A whole other question...

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This may seem a bit long winded and hard to relate to for some but I sometimes just need to do a check on things. My sense of emotional reality is complex, very much so, and right now I feel like putting this out there just because often enough I wonder if I do have feelings that very few other people do.

Here's one thing that I've had for a long time which, while it feels like a beautiful way to see things it leaves me wondering just how far out of place I am. My sense of real infatuation, something that would make me want to talk to a woman, to actually have the motivational switch pulled to actually feel that I'd be shooting for something I want, seems like its much more cerebrally rooted - like most of my emotions seem to be. The times I do feel REAL attraction of the kind I'd want to chase its those rare moments when I'm somewhere just doing something mundane and someone ends up where I'm at to where I feel something off of her presence, not just a relatability but almost like we emotionally dwell in the same world; it lends that same feeling as if she's someone that some gut instinct is telling me is really important to me, like we've met in past lives and known eachother for hundreds of years...maybe before the fall of Atlantis, maybe during the early days of Athens, maybe on another planet (no, I'm not much of a believer in that sort of stuff but again - I'm trying to explain the emotional depth of it). It tends to land me in that place where I feel like I'm halfway in touch with the essence, like I'm back in that peaceful garden where everything's got that white background glow, and as I feel that sort of identity inter-spiraling I tend to feel like she herself, as I do, has a strong connection with that sort of place or has that spark at the core of her essence that I have as well and wish I could find it in other people but I find it dead so often in so many that they're looks don't even matter anymore, a girl could be a 8, 9, a 10, or however you'd want to rate it and still - if its not there I wouldn't be feeling it. Stuff like that though, from me, doesn't surprise me that much at all, that whole lofty and cerebral emotional side that jumps into less basal and more sublime side of feeling (almost the religious end) has been something that's gone hand in hand with my love for music as well just like its gone hand in hand with my urge to get it out there and be creative.

Aside from that weird need for the whole epic and grand connection, nonverbally of course - I'd never expect verbal communication to go quite THAT smooth, I've never really been the kind of guy who'd understood the more common approaches people have. Myself, I'm more for the sly and off angle stuff, the kind of intense but clipped verbal communication like you see in movies where everything's loaded with meaning, that and just down to earth banter where even if we can emotionally be off in the clouds in terms of how we're feeling each other our minds and our logic are very much on the ground, very practical and very realistic - like we can do and enjoy BOTH at the same time. Its being able to stretch your mind and your emotions in two places at once, feel a euphoric level of emotion, keep your words and thought processes on a very real-world level, but being able to enjoy BOTH at the same time - like you're able to be in the city and be able to see the heavenly beauty as well as the concrete, corruption, and harder things - simultaneously.

Its not at all that people are incapable of doing that to that degree, I see it all the time IRL, but for some reason I'm never able to catch that groove with anyone and its even sadder when I get flirted with all the time but especially in my early 20's it confused the hell out of me; its like when women flirted they were only ready and willing to accept me being this real simple traditional dork, like they wanted to get all bright-eyed, wag my tale,and pant or something whereas when I tried to take it to the mental zone I wanted to its like they completely didn't get it, they didn't like cerebral or cerebral emotion, its like everything that I was feeling was completely lost on them. The fact that some people were like that didn't bother me so much, but it really tripped me out that almost everyone I met was so far away from me that the sheer idea of diversity seemed to melt away and I really started wondering just how much of an outlier I was just as much as I wondered how much of the penalty of that (being single from then on) I deserved for enjoying my better half, being what made me happy, rather than completely dessecrating it, ripping to shreds, and beating myself into conformity. Its true that I did a lot of that in my 20's for the sake of hardening myself but in the end, regardless, especially after I'd achieved the level of emotional hardening that I wanted - I just couldn't throw that 'spiritual' side of my emotionality away, it ended up seeming like one of the few things that REALLY gave me worth, made me different, really made me special in any way shape or form - especially when my talents and potential seemed mediocre in so many ways and I didn't see myself being some huge business tycoon, being some famous dark jungle producer, etc. etc.

