Asperger's dating statistics

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You make a good point. If I let her come back to me, I would be motivated by fear of being alone. If I stayed away, stopped responding to her texts and cut her out of my life for good, that would also be motivated by fear that I'm choosing the wrong girl. After all the problem with being with a girl is that you eliminate all other girls as potential relationships while you're with her.What type of common interest wouldn't have been listed on her profile?

Exactly! This is the one thing that few people seem to forget about relationships: saying yes to one also means saying no to others. That's why it's important not to rush into it.


Basically, our life goals are compatible. She wants a family and marriage, comes from a similar family background and referencing my suspicion about her being Aspie, has a eerie similarity to me in her childhood mementos. She respects the traditional male desire to lead and protect that fits into my personality. Best of all, I don't need to post here on WP anymore because I know she 'gets' me. She also had similar views on finances, work, life and children and doesn't drink or smoke/do drugs. Doesn't hurt she is stunningly beautiful! What I find amazing is that I threw the checklist/expectations in the garbage and everything seems to magically fall into place.

Best of all is that even though is it obvious she hates hockey and doesn't understand it, she went to three hockey games with me and never complained once just because she wanted to share my interests and passions and spend time with me. THAT is a sign of a keeper! Ultimately, who cares whether she is into hockey or I am not into sewing? We are two different people.

It's only been a few months but I already have the ring picked out Like a good lawyer, I already know the answer to the question I will ask in the coming month or so.

P.S. If you are curious as to what sealed the deal, during the fourth date it was a raging blizzard out the same day we had a massive rainstorm and flash freeze. In other words, the roads and sidewalks were downright dangerous to navigate. I instinctively grabbed her and held her while she navigated the icy streets and after kissing her goodnight asked her to call me so I know she got home safe. No need to be anyone other than who I was naturally!

That's what I think every time I date a girl but no girl can be perfect. It would be hard for me to say if a girl is good enough or if I should try for a better one.

Did your special interest have something to do with you turning 30?

GiantHockeyFan

Congrats on finding the person of your dreams! Your experience sounds very similar to mine in terms of my me and my now wife, right down to the timing of "popping the question." We were engaged about 3 1/2 months after our first date. My wife is even into sewing like your girlfriend, although I am not as much of a hockey fan as you are-but have been to quite a few games. One of my past girlfriends was really into hockey, though.

In addition, I realized early on that I could completely be myself around her. We share many things in common, came from similar backgrounds, and both wanted to be married-much like your story. If you look at the research, those are the things that usually make a relationship work.

Like you I made pretty sure I knew what she was going to say before I asked. The last thing I wanted was to be back returning the ring with the explanation "she said no", and the embarrassment I would have felt.

Probably the biggest thing that I learned around age 28 or so that really changed things was that I was ok as a person. I guess I came to believe that another person could find me attractive and interesting, but also that I had to act like I felt that way. No arrogant or cocky, but self-confident in a good way. I am still having to finish learning that, though. I don't feel it 100% of the time.

You discovered 20 years ago what many people never discover.

Sometimes, the past is like a beautiful lotus garden which has acquired more beauty through accumulation of fertile soil.

Other times, it's like a library book with sharded pages and that moldy smell.

What exactly was that?

Your worthiness as a human being, despite your "awkwardness"--despite your supposed "lack of social skills."

People in their late twenties, in general, realize the futility of trying to fit into the societal mold.

My response, really, is a confirmation of your insight.

I certainly agree with you on one part. You really do have to put effort into it. I've heard so many people on WP, on other sites and in meatspace, I've heard so many people say "You should just stop looking and the girl for you will come along". Nonsense! I've spent long periods of time not looking and nothing happened. It's like all other areas in life, you won't get anything out of it if you put zero effort in.

And also I don't like it when people shame guys who use online dating. I think for those who aren't Casanova, online dating can be a practical way to get a date and after you've began dating, the rest of the business is still conducted in much the same way anyway.

My first instinct is to say "no" but it was definitely on my mind that I was on my way to being a 30 year old virgin when most guys I knew were getting married. I've almost "sort-of" wanted to get married even as a teenager but at that point I knew I had a lot to learn to reach that point.


Well, it's hard to explain: you have to put the effort in but you have to just naturally let things unfold. I think you are slowly getting on the right path.

I've been critical of online dating but the simple fact is that I would have NEVER met her if not for eHarmony. The key is to take it offline as soon as practical as flakes are everywhere online.

There is nothing wrong or to be ashamed of for using on-line dating. I know a few people who found their spouses that way. For Aspies it is probably even better in terms of getting to know each other virtually before you have to meet in person and possibly disclose your lacking social skills.

No, I don't want to accentuate the negative.

For many of us, the social skill problems probably are rather apparent once a prospective mate meets us in person. That is one advantage of on-line dating. They can get to know us, our personalities, what our interests are so when they do meet us for the first time, they will have already formed a (hopefully) positive impression of us.

It seems to me that many women aren't all that fussy about "social skills."

