Dating an AS guy...would like some advice.

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PUtting this into its own thread.

This might be long, i thank you to whomever bears with me.

I am now dating a guy whom i believe has AS. He has not been officially diagnosed, however, from what he has told me and the fact that psychology is my thing i am pretty certain he is an aspie.

We have dated nine months. He is a sweetheart. Sweetest guy i have ever dated. We are both 41. I am divorced, he has never been married. In fact he has had some relationships in his life that never panned out. In every case the woman ended up basically using his kindness and dumping him. I think i can see why they left, i admit in the beginning i kept thinking this just isn't going to work out. This is before i realized that AS might be the cause for the social ineptness. You see i am very outgoing, very socially in tune. He is not. He is outgoing, but he misses social cues and in very social settings when we went out it was so awkward. he can't read the signs that people give off, and basically he would embarrass himself a bit. It put me off in the beginning. But as i dated him more, i began to realize how utterly sweet and honest he was, and he had what i wanted in a man - dependabilty, loyalty, kindness....i felt i can overlook the other things that were plaguing me.

The signs that lead me to believe he has AS is he told me that when he was a child he was very sad. His mother took him to a psychologist. He said they mentioned he might be high functioning autistic. Back then I doubt much was known about AS. he also mentioned being bullied a great deal in his youth all the way up into his 20s. This in itself doesn't suggest AS, it is all of the other things i have witnessed as well. The clumsiness. At 41 he is the most clumsy person i have ever met. Where most adults catch themselves when they fall, he seems to just go straight down in a very ungraceful fashion. He obsesses with things he likes. Definitely has the OCD factor. For instance he likes to work out and this is something that without fail he will do. He doesn't let anything slide if it is important to him. that is a quality i admire. In his job, he has been so loyal and dependable. He makes a decent living but i attribute that to the fact that he has been there so many years and his current job is several steps up from where he started but it is still rather mundane and repetitive work. But he loves the work and never misses a day. Once in ten years he called in sick. He has his gripes like most people but he never misses. his verbal skills are great. he has a bachelor's degree. He had good grades becuase he was a very tenacious kid. He still is. But he lacks any type of social grace. I admit, social gatherings cause me angst because i know he can't handle himself very well. He does ok, but he doesn't pick up on cues.

He is adorable tho. Very fit. I am finding myself falling in love with him. I have read that Aspie's can do well wtih partners who are on the other extreme that they are. I feel that is me. I am highly empathetic, in tune and extremely socially adept. What he can't always convey to me i know what he is trying to say. I read him well. I dont think his past g/f's knew what to do wtih him or how to handle him because it is an undertaking. but his positive qualities surpass any negative. His whole life seems to surround on making others happy. I have never met anyone who wants to do more for his friends or others. He can't let go of friends tho. he often lives in the past and everyone he ever knew stays in his rolodex and he is VERY VERY hurt if a friend tries to move on. I have tried to explain to him tihs is ok. the natural flow of friendship is such that life can take us in different directions and it isn't an insult to him of they move on. he cannot grasp this no matter how hard i try to explain it.

If you are still hanging with me, here is my dilemma. When i first met him and the first few times we went out, i thought maybe he was gay. He has a lot of effiminate qualities. He is masculine, but at the same time there wree cues. And i am very in tune with people and some of these things didn't set well. I even asked him if he were bi. He was taken aback and said NO why do you ask? I have never been asked such a thing! I told him why and mentioned some of the reasons i said this. A lot of his guy friends seem to be gay, he doesn't seem to notice and was a bit surprised when i said "but a lot of your friensd are gay", you obsessively work out at the Y, you are extremely fashionable, you pay more attention to hair product than i do, you get pedicures, you cry when a sad song comes on, you cry if i hurt your feelings, etc etc. He said ' a guy can possess feminine qualities without being gay". Of course, he was right. I know this. I am not a homophobe, i have many gay and lesbian friends and I KNOW he is right. But i am not dating them. If it were not for this one concern, i'd have to say our relationship was near perfect (i can overlook the clumsiness, and social ineptitude)./ But if he is gay, i can't live in denial.

