Single via fatigue?

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I'm really starting to get to that point now where even when I do find mutual interest from someone else, I'm just too tired anymore. Not that I work ridiculous hours or have every minute of my life packed. Its more like trying to hold myself up, work a job as I do, hold my honor and appearance up socially when I'm around friends, coworkers, etc. in most circumstanc - when I get home on the weekends and have friends calling me I almost want to tell them to f--- off.

In the past it was usually other issues - couldn't find anyone who was interested in me that reflected back an interest, was interested in people who weren't interested or for those who were interested in me even if they were physically attractive I couldn't get my head around the way they related to me (and which I'd try to guide them the right way just to see if there was any hope - usually didn't work). Yeah, I can't say there are any glowing prospects in my life right now, a few girls I talk to here and there who I'm either not physically attracted to but do like to converse with or some who I was attracted to in the past but inconsistency was so bad from their end that its long lost - they're pretty much in my friend zone for good now.

So this is where I'm at - its the weekend, I'm back from work, didn't even want to talk to my roommate yesterday, and we had a few friends come up from Ohio State ho were going to go out to the clubs with tonight; and even with friends I actually really dreaded having to come out of my room and put the energy into socializing. I can have my times where I really enjoy partying, chatting people up, its great but rather unfortunately times like that are maybe 1 out of 3 and other times I really want to push the world away and just lay in bed all day or stay on the computer (I barely summoned the energy to even type this message, its pretty sick I know).

n a relationship or even starting one as a guy, apparently as the universal litmus tests go, I'd have to go out and chase to get anything worthwhile anyway. For a long time though I hadn't just because I even more dreaded getting a yes than a no, it was the fear of having to hold up an act that really wasn't maintainable at all in the long term and as well spells like this - of not wanting to do anything but just vegitate, are just perverse in the eyes of the relationship world. Its frankly just not allowed, not up to code. So, right now even though I'll have my spells of feeling like I'm set to let my life completely pass me by I'm also stuck thinking "Pfff...what the f--- can I do though....", like a lot of people I'm one who doesn't give up easily on himself but the magic of AS is that there are so many no-win scenarios built into having it.

I guess my question: anyone else out there on the same page who's had success in getting around this (aside from picking up a cocaine or meth habit), if so any pointers?

Hi Tech (er sorry that sounds silly)
I totally empathise with your post. I had many years in my youth when I forced myself to go out with 'friends' -- to the pub, clubbing, house parties whatever. 9 times out of 10 I just wanted to go home.
The whole thing just bored me to tears, small talk was so draining and pointless and supposed courtship rituals, well just don't go there.
It took me many yrs to realise that actually staying home listening to music, compiling lists and preferring cats to people was the right way to go.
I've now hit the big 40 and whilst being (almost certainly) an aspie HAS made me miss out on a lot of things that require social skills, I've come to accept my limitations and enjoy the things I'm happy with.
I'm guessing I'm older than most on this site, and when I was younger, AS simply didn't exist in the public realm, so people with it were simply 'anti-social', 'awkward' or just plain 'odd.' That was pretty damn frustrating, and even more so when the few that DID want to be your friend found that much of the time you simply couldn't be bothered with them.
AS is a strange beast -- you want friends but when you get them you want your own space -- a lot. It's a bit like being a kid who really wants a trampolene for their birthday. Then when they finally get it, it's a great big let-down and just gets neglected in the corner of the garden.
Unfortunately people aren't as forgiving as trampolenes and tend to p*ss off if they don't get enough attention. Which perpetuates the whole cycle.
The best advice I can give you is 'know your limitations.' Don't try to take on a wide circle of friends you can't possibly keep up with. The ideal friend number for an aspie is one, preferably a really good, understanding one. That's what I've managed and I'm eternally grateful.
I appreciate what you're saying about the huge efforts required at work. My solution to that one was to become self-employed -- less money but a lot less stress. Not an option for everyone I'll admit, but worth considering if the opportunity presents.
Remember also that friendships, close family ties, work colleague relationships etc are very rarely the bed of roses they may appear to be. I've been around enough corners to see real misery in every sphere of the socialite world, and many end up not only alone, but broke as well.
Do what makes you feel good (I'd skip the recreational drugs though) and enjoy life on your terms -- not other people's.

that post sounded like me player. exept i do tell people to f-off, i'm always tired and have been tired since the day i was born

Same page, no pointers.

40, diagnosed with chronic fatigue & fibro a few years back...basically I take care of my son, the house, mow the lawn, get groceries, feed the cats...rinse & repeat. My son goes with his dad one day a week on Sun and I usually run around trying to get stuff done I was too tired or busy to get to before...or I crash.

