Are you Mr Friend zone?

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That's part of what I was asking. I would think that you should at least know something about them before you start dating them. Possibly through body language, NTs seem to know almost instantly when there's at least a common attraction.

@Toad - we've been through this before, dude. But for @Jono's benefit: you figure out if you're compatible with a person through the process of dating. Trust me, most people have had 1-date "relationships" - you go out with someone once and realize after spending an hour or few with them one-on-one that you don't want to get to know them better. Sometimes it takes a few dates, sometimes more. But that is the whole point of dating - to determine if there's more to a relationship than basic attraction, like shared beliefs, compatibility, etc.

For people who want to know those things prior to dating, sorry but that's not the way it works. There aren't any guarantees that the woman/man you're attracted to is the right/best person for you. You can only learn that by getting to know them, and you get to know a romantic interest through dating. There aren't any short-cuts and there's risk involved. But it's typically better than the alternative.

And as far as avoiding the friend zone, you've gotten some good advice here. Another sure way to avoid it is to ask a woman you're interested in for a date - and expect to get shot down more often than not. That's a big difference between AS and NT guys - NT guys ask out a lot of girls. They don't get invested emotionally in the girl's response, cause they accept that they get rejected more often than not. AS guys tend to want to make the emotional investment of getting to know a woman before they ask her for a date, only to realize that when they've gotten to know her well enough to want to ask her out, she doesn't see them as a romantic prospect. The best way to avoid that fate is to accept the premise of dating: bite the bullet, ask her out, and get to know her along the way.

But there's more involved than just asking her out, including the fact that there's supposed to be a lot of nonverbal communication going on as well. I took part in a previous thread about the body language given when a woman is interested. I also think it was mentioned in that thread there was a study that showed that, in the sample studied, women indicated interest non-verbally 90% of time when the man was not rejected. That doesn't sound to me like it's pure chance if a woman accepts a date when an NT man asks her. Also, the fact that AS impairs nonverbal communication to some extent seems to be partly the reason, at least in my experience, why AS guys tend to do what you say. I agree with a previous poster who said that internet dating seems to be a more direct way of doing it. And at least you might also get to know something more about them prior to the first date via e-mail communication.

@Jono, I think internet dating is a good option for Aspies, too.

I understand that Aspies have difficulty with reading body language, but you can improve your abilities in that area. Also, I don't think "chance" enters into a woman's decision to accept or reject a date at all. She'll accept the date if she's interested. Will she indicate her interest in a guy non-verbally? According to all the body language experts, she most certainly will. But frankly, non-verbal "interest" isn't any guarantee, either....she may just be interested in having a "drink sponsor" for the evening, and not a date; or she may be staring at your because she thinks you look odd (rather than handsome); or she may be smiling in your direction, but not at you; or she may be glancing in your direction frequently because you're standing by the door, and she's waiting for a friend to arrive, etc.

I'm not using these examples to discourage anyone, just to point out that NTs can misinterpret body language and "signals" just as easily as the next person. Even though we're more naturally adept at reading body language, it's not necessarily a secret decoder ring that reveals an individual's true intentions. And that means sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind and dive in. You will survive.

But what I'm not understanding is how one can do that... once things get underway, they just become a blur and move too quickly for me to be able to think about anything that I'd break it off myself just so I can figure out what's going on...

I think there's more to it than this. I was told by a few women before that women like having more than one guy. They want one guy for sex & romantic stuff & they want another guy theat they can turn to for emotional needs. Women like having two guys because they want to keep the sex/romance separate from friends. They get worried about being to dependent on one. I was also told that women do not want guys who are interested in em ie playing hard-to-get. Women get a thrill out of getting a guy who's not interested to like em. Aspeis are generally more direct & upfront about things than NTs so we don't understand these little mind games

@Toad, yeah, it's a b***h to get used to, but you'll only start picking details out of the blur by being in it a lot. Like freeway driving, it's freaky and too fast early on, but eventually you adjust your driving to work within the setting as well as get used to it.

I made another long-winded post >here in the 'Just Get Yourself Out There' thread which might be useful. *shrug*

Although I know you already know this, and probably just misspoke, I feel like I've gotta nitpick to make a correction anyways: This isn't a difference between ASD people and NT's. This is generally the difference between people with low self-esteem and good self-esteem. It's simply common that people with AS have, or had, LSE due to their less-than-stellar social history(I'm guessing).

Really, this topic has most to do with self-esteem, and not ASD.

Toad, that's what all the body language advice on here is for: to help you figure out what the person is like, and whether you like them, WHILE you're dating them, preferably without driving them away.

I do get the problem of everything going too fast to process, though. There are 2 ways I've dealt with this...

Preprocessing-the more prepared I am to notice the right things and say the right things, the more I can process in real time. Suppose you're going on a date with a woman you've only met once or twice before. Before you go on the date, mentally run through what you know about her: what are your impressions of her so far? What do you want to know about her? What sort of impression do you want to make on her, and what can you say and do that would help you make that impression? (For instance, people who want to be seen as sweet and romantic tend to do gentlemanly things like holding the door). What sort of behavior from her would be "instant win," and what would be "dealbreaker?" Imagine different scenarios: ones where she talks a lot and ones where she doesn't, ones where she b*tches about the food and wants everything her way and ones where she's trying so hard to be accomodating she can't even pick which side of the table to sit at...how will you react? What will you say to make conversation? It's easier to come up with icebreakers in advance than when you're sitting across the table from your date and utterly overwhelmed. Also, if there are any SPECIFIC mistakes you've made on dates in the past (not general things like "I made a fool of myself and now she hates me"), this would be a good time to review them and figure out how not to make them this time around.

