I screwed up a few friendships, and need to understand better what went wrong? I think my autism caused me to do a few inappropriate things.

[VictorR]

I just wanted to note that in some cultures and communities, it's considered rude / socially inappropriate to say "no" - but that a "no" can be inferred by the lack of a clear and definitive "yes".

 

[All-Rounder]

"the timeline doesn't support All-Rounder's interpretation" - if you could elaborate it would be helpful to understand what you're thinking specifically

My idea was based on the times when I have been in situations where people don't react according to their history so I would be ready to expect anything from them based on their reaction. Of course there are multiple possibilities in confusing situations of this exact pattern and sometimes it's complicated to get to the bottom of it or of who's doing it. One thing that's helped me a lot was to never dismiss possibilities. Unfortunately it's not uncommon for people to be friends then not want to really say the friendship is not their cup of tea anymore. Or for people to try to end a friendship they're threatened in some way by.

 

[All-Rounder]

Based on what you described, it sounds like you actually do understand some of the things that went wrong. You said yourself, you latched on too tightly, and too quickly to a group that you were not invited to. Even though they were being nice, it was made clear to you that your situation did not make you an appropriate person to be part of this group. You are not a student, and this was a student community.

Although you wrote quite a lot, we still only have your side of the story here, so it would be very difficult, and even inappropriate to place blame on any of the people in your story. They may have experienced things differently from you and your interpretation of things could be different from theirs.

It sounds like you continue to seek clear communication and that is good. Unfortunately, the boundaries that were finally made clear to you are not to your liking. This makes sense, and I can see how that would be hurtful as you wanted to be part of this community so badly. But, at this point, I think space is a good idea. Sometimes we want to fix things so desperately by getting closer when really, we need to step away.

I don’t see that you’ve done anything egregious in what you’ve described, but at least, at this point, you have been given some clear boundaries, and Mark is still willing to engage and interact with you. He may be a beneficial person to stay in touch with, as it sounds like he may be able to help you make sense of the situation and understand the social dynamics at play here.

If the people you wanted to be friends with were stringing you along and feigning kindness when they were wishing for boundaries, how on earth, could you know that? It sounds like they deferred to kindness instead of honesty, and that would have been very difficult for me. The kindest thing that could have done is to be very clear with you from the start when things started getting uncomfortable. I feel for you that you had to deal with this surprising turn of events. I have felt that too.

Agreed, don't play the blame game, keep an open mind but be cautious, judgeful and careful with all of them. You might have ended up as the 'bad guy' involuntarily in this story.

 

[All-Rounder]

I want to point out your dedication to these friendships is admirable, like you'd get through school just to be able to be involved with them because you're attached to them. It might have not been received or shared by them though.

However then, and you mentioned it yourself, the ministry idea didn't interest you any longer, something they took issue with because society tends to expect other things to be more important and not friendships. And in its own way it is right because friendships don't last forever so they're investments with current benefits.

But it tends to be annoying as hell and put pressure on someone to amount to something which is also another type of investment with limited benefits, as if to be human you're not allowed to indulge in your emotions and desires, happiness to the ignorance of all else. That's a very important part of life and particularly pleasing for the autistic mind.

When I get tired of playing life's game I know exactly what I want and it has nothing to do with careers or fame.

 

[All-Rounder]

I don't really believe in balance and I notice it's hard to not only for me but for people in general. To mix relationships with school or with work. Many fail due to an inability to handle both. Many choose to give up education and I have chosen to give up college to have the time to work on my relationship. Unfortunately though I gave it my best it failed. Such is life.

There's always more love to give. It just has to be able to be received.

 

[paloftoon]

I have an idea for you, MOPS. If you have the various people's e-mail, you can e-mail them separately and just apologize for unintentionally infringing on social boundaries on multiple levels. Keep your communication short or relatively short. No more than two paragraphs for e-mail.


With your Instagram connection, I'd recommend you limit your communication to 5 sentences and apologize to Lauren and Tess and let them know that you're sorry for being overly interested in a community not appropriate for you to be in, and sorry to bother them in this manner. You can wish them well, hope they'd be open to meeting you in another context at random that is not religious, and then unfriend (but don't block) on instagram as a way to show them that you want to try to respect their boundaries and your own.