I don't have anything left for a "social life"....I've pondered trying dating again...but I don't really have the energy for what seems to be expected...I hate eating out, I can dance only if I drink, and I really hate clubs and the whole "going out" deal...stresses me out to the max.

An great evening for me is curling up at home with a good movie, playing video games, a good meal or a take-out pizza. Like you stated that's really "not allowed, not up to code" in the dating world.

The other fun thing - I went out with my roommate, his girlfriend, a couple of our friends from OSU (one of my friends from way back with his girlfriend), and a married couple for whom it was the guy's birthday (we know him pretty well) and they brought they're now single cousin - 25 or 26, really attractive girl though definitely very much fiesty social-butterfly. Like usual it took a second to adjust just because when people are like that it takes a second for us to really match social modes but when we do we usually get along pretty well and we had fun actually hanging out off by ourselves even a little.

We then went down to that club where we know most of the staff, got a load of drinks, pre-partied with the ex-pro skater, and the same girl was down there, hehehe....she dances so damn well that she actually got 6 or 7 guys out there to start a break dancing circle (that I won't lie, she was dressed kinda provocative - not slu*ty but definitely blingin'). Little did I know also that the girl my other friend was dating I think used to be a rave promoter herself....real cute half-asian girl, I've gotta high five him on that find.

Anyway, that's another tiring dilemma - things are soooo far from clear cut. I can't find myself on the geek or can't click train because its not true, I can really hit it off with a lot of people and women definitely included. Though I think its the fact that the way I flirt is pretty subtle and particularly when I know the one girl's ex is a close friend of a friend it puts me in a place (and especially since she's a social butterfly, I'd really have to see her getting that much reward out of me for who I am) where I feel like I'd need to put the attack on a real low volume - I mean slowly make that work and hopefully by showing real subtle interest but more or less just showing her a good time like anyone else in the group that I'm getting a much more positive foundation with her. My problem of course, again, I'm definitely not quick on the attack - some people pose that as a litmus test, I actually think a lot, but for me I have to see the chemistry and the steadfastness of it to really trust it and thats where things are right now.

Oh yeah, and I'm not sobered up just yet - still buzzing pretty good, tomorrow I could hear that she told her friends that she thought I was a slick guy and wants to hang out more and I'd still be so damn shy just because, sobriety is a much different chemical state and one where I'm so restricted from really showing my true self properly that its just sickening. That on top of the thing with all the fatigue and as well as having absolutely NO F***ING CLUE what MY place is in society, where I'm allowed to go or not to go or what my parameters are (because I'm too unique for anyone to pigeonhole or box in let alone place a set of standards on), its like there's no up - no down, no left, no right, backward...foreward, its like the whole story of what happens if your tripping too hard in a swimming pool.

Its not having my bearings that just drives me crazy because in that position there's no way you can be proactive in solving what you see as a heck of a life problem and something that I'd need to get to the bottom of for the sake of my own long-term happiness.

It's hard (if not impossible) to figure out which approach is best, since it depends on how quickly the girl warms up to you--something you're not likely to be privy to. I've been in situations in which I moved on to new territory because an interest was too slow to show interest in me, then later found out he was interested--but it's too late by then. By the same token, I've also been turned off by a guy approaching me before I've had time to evaluate whether or not I'm interested. So I wouldn't say moving quickly is a litmus test, but it may in some cases be a golden opportunity. In others.... not.

I don't have much advice though. The world in which you move is pretty foreign to me. I'd just say to trust yourself. If you're feeling burned out on the dating/social/trying-to-date scene, maybe try to stop thinking about it and strategizing. The best find I've ever had was encountered when I thought I was going to be taking a break from looking for a while. It's never been my experience that one has to fight to keep a genuine spark lit.

Depends on where your nose is.

I dunno. I think we've all had the experience of being aroused by people or situations we do not actually want to experience, if that's what you mean. Likewise, initial attraction on the part of a nice girl looking for a ltr isn't likely to involve acute lust.

Noticeable lust (by scent) has been
present in every one of my successful
LTRs, from nearly the beginning. Oh, 'tis
not a sure thing, even then - but it does
have to be present.

Yeah, thoroughly understood. My problem is I can't proact like that without feeling creepy as hell or quite often times seeming just as creepy because I'll start conversations that seem innocuous in content rather than all-out flirting (the former seems to be probably the best way in the world to really give women the Norman Bates chills and I've known that for years). Having Asperger's of course and the fact that anything deliberate that I say most often will go right over people's heads or glance off the wrong angles entirely I'm somewhat trapped into taking the zero-testosterone dweeb route.