So i began reading more on AS> I have read that sometimes male aspies can be lableled gay because some of the attributes they possess can be misleading to the onlooker. I cannot say that sexually there are issues. He is a very passionate lover and his desire for me just can't be feigned. It has to be real because he is so enthusiastic as a lover.

So this leads me to my raeson for posting. I need help from people who know this better than I. Is there a good chance he isn't gay and i am misreading some of these things and they are actually attributed to AS? He doesn't look feminine> he is very manly, VERY handsome and extremely well built (as i stated he works out a lot). But then again, many gay guys are like this too. It is just the meticulous attention to his looks, the pedicures, the obsessive house cleaning, the many gay friends, and other inuendos he has said that leave me wondering. I think i am falling in love with this man and he has mentioned in passing one day our moving in together. I can see all of this happening because he is so domestic and loves homelife. I have never seen a man more dependable, loving and attentive. But i am afraid. I don't want to be with someone in denial if he is gay.

Does anyting I have written sound like the AS might be clouding what i am seeing and that maybe these are signs of AS and not that he is gay? When i ask him he tells me absolutely not and he never fails to lavish me with love. But i do believe when we are around gay men they pick up that he is gay. We were out one night and a gay waiter i know, who didn't realize we were dating, was flirting with him HEAVILY! I have never been out with a man in my life where a gay man flirted so obviously right with me at the dinner table with him. Surely he knew we were on a date? It didn't deter him at all> I was so embarrassed. he even asked me later that night "didn't what that waiter said bother you" and i said yes, it did. But i couldn't read why he asked me that way. I couldn't tell if he liked it, or was bothered or embarrassed by it and usually i read people so well!! !! !! !!


HELP!! !! !! !! !! !! !!

yeah, we get that sometimes. With some guys it's more prevalent than others. I know silly things like does he have Barbara Striesand or Show tunes albums don't tell you much.

One thing I've noticed women can do is watch a man without 'watching' him. The missus can see me looking at something even if I don't move my head, through sunglasses... Does he follow men with his eyes? How about women? (most guys get busted at this..I should know...

Do you find a lot of muscle mags around? Tapes, etc.? A lot of guys can have a 'stash' of mags they keep hidden. Doubt you'll need to do this, but if you find it; if there's women, you can sigh with relief...then brain him with a fying pan...

If you have gay friends, you could have them use 'gaydar' on him. Or just ask some of his friends.

There are women who hang with gay guys; thay have many of the same interests, and they can flirt to their heart's content without having to 'pay up', as it were. The waiter may have thought you might be in that situation, which I would think would be even more insulting.

Well it certainly sounds like you've landed yourself a good man, so I'll skip down to where you needed help...

One of the things about aspies is that many aspie personality traits are often confused for homosexual ones... for one thing, the first thing that comes to mind is that men are rarely known for being dependable, stable, loyal, or anything like that... I myself have had the "are you gay" question thrown at me plenty of times in high school.

Another thing is that since aspies rarely send out the body language one expects, the average person would not be able to "see" that an aspie male is interested in some woman, and since, to the outside world, it seems that said aspie isn't interested in any women, he must be gay...


Aspies aren't known for "faking it". If he directly says that he loves you, I'm 99.99% sure he means it (the other .01% being he's really good at faking aspie, but is really an NT...)


The fact that he acted shocked when you asked him if he was gay means that he hadn't even considered that possibility... I'm pretty sure he's straight... and no, I'm not telling you that just because it's what you want to hear; that is my gut reaction to this situation...


The gay men are probably being misled by the same inadvertently different body language that is fooling you... so they pick up the idea that he is gay, and proceed based on that. However, what comes into play there is that, just as he would not be able to tell when women hit on him, he would have just as much difficulty determining that men are as well...



One is happy to be of service... If you need any further help understanding AS, send me a PM... I may not have any actual experience in any dating or relationships, but one thing I do well is explain aspie mannerisms and personality traits to NT's in a manner that the NT's understand...

