More single aspie males than single aspie females?

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I have observed that, while there are a similar number of aspie men to the number of aspie women, the aspie women tend to be involved in relationships more often than aspie males. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I imagining things? What is the reason for this?

You're imagining things.

I think it may have something to do with the fact it's more common in males to have AS.

Certainly, there are (depending on what statistics you believe more accurate) between 4 and 10 times more aspie men than women, which is obviously one reason. I think another big reason is society - in our culture, men generally have to approach women rather than t'other way around. Most aspie men obviously struggle to do this..... Women on the other hand, aspie or otherwise, don't have to do the approaching themselves as a rule, so don't have that obstacle to overcome.

I sometimes think that the only reason for a high ratio of male to female Asperger's diagnoses is because females would be more likely to go undiagnosed. In our society, females are expected to be more passive while males are expected to be aggressive. Males will stand out like a sore thumb a lot more if they have AS tendencies. The ratio might be a lot closer to 1:1 than anyone thinks.

As for the topic, I agree with TAFKASH. Men are supposed to do the hard part, so to speak.

What you guys are saying makes perfect sense. I've never been able to approach a female... the fear of rejection is too great.

I disagree. While men are expected to be more socially agressive, women are expected to be more socially and emotionally aware.

I agree 100%. That is exactly what I was thinking when I read that post. Actually, I am often too socially agressive. I think that there are more males with AS than females.

Oh, and Psychlone, you might be imagining it.

Heh, here's a reply that I wrote to a post on Aspergian Island relating to this subject:

While I will agree that it is far easier for females with Asperger's Syndrome to enter into romantic relationships, my reasoning for this differs from yours. One main reason is that most men pursue women based largely on physical attraction. As a result, a typical man will often be willing to accept a woman's abnormal personality traits as long as he is reasonably physically attracted to her. Most women tend to be more attracted to social poise and status when pursuing a mate. These are things that most men with Asperger's Syndrome notably lack.

Another reason is that the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome tend to be far more pronounced in males than they are in females. Furthermore, the individual traits associated with Asperger's Syndrome are far more common in ordinary men than they are in ordinary women. As a result, a woman with Asperger's Syndrome is likely to encounter many men with traits similar to her own, and the chance for finding a compatible partner is relatively high.

Men with Asperger's Syndrome are far less likely to find typical women who exhibit similar traits, so potential compatibility normally remains elusive for these men. The mere fact that approximately four times as many men as women are diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome should indicate that a woman with Asperger's Syndrome will have far less difficulty finding a compatible partner. There is a reason why people with Asperger's Syndrome are often characterized as exhibiting an "extreme male brain."

Here is a good article describing what it is like to be a woman with Asperger's, and also why it may be less easily detectable in women:

http://www.autismtoday.com/articles/Aspergers_in_Women.htm

The basic idea is that while males tend to be more outwardly aggressive and display more prominent troublesome behavior, girls tend to turn inward, and so their problems may be less easily noticeable.

There aren't nessicarily the same approx amount of males and females with AS.

It might be something to do with the sex chromosones as to if people have it and how badly they have it.

I must just be judging on my own behavior then. I've always seemed more female than male (Mentally! Not physically! ). I'm about as socially passive as a person can get, and while I have strong emotions, I never seem to get angry. It's food for thought, anyways.

It is easier for a woman to get away with aspie behavior. Lots of men will tolerate incredible s**t from women in order to screw them eventually. We have lots of words for women, other than aspergers, to describe them when they exhibit aspie behavior: b***h, self-centered, nitpicking, frigid etc.

OTOH, there aren't a whole lot of women so interested in sex that a man with aspieness can "reward" them for putting up with his baggage.

Heck, there was a first lady in the White House who yelled at aides when they had too much eye contact with her and was generally known as a frigid, perfectionistic, narcissistic b***h. But who would ever accuse Hillary Clinton of being an aspie?

But if you consider why she only had one kid when her husband so obviously enjoys sex, it makes sense to me

Jerry Newport

The Whale has a point.

Nice to know what guys think of me though.

I think its basic common sense that there's going to be a lot more male aspies than females. AS is essentially an extreme manifestation of a "male brain type", and naturally, men are much more likely to be of a male brain type (hence the name.... ). Therefore, a given percentage "shift" towards the male brain type spectrum applied to the general population as a whole will make a lot more men aspie than women..... (I'm not expressing this very well tonight for some reason am I?.... I am quite tired though and its late - that's my excuse and sticking to it)

I think that Asperger's is a lot more common in girls than we are currently led to believe- however, I still think that boys have it more often than girls. Girls have a lot of social pressure to be a certain way. So do boys, however, I find that boys do not go to the extremes that girls do to fit in. My therory is that girls with Asperger's are more likely to try to blend in with the NT population, and I also believe that because Asperger's and Autism are seen as things that afflict boys mostly, when an aspie girl starts school, she is often labelled as shy with no further thought put into it.

That's just my therory.

Thanks for being such a good sport. I forgot to mention that many closet aspie women who suffer being labeled with those other words need some understanding just as we do.

Some research has been done by people who tried to diagnose in a way that eliminated "gender bias", decisions on diagnosis based on different expectations of males and females. In those studies, which used to be on the website of ASC-USA before it went under, the male-female ratio for AS was 3 to 2 and even 1 to 1 in one study.

Jerry Newport