek people who have a fresh, innocent, clean-skate attitude to life.

Yeah but sometimes they want help you can't give.

I had a, physically hot, woman slide into my DMs and tell me she liked me then proceeded to tell me all this stuff about her ex. He was an abuser who hit her. He was the father of their 2 kids...

I couldn't help her. I don't have that kind of experience. I couldn't be with her because she felt so 'grown up' to me.

Although she seemed like a nice person.

Then someone else hit on her. He had a girlfriend. He proceeded to treat her like rubbish. All the time, she was treating me as a friend and dumping all this stuff on me.

She was bisexual & wasn't transphobic so for both those reasons I take 'I like you' as 'you're hot'. And she kept telling me about wearing bikinis, kinks she had etc... Weird thing to do to a platonic friend...

She told me it's ok to dump all that on me cos I'm 32. I might be 32 chronologically, but I've never had a relationship which was so intense & long lasting as a marriage & I don't have 2 kids. She kept telling me that the advice I gave her was 'dangerous' or 'wrong' or 'got her in trouble'. Well, all I know is what I've read so that was all I was passing onto her. I don't know the likely outcomes in the real world for a parent doing all that.

There was only a 4 year age gap but it felt like a 20 year one tbh!

Ironically she knew I was autistic, that was how we got talking and how she started dumping on me. All this stuff about her severely autistic son. Again - I'm not mature enough to handle that!

In the end she blocked me for daring to hint that an Irish American might have a different life experience to a Scottish person of Irish descent...

It irritates me when someone asks for advice, gets it, then blames YOU for it not being “right.”

She’s lucky you even gave her advice. She sounds like a real winner....

Some people with “life experience” really have had enough of others with that “experience.”

For those who want that “experience,” I’d steer far away from them and their nonsense. Otherwise, you get pulled into that lifestyle.

I’d rather live like a naïf than live like someone who, say, has been a drug addict.