Autism in the Modern Dating World

[louisfiorucci]

I’ve had my heart break so many times being invisible to a woman who tells me what a great boyfriend I’d make to other women. People don’t seem to understand how insulting this is when I don’t want “other” women, I want “you”.

[hockeyfanatic]

If it’s difficult for non autistic men to get women then it’s 99% impossible for someone like me to get a woman. We have feelings too but nobody seems to care even though they say they do. 🙄

[jubgpodcast]

A huge part of the 317% increase is because of the growth of knowledge of ASD.

[hardhatjack]

This makes perfect sense. I was diagnosed with Asperger’s at age 6 in 1999 and from that point the eerie cloud over my head when it came to dating was that I had to prepare for the real possibility that I’d never find someone and I’d spend the rest of my days alone romantically all because I am on the autism spectrum and naturally am not as socially aware and astute as someone who is neurotypical. I also noticed that me and many females seemed separated by a wall where I could never break through and catch their eye. That’s the best way I know how to describe it. The advice I’d hear was just not to worry about it until it just “happened” (yeah it’s a long story) but it didn’t seem possible that my love story would happen that way and after disappointment after disappointment, soul searching, and even having to risk being weird at times, I finally broke through and found my bride and am now married with a daughter. But it definitely wasn’t easy, and the disdain that modern women are conditioned to feel towards men has been directed at guys like me way more often than usual. I’ve followed you for a while Billie but obviously this one caught my eye and I appreciate you mentioning this, I didn’t know just how common it was. The older I get, the less isolated and frustrated with myself I feel about this.

[gagejohnson]

As a young autistic man myself, it warms my heart to see that someone is recognizing the difficulty of dating when you’re on the spectrum. I’ve struggled my entire life with social skills, especially in the dating world and while I am definitely getting better, I still need support in certain areas and I’m extremely glad to see that someone realizes this!! 💛

[devilsadvocacy]

Most of us who are on the spectrum do our best to mask that fact. I’ve fought like hell to have a career that would help me do so, and it wasn’t until I began enjoying a lot of success as a lawyer that I gained the acceptance that neurotypicals take for granted

[theculturebrewingchannel]

Social awkwardness is a small part of why a person would be considered to meet the threshold to be on the spectrum. A diagnosis on just that is not possible, it wouldn't meet the requirements.

ASD understanding has increased alongside the increase in diagnosis. The current rate is 2% of the male population. What you should be asking is why women are not being diagnosed more, the answer isn't that men are being wrongly diagnosed, the answer is that women are being overlooked because they are better at masking.

Autism isn't just about being "socially awkward". In fact people with 'aspergers' are able to mask to not seem socially awkward.

Autism's main identifiable traits are found in repetitive behaviours, need for routine, stimming, sensory overload, special interests to an obsessional level, rigid thinking, strong sense of social justice, behaviour problems in childhood, etc.

The social awkwardness doesn't originate from lack of confidence, experience or because of screens - this can make it worse but it's not curable by fixing these things. It comes from the fact that ASD brains work differently. ASD brains struggle to recognise emotions from body and facial language. They think in black and white, meaning that they don't not tend to understand if you are hinting at something or implying something. They do not understand the need for small talk.
They find situations involving groups of people or crowded places overwhelming because there is an overload of sounds, smells, textures, light as well as working extra hard to try to understand and read people. This is why people with ASD can seem like introverts, because they need time to recharge their batteries after the exhausting nature of masking in public. People with ASD are not introverts, the can be but it is not a defining trait. Think of a swan on a lake, above water it appears graceful, below water its feet are kicking like mad. That's autistic masking, and it can only be done for bursts of time.

Autism is a difference in the brain it is not a learned disability.

[brandonrawson]

I've been autism spectrum my entire life. It has been very frustrating at times, largely because I can't get a hint to save my life. Not because I don't try, but because my brain is just not wired to pick up on those things. I am going to be 30 this November and I've been romantically involved with someone 5 months out of my entire life to this point, and those 5 months all came back in '22. Still, I remain hopeful that the right person is out there, and I'm certainly going to keep on fighting to do better, autism or no autism, because that's all I have ever known.

[snaketeeth]

Being autistic makes you socially awkward.
Being socially awkward does not make you autistic.