If they follow you back on Instagram after you remove them following you, then that gives you an opening to ask if they meant to follow you and want to re-connect or hang out in a non-religious activity.

You need to look for another community and/or another activity. I'm sorry this has all happened to you, but thank you for sharing it all. I'm glad our community here online can help and support you.

 

[Tom]

Something about your post rang a bell (I think it was assigning fake names to the many participants) and I found you basically posted the identical sort of problem a year ago in your first post:

What exactly did I do to screw up and ruin a great friendship I had?

Is it failure to recognize boundries or failure to respect them? Failure to recognize can be blamed on Autism. But failure to respect is on you.

Now I want a printable Certificate of Achievement for reading all that.

 

[MOPS]

Something about your post rang a bell (I think it was assigning fake names to the many participants) and I found you basically posted the identical sort of problem a year ago in your first post:

What exactly did I do to screw up and ruin a great friendship I had?

Is it failure to recognize boundries or failure to respect them? Failure to recognize can be blamed on Autism. But failure to respect is on you.

Now I want a printable Certificate of Achievement for reading all that.

Two completely different situations that have absolutely no correlation to each other.

This current situation is failure to recognize the boundaries. Forget about the other one as it’s totally irrelevant now.

 

[Hypnalis]

@MOPS

It's both.
They waited for Mark because you scared them.

The question is whether you're going to address your issues or not.

You can work on the ASD aspect (missed signals) using ASD resources if you want to. And you should.

It's looking like you're in denial about the other one (reacting incorrectly to the signals you didn't miss). But you can and should work on "no means no" yourself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------

@1ForAll
This is a response to your post below (#30).
The second issue isn't ASD, and even with us, IMO it's best seen as an NT<->NT matter

 

[1ForAll]

I see both sides commiting to this intensifying situation. I just know many average neurotypicals and those with stronger empathy or fears of rejecting others, at least initially will tell fibs, lie or not disclose the full truths, as they want to support the other or have them feel at least then better, and as perhaps they do not think ten steps ahead (not being literal here) but prefer to focus on the present, or not assume the other will act on any suggestion or advice given then anyway later but fade away too and not cling too much then.

Many with Autism can take things literally, and see or assume things as factual what they are told or see, and yet some or many may have black and white thinking or categorize too, besides difficulties with nonverbal communication.. So, if they saw someone as friendly and seemed to be trusted on the surface, or on some not too deep level, based on what the other said and how they acted then, they could assume they received the full truth and the others would honor what they did or said then, or which they promised or suggested later.

So, if the op was showing trust or clinginess too fast, based on information they were processing from communications that were somewhat misleading, that is part of the issue. Neurotypicals sometimes are not as blunt, and may adapt better to what makes the other feel better, or show care better or easier (which may or may not be sincere), so what you see on the surface may or may not be accurate. Even those who like supporting others here on forums may sometimes be holding back other feelings that they cannot say, for fear of offending and making matters worse. Sometimes they may support, but some after doing so could be thinking, 'here we go again.' Those white lies or that temporary relief given, or following that rigid support rules of etiquette, can help in ways yes, but it can lead to difficulties later if advice or more honesty instead could have gotten them out of that cycle sooner to not to give false hope, if that negative cycle kept repeating.

Deception or not full transparency during relationships in early stages occurs more often than people admit. They may say one thing but mean another, or hold back important feelings. Over longer time things become clearer, either after they learned more and then back away, or as the other never was totally truthful or transparent earlier on , because of the feeling out process or need to temporarily act nice or get the other's immediate needs met.