Ok, your ignorance of AS(rather what it causes in our behavior) is one thing, but what's with all the spelling errors? I'll admit not using an apostrophe for some contractions but whats up with spelling reason wrong? Something you could learn from this guy, EVERYTHING YOU DO CAUSES OTHERS TO JUDGE YOU(anyone who says otherwise is bullshiting you).

No, I'm not just trying to pick on you, there's a reason behind it. The way you describe him, just seems like the local fat kid who finally got tired of being treated like crap. I'm not trying to say he doesn't have AS, I kind of think he does. But you have to look at the past he told you about. Maybe he wasn't fat, maybe he was just skin and bones. Either way, his appearance had a HUGE impact on his life. He realized soon enough, if his social deficiencies wouldn't go away, he had to make himself look good enough to make it through(thus all the fashion and style obsessions).

Also, whether or not psychology is your "thing", you'd be well in hand to observe that AS causes an INABILITY to CONTROL EMOTIONS. Let me break that down for you. JUST hearing a love song on the radio, you could react the same way for 2 totally different reasons. You love a girl but will never have her, or you lost the only girl you ever felt loved you. Either way, those emotions stack up in our head till we're "overloaded" with grief, causing water spells. Same goes with those "only in the movies" romantic scenes("You had me at hello" anyone?).

Also, about the friends thing, maybe he's EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED to his friends? Maybe his friends were the only thing that got him through some times you couldn't possibly fathom. A lot of Aspies believe in loyalty, something many people don't anymore. Its easier for them to throw a friendship away for nothing than keep them as someone you'll always look out for, through anything. We also hate change. Somethings going good, we hate chaos messing it up. Something you'll have to get used to.

Point in case, stop being so paranoid he's gay and be more paranoid he'll lose interest in you(far more likely with the information provided).

You mean all 5 of them in that long post?

I know plenty of aspies that spell worse than that... flipping 2 letters around is something many people do (hell, even I do it, but I usually catch it in time and correct it... and if I don't, I'm usually quick to re-edit the post later... that's why my spelling usually is good...)


She said he is fit and works out...


Speak for yourself, I can control my emotions just fine (unless I've got a bunch of people royally picking on me, then I'll get pissed off, but other than that, emotional control is fairly easy for most aspies once learned...


Or it could just be that, like most aspies, he has a problem actually conveying his feelings because he's so incredibly nervous about it. If he's been used by women before, as the OP says, he would be less likely to trust women in the future...

Also, many aspies often have very little internal distinction between friendship and relationship (as far as I'm concerned, the only thing separating the two is physical and/or sexual intimacy), mostly because "friendship" is a much deeper term to an aspie, such that I've been yelled at before for saying someone wasn't my friend (in NT terms he was, but in my own definition I didn't know him enough to make that determination...)


1) The term is technically called "Case in point"... normally I wouldn't say that but since you're going all Mussolini on the OP's spelling, it makes me look out more for your errors, to show you that nobody is perfect (not even me, but I've already admitted that numerous times... look at the 12 billion ellipses in this post alone...)

2) I don't think she's paranoid, just not understanding properly... it's a language barrier of sorts for body language...

I don't think that he is gay, given the information that you provided. I know that I have a tendency to set of 'gaydar,' in spite of having absolutely no fashion sense (or sexual attraction to men, for that matter). I think, in my case, it is due to social echolochia. For instance, there was one time that my ex girlfriend and I were at a restaurant and the (obviously gay) waiter was hitting on me. Not only did I not realize that he was hitting on me, I actually reciprocated his mannerisms while talking to him. She eventually got upset with me and demanded to know why I was hitting on the waiter. I, of course, had absolutely no idea that it had been anything other than friendly small-talk.

Toad of Steel, thank you for that first reply and for that second one as well. You seem to have gotten my intent very well....

To that very rude poster, I spell VERY well....I belted out that long post in about two minutes pal. Your response was not helpful or respectful. You are picking on "typos" yet you failed to get any intent in my post. You seem to think i was judging him when i do nothing of the sort. But i AM DATing HIM so of course I have a right to wonder if he is gay or not. I ONLY described his behaviors to help everyone reading get to know him a bit and see if they too see the AS tendencies. Obviously I do not go around describing him like this to other people, but this is a forum where I can only get good help if I describe the situation. HE'll lose interest in me based on the info I provided? LOL...the only thing funnier than you picking on my love for psychology is your acting job playing a seuthsayer. But it's okay, I expect on forums you will get that random person who can't help but respond in a negative manner.