As for my late 20's, things are different and as time goes on I'm running into fewer and fewer people. Still, even as women I meet seem more and more evolved, more mature, more like they'd be of that caliber it seems like almost everyone is still hinged to that childhood emotional center where things are as they appear; the thread tying them to that seems to be dissolving and getting thinner and thinner, but still the whole feel of things is still kind of sad - it seems like so many people have so much potential and so much value but they get internally restrained by the stupid side of this world and the stupid side of human nature and feeling. Its no disrespect to anyone, we all have our own relative strengths and weaknesses, but seriously - I'd love to think I could keep meeting more people who are more built to my end and seriously, I'm still hoping to have a woman come into my life who has all the things I was mentioning and to where we're both very committed to being strong for each other, helping each other develop into stronger and stronger individuals, helping each other get in touch with our own best traits and talents, and generally bringing the best out of each other. When things are hard we may give each other support but we'd handle it in a more stoic manner where each of us encourages the other to stay tough and laugh it off.

For me that's still my ideal and as much as people may say "Yeah, but your getting older, if you don't lower your standards the world's going to pass you by" - its not even a question, there is no settling for less because I couldn't be happy with less, in fact I'd be much happier being by myself from here on out than having less. It may sound kind of crazy but this is me.

So what's the deal, am I that eccentric that I'm feeling this practically all by myself along with maybe 1 or 2% of the population?

Good writing! Really appreciated reading your thoughts techstepgenr8tion . I have done some research about romantic love when in college and in grad school. I 'caught' or 'fell' in love quite often and was desparate to learn how to manage it.

here is it distilled by Dorothy Tennov

The limerent reaction (referring to the state of being "in love") begins, usually at a point discernible at the time and later recalled. Sexual attraction as such need not be experienced, although (a) the person is someone you view as a possible sexual partner, and (b) the initial "admiration" may be, or seem to be, primarily physical attraction.

Once limerence begins, you find yourself thinking about the LO (the Limerent Other: the current love object) and receiving considerable pleasure in the process. There is an initial phase in which you feel buoyant, elated, and, ironically, for this appears to be the beginning of an essentially involuntary process, free. Free not only from the usual restraints of gravity, but emotionally unburdened. You may be attracted to more than one potential LO. You feel that your response is a result of LO’s fine qualities.

With evidence of reciprocation from LO, you enjoy a state of extreme pleasure, even euphoria. Your thoughts are mainly occupied with considering and reconsidering what you may find attractive in LO, replaying whatever events may have thus far transpired between you and LO, and appreciating qualities in yourself which you perceive as possibly having sparked interest in you on the part of LO. (It is at this point in West Side Story that Maria, the contemporary Juliet, sings I Feel Pretty.)

Your degree of involvement increases if obstacles are externally imposed or if you doubt LO’s feelings for you. Only if LO were to be revealed as highly undesirable might your limerence subside. Usually, with some degree of doubt its intensity rises further, and you reach the stage at which the reaction is virtually impossible to dislodge, either by your own act of will, or by further evidence of LO’s undesirable qualities. This is what Stendhal called crystallisation. The doubt and increased intensity of limerence undermine your former satisfaction with yourself. You acquire new clothes, change your hairstyle, and are receptive to any suggestion by which you might increase your own desirability in LO’s eyes. You are inordinately fearful of rejection.

With increases in doubt interspersed with reason to hope that reciprocation may indeed occur, everything becomes intensified, especially your preoccupation with percentages. At 100% you are mooning about, in either a joyful or a despairing state, preferring your fantasies to virtually any other activity unless it is (a) acting in ways that you believe will help you attain your limerent objective, such as beautifying yourself and, therefore increasing the probability that you will impress LO favourably during your interaction, or (b) actually being in the presence of LO. Your motivation to attain a “relationship” (mating, or pair bond) continues to intensify so long as a "proper" mix of hope and uncertainty exist.

At any point in the process, if you perceive reciprocation, your degree of involvement ceases to rise — until, of course, you become uncertain again. The timid partners may attempt to conceal from each other the full nature of the reaction that has seized them, preventing full reciprocation in each other’s eyes and allowing the intensity to increase.
To summarise, these things are needed:

A person who meets your criteria for an LO. (The basic requisites appear to vary, and not always represent what you might consciously define as your criteria. On the other hand, the similarity between limerents and LOs with respect to broad categories of gender, age, socioeconomic status, educational level, ethnicity, et cetera, suggests that criteria exist.)
A sign of hope that the person might reciprocate.
Uncertainty.