Post-processing: So you've had your date, and now you're trying to figure out what happened and how you feel about it. I find a quiet place to lie down, close my eyes, and watch as many snapshots as I can remember from the date like a movie. Pause and ask, "what did she mean when she said X? Why did she touch me at that time and in that way? Am I interpreting Y gesture right?" I replay the scene and look for more clues, then I think about it more, then I replay the scene, then I think about it more, until I have the best answer I can get. I continue this way until I've gone through everything I can remember and I have a pretty good idea of how I feel about it and what I want to do next. If your memory is anything like mine, do this immediately after the date or the day after. After a couple of days, all the details are gone, never to return.

I still miss things in real time and make gaffes sometimes, but pre and post processing makes my behavior a lot smoother, more effective, and less awkward. Best of all, when I've prepared what to look for in advance, things seem less blurry. Does this help at all?

Great call, on the post-processing. Perhaps some would see it as neurotic, and there's potential to take an interpretation too far, or get too concerned with an interpretation to your own detriment. However, on the other hand, taking it logically and methodically like that is a huge tool in self-analysis and adjustment. If done well, it can make a huge difference. It is more supporting evidence to the notion that without taking risks, you have little to gain.

It's just talking about the initial dating stage. Not serious relationships which are a different story. I don't think being *really* good friends with someone to begin with will do any good.

A lot of the time people are only aquainted or friends that aren't too close.



I think it can, but probably less than it does for guys. Usually with people like many animals the woman gets courted, but it would apply more if the woman does the approaching or is "less desirable" in general to the men or a lot of men. Also if a woman is classed as "One of the boys" Heaps of men find that unattractive. Heaps.

You aren't "going into a relationship" You show your initial interest by asking them on a date. And no its not just asking someone on the street. Could be someone you know, but not too well, an aquaintence or a freind/aquaintence who you like but just aren't that close to - wouldn't call them "Friend - I talk to them lots and hang out with them all the time" Then you don't get instantly put in the friend zone. You get to know them better as time goes on, and if it doesn't seem like you're suited, you do not get into a relationship with that person.

It's not that I doubt women have said this to you, it's just that I've been a woman my whole life, and never - not one time - did I seek to compartmentalize my relationships with the opposite sex in the way the women you know have described. In fact, I don't know a woman who's ever expressed this desire to me. As far as women not wanting men who are interested in them - that's a huge generalization, and so inherently incorrect. A woman can fail to be attracted to a man who's attracted to her - that much is true. But when we're talking about psychologically healthy and functional women, the fact that a man is attracted is no reason to disqualify him as a romantic prospect. Honestly, I don't know women who play these "little mind games" - although I'm sure they exist. I guess my advice to you is to take the information you're getting from these women with quite a bit of skepticism - because they sound like they don't have their shiz together (could be dysfunctional, could be just extremely young and/or immature).

I'm NOT saying I agree with this in most cases but I've read some articles about dating stuff from guys & women; some of who are in psychology profession like marriage counselor ect & some of the stuff does seem to kind of point in that direction. I've also heard generalizations about guys by women as well. I try to take things on a case by case situational basis but it does seem that all these generalizations do have some truth behind em because people start believing em after a while.

^ That's what I figure.

By now, I operate hugely on generalizations and stereotypes. The catch is that you've gotta be ready to toss out any given stereotype at any given time because there's so many exceptions. But those exceptions do not always invalidate the otherwise huge applicability of stereotypes. So it's a matter of keeping open in that regard, as well as weeding out accurate stereotypes from mis-attributed ones.... But that's all up to the individual.
It's a constantly shifting landscape.

@nick007, I recommend broadening the materials you're using in your research. (And I don't mean that to sound fussy - I mean it sincerely.) I just find this idea of women seeking to compartmentalize their relationships with men profoundly inaccurate, because every woman I know - including myself - wants to find one man who is all of those things: friend, lover, confidante, protector, someone to nurture, etc. That's why dating takes so much effort - you have to date a lot of guys before you find "the one." So even though there may be people (with a few letters after their names) who are pushing theories about the kind of woman you've described, it doesn't mean those theories are valid. Remember, people with "MD" after their names used to readily accept the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder....just one example of how educated people can completely miss the mark when it comes to codifying human behavior.

Look, I have no expertise in ASD, I'm just going by what I've read here. Because of deficits when it comes to social skills and/or difficulty interpreting non-verbal communication, many guys with ASD feel as though they're at a great disadvantage when it comes to approaching women in "typical" dating/socializing environments. A significant fear seems to be about approaching a woman who has no interest, which will provoke a negative, potentially gratuitously unkind reaction from the woman. I've read a lot of posts by guys who believe "getting to know" a woman before "making a move" is a strategy to mitigate this risk....and getting to know a woman requires an investment of time, emotion, cash, etc., and that raises the stakes related to the invitation/response. So....I kinda do see this paradigm as being related to ASD, although I also see that ASD can have an impact on self-esteem in general....and that can cause all kinds of challenges.