theseeker wrote:
However, my current relationship grew out of friendship. I really believe that for us, it is much healthier to seek friendship before relationships. This is not to suggest that your choices are restricted to your current friends, but rather that a relationship might come from someplace more spontaneous than say, a mixer.
It's interesting because based on past experience, things have been much more promising when I've been interested in someone who was already a friend. There are more issues for aspies trying to connect romantically with people they have just met I think, speaking for myself, I find it hard to know I can trust someone in the often short space of time it takes to get together, because I need more time to find out who the other person is properly than an NT might. If there are warning signs as I am getting to know them then these signals can get blunted by my own hormonal responses which can be dangerous. Also, I'm one of those aspies who is quite different inside my head than on the outside around people I don't know well, I have got used to holding in my aspie traits to an extent, so it can take some time for a new person in my life to get to know the real me. I'm also objectively fairly attractive (I reckon!) and I've had situations where I'm interested in an NT and the NT build up an image of who I am from this kind of brief contact and my outward appearance, makes a move, we are together for a week or so and I can attached, then the NT figures out I am not as they assumed and abruptly withdraws interest. It takes me a long time to recover from this, so now I am more careful and like to get to know potential mates in a non-romantic way over a few months at least, so I know who I am dealing with and they know how I am inside before hormones enter the scene too much..
Hope that made sense!