Kaysea, thank you for your response as well.

I am off to work and will dig into the responses more when I have time, but it is extremely appreciated. It appears you guys have given me some helpful advice.

It seems just from reading your post that he isn't gay. If he says he isn't and is obviously very attracted to you, then he is probably not gay. We don't tend to be very good at masking who we are, that's a neurotypical trait imo.

Waht I mean is, whilst people can say one thing and mean another (as can be possibly read by body language etc?) aspies tend to say one thing and mean it completely honestly, whilst sending out confusing signals that they aren't aware of. So I think the best way to assess someone with AS is to just listen to what they say.

Last edited by andyfalls on 30 Dec 2008, 8:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

I had originally put my posts in an older thread, this is the second part of the first one i had also posted if anyone is interested in reading it...not sure if it sheds any add'l light or not.


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I would like to add that to this day i should have told that waiter to stop being so disrespectful> I think back to that night and it was downright rude. If it had been a female watiress acting that way i know i am assertive, i would have said something. But becuase it was a guy i felt a bit odd saying anything. But i admit that night disturbed me. I have always heard that gay guys can pick up the gay vibe out of other gay guys and i honestly felt that the waiter acted that way because he thought my b/f was 'family'.

If he felt that way, other gay guys who hang with him might feel the same. I have so many gay friends so the fact that he has gay friends isn't the problem. It is the fact that MAYBE he is gay!

Or Bi. If he were bi and openly admitted it, i could handle this better. But he denies any attraction to men despite many cues i am picking up on.

I feel so lost. In so many ways he is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I can overlook the clumsiness, the social ineptness, the obsession with cleaning and the gym. But i cannot overlook it if he is in fact gay. But he seems to adore me so much. I never have seen his eyes wandering - to a male or female. In fact, if we didn't have such great sex i would say in every other way he is asexual. He states we live in a world way too preoccupied with sex, and he is not a fan of porn altho we watched a movie together once, but he was a bit shy about it, no problems there i didn't expect him to be macho about it. but he is a real conundrum. On the one hand our sexual life is very energized but on the other, in the real world, he doesn't let sex sway him. A woman with a revealing outfit doesn't seem to turn his head like it did my ex's, but then again men don't turn his head either. he truly seems so old fashioned about sex and maybe i have been with so many pigs in my life that what i should admire i am bieng paranoid about.

And he seems so honest. Never have i met somoene who seems to just speak what his thoughts are, even when sometimes it might not be what i want to hear.

A couple other things to note...he told me that in his teen years he did have crushes, but he mentioned something about how the other boys used to peek in the hole to peer in the girls locker room .. i asked him if he did. He said "no". he said at 15 he didn't have those urges yet. He didn't fully understand sexual stimulation. I felt that odd and that is also why i felt maybe he is gay, because teenage boys are normally full of testerone. yet he didnt have a desire to peek. He mentioned that he didn't fully want a sexual relationshiop wtih a woman until his 20s. I found that very odd, but maybe that is a symptom of AS?

he is also extremely sensitive to touch. When i touch him lightly all over, he seems to just go into emotion overload. he loves it, thus i love doing it, but i have never seen a man so responsive to my touch and i have read that some people with AS are more responsive to touch than others. He also is as interested in touching me. i don't mean just sexual, just all over touch. it is amazing how it feels, but i've never known anyone so in tune with touching or being touched. It is almost tantric. This add'l information is just to better understand from others who know AS better than I do to see if this sounds consistent with it. I am not an armchair pshychologist, i refrain from going around diag'ing people but based on his own sharing that his doctor when he was six mentioned HF Autism but they were not sure, and based on what i know about AS and a friend with AS, i am feeling strongly this is what he has and it explains perfectly the things that really confused me about him in the beginning.