For those who wish a cure, the most certain course is prevention. Once you are in its grips your emotions are directed by the external situation, and the only effective action open to you is destruction of any opportunity for reciprocation to occur.

Limerence for a particular LO does cease under one of the following conditions: consummation - in which the bliss of reciprocation is gradually either blended into a lasting love or replaced by less positive feelings; starvation - in which even limerent sensitivity to signs of hope is useless against the onslaught of evidence that LO does not return the limerence; transformation - in which limerence is transferred to a new LO.

Source: from Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love by Dorothy Tennov

I can't really say that I'm a fan of her way of thinking about it though. Then again I very hardly EVER fall head over heels for anyone, I tend to be real self-restrained and a bit hardened in the way I see the relationship world in general - enough so that I find it far more difficult to find someone who I really get that feeling with than to just shut physical attraction down when I see that someone's personality really puts me off.

Also, emotional needs being what they are, you tend to do better when you put your logical arguments in the form of emotional images and things that can actually have sway at that level. Loving someone you don't want to is an emotionally abstract problem that needs a response that's as holistic and abstract and probably at least as cynical.

Still the really sad part about what she said, if its at all true, is that if people really aren't in control of their emotions or the basis of their emotions it means that I am really doing something perverse if I've brought myself in control of mind and directed them the way I want them to be, much to where I'm driving myself out of any relevant range where 'normal' people could relate.

It's pheromones

A pheromone is a chemical that triggers a natural behavioral response in another member of the same species. There are alarm pheromones, food trail pheromones, sex pheromones, and many others that affect behavior or physiology, many vertebrates and plants also communicate using pheromones.

if you have the receptors you 'get it' if you don't or if they are blocked, then you don't 'get it.'

I never questioned her information simply because it resonated completely with me. I fit the symptoms. It is like she has read my mail.

Merle

P.S.

In other words, I have been 'in love' many times. Sometimes it has been reciprocal, sometimes not, but it has always been a roller coaster ride that I was definitely not in control of in important ways. The only way I have ever been able to control it is prevention.

Try not to feel too left out if you don't 'get it'. My life has been constantly demolished, distroyed and wadded up in a small crumpled wad and tossed out with the garbage because of the reactions of my receptors in my olfactory epithelium.

[shakes head]

No, there's a lot more to it than phermones. Phermones are what decide if someone's physical chemistry decide how reactionary your gonads are toward someone mainly. Personality and psychology are what they are and the chemical aspect is not what I'm getting at at all. Besides that, the phermones are something you catch when your within wind of someone, its like when they're aroused by you and you can feel a secondary arousal or vice a versa. For me its an intellectual arousal first and foremost like I see they're style, the way they carry themselves, who they project themselves as being, and that's what I fall in love with whether I'm two feet away or ten.

If personality and likeness didn't factor in I don't think I'd ever want it again, it would just be too pathetic in my mind. What I do know is that what seems to be 'wrong' with me by society's standards is that my d--- doesn't do the thinking for me but rather my brain and more high and 'cerebral' emotions do; which sometimes I find myself debating on how often it makes women think I'm weak or something less than alpha. Don't really care though because at the end of the day I have to say f--- everybody and do what makes me happy, anyone else can handle it however they want though I appreciate when they don't force me to handle them.

Geeez.

You two write like you've lived for fifty plus, and you're probably my age.

I'm impressed.

Heh, yeah, and look where it gets us...

Well, I suppose it is different for me because my d--- isn't involved.


Merle

I have lived for fifty plus years, I have no idea about techstepgenr8tion, I don't know the man.


Merle

techstepgenr8tion, I can really relate to what you said about a deep lasting attraction being more cerebral than physical. By that, I'm not trying to say that my spouse is ugly, far from it, but what makes him so attractive to me isn't primarily his looks or chemistry. In fact, I was in a relationship with someone with whom I had better physical chemistry when we met, but it was ultimately deeply unsatisfying.

