Am I doomed?

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Being desperate for a romantic relationship is a self-compounding problem, because being desperate tends to be off-putting to potential romantic partners. And it seems to me that the only way to not be desperate is to have most of your emotional needs already fulfilled by people other than romantic partners, i.e. by close friends.


I gather that none of your friends were close friends? If you can't be comfortable around a particular person, or if you can't be yourself around that person, then that person is not a close friend.

Anyhow, good for you for managing to find a girlfriend despite the self-compounding-desperation phenomenon noted above.


That's a problem right there. It is difficult -- and dangerous -- to become close friends with someone you know from work. A close friend is (among other things) someone you can deeply trust and confide in. It's risky to confide in someone you know from work because, if they break your confidence, it can have serious repercussions for you at work. To a lesser extent this is also true of school.

Almost all of my closest friends have been people I did NOT meet at school or work. They were people I met by seeking out people who shared various unusual interests of mine.

Furthermore, although I knew these people in-person, most of my interaction with most of them was on the phone, not in-person. (The nearest equivalent in today's world would be online chat, now that talking on the phone seems to have gone out of fashion.) Back in the days before the Internet became popular, I also corresponded with some of my friends via snail mail.


I've always needed plenty of time to myself also.

It's a few important things:

1. To naturally share feelings and emotions. NTs will typically talk about feelings or show them with facial expressions, but many NDs strongly dislike and/or are unable to do this naturally, and will not show them with facial expressions naturally either.

2. To be able to know when something is wrong in the relationship without constantly needing to peek with "is everything ok" or expecting partner will bring up problems as they arise.

3. To be able to compromise & solve problems, which partly is learnt.

4. To be able to keep each other happy naturally (communicating happy emotions rather than buying gifts or presents).

5. Sexual compatibility. Many NDs dislike the typical sexual behavior with variations in positions as the only parameter. Many NDs, and especially women, identify as asexual, but really need other types of sex rather than sexual intercourse. Sex is primarily in the mind, and especially for NDs.



No argument about those.



The problem with that is that there doesn't seem to be a natural way NDs form friendships, and so all advice & training will be on how NTs do it & prefer them. I don't find this meaningful personally, and I don't think I need any friends beyond a girlfriend. Some (even many) NDs might disagree and say that they want friendships, but the problem with knowing if this is authentic or not is that we are indoctrinated that friends are very important from a very young age, and many probably buy this concept and so think they miss out on something important (even if they actually don't need any friends).



I don't think I have any of those urges. I like a few people a lot (on a platonic level), but our exchange is driven by things we are working on, and sometimes there is no communication for weeks or months, and sometimes we send a huge amount of messages every day. I think this is how it works for many NDs. These "friendships" are not aimed at discussing feeling or partners or gossiping, but to discuss special interest projects. Sometimes these friendships die naturally when we have no more new things to talk about, and then we might find new friends that we can have fresh exchange with. Naturally, we cannot have relationships this way as they would die when we no longer needed input on a special interest project, or when we switched interest.

With a girlfriend or love interest, it is different. I would get sad if communication was irregular, but the communication could just be peeking without any content, and so I wouldn't need to have regular interesting discussions. That means that partner could just send "hi" or anything else, and I would be happy provided that happened regularly.



The main findings were that having a crush (high infatuation score) created a stronger bond, and that when NDs dated, this would kill the infatuation and result in a poor bond. I'm not saying that crushes are safe. I'm just saying that they are essential for a strong bond, and that the strength of the bond can predict the duration of a relationship.



I think that is contradicted by my inability (and probably others too) to get a crush on a friend. That means that friendships turned relationships will be fragile and suffer from poor bonds.

I also think that I actually prefer that a partner will fulfill all my emotional needs. If I lacked a partner, I would simply not need anybody at all to fulfill any emotional needs. I don't need a friend that I can share emotions or problems with. I might find it useful to have somebody to tell everything that happens in a relationship, but I don't need any feedback on that. Just somebody to monologue with and to know the perspective of a woman. I mean, I had this for a while, and it was useful as we both had similar problems of how to make things advance and could share similar experiences. It was more like a friendship based on a special interest than a typical NT-friendship.

My working hypothesis is that NDs only have ONE natural body language and ONE natural set of relationship preferences. This hypothesis has worked well and has huge support in my data.

The reason for the hypothesis is that it was Neanderthal & Denisovan that contributed the ND traits to the human gene-pool. Which actually is the only possible hypothesis for why NDs have different communication & mating behaviors.