LOL i am pretty obsevant and have done the watching the eyes thing...you are right in that most people can look without ever moving the head! I really don't see the eyes move. In fact, i have not been out with a guy who is so intent on me when we are out dining, etc. My ex's were not just pigs but there were signs that they would look when an attractive woman walked by. With him, he stares intently at me almost the entire time.

The waiter was insulting, yes, whether he knew i was on a date with him or just his friend it was rude. To this day i wish i had said SOMETHING even if a snappy "Umm, could you stop flirting with my b/f please"?

I now have some time to respond to your post more fully. Thanks so much, very helpful and well thought out reply.

I agree that I feel I have landed myself a good man. I am very happy to have found him ... at 41 you can end up with any sort of guy, not that 41 is old but the older we get when single it DOES get harder to find people who don't have a bunch of hang ups, so i am grateful to have found him. He is so loyal and sweet and i honestly can overlook every issue that might arise from the AS it is just the possible 'gay' thing that has me analyzing. A big part of me agrees with those of you who say he likely isn't. Even the poster above who decided to insult me did have a point by saying that the things he does do sound like a guy who grew up fat and who is trying to work hard on his looks. He often speaks of feeling like the local fat kid, even tho i saw pics and he only looked slightly chubby to me...but he said he was called names like fat bucktoothed donkey and things like that, so his obsession with the gym, clothes and such could very well be a symptom of a guy who grew up teased over his looks.

He honestly doesn't even REALIZE how good looking he is. He can't see it. he looks in the mirror and sees something i don't see. He has very classically handsome good looks but growing up being teased he doesn't realize that at some point he really blossomed into a good looker.

One of his closest friends IMO seems gay that is another reason i get all keyed up. He lives with a woman who is his g/f but the 'gayness' to me is very obvious. So i worry that maybe they are TOO close of friends. But to be honest my observation reveals that i think ihs friend might have a closest crush on my B/F but i honestly think my b/f just sees him as a best pal. I am not sure it is reciprocated. But this guy's g/f jokes and calls my b/f and this guy 'an old married couple' the way they bicker in the kitchen when they cook us dinner and yea, it bothers me because i see it too. But i think my b/f is oblivious to a lot of this stuff.

I also figured like you said that gay men might be 'fooled' into thinking he is as well because of the asperger's. This might be why he has many gay friends...they gravitate to him thinking he is gay and of course he is the type who just loves friends, the more the better. But...he has almost NO female friends and i found that odd. I don't mind it because my ex had way too many of them and it made me uncomfortable but my b/f doesn't really have any. His phone is full of guys only, other than his best friends g/f i am the only other female in his address book. That in itself doesn't mean much i know, it could mean he has grown up very nervous around women and struck out with them so many times that he naturally gravitates towards male friends. I don't think many women tolerate him well so it is odd that men do. I think the friends might be mostly gay because this might be the only demographic that has accepted him as is.

Pretty common. I think a lot of us look in the mirror and see what we're told we look like. If he was teased about his looks at a younger age, he might still see himself at that age.

I wouldn't worry about the relationship with the gay friend unless you witness something. Even if the friend has an interest, it's likely your BF isn't picking up the cues. I get hit on all the time and don't realize it until someone else tells me.

As for the story about "peeping", I think it's likely he may have wanted to peek but his moral compass may have directed him otherwise. Saying he didn't want to may be a morally better story. He might be saying things like this because he thinks it will be less offensive to you or because he wants to appear perfect. I would avoid praising him for being "perfect" and try to give praise for things about him and try to reassure him in bad times that you like him for who he is, imperfections and all.

I do think it's easier to hang out with other guys. Guys seem to be simpler in a social sense. Conversations seem to be shallower and easier to feign interest.

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Thanks for your reply. What you say makes a lot of sense. Especially the part about guys being simpler in a social setting. It seems he can interact with them easier than women because, yes, they discuss superficial things. He is really into history tho and when he gets on a role talking about it, it becomes a tangent, lol and he misreads the look of boredom or help i need to get out of here from the faces of other people. I think women are more inclined to get aggravated with this then men as men are more apt to say DUDE shut up already!

