Is looking for autistic women a realistic option?

Post Reply New Topic

A friend recently forwarded me a list of apps and websites for autistic people to meet. She told me I have to look for women who are in the same situation I'm in.

This, and in light of the popularity of shows like Love on the Spectrum, is making me think if this is a viable option.

There are a few problems I have:

- I resent the idea that I should be limited to only dating women on the spectrum.

- As far as I know, only 20% of individuals diagnosed with autism are women. I am aware that males are diagnosed more often than females, and there are a lot of undiagnosed women. But we can't know for sure just how many there are out there, since it is extremely difficult to collect data on undiagnosed individuals. Additionally, undiagnosed women are unlikely to be utilizing resources for autistics since they are not aware they are autistic.

- Asexuality is overrepresented in autistic women.

- Autistic women do not face all of the challenges autistic men do when it comes to dating. I'm not saying they have it easy. But the reality is that men are expected to be extroverted and confident in the dating world more than women are. A woman can be shy and awkward and men will still approach her, but the opposite is not true. What this boils down to is that we still have to compete with neurotypical men, even for autistic women.

When you put all that together, the pool of eligible autistic women is extremely limited.

I can only think of one woman I've met that I can say with certainty is autistic. We met in college and she had no romantic or sexual interest in me. Aside from her, every woman I've met that had some possible characteristics of autism has been married or in a relationship. Some people have suspected that my best friend may be autistic, but despite that she never had any trouble finding partners.

I am very much an oddball. And as such, I'm typically drawn to women who are also oddballs. I've met many such women over the years. The handful of them that were not already taken have always insisted they like only as a friend.

And even if I do one day meet some autistic lady that is single and is interested in me, there is no guarantee she will appeal to me. I do not want to end up in a situation where I have to take the only option I have even if I don't like her.

It sounds like you understand the challenges with that.

On top of your own issues, you'll be facing someone else's as well. Guaranteed. If you like the person you'll have to make peace with it. I'm going to stress this point.

Those women may or may not be on dating websites, you just might find someone on one of these websites like WP, you're meeting a person, so it doesn't have to be a dating platform where you meet them.

I keep seeing this claim on WP but there’s no evidence that “there’s a lot of undiagnosed women” at this point (the only evidence was the drop in ratio compared to the 80s). This is like saying “there’s a lot of unseen tea cups in space”. Uhmm, ok?

One evidence against this claim is the sex ratio of severe autistic cases: it is still 4 boys to 1 girl. It is believable to claim that aspie women can mask it better hence less likely to diagnose but it’s not believable for low functioning autistics; surely the doctors and parents would notice it in girls. So either this whole “a lot of undiagnosed women” thing is a myth or the AS/mild autism is genetically not related to classic low-functioning autism at all (therefore not on the same spectrum). It would be unreasonable to claim that even severe autistic girls go on in life undiagnosed.

Besides can girls really mask it and “go under the radar” better? Most cultures expect girls to be more social than boys, which doesn’t help at all.

Personally I think the sex gap is real, for unknown genetic reasons. The 4:1 or 3:1 ratio had been consistent for decades of research.

"A lot" is not a defined quantity. There are certainly undiagnosed autistic women. And out of the overall global population, even a very small percentage constitutes a largen umber of people. But the number or percentage is unknown, since it is impossible to known who all the undiagnosed individual are.

You bring up a good point about the severe cases though.

Really? Where did you read that? I recall reading that the sex ratio for the more severely disabled autistic people was smaller, closer to 2-to-1.

According to this paper here, the sex ratio is 2-to-1 among autistic children who also have intellectual impairment. This abstract of a paper, by Lorna Wing appears to be saying the same thing, although it uses confusing notation.

See also this news story and this one in Spectrum News, according to which the sex ratio is consistently lower in studies in which the researchers themselves do evaluations rather than relying on already-existing diagnoses. This suggests that a lot of girls aren't getting evaluated.


They do. Indeed, the fact that the sex ratio is indeed lower for "low functioning autistics" is one of the reasons to suspect under-diagnosis of autism in girls without intellectual disability.


"More social" in some ways, but not in other ways. In many cultures it is more acceptable for girls to by shy.

Shy, but socially deft....

It almost seems like girls/women have to be more severe, more obvious to be diagnosed and if that's true it undermines the sex ratio claims that some people like to focus on.

How about somebody who, at least, has an affinity for autistic/Aspergers traits.

I think autism generally comes across as more feminine than masculine. If it's the case it'll be more obvious in males.

Even if you don't "limit" yourself to "only dating women on the spectrum," I think the autistic community should be at least one of the places you look.


If you consider the sex ratio among not just autistic people in general, but among those with whom you have other things in common, such as a teaching career, the sex ratio might even tip in your favor.

If you were to get involved in, say, helping to build a group of autistic teachers (at the grade school level, at least, or perhaps even the high school level), you would probably run into a lot more autistic women than autistic men.


Undiagnosed women are more likely than undiagnosed men to read up on psychology (because women in general are much more likely than men in general to have a strong interest in psychology) and thus more likely to consider the possibility that they might be autistic and then end up getting belatedly diagnosed. This is probably the reason why, according to one of the studies I linked to in my previous post, the sex ratio among autistic adults, of diagnosed women to diagnosed men, is 2 to 1 (whereas the male-to-female ratio is much higher among diagnosed autistic children). It's probably also the reason why the sex ratio here on Wrong Planet is close to 1 to 1.