I believe the situation improves once one gets life experience. They realize people with uber social skills tend to be insincere.

It's usually the ones that are into etiquette--or into the Social Darwinist way of thinking--that are hung up on "social skills."

Yes, I totally agree. What attracted me to my Girlfriend was how eloquently she wrote about her desire for marriage and family and to find someone who shared those goals in her online messages as well as how sincere she sounded. She did NOT impress me in the first two dates but I suspected she was just Aspie-like, introverted, nervous, anxious or all of them. I was right. Again, criticize online dating all you want but I would have wrote her off as disinterested or emotionally unavailable had we not exchanged messages first.

Having said that, it begs the question of how many women thought the above of me?

And it doesn't help that on every online dating site, there are a lot more men than there are women, women are overwhelmingly outnumbered by men on online dating sites.

You're right. That girl still thinks we're destined to be together. I thought she was too for a while. I thought she would come back and I would let her but tonight we got into a bizarre argument. She acted emotionally and told me to chill. She made outlandish demands. Last week she said I was like a child and said I had to be like a man. I'm wondering why she won't grow up.But today, when she would fly off the handle at random stuff I said, I felt like I was walking on eggshells. I'll admit, sometimes I am immature but not as much as she is. Sometimes I am a smartass but most of the times she accused me of being a smartass I wasn't trying to be one. The worst part is that she can act like this at me while being in Sydney, so I feel like I have to put up with her yet in other respects it's still like I'm single. She makes bizarre excuses for not coming over and I almost wonder if she's trying to lead me on. The only reason I don't think she's trying to deceive me is because I think she's deceiving herself.

And aside from her dreadful personality there's her looks. Not only does she weigh about 270 lbs, but she's even ugly compared to other fat girls. I mean, some fat girls have a pleasant round face, not her. She's unfit beyond what you'd expect for someone who weigh's that much. I used to weigh 300 lbs but I could still walk at a normal pace and pick up reasonably heavy objects. She walks so slow that for a while I suspected she'd sprained both her ankles. I feel like I can't go anywhere with her because she can't keep up. Even 270 lbs people can normally walk much faster than that. And I can't stand to look at her stubby fingers. I don't mean that they're chubby, I mean they're too short to be in proportion to her height. She's 5 foot 7 inches but her fingers look like they come from someone 3 feet tall.

I can't stand to look at her, some of my friends think I'm out of her league and yet when I tell people about it, they say "looks don't matter" and "stop fat shaming". So it's taboo for me to date an ugly girl but also taboo for me to care about looks. It's like our stupid society expects me to date a supermodel but also to have selected her without considering her looks. Like I'm blind to her appearance and it's just a coincidence that she also happens to be a supermodel. Anyway, when I'm single, I see guys on the train or on the street with their girlfriends and I envy them. You'd think that have stopped when I was in a relationship. Not with this girl. I envied them even more because they were with pretty girls and I wasn't.

I'll try to find a more sensible girl but in the meantime I'm still reluctant to cut off communication with her because it just feels like being back where I started. Back to spamming hundreds of girls online. It takes ages to get to meet someone in meatspace. It only happens a couple of times per year. The last two girls before this one stood me up. Several of the girls from my past were even worse than this one.

I just feel like I can't catch up with other people by going at half speed. One of my friends got dumped by his girlfriend and he got another one weeks later. Both of them were really hot. I don't like how close to 30 I'm getting. As ProfessorJohn said a few months ago, the average age of first sexual experience is 16 and my Stupid Flander's of a cousin got married when he was 26. Not to mention he's been a highly paid engineer since he was 23 (now he's a DINK). That's another thing I worry about. My career.

I can't believe that I said in front of everyone that I wanted to join the development team when I can barely do my current job as test analyst. I was trying to keep that idea in my head but there was a TV camera pointed at me so I wanted to keep talking so I wouldn't freeze up. I was interviewed by SBS. The only reason I thought of joining the dev team was to justify the degree I'm getting. The only reason I'm doing that is because everyone else has one and most of them got one younger than me! A few of the people I know even work in their field of study. College when I'm older is very different to how it was when I was younger. Different campus. All of the students are really antisocial, to me, to eachother. It's like a whole classroom full of hermits. The students at the other campus were more fun.

But really why would I think of joining the dev team? I'd be bad at it. In my current job I work slowly and get confused easily. So now I want a more complex job with harsher time constraints? The worse thing about software development is that they get paid slightly more than testers yet work much longer hours. I mean a few years ago when I swore I'd never work full time I also swore I'd never get into one of those 80 hour per week jobs. Now I'm trying to join one of the professions most likely to do have 80 hour weeks (I've got a plan to get around that though). When I was 23 I thought worker-students were masochistic fools. When I was 25 I envied them. Now I am one. Just because I think I can try to keep up with everyone. Yet it still won't make me a uni student at 18, a proffesional by 23 or married by 26. I know I said I would stop trying to keep up appearances but I can't help myself.

Anyway, sorry for using this thread in an attempt to cure my insomnia.
/rant