[rossiatmanutd]

It's a tad disappointing that a lot of the lost recent diagnoses of autistic spectrum disorder are going to guys who are simply introverted and very socially awkward due to environmental factors during their upbringing, as opposed to legitimate autism cases that is a disorder of brain chemistry and behavioural ineptitude

[geoffgrigg]

Something my parents did for me that I absolutely love them for was when I got diagnosed as ADHD/Autistic was that they made it very clear to me that it didn’t define me and all it meant was I was going to have to learn other ways of handling things than the other kids around me. Now I’m a fairly well adjusted fully functional adult and single father. The diagnosis can be a good thing if you use it to make yourself aware of your weak points so that you can bluster and find strategies to deal with them but can be a crippling crutch if you just sit back and make it who you are.

[person-xjki]

Also, more men are being seen with autism as there symptoms appear earlier and are easier to spot. Autistic women can be presumed to be hormonal or emotional difficulties that women face

[realjoedee]

Combination of diet, geriatric pregnancies becoming normalized, and probably all the additives in vaccines they use to make the reactions more robust.

[Kaphas]

Autistic young men like myself mostly need to seek out autistic or otherwise neurodivergent young ladies. Works out best for everyone. The Autistic boyfriend, ADHD girlfriend is working out very well for me.

[PaulKauffung]

I have autism. Most of us are not going to wear our autism on our sleeves when we struggle socializing. Autism often comes with many other limitations. It is possible with therapy to overcome those limitations. The hardest limitation to overcome for us is socializing.

[RaymondBaxterthegreat]

I constantly find myself in arguments over this one. The biggest rates of collective Autism in young men can be found in incel communities. It's like we just gave up and left them behind, and now kick them when they were down.

I found out I was autistic a couple of years back. High functioning. When I was a kid you were only autistic if you were slamming your head off the wall. If you were high functioning like me then you were pegged off as a bit weird and strange.

Took me YEARS to lock down a woman, years of studying, years of watching people, and years of trying and testing - I don't think it's anywhere near this hard for normal folks.

But you've just stumbled on the rabbit hole that no-one likes to talk about. It's easier when young autistic boys are just left to slip through the cracks because they don't fit in with the mainstream narratives of today.

[michaelminugh]

I don't have autism but boy oh boy is the dating online crap, so many women have profiles with no info & they put 0 effort into a conversation. Dating apps being made the way they are to maximize profit doesn't help...

[nobodysperfect]

The increasing lack of in person interactions is causing an increasing lack of social skills and an increase in social anxiety, social awkwardness, social ineptness, etc. You can quote or unquote "get away" with poor social skills, be socially inept as a woman and still date, get away with that, but as a guy, you really need to have strong social skills since you're the one doing the pursuing and initiating everything, the one making advances, the one leading or taking the lead, and you need to be able to make women feel comfortable, be able to understand social cues and boundaries. Women can get away with not understanding social cues or social boundaries when interacting with the other sex because women will never risk having their presence being awkward or uncomfortable, women will never under any circumstances have their advances be perceived as weird or threatening or dangerous or uncomfortable and more importantly they never have to make advances at all in the first place since the burden of making advances has always been on the mans shoulders

I also think a lot of men are struggling with confidence and self esteem now, which, again, you can "get away" with that as a woman (meaning a guy is probably still going to find you attractive, maybe even more attractive sometimes), but as a guy, you absolutely cannot "get away" with it.

I don't know if standards are actually higher now for men since I grew up in this era and don't know what it was like before, but it could be that women are more picky now. I would say that because women just have so many options now, girls really don't want to "pick" one unless the guy is just straight up hot, because of the FOMO of potentially missing out on a 10/10 guy.

I also think this increasing criticism of men for flirting, approaching women, making a move, etc. is also causing a lot of men to feel a little more trepidation about flirting with women, making a move to make out or initiating sex, etc.

So whether if a person truly has autism or not, being this way socially or just being socially handicapped this way is obviously going to affect men's dating lives more than women's dating lives

[MarvelMTs]

As a guy with autism, my biggest dating flaw is falling too hard too fast. Granted my ex-fianceé could have asked me to slow down and let the relationship develop gradually, but she didn’t. I am so glad that I got away from that mistake weaponizing, manipulating woman. I still remain hopeful for the future though, and I’ll be 265% sure to be slower in relationship development next time

[cosmo]

I will admit, this has made me feel a little better and glad that people are acknowledging about this, as a man with autism myself.