I do not praise him for being perfect. I say to him all the time when he says he does something stupid or if he trips and embarrasses himself that it is quite okay, i like him just the way he is and that he does not need to impress me. For the longest time he DID go to such great lengths to impress and even still does but has relaxed. He said he feels very confident, secure and relaxed with me because I do not pressure him like g/fs he has had in the past.

I think you also nailed it with the moral compass thing. I think he has a very higher moral standard than most and he is afraid to reveal to me certain things that he feels might make him look 'bad" but i think i am doing a good job of helping him release his inhibitions a bit.
he is far more open now then he was in the beginning.

Honestly, I am confused as to why you would think that he is gay if he desires you and has no problems with physical relations with you, a woman.
I have dated a couple of effeminate guys, I actually kind of prefer it.
I would say that you are overanalyzing him based on his body language and outside signals. If he has AS, the actual words he speaks and the actions he performs are a much more likely indication of his true intentions. We tend to be very straightfoward. Therefore the simple fact that he finds you attractive is enough proof for me that he is not gay. Seems pretty obvious to me. But, again, I don't put much stock in 'signals'...

Hi there.

The reason i had these thoughts is because he is from a very strict catholic family and i think that if he were gay, he would have tried very hard to supress it from a child so as to not let down his family. That is what i think COULD have happened that he almost forced himself to go after women and that is why it wasn't until his 20s that he could bring himself to actually ask a girl out.

But that isn't congruent with the fact that he stated his childhood crushes were farrah fawcett and tatum oneal.

Obviously i have real doubts that he is in fact gay which is why i am submitting these posts...i figured there was a good chance that what i am seeing is from the AS. But i know to someone reading this it seems a no brainer but trust me when i say the signs at times are more than disturbing, and that is why i am seeking this help. I really am falling for him and i could see myself moving in with him, maybe even marrying him one day, so for me I feel i can help lessen my heartbreak if i try to do this research now vs later.

Does that make sense?

When I was at school , some guys were used to ask me if I am able to get horny , they thought that I have some sexual dysfunction. I once coincidentally overheard one of my friends trying to convince a colleague girl that I am not gay , he was saying "I swear that he likes girls!" ...I don't know why they were talking about that but they. When I asked them what about it , he told me : "please! tell her that you like girls!" , and I jokingly told her "didn't he ever tell you that I always dream about you?" - She blushed but she didn't seem very convinced tho.

At work, my supervisor asked me if I am 'pervert' (in Arabic , the word 'pervert' is synonym to gay in some contexts) , I told him no (which is the true).

The thing is, unlike your boyfriend, I don't have obvious 'feminine' or effeminate behavior or traits : I don't cry for a song or a movie , never. I barely care about fashion and I do have a deep voice. In fact,I am a typical nerdy and geeky male. Besides, I live in a very homophobic society, so I would be careful to hide them if I ever really had any 'feminine' traits.

Even tho, I always wondered why people usually confused me with sexual dysfunction or homosexuality at school and university but I realized while ago that the main reasons of this confusion was:
- I wasn't used to flirt with girls or to show any kind of interest in them.
- I never showed signs of 'excitement' when some 'hawt' girl passes by . For example , when I am sitting with some group of guys and some hot girl passes by they usually act like this : O_o or o_O or O_O or =P or or or or or or or .

(ok, maybe a bit exaggerated ,but you got the main picture )


While my face remain like this: or even sometimes like this: (sometimes I was used to wonder what suddenly happened) , sometime they tell me "Can't you see she's hot?" and I usually reply "yea, she is pretty " or even "yea she is hot, so what?" or worse "huh? who?". That always pissed guys off and girls probably thought it as an abnormal reaction.

- My disinterest in sports.
- My small stature, there's a general misconception that gays are usually small in stature since smallness in stature is seen as 'feminine' trait. Funny enough, many gays are actually hunks.

^ Ok.... are there any such reasons which lead you to question his sexuality?.

Last edited by LePetitPrince on 30 Dec 2008, 4:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.