From the abstract of the published paper:


That is, neurodiversity is not defined with some subjective criteria like all DSM diagnoses are, but rather on the natural clustering of ND and NT traits. If you take a very diverse set of evenly distributed traits and let a diverse set of people answer these, you will always get the same ND and NT factors regardless of survey population and actual traits used. Thus, given large enough populations available, anybody could replicate this categorization without knowing anything about traits & score weights in Aspie Quiz.

The evidence that it actually works lies in Cronbach Alpha. For Aspie Quiz it's above .95, but for typical ASD tests like the AQ test, it's in the .8 area.

Rdos: I'm with you on the little-no need for friends. I've always resented the way the concept of you-must-have friends has been shoved down my throat and how I was told even by own family that is not "normal" to not want them. Well, it's normal for me. I'm not starved for something I have no interest in. I do want a partner, who is my friend. I have my life in hand, have succeeded in my field, have taken care of myself and my emotional needs for my entire life. I don't need a man to complete me, I need him to be on my team and for emotional support (and vice versa) in those rare moments when I can't support myself. If I never find him, that sucks, but I'll have no problem surviving without him.

Agree completely. I don't need a girlfriend either, but it's nice to have somebody to think about, send & receive happy emotions to, and to be out wandering with. It's also nice to have a family & raise kids.

There is indeed a natural way for me to form friendships that's different from the typical NT way. I was a late-bloomer when it came to seeking friendships. Once I began, in high school, I sought friendships in my own way that made sense to me. Nearly all my friendships began with intense intellectual companionship around shared special interests. When I reached my twenties, friendships of mine still began with intellectual companionship but evolved to include more than just that.


I've had plenty of friendships of this kind also. What you've described is what I call intellectual companionship, which for me is a key ingredient of friendship. I've had friendships that consisted of intellectual companionship and nothing more, but I've also had friendships that included intellectual companionship plus a deep emotional connection as well. For me the intellectual companionship is a prerequisite to a deeper emotional connection.


That's a difference between you and me. I need to have regular interesting conversations, about topics of common interest, with my partner. The conversations don't need to be about my current special interest, but they do need to be, at least, about topics that are of interest to both of us in the long term. I also crave what I call comradeship -- facing common challenges together -- with both my partner and at least some of my friends.


I do not agree that crushes are essential for a strong bond. My strongest and longest-lasting relationships have all been ones that started slowly and didn't even seem all that terribly special at first, and only very gradually intensified. On the other hand, the one relationship I had that entailed a mutual crush did NOT last long at all.


For myself, on the contrary, I've always thought of crush-based relationships as the ones that are fragile and suffer from poor bonds, whereas my current and longest-lasting romantic relationship evolved from business partnership to friendship to romantic relationship.


What I desire is a set of friends who can constitute an alternative extended family. More about this later.

Yes, one might say that this is the natural way NDs form friendships, but I wouldn't call them for that since they have little in common with NTs friendships.

When I took my MSc back in the 80s, there were 90% guys and 10% girls, and so I judged it as impossible to find a girl that shared my interests. It would be just as futile as today's online dating, probably even more so. My special interest for a long time was operating systems, and there basically was no girl into that, so that was even more impossible. Today my main special interest is in neurodiversity research, and that actually is something that women find interesting. Still, I wouldn't require that a potential partner found that interesting, and if I did, I would severely limit my potential dating pool in an unacceptable way.

I think a lot of ND guys have interests that few girls share, and so would hardly be able to find a girl that they could have interesting intellectual discussions about their special interests with, or even something related to it.



You probably are pretty lucky to have sound such a man, and many NDs of both genders would not succeed with it.

The difference might be that you are a very verbal individual, while I'm shy and prefer to talk as little as possible. So, yes, I would enjoy having interesting discussions about a special interest with a love interest but I would not require it. I prefer to be highly selective in whom I create intellectual companionships with, and it would be sub-optimal to think in terms of a potential love interest at the same time.



That's something I think should be part of a romantic relationship too, but I would not seek it from friends. It's completely different to be almost an expert on neurodiversity research and just supporting you and giving advice. Thus, comradeship doesn't require high competence in your special interest projects like being a discussion partner does.



Well, that's empirical data. It might not fit you, but it does tend to fit on NDs as a collective.

How does your data manage to say very much of anything whatsoever about natural body language? Is your data based on anything else besides just the Aspie quiz?


The only possible hypothesis? How so? I can think of quite a few others off the top of my head. More about this later.