Those wanting friendships or partners will have important secrets hidden from them at least in the beginning, if not forever. Nobody is fully transparent. We all have private facts we do not reveal. For instance, say a potential friend or partner is annoying in one way, or they preferred something else in them to be friends with them. Instead of saying to the other they are not a good fit, they may attempt to be friendly as long as possible. Or, as an example, instead of saying to a prospective partner they preferred a beautiful faced, full figured or thin woman, or a person with lots of money, or with high social status job, instead etc, , they may just be nice for a period of time, then move on, if the other did not win them over in other ways or if more concerns came into view. .Often these others do not advertise these full truths as it may makes them look like superficial, sex crazy persons, or gold diggers, or as it makes them be more vulnerable later, sharing those secrets. Research studies to what men and women want and do not want for friendships and relationships. It is not surprising the results. Evolutionary Psychology information also gives reasons why we may still gravitate to and reject certain people. Of course there are exceptions, but these comprehensive, fact based studies and their stats do not lie. Everyday typical humans lie, deceive, exaggerate or omit important information often. And that is no lie, but facts. Whenever feelings and needs are involved, and competition and selfishness, that is what happens.

Again, though, what is common sense to neurotypicals, from perhaps being able to sift through facts versus fiction easier may not be seen as common sense to some or many with ND conditions who can be swayed in ways or make wrong decisions sometimes from assuming things from limited sample sizes, and because of any distorted or untraditional thinking, naivety, or from making decisions based on what is seen on the surface, to name a few. That is why those with ND and other conditions can be taken advantage of more by others. So, I feel, you could have been lied to in the beginning to make you feel better or to give you hope. Some can call it kindness instead, but was it kind then for them to run away or distance later, and to suggest to them only the op was at fault? Kindness shown is not true kindness if it leads to bigger problems later I feel, through those omissions and lack of transparency as soon as the concerns are building.

 

[MNAus]

Again, though, what is common sense to neurotypicals, from perhaps being able to sift through facts versus fiction easier may not be seen as common sense to some or many with ND conditions who can be swayed in ways or make wrong decisions sometimes from assuming things from limited sample sizes, and because of any distorted or untraditional thinking, naivety, or from making decisions based on what is seen on the surface, to name a few. That is why those with ND and other conditions can be taken advantage of more by others. So, I feel, you could have been lied to in the beginning to make you feel better or to give you hope. Some can call it kindness instead, but was it kind then for them to run away or distance later, and to suggest to them only the op was at fault? Kindness shown is not true kindness if it leads to bigger problems later I feel, through those omissions and lack of transparency as soon as the concerns are building.

NTs are human beings too, and very imperfect. Often people will have fear of conflict (especially those who have anxiety) and avoid negative situations. Occam's razor suggests it's more likely they just didn't know how to handle a situation that was quickly escalating the wrong way than did anything malicious.

That said - and fair play to OP here for being straight-up about what was said - I think the other parties in both situations have been very clear in their positions. And to be fair, OP - and again, good on you for relating this - has behaved in ways that makes it clear he understood their position but was not prepared to accept the answer he got and is prepared to go against others' wishes, even the person he pursuing, perhaps even being a bit deceptive. e.g. attending sessions where we knew others who had said "no" would be away, asking people about joining a session when he knew it was against others' wishes (using information asymmetry: i.e. they didn't know he'd been told no). Or in the previous situation, deciding to ask friends of friends even when he'd been asked to give space.

Not sure this is really an ASD thing, though I can imagine it played a role in arriving with this approach to relationships. I can also appreciate turning the situation of not getting what one wants into a practical problem to be solved by hook or by crook may come from the brain of an ND, but not the decision to override someone's wishes.

OP, I understand it's frustrating, but reading that other post in conjunction with this suggests you have difficulty accepting losing out or things not going as you'd wished. It also strikes me that in both cases you very quickly formed very strong attachments to women who were not available for the relationship you desired. If you have the means it might be worth chatting to someone on how you could approach things differently. "No means no" is a very important social norm that really does need to be respected, especially as the are you seem to find this most challenging is in close relationships with women.

 

[Boogs]

For me this is a really difficult OP to respond to.
Firstly, there's a massive cultural and belief system difference at a profound level, so it's exceptionally hard to make clear and reasonable judgements. Also, there was a lot of information, but at the same time, most of it couldn't be taken as literal, leaving a very vague feeling of unease, that there were far to many unknowns, from my view.

