Do you feel pressure to be in a relationship?

Post Reply New Topic

If you are an undiagnosed Aspie...do you feel like your family is pressuring you to start a relationship and be like everyone else? Do you pressure yourself?
Do you ever feel you don't know what to do to please these people that want what they think it's best for you and want to see you happy? How do you deal with failing them (I mean if and only if YOU see it that way, I imagine other people don't care about what their families or others think) at this relationship thing?

Last edited by northern_light_girl on 25 Jan 2009, 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't feel pressured.

I've always felt pressured. My friends would always be with someone, who was wrong for them, but they had someone. They'd encourage/tease me to date more, but I didn't like to date people just for the simple act of dating on looks and what not. It always felt bad when I'd be the loner out of the group when going to a movie.

Now I don't worry about it. I now realize those "friends" were feeble minded and I shouldn't have to conform to their ideals.

That's a good way to look at it, regarding not dating for the sake of it.

I feel pressure more from friends than from family....

it isn't so much pressured, as assumed. I really get sick of hearing "you'll find someone" like its impossible to be single your whole life.

My parents want grandchildren so...

your not undiagnosed

I don't feel as pressured to have children because my brother has 3. However, family members have asked whether I get lonely, or why I seem to have no motivation to date or go out. I don't know what to say. I have different priorities which conflict with what dating partners expect of me.

In 1995 I went on a date and gave a bad impression. I didn't feel ready and felt bad afterward. "Why am I doing this?" I thought. In 2004 I dated and I froze up when criticism of my communication abilities came up. I have also encountered a woman who did a poor job of hiding her emphasis on how much money I make. A few years ago I counted myself lucky when I avoided becoming too involved with someone who had personal problems. Why wasn't I able to pick up on that right away?

This whole experience has left me feeling wary and not thinking too highly of anyone.

All the time. My step mother is constantly asking "do you have a boyfriend yet?" "Are you going out with anyone?" The rest of my family usually "jokingly" asks you find someone yet?

Last time I saw my mother and she got really serious after the normal "you're still single" jokes and stated "I'm not asking you to find someone (as a mate), all I ask is that you connect with someone... anyone." Easier said than done, not to mention that statement made me far sadder than any of the annoying questions that the rest of my family asks. But at the very least, I feel like my mother partially understands me, which is more than most.

I wish I knew of a way to deal with all of this stuff, but usually I just roll my eyes and change the subject.

my family tried to do that-but when they figured out I didn't care it all stopped lol

You're not undiagnosed either lol.

I was replying to the lady above me

My mom still hasn't gotten used to the fact that she won't have grandchildren. She has this need to care for people, to have people dependent on her, and grandchildren fill the bill. I suggested something like Big Sisters but she wouldn't hear of it. But she doesn't really make a big deal out of it. My grandfather always said that it's better to have nobody than the wrong somebody, so he never cared. My dad is too wrapped up in himself to care. I have no other family alive. I have distant relatives, but I don't know them well.

As for me personally, anything beyond a regular f*ck buddy is probably too much to ask. My meds dampen down my sex drive anyway, so I don't dwell on it. I peruse the online personals from time to time, but there are few quality women there. Most personals sites are nowadays used by organized crime to push credit card stealing porn sites, with few actual people participating, and those that do are of low quality. Being aspie, the bar scene is not my thing. A nearby newspaper has a bar mixer page on their website, and the people on there are younger than me and all seem really dumb. Trust fund babies partying their lives away.

I'm also not undiagnosed.

I feel no pressure from my mom's side of the family at all for it, I think they know I'm pretty much hopeless as it were and they don't even bother to ask about it. Then I'm nothing compared to my cousin who is two months older, an honor roll student, great athlete, seems to get girls.

My dad's side is all in upstate New York and I don't see them much so they don't know that I don't have a chance and my cousins ask sometimes when I'm up there if I have a GF.

My friends used to try to pressure me about it a lot, but as I revealed that I had AS and told them what it was, and they still pryed a bit, and then they just kind of stopped recently, probably because I'm so pressed about that one girl. Regardless, I still see what they have/had and get jealous, especially of the guy that used to go out with the girl I've been liking for the past year and 1/4.

What does undiagnosed have to do with feeling pressure to date? That is the most absurd notion I've seen on here in a long time.

Do some of you actually think that being diagnosed somehow excuses "us" from having family pressure you to date or marry or have kids? Most family will never understand or comprehend your diagnosis if you do get one. Its equally bad for ALL OF US diagnosed and undiagnosed alike who get the obnoxious comments thrown our way by family, friends and strangers alike "Have you found someone yet?", "What? You don't HAVE anyone?" and my personal most hated comment from a so called friend "Do you have yourself a fellar yet?".

Its not an AS thing either. Plenty of NT's are enduring the same living hell because dating is so dang difficult for Gen X and Y because people these days only date the most attractive, physically fit, weathly and socially skilled people. The rest of us are doomed to be forever single or else in an abusive relationship regardless of if we have a diagnosis or not.