My overwhelming attraction to my spouse was such that early on in our relationship, we both had the feeling that we had always known each other. We just couldn't even imagine not having always been together. We still often remember our past lives (as in before we met) as if the other had always been present. We connected on a cerebral level, not having to dumb things down for each other when we talked about our respective points of view. The ability to understand and be understood mentally was way more important and attractive to me than mere looks or chemistry. I never felt infatuated with him nor he with me, which is probably why our relationship remains so strong today. Although I got married, IMO, at a relatively young age, 22, my advice, if you'll have it, is to never lower your standards. Finding a partner with whom you can connect the way you've described is absolutely worth the wait. Best of luck on that front. You seem like a great guy.

It's funny, the week before our wedding, my spouse and I spent most of our time debating whether or not the words, "to have and to hold," should be stricken from the traditional vows we chose to use. It may not seem romantic to most people, but it was to us.

Yeah, I hear you loud and clear on that one.

The real challenge though I think for all of us is that real nasty brittleness that innitial contact has; I think a lot of guys with AS who've been single all their lives even would do fine if they could get past that innitial flash-judgement. Sadly, IRL, its one of those things that everyone is stuck with.

I've also met girls who I was very interested in, caught subtle cues (just by where they sat in class back in college or how they looked at me) but when I did get to know them, even if they were showing me all the good will and the 'lets proceed' body language I started picking up on subconscious cross-currents from within them that just scared me off. One girl who I hung out with in college a lot even, very attractive girl if not a bit shy, she even went as far one time as to tell me that she was starting to see someone else and the way she phrased it I could tell that she was deliberately trying to say that the train was leaving the station - sadly for as much as it took me to get her talking in the earlier points when I knew her I still just had that uncomfortable feeling like once we got past the social fronts that a lot of things about me would just set her off. Loved her to death as a person and had all kinds of respect for her but, I just couldn't date her - and I'll still get urges to call people from my past like that just to touch base because I did like them after all (more platonically), but I know that out of respect women seem to feel as led on and irritated by that sort of behavior as guys do.

I think the only reason my spouse and I got through that initial brittleness and flash-judgment phase was because we only met coincidentally through his sister. Our first impressions of each other were not exactly generous, but since we saw each other through our mutual acquaintance again and again, we had a chance to change our minds and got through that initial contact part fairly well. His sister really stabilized that process for us. Although, I don't think she knows it or would be glad if she did know. She doesn't exactly like me anymore. In other words, I have absolutely no advice on how to get through that initial contact phase because the way I met my spouse was atypical.

I suspect that my spouse also has AS. He was supposedly diagnosed with childhood epilepsy, which just magically disappeared when his family moved and they found a new doctor. His symptoms are extremely similar to AS characteristics. It is pretty clear that he is genetically predisposed since two of his aunts are borderline autistic and flap their hands when they are stressed out. That we share some fundamental AS personality traits has really helped to cement our relationship.

I'm not trying to say that the kind of relationship you're looking for can only occur with another Aspie, but it seems that it might be more likely.

Well, in the social circles that I end up in that's far from likely. My best guess is I'll have to keep drilling at myself, trying to galvanize my own self confidence (wipe out essentially the hell of my first 18 or so years and a lot of the crap from even my early 20's), be flawless, and meet an NT who's on my level who's expectations I'm able to rise up to (I tend to be ok with that because my expectations of myself are about in the same place). There are a lot of cool girls out there, just that I never have the kind of context of meeting them that you described - that puts me in a place where I know that I have no backup, no help, and the only way anything will likely happen is if I'm completely going it alone and bringing myself up to meet the bar that people have their immediate superficial standards at rather than ever hoping for a cozy coincidence where I meet someone great through friends or acquaintances. The way my life is structured and the way it seems like it always has been, that seems like way too much of me to ask of luck and of external circumstance.

I'm no expert so please take all my advice with a grain of salt. That being said, I think being false or untrue to yourself is preemptive sabotage to the kind of relationship for which you seem to be looking. I say this because my own attempts at self improvement often seem to lead to a loss of self rather than authentic advancement. Inauthenticity not only will put the kind of woman you seem to be looking for off, but will make you feel trapped no matter how great she is. This isn't to say don't attempt becoming a better person, just be careful.

For what it's worth, I think you would be a great catch as is.