Aspies For Freedom

It's a matter of finding someone who sees you as a person, not a syndrome.  That might mean you'll end up with someone who's also an aspie, or it might just mean you'll find one of the more open-minded NT people out there, like I did.  Relationships aren't an insurmountable obstacle; it's just that they require effort from both people to meet somewhere in the middle, and a lot of NTs have the idea that the onus of responsibility for compromise is always on us.  :/

I don't think there is anything wrong with sleeping with a stuffed animal. I have a little teny which I put near my bed (don't really want to squish her)

I find most NT's like to do these kind of things and don't feel it has anything to do with being and Aspie, I don't think.

As for a relationship, if you're overly sensitive you may not get along with an outgoing "honest" NT. That's what happend with most of my relationships and it's those little things that broke my heart very often.

Better to go for someone more understanding if he/she is an NT, but not someone that will make AS look like it's a handicap and be overly protective of everything, I've felt that alot also after I told someone I got AS even though they were understanding not abandoning but it was just too much!!

As for an Aspie/Aspie relationship, I have no idea how that would work, but I expect if two pepole had the same interests then they'd sit for three days straight discussing in that case, would be quite interesting.
I once felt I had that kind of relationship both being aspie yet it was like we were running from each other, so who knows ......

I had an NT girlfriend for about a year and a half until recently.  It worked out for a while, but she couldn't deal with some things.  Many girls ask questions in which they expect you to lie.  As an Aspie, I'm not very good at understanding that subtlety.  Also, she always got upset and said that I didn't understand her.  Whether this was because I'm an Aspie, and she's an NT or because I'm a man, and she's a woman, I'm not sure.

I think that an Aspie-Aspie pairing would either work very well or be an unmitigated disaster.

Hi Tyranicus! :grin:  

I have no personal dating experience, but I hear a lot of complaining from people around me :lol: , and based on that, I suspect at least some of your problems with your ex may have been the typical man-woman misunderstandings.  NT guys do seem to complain a lot about their girlfriends & wives getting mad at them for no apparent reason, or asking them questions that are expected to be answered "honestly," meaning with a convincing tactful lie (the classic such question being, "Am I fat/Do I look fat?")...and many books have been written (& subsequent fortunes made) based on male-female differences ("Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus," etc.).  So maybe AS didn't have much to do with the breakup.  As for your supposedly not understanding her...again, I have no experience, but I suspect many relationships would work better if people would spell things out instead of waiting for that mythical "soul mate" who will know them without their having to say a word.  I am female but I certainly can be clueless & wrapped up in my own thoughts, so if I had a boyfriend, I might not "understand" him either! :?

Yes.

Yes and yes.

Mind you, I'm not commenting on likelihood nor ease.

Mine thinks those particular behaviors are adorable.

And my husband calls me sometimes alien, since I am both biologically and geographically autistic.  :wink:

From my experience it really is easier to be a foreigner in a foreign country than to be a sort of foreigner in your country...
First of all, some "mistakes" in speech can be interpreted as language-barrier even when it´s not the case.
Second, people are often more interested in to really listen to what you have to say, since they are more curious and often also more tolerable towards differencies in foreigners.
And third, it seems to be exotic to have a foreign girlfriend/boyfriend. So I think it might really be easier for aspies/people on the autistic spectrum to have relationships with persons from different backgrounds.

So far, in my own country I was always considered to be such a freak, although I had some relationships there too. Here I may be a bit weird, but not a freak- and that for me is whole lot better.

I'm 20 and i've never had one (i have been told i have a slight case of aspergers or something)

I was 21 when I had my first relationship, and it was quite a catastroph, I must say. I met my husband when I was 32 and he was 26, and he actually never had longer elationships than 2-3 months at maximum before that. He seems somewhat aspie too, although he´s much more capable of doing practical things etc.

Another friend of mine is also married to a foreigner, and although both of them don´t have any diagnosis, they come out quite strongly as aspergers too. Since they work in animationbusiness and are doing just fine, they don´t feel any need for diagnosis, although my friend said after I got mine, that she admits she could be.

I´ve also heard that aspies mature quite late- I don´t mean physically- and I must say that I was very very naive and childlike when I was under 30 years old..Well, I still am actually, and people usually think of me as 10 years younger. I am not saying that you would be naive, but I guess it´s quite usual that aspies get into relationships rather late?

Also, earlier the need for solitude and lot of personal space was always the problem in my earlier relationships, but luckily my husband understands and accepts that as he also needs lot of solitude and space for himself.
And, even though at times I thought I´ll never have a real long-lasting partnership and felt sometimes even desperate because of that, now I´m glad that I´ve had so many years of my own to discover the world and many things on my own- maybe that was necessary to be able to be in any kind of relationship at all.

So yes, I am sure that aspies can get girl/boyfriend, but it might take longer than with others.

That's far from true.  Lots of people, male and female, get a real thrill being watched in sexual situations.  It's perfectly natural to get such a thrill, after all the sex drive is the second strongest in general after the survival instinct.  Most sexually reproduced animal species (particularly the males) actually compromise their survival ability to some degree to support tremendous sexual displays that attract not only females but predators.  Frogs singing, fireflies lighting, male combat in many species - these all put the males at risk for their survival by risking injury or predation.

We are not a "sexist dominated society" nearly so much as we are a sex dominated species.  That's not to say that there isn't sexism and that it's not related to power, but let's face it: food, shelter (to include clothing as needed) and sex are the three basic needs of humans in general.

There are lots of sites like privatepornmovies.com where people make movies of themselves and post them - free - on the internet for the enjoyment of others.  They do this because it excites them.  They share with others the joy they feel when they do it.  They do it for many reasons, but all of them are purely voluntary, because they get something they want out of it.

Haplo, I respect your intellligence, but in this case because of your professed asexuality, you really can't know what you're talking about here.  The sex drive is awesome and powerful, and I would be perfectly happy to make a living in the sex industry, though my NT wife wouldn't like "sharing" me with others.  I think it'd be a lot more exciting than what I'm doing now.

WB

The state should not be supporting any industry, at all.  When the power of the state is used to meddle in industry, that industry will suffer, and all people connected to that industry will suffer--EXCEPTING for the apparatchiks who directly benefit from such state support, of course.

You must admit that sex is still a need at the species level, even if individuals can survive without it.  Further, matriarchal societies are as sexual as patriarchal ones, and no scientifically valid, repeated study has ever found that society has any measureable impact on individuals' sex drive.

You have no sex drive and this seems related to your conclusions.  You appear to be convinced that male humans with sex drive are the cause of all or most evil in the world.

I simply disagree completely.

One of my exes (who was in her early thirties when we were going out)
sucked her thumb. I find in most relationships a little bit of vulnerability and childishness is essential, it helps create an atmosphere of trust.

The answer is yes. Absolutely.Emphatically.

Patience.

No. Anybody with the actual diagnosis of AS can NEVER get a significant other.