So all in all, I could do as much damage as help, by trying to comment on this, so I'll try to keep it to just one thing that kept coming though to me from start to finish and that is that probably no-one mentioned in the OP's story was being particularly open, honest and straightforward in their behaviour, whether deliberately or not. There's too many things to go into to explain in more detail, and I sincerely doubt I have the skill to explain such a complex set of interactions with so little empirical information without misleading. But I personally think you should start trying to focus on your own truths and not those that others tell you. I think there are a lot of ulterior motives, and hidden relationships, and power structures, systemic to the community you've joined (as with many similar communities), that you may not appreciate or understand, and that many of your friends may take for granted without ever giving any conscious thought to.

I don't know if any of that gives you any kind of insight at all, but sadly I can give little advice that you would consider acceptable, and wouldn't likely seem rude or inconsiderate. If I had to try, it may be for you to focus on yourself more, maybe try a change of tack and go with the flow, so to speak, rather than trying to forge a way into this community. Maybe you just need more time to get a better feel of the people and the setup? And too much emotion put into relationships too soon, may make things much harder for you?

Finally, try to be open minded about the people close to you, in all ways. Some may be better meaning than they appear. Some may definitely not be! But it's yourself that needs to try and discover this, even at the cost of mistakes. Take small steps, make small advances. Better than big failures!
And also remember, you may make mistakes in your dealing with others, who doesn't? But sometimes other currents run through your life that can interfere. It's not uncommon for someone to whisper poison in another's ear, for jealousy of their friendship with someone new. I'm not saying that's happened here, but is an example of how unknown events can explain strange happenings.

 

[MOPS]

That was a lot of story with a lot of names, so I hope I understood right.

What I think happened is:
They told you you can’t be part of this specific community, because it’s for students.

You interpreted this as “we would also like you to be part of this community, but there is this one obstacle” and set out to remove that obstacle, find a loophole so to speak.

What they may have meant was “you’re too old for this community, find something age appropriate”.
And what I think they also meant to say was “we can’t be your only friends, you need to find your own people”

Your continued efforts to find a way in there may have felt to them like you were disrespecting boundaries on purpose.

You saw a soft no, they meant a hard no, and they may feel like you’re being too intense and you’re trying to insert yourself into their lives.

What I would do in your case is just let all parties know you never intended to make anyone uncomfortable. Apologize for any misunderstanding and let them know you’d still like to be friends in the future, if they would like that. Let them know the ball is in their court. And then leave them be.

I honestly think you are correct! And yes, when I talked with Mark, he told me that I was kind of old as well and that community specifically is focused on undergrad students (I didn't know that until I had that long conversation with Mark). And I can assure that it was nothing personal against me. I have talked to other higher ups in the organization with different branches and they all said that unfortunately because I am not a student, they can't really serve me or invest in me in the way I was seeking because it's not really the focus, purpose, or goal.

And yeah, I think they did want me to find my own people as well. They definitely enjoyed my company, and I think they did genuinely like me considering their actions, but at the same time, they couldn't be my only or primary friends because they weren't available for a very close friendship like that in terms of hanging out regularly.

And yes, I honestly did see it as a soft No at first. I didn't necessarily think that they meant they'd like me to be part of it, but I kind of saw it as, there are obstacles, and if I can get around them, maybe I could get a different answer. But I think they're real answer what they meant was a hard No because of my age and focus, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to be part of the community.

When I kind of look at it that way, it is possible that they felt that I didn't want to respect their boundaries. I did NOT cross any boundaries, because I never actually attended anything that I wasn't supposed to, but I definitely shook the boundaries or gave them the impression that I didn't like that boundary or want to respect it.

 

[MOPS]

@MOPS,
which country are you in?

United States

 

[MOPS]

That was a LOT of text. So first off this seems like a fairly formal community of communities with quite strong ties.

I hope you don't mind me being blunt. It strikes me that you had a goal in mind and basically kept pursuing that even in the face of some fairly polite responses telling you that wasn't something people desired. I understand the appeal of this community, but essentially you went from friendly enthusiasm to suggesting taking an entire college degree to be near "Tessa". That's not really reasonable, and I would imagine they read that as perhaps inappropriate?

