I’m setting this up on here while I work on creating my site aspergersassets.com to delve deeply into my autistic brain development journey. It’ll be an exploration and documentation of my journeys, experiences, plights and delights while being on the spectrum. For now however, consider this as Shang Tusng in Mortal Kombat put it “a taste of things to come”.
Dating can be a surreal, exciting and confusing experience for people on the autistic spectrum. With all of the newer and unique variables of the disorder I’d imagine it’d be difficult for the neurotypical too. However, with this article I hope to be your guide for both sides to help make dating and autism to be an ideal experience.
Autism and Eye Contact
Firstly, eye contact can also be…. different for us. It’s easier for some then others, but largely our eyes can be reverse magnetized to yours. This can understandably be very unflattering during a first date especially.
Certain social situations can also be confusing for us as we miss things like ice breakers as I at least tend to overthink what to say and wind up getting lost in our thoughts. I also tend to wear graphic shirts and the subject of the shirt could be a good place to start conversation?
Autism and Food Ordering
Along with overthinking about what to say to you/ask you about ironically ordering the meal in and of itself can become somewhat background noise. As such ordering can also be difficult because of the over thinking and over analyzing most things impassivity doesn’t become us.
Speaking from a hetero male’s point of view it also may be weird for us or at least me to ask what you want to eat. I definitely appreciate a gal that eats more rounded then just healthy, but we tend to want to say something about it that may seem smart…ish to us, but often that falls flat.
Autism Overthinking
The over thinking thing isn’t sinister or anything though. It’s mostly us being anxious about thinking of the best/worst possible things to say and us weighing the pros and cons of each (we can be annoyingly analytical yet somewhat very naive at least for me),
The first conversation can also be weird because It’d definitely help if the neurotypical started the first conversation. However, pride or something may make us or at least me feel belittled because I feel that it’s something, I should be able to do, but can’t.
On the upside, however, once we do lock into a conversation topic that we’re both into us autistics can get VERY deep into said conversation as we’ve been thinking about it thoroughly. Again, not in as sinister of a way as that may sound, but we really want to understand and relate to you who are kind enough to share in hopefully an exceptional meal with us.
We can also get lost on tone and how one may mean something. We understand what you’re trying to say but, perhaps not how you mean it.
Autism and Silence
Along with the weirdness of eye contact for us silences can be good, but weird for us. Speaking for myself at least I tend to worry about looking like I’m zoning out when I’m really trying to think of what to say. I think that that largely comes from bullying and the misunderstanding and false assessment of others thinking that we’re stupid or something because of it.
Autism and Shamelessness
Another advantage of dating an autistic person is that we can be shameless and if you like or love karaoke, we can be damn into it. I’m partial to a duet of Jackson by Johnny Cash or Bobby Brown’s biggest hits, but that’s my prerogative.
Autism End of Date Decision Making
Ending the date can also be weird for us as. That’s because it can be difficult for us to suss out where we stand as much as possible. It’s also difficult for us to determine if the date feels that it’s ended to too early and it looking like you’re not into them vs dragging it out in fear of rejection (as we tend to be overly use to the later).
I hope that this helps those interested in potentially dating an aspie regarding understanding the fun side and how to navigate then less then ideal side of the spectrum.