What published paper, and where can I find a copy (in English) of the whole thing?


How do you determine the validity of what you are measuring? How do you know you aren't measuring the mere fact that people who are freaky in one way tend also to be freaky in other ways, even though different freaky people may be freaky in different ways?

Construction process of Aspie Quiz:
Leif Ekblad (2013). Autism, Personality, and Human Diversity: Defining Neurodiversity in an Iterative Process Using Aspie Quiz SAGE Open July-September 2013 3: 2158244013497722 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1 ... 4013497722

Optimizing RMET (shows that staring is the most significant difference):
Gerit Pfuhl & Leif Ekblad (2017). Optimizing the RMET to measure bias not performance differences. Scandinavian Psychologist, 4, e18. https://psykologisk.no/sp/2017/12/e18/

Infatuation & attachment:
Leif Ekblad (2018). Infatuation and attachment : How do they differ in autism and neurodiversity? PsyArXiv, doi: 10.31234/osf.io/dw4u2, https://psyarxiv.com/dw4u2/

Asexuality:
Leif Ekblad (2018). Asexuality : A possible background and how it relates to autism and neurodiversity. PsyArXiv, doi: 10.31234/osf.io/stpma, https://psyarxiv.com/stpma/

Neurodiversity linked to Neanderthal admixture:
Gerit Pfuhl & Leif Ekblad (2018). Neurodiversity traits linked to Neanderthal admixture. PsyArXiv, doi: 10.31234/osf.io/w4nh5, https://osf.io/w4nh5/

I know being desperate is off-putting but I don't really get why. Desperate people tend to be more accepting & less critical of their partners which I consider a very good thing. I really like the idea of a desperate woman. In theory it seems like a desperate woman would of been much more likely to actually give me half a chance & would put forth more effort into making the relationship work. I was very willing to give most any woman a chance as long as she didn't have kids & wasn't much older than me(I had no problem with much younger thou).
For some reason I don't get close with friends except online & I like it that way. The only people I really wanted to get close to were my girlfriends. Maybe part of the problem is that people tend not to care about being & staying good friends. They may care when they spend time with each other most days but 1ce they don't see each other as much for whatever reason, they both move on & lose touch. That's some of why it's hard to have friends outside of work & skewl. I had some close friends online but we lost touch. Some of it is very likely that they started spending less time online cuz so-called "real life" got in the way & since we were communicating less often they just moved on to other people that they see in person or online more.
I think part of the reason Cass was interested in me was actually cuz I was desperate. I was more accepting of women with disabilities & so-called issues & problems which she has but I have more than my fair share of that too which was why I struggled so much to get relationships.
I guess your rite that making friends from work could potentially be dangerous. I couldn't make many friends outside of skewl & work except online cuz my main interests were things like listening to music(NOT going to concerts thou), web forums, watching TV, & playing video-games. There really isn't very many things to do with others offline where I'm from except sports, clubs/bars, & hunting & fishing. It also didn't help that I cant drive & lived in a rural area & my parents gripped about needing to bring me places.

Is it okay if I respond to these articles later, in a separate thread?

I am very worried that there's a lot technical self-help advice being given to the OP and others on this thread on how to improve their chances of lucking out with a girl.

At the end of the day attraction is a very organic process. It starts by putting yourself in a position where you have the opportunity to spend time with a girl/girls.

The more time you spend with different girls the higher the probability you will meet somebody who connects with you and you with them.

Definitely do not obsess over one girl, keep moving on and meet new ones whenever the opportunity arises.

That's incorrect. If you don't put down a sufficient amount of time on a potential partner then you cannot connect. It doesn't help to put down insufficient time on multiple potential partners. The purpose of obsessing is to facilitate connecting.

Obsession often leads to trouble.

Having focus, yet having perspective, is much better.

Obsessing over a girl who is not interested in you can be very painful once you realise that she doesn't feel the same way about you that you do about her.

I don't think you should consider focusing all of your energy on one person until it's clear that they're interested in you and things could be going somewhere. Prior to then, testing the waters with multiple different women, if you have the opportunity, is a good way to improve your odds of finding someone you're compatible with and not getting too invested into someone who isn't interested in or compatible with you.

Just because you're communicating with multiple women doesn't mean you're not putting in sufficient time for each to figure out whether any of them are interested in or compatible with you.

I didn't have time to do all the stuff I do today at age 30 back when I was 20. Back then, I was studying for 60 hrs every week as well as spending 15 hrs. on commuting.