I think some of the confusion might have come from them being pleasant and polite whilst telling you that you shouldn't consider them a possibility for future close friendship. I would guess that is part of the culture of your religion, as is the idea of friendship groups being tightly knit into the people you work with. But the messages were actually fairly clear.


Was a very polite but very unambiguous reply. I can understand you might be disappointed, but essentially everything from this point on was an attempt to change that.



And with this one I think you should have moved on.

I'm absolutely not judging you at all, because I've done similar on many occasions, but I would advise you to take this as a learning experience. You didn't take "no" for an answer and applied the tools you have at hand to change what you got. I did this a few times at work, when politics and social interactions saw me disadvantaged and powerless, and ended up out of a job. I think it's OK to ask "you sure I can't join?" but you should have said "OK, I'm disappointed but I understand; hopefully we'll still bump into each other sometimes" long before it got to the stage it did.

Sorry mate

I think you are mostly correct. No I would not say that friend groups are tightly knit to the people you work with at all in my religion.

However, with the nature of this community, it is meant to invest in college students, mentor them, and share the religious faith with them and raise awareness of the global church. All of my friends and the people I mention from that group are leaders that have been interviewed and hired to lead small groups, and minister to the students. Has a lot of student leaders, but you need to go through a process in order to be hired as a leader. Any college students are invited to attend and be part of it, but it is focused on undergrad college students, and not for just anyone. Therefore, it is kind of their job to be friends and invest in the college students that join the ministry. It's a commitment they make before getting hired as leaders. That is NOT to say that they cannot be friends with others outside of the ministry; that is completely on them and their choice, and most of the leaders have plenty of friends that are not connected to the community. That being said, time capacity is an issue because they are meant to focus their main time and investment on the students in the community, and make them a priority. Therefore, when it comes to friendships outside of the community, its mostly that they have a limited amount of time and capacity, and don't have the energy or availability to be very close or besties with people outside of the community during the time they are committed to the ministry. Does this make any sense to you? It's often just a matter of people being spread super thin with commitments to the community, and therefore, having limited time for others.

I was talking with a really close friend of Mark at our church about the situation, and he told me that while Mark is a great friend, he has accepted the fact that he is NOT going to get Mark's regular investment or time during this season of life because of Mark's commitments. He said that he often gets intentional time one on one with Mark maybe 2-3 times a year, but not more than that because Mark's focus is the students in the ministry.

I will agree there, I was attempting to change their answers, but it was partly due to my career as well. However, I guess even with work and careers, No still means No, and you shouldn't be pushy or try to change answers. I guess you tried that and lost your job from what you said.

 

[MOPS]

Based on what you described, it sounds like you actually do understand some of the things that went wrong. You said yourself, you latched on too tightly, and too quickly to a group that you were not invited to. Even though they were being nice, it was made clear to you that your situation did not make you an appropriate person to be part of this group. You are not a student, and this was a student community.

Although you wrote quite a lot, we still only have your side of the story here, so it would be very difficult, and even inappropriate to place blame on any of the people in your story. They may have experienced things differently from you and your interpretation of things could be different from theirs.

It sounds like you continue to seek clear communication and that is good. Unfortunately, the boundaries that were finally made clear to you are not to your liking. This makes sense, and I can see how that would be hurtful as you wanted to be part of this community so badly. But, at this point, I think space is a good idea. Sometimes we want to fix things so desperately by getting closer when really, we need to step away.

I don’t see that you’ve done anything egregious in what you’ve described, but at least, at this point, you have been given some clear boundaries, and Mark is still willing to engage and interact with you. He may be a beneficial person to stay in touch with, as it sounds like he may be able to help you make sense of the situation and understand the social dynamics at play here.

If the people you wanted to be friends with were stringing you along and feigning kindness when they were wishing for boundaries, how on earth, could you know that? It sounds like they deferred to kindness instead of honesty, and that would have been very difficult for me. The kindest thing that could have done is to be very clear with you from the start when things started getting uncomfortable. I feel for you that you had to deal with this surprising turn of events. I have felt that too.