This is good advice to a point but I've found, just as most guys do who aren't chased already, that when you don't worry about these things (I got myself in that mode for years thinking it was the better way) nothing happens on its own, nothing just lines itself up nor does someone just come into your life and of course if I do continue with that (which isn't too far from what I'm doing now) odds are very good that I could continue it right into my sixties. It would be nice if women took a similarly reticent approach and tried to size the odds of whether or not they'd be happy with the person and vice a versa before jumping in but of course this angle of interaction is almost by the design of natural law supposed to be purely emotional and chemical, getting as cerebral with it as I do is something very few people seem like they'd touch with a ten foot pole (and luckily in most cases, without AS, you have more interactional leverage with most people anyway so I can see how that makes sense).

Yeah, I'd just embarrass myself. Even with her leading on the nonverbal 'lets f---' sort of body language my social veneer just can't do that, I think you understand what happens when you have aspie body language and try to be sexy (at least when the person on the other end is thinking "So is he cool or is he a f--? I'll see that in a second here off of how he reacts to this").

You may wish to reconsider your reluctance to entertain notions of meeting your girl online. That's the only way (beyond a couple serendipitous happenings in high school) that I've ever managed to encounter in one individual the elements that (for me) inspire both the emotional/chemical attraction and the cerebral sort of attraction. I find the process of discerning whether or not I am attracted to someone's ideals/intellect to be too time consuming in person. Over the net I can pick their brains to my heart's content in an environment where such practices are socially acceptable.

Then there's the method of accepting all feminine advances in person, picking her brain when she's close enough, and then releasing her again if the cerebral connection isn't present. But, having sort of used this method accidentally because I'm bad at sticking up for my own wants... I've found that such an approach typically inspires much wrath.

You know, I'm not really reluctant about it - its just that it doesn't really happen for me that way either. I will meet people I'll find interesting, sometimes it'll be rather mutual as well, but actually giving chase online is something that I just can't get my head around. I guess I handle it very much like I would with face to face conversation and let the pauses work more as the nonverbals, it also means I want to mutually warm up to someone rather than just jump off directly on a hunch. So much of it for me, online or IRL equally, is trying to pinpoint someone who's on the same rhythm, who'd get enjoyment out of who I am and what I'm about, I'm pretty flexible so I can pretty easily like and respect someone else's interests as long as they don't grind up against my own personal ethics too much.



That's probably one of the benefits I guess of being on the other side of things, women don't seem to try and entrap someone who shows interest as quick as a lot of guys do and I definitely understand why women prefer to go after a guy who seems somewhat uninterested in them - they can get close, evaluate him, get to know him, make a call, get a few booty calls if they want to roll that way with it, and if they leave he could care less; that way a woman has no worries about losing her autonomy or control of the situation.

I learned one thing as well last night. I've always been terrified of being seen as creepy, past experiences really compounded that in the back of my head, and now I'm realizing how to do and say things that may not be completely lead in, talk to people, and even if I have them a little worried or thrown they'll also realize that I'm not a weirdo - I'll be chilling at the same club, talking to friends (some of them being mutual friends of theirs even - and no, this is someone I haven't mentioned) and not staring at them from a distance but rather making like I was only paying attention to them in that specific moment to talk to them. That's what unnerves me about being sincere, it can go pretty bad and you need a lot of backup proof before a woman realizes 'Ok, that's really different but I think he was legitimately just trying to be sociable and say what's up'.

Its gaining trust from other people that usually takes me meeting people through friends and that's why I find it so hard to just walk up and talk to people a lot of times unless I've had 3 or 4 hard drinks, sat in with my friends when they packed the bowl, or a little bit of both. My big strategy for working on myself right now is what it has been though for the past 4 or 5 years, work on myself internally to influence whats going on externally.

At the end of the day I'm not self-deceived, I know that I have noble intentions, I know that I'm trying to do what's best for myself and other people around me, and the trick is to just get my emotions, perspectives, memories, and overall feel of reality lined up in a good straight line. My other big challenge - learning to surrender and surrender with dignity. Attraction was a force I always tried to crush from within in the past because I hated how precarious it felt and where it put me in terms of all the risk. Now, I'm getting to where I can feel it, interact, and slowly I'm hedging toward not being afraid of it. I may never be the type of guy who can just walk up and start rubbing a girl's shoulders or at least I may be 35 and need years of positive reinforcement from now on until then but any progress is better than none. That whole feeling of my youth and everything that I have to share fading away and me not being able to do s--- about it, its just nauseating and its one of those things that still haunts me from time to time when I'm in that stage of either falling asleep or waking up.

yeah me to. capitalize while you can. ah memories

you know what i want? this is what i want. i want a girl to just come up to me and act like shes known me my whole life and we dont even ask each other out. we just go out

and she also has to like wearing baseball caps