Among autistic women, there is likely also to be more nonconformity to gender norms. Autistic women are more likely than women in general to be bisexual/pansexual, thus less likely to reject you due to your "girly" voice.

You only took one study.

It still all speculation, Autism by itself is still not genetically defined. Unlike William Syndrome for example where it can be determined with biological marks (ie. deletion of genes .... in chromosomes), Autism has still no such thing; it is still a psychological diagnosis only in DSM; and not a biological diagnosis that can be determined with a blood or dna testing (There's only discovered biological patterns but not deterministic enough to be practically used as a diagnosis).

Autism, like all DSM disorders, are only determined by a checklist of behaviors.

The day when the ASD is biologically diagnosed, it will be removed from the DSM like many disorders before it and added to medical books.

The "ASD with Intellectually-imapired" and "ASD with Non-intellectually-impaired" might not be even the same genetic disorder.

So even if in theory are within the same "Spectrum" of a same disorder and even if the real ratio is 1:1 but diagnostically there's a gap, it doesn't matter! If there's a lot of high-functioning aspie women go on undiagnosed for whatever reason then that means they're doing FINE in life, they don't need the diagnosis, they can marry NTs all fine, they can work all fine - often one seeks a diagnosis when there's something felt wrong or something interfering with your daily life functioning. The entire DSM diagnosis is a social construct thing, currently the disorder IS the diagnosis unless discovered otherwise.

You get the difference? You can't say for example Down Syndrome IS the diagnosis because Down Syndrome can be biologically determined by examining the subject's DNA; it's the final word for it; and in case of misdiagnosis then can be proven wrong with a correct test. A covid case can be diagnosed by detecting the virus in your mucus, there's no question about it; an undiagnosed covid case would still be a covid case because it really carries the virus, and can be diagnosed later by testing its blood.

But the ASD *is* the diagnosis and the diagnosis *is* ASD, if there's no diagnosis then the individual cannot be considered having ASD; there's no "False negative" or 'undiagnosed' or 'asymptomatic' for this type of diagnosis.

I agree with Kraftie, that shyness is not social ineptness. Girls would be more socially punished for social ineptness, so I really don't buy the shyness claim.

Last edited by The_Face_of_Boo on 15 Feb 2022, 11:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

^^ so because of that, yeah, focusing on autistic women is not a realistic option.

Don't "focus" on autistic women----but certainly don't preclude them, either.

Generally, No. But I wouldn't rule it out. I think a person with any kind of ASD , is probably better off with somebody maybe NT. Ya Know, complimentary strengths and weaknesses.

I lean towards this view. Two ND's getting together rarely cancels out. If anything being with an ND keeps an autistic from potentially "going under".

While two autisitc people can certainly live happily together as partners I noticed that they can an often do turn into the village laughing stocks if they just go full on with combining their autism.

If you feel the need to find a partner, I guess looking on such apps and websites won't hurt. Who knows? Autistic people are often interesting and less likely to be confusing than NT ones. But it doesn't stop you from looking for an NT partner, right?

I am in AS-NT marriage and even though there is friction because of our differences sometimes, we can get over it and have a good relationship.

As for AS women themselves - I had several conversations (on sociopolitical subjects) with one woman with Asperger's. She was certainly a very intelligent woman, physically attractive (if her FB profile photo was real, that is, lol) but was unhappy as she couldn't find a man who would accept her unusual behaviour and routines in the longer run. But main problem was something else - most of her relationships were with abusive men. She had enough of strength to stand up for herself and cut them off, though.

You wouldn't believe how many NT guys view non-NT women as quirky "pixie girls" who are easy to manipulate. Quite often these women have a low self-esteem due to social rejection and will stay in abusive relationships simply because they don't believe they deserve any better. Of course, quite a number form healthy relationships, but nonetheless, there are a lot of dbags who are preying on such girls.

So I wouldn't say that all AS/oddball women who have a boyfriend/fiancee/husband are off-limits. If one is expressing an interest in you, even as a friend, you can give the friendship a go and see what happens. I mean, people are ditching partners for other people all the time. As wise man once said something along the lines:

Remember to treat your woman with respect, or someone else will. And shoulder to cry on becomes a d**k to ride on.

This has been true for me in one case few years back, when I had a romantic relationship with married woman - it lasted for two years. She was very "needy" emotionally and starved for someone to give her attention and just talk with her. Her husband was a typical right-wing douche who wasn't really paying attention to her and though that being a good looking and "charming" guy who brings money home is enough and there's no need to pay attention to wife that much. So she found a friend in me. Then we got close emotionally and physically and became lovers.

Then I ditched her, because she couldn't make up her mind if to leave him or not - her religious upbringing (this "marriage is a promise to God" bs) coupled with the fact that her whole family were huge fans of her husband and her whole social network thought of him as a great guy made her think that by ditching him, she will lose all of it. So I made a decision myself. However, I can see how in different circumstances it could very well have a different outcome. I.e. if her husband wouldn't be so self-occupied to not see obvious signs that his wife is banging another man.

As I've said, people part ways, for many different reasons, all the time. I know that some may view what I am saying here as amoral, but ask yourself a question - do you care about some guy's happiness over your own?