Understood! I honestly doubt that those people didn't want to be friends at all, but I believe it might have to do with the level of friendship. Just to clarify I never actually went to a place I wasn't supposed to go to, but I did ask a lot and tried to get different answers, so I guess it still qualifies as disrespecting boundaries. I guess it's similar to if a guy asks his friend that is a girl out on a date and she says No. Let's say he didn't do anything physically inappropriate or technically cross any boundaries, but he kept being verbally pushy and complaining and trying to change her answer. I think it would still make her very uncomfortable, and I've heard of girls losing interest in friendships with guys because of that behavior, despite not technically crossing any boundaries. I guess it still shows a lack of respect for boundaries even if they weren't technically crossed.

That being said, Kate has literally dived in to grab me for a hug a few times at church without me initiating anything. And if Tessa and Barbara didn't want to be friends at all with me, Tessa would not have went out of her way to ask Barbara if she could be my friend and give me her number after permission. And Barbara would've told Tessa not to give me her number if she had no interest in being my friend. Neither would Tessa have given me her number (I did NOT ask for it). Also I doubt Tessa would've created intentional space to hangout with me outside of a natural setting where we see each other if she didn't want to be friends at all, so it's definitely me that disrespected some boundaries that made them lose interest in being friends with me.

 

[MOPS]

I have an idea for you, MOPS. If you have the various people's e-mail, you can e-mail them separately and just apologize for unintentionally infringing on social boundaries on multiple levels. Keep your communication short or relatively short. No more than two paragraphs for e-mail.


With your Instagram connection, I'd recommend you limit your communication to 5 sentences and apologize to Lauren and Tess and let them know that you're sorry for being overly interested in a community not appropriate for you to be in, and sorry to bother them in this manner. You can wish them well, hope they'd be open to meeting you in another context at random that is not religious, and then unfriend (but don't block) on instagram as a way to show them that you want to try to respect their boundaries and your own.


If they follow you back on Instagram after you remove them following you, then that gives you an opening to ask if they meant to follow you and want to re-connect or hang out in a non-religious activity.

You need to look for another community and/or another activity. I'm sorry this has all happened to you, but thank you for sharing it all. I'm glad our community here online can help and support you.

I might try that, but do you think maybe I could try that after 6 months or a year? I'd rather give them space now and not interact with them for a while just to prove that I can respect boundaries and show them that I care about their feelings. I feel a lot of times we often want to jump and rush to solve things, when sometimes situations and people just need a lot of space to breathe.

By the way Tessa did already unfriend me on instagram. She did NOT Block but just unfollowed and remove me as a follower. I don't think it is because she dislikes me at all, but she is just setting a boundary there. Tessa, and all those people in fact reassured me that they love me and want what is best for me and these boundaries are being set out of everyone's best interest in mind. This makes me believe that they felt they had to set more and stricter boundaries because they felt I wasn't respecting the original boundaries, and that the friendships were not really working because I was looking for more and more importantly gave off the vibe that I kept taking their friendships as an invitation to be part of their community. I also do have Tessa's number, but I do not plan to use it soon because she asked me not to text her or reach out on social media moving forward.

Therefore, I think they still like me as much as they did before, but feel the need to set strict boundaries as to them it felt like I was not respecting the original boundaries.

I was thinking in maybe a year, I'll reach out to Mark again to reevaluate the situation and see if he can try to help me patch up the friendships. I trust Mark and know he is a great guy and wants me to have those friendships but NOT at the cost of people feeling uncomfortable. He even clearly admitted that the reason why he even told me all of this is because he wanted to save my relationships with these people and NOT let it get any worse. He was not asked to talk to me or anything. In fact, Kate and Madison didn't even talk to Mark; they talked to Sydney his wife, and Sydney told Mark.

 

[MOPS]

NTs are human beings too, and very imperfect. Often people will have fear of conflict (especially those who have anxiety) and avoid negative situations. Occam's razor suggests it's more likely they just didn't know how to handle a situation that was quickly escalating the wrong way than did anything malicious.

That said - and fair play to OP here for being straight-up about what was said - I think the other parties in both situations have been very clear in their positions. And to be fair, OP - and again, good on you for relating this - has behaved in ways that makes it clear he understood their position but was not prepared to accept the answer he got and is prepared to go against others' wishes, even the person he pursuing, perhaps even being a bit deceptive. e.g. attending sessions where we knew others who had said "no" would be away, asking people about joining a session when he knew it was against others' wishes (using information asymmetry: i.e. they didn't know he'd been told no). Or in the previous situation, deciding to ask friends of friends even when he'd been asked to give space.

Not sure this is really an ASD thing, though I can imagine it played a role in arriving with this approach to relationships. I can also appreciate turning the situation of not getting what one wants into a practical problem to be solved by hook or by crook may come from the brain of an ND, but not the decision to override someone's wishes.

OP, I understand it's frustrating, but reading that other post in conjunction with this suggests you have difficulty accepting losing out or things not going as you'd wished. It also strikes me that in both cases you very quickly formed very strong attachments to women who were not available for the relationship you desired. If you have the means it might be worth chatting to someone on how you could approach things differently. "No means no" is a very important social norm that really does need to be respected, especially as the are you seem to find this most challenging is in close relationships with women.

I honestly think you have some great points. I will admit that with the community / ministry rejection, I didn't really want to accept the "No", and was looking for loopholes. However, this wasn't so much a personal No to a relationship as much as a No to business / career thing and my career was involved as well. However, I guess No means No even when it comes to work related and career stuff. I'll admit, I screwed up there and should've respected the leaders wishes and wisdom that they were sharing with me about that.

By the way I never attended any sessions that I wasn't supposed to, but I definitely did try to ask behind people's backs to get different answers. I was never really successful in getting a different answer from anyone though. And you probably could say that I was kind of deceptive there.

And I'll tell you, I often form very strong attachments to both men and women that aren't available for the kind of relationship I am looking for. It's a common theme, but usually I just appreciate the kind of relationship that they can give me. However, it has been easier for me in the past because a lot of those people were long distance that I'd get attached to so therefore it was frankly impossible to have any closer relationship, but with these people being close by, I kind of let my jealousy get the better out of me. Not jealous of anyone specific, but just jealous of not being able to be part of the community.

 

[Hypnalis]

@MOPS

The "no means no" failure isn't a small matter.

It's not a common issue in Aspies (IMO significantly less common than in NTs). And in the 21st century, nobody who's been in a US University can claim they haven't been educated on consent in all aspects of human interactions.

It's not too late for you to learn from this.

Right now you're trying to "negotiate down" your behavior from "obviously awful" (which it was) to "understandable under the circumstances" (which it definitely wasn't). Trying to do this is a symptom of the "non-ASD" problem, and making up a self-serving narrative to "walk it back" is going to inflict more "psychological self-harm" on yourself.

You have an opportunity to consider your bad behavior and the internal processes that you used to justify it.
And if you're capable of it, you can understand the mechanisms, and change yourself for the better.

Take the opportunity. The longer you delay, the harder it will be.

BTW - if you truly can't change, you need a second diagnosis (from a professional, not an internet stranger).
This isn't an ASD issue.

 

[MOPS]

@MOPS

The "no means no" failure isn't a small matter.

It's not a common issue in Aspies (IMO significantly less common than in NTs). And in the 21st century, nobody who's been in a US University can claim they haven't been educated on consent in all aspects of human interactions.

It's not too late for you to learn from this.

Right now you're trying to "negotiate down" your behavior from "obviously awful" (which it was) to "understandable under the circumstances" (which it definitely wasn't). Trying to do this is a symptom of the "non-ASD" problem, and making up a self-serving narrative to "walk it back" is going to inflict more "psychological self-harm" on yourself.

You have an opportunity to consider your bad behavior and the internal processes that you used to justify it.
And if you're capable of it, you can understand the mechanisms, and change yourself for the better.

Take the opportunity. The longer you delay, the harder it will be.

BTW - if you truly can't change, you need a second diagnosis (from a professional, not an internet stranger).
This isn't an ASD issue.

I already know all this, nothing is new, but I was always often taught that squeaky wheel gets the grease, and you can try to push in businesses or careers. My Dad would always do that when it came to trying to get what he wants in a business or career setting, but NEVER in a relationship.