Just To Start Things Off (calling all girls)

[LittleFiddle05]

Welcome, Little Fiddle, and congratulations on your diagnosis! There's a book entitled, Aspergirls out there that I think would enjoy. You can relax now and quit asking yourself "What's WRONG with me?!". Absolutely nothing!

Thanks! I'd actually already started Aspergirls, I'm a little more than halfway through and I love it!

 

[grapesicles]

I really love that there's a girls' space (though it seems to have ended at "is it sexist to have a girls' space?" so maybe not so much...)

I was only just diagnosed, and it was really hard to believe it before someone here said something about girls demonstrating different traits; after that I looked into what the traits are for girls and everything fell into place. I spoke with two psychologists before the one who diagnosed me, and neither of them saw Asperger's in me (though neither seemed to know what it was, either), but one did suggest looking into bipolar. Though, to the credit of males with Asperger's, the only reason I knew to look into it was because I met a male Aspie. I'd never had so much in common with anyone in my life, even the ages at which we gave up on friends and the ages at which we were obsessive about books and the ages that we started to give up... everything just lined up. I even did an online diagnostic after my diagnosis just to see if I really could claim that diagnosis, and asked him to take it as well so I could compare - we got the exact same score. It was really weird, and kinda amazing to finally have someone with whom I had so much in common. If it hadn't been for him, I don't know if I'd ever have gotten my diagnosis, and I doubt I would have believed it. There's just such a difference between my diagnosis and how I've read Aspie males describing their experiences, etc... anyway, a girls' space just makes sense to me. There are so many resources that describe the male Aspie experience, but it's harder to happen across the same information for girls.. I don't know. I suppose a part of it, too, is that I've never managed to be close to a female; I've had 4 close male friends over the years, but I've always felt uncomfortable talking to girls - which is a serious problem because I become so attached to friendships, the guys often then misunderstand and expect a relationship, and shove me away when it doesn't happen. I need to learn how to talk to girls, and maybe Aspie girls would be an easier place to start? I don't know, I'm rambling, but yeah...this is something I really wanted to see here, so thank you for starting such a thread.

Hello glad your diagnosis has helped you so much! I completely agree that NT girls are incredibly confusing - one of the main reasons I went to seek a potential diagnosis myself, since I'm in a class of 45 or more girls at the moment, and feel like I can't get to know them well because I can't bond with them like all the others do. It is sad that we get a bad reputation for having male friends, just because we happen to share interests and find them much more straightforward and easy to get on with. I lost one of my great male friends because his girlfriend became jealous and 'banned' him from ever speaking to me again - very silly!

There are lots of other lovely female members too, so hope you feel like you're not alone here!

 

[millie33]

I am a 57 yo female diagnosed with asperger's at age 54. Before that it was several other dx's, bipolar among them. It does explain a lot to have the dx and I have a great counselor. They didn't have an aspie dx when I was coming along through school, so I was the shy smart weird one with no friends. I do believe that there are lots of female aspies, they just don't present the same as males in many cases (for instance, I am not a math whiz, which many people expect when they hear of my dx, nor am I a trainspotter in the classical sense, although I do love machines). Thanks to my counselor I have met several female aspies in person, and I've met several in cyberspace on wrongplanet. So there's my $.02.

 

[Judge]

I am a 57 yo female diagnosed with asperger's at age 54. Before that it was several other dx's, bipolar among them. It does explain a lot to have the dx and I have a great counselor. They didn't have an aspie dx when I was coming along through school, so I was the shy smart weird one with no friends. I do believe that there are lots of female aspies, they just don't present the same as males in many cases (for instance, I am not a math whiz, which many people expect when they hear of my dx, nor am I a trainspotter in the classical sense, although I do love machines). Thanks to my counselor I have met several female aspies in person, and I've met several in cyberspace on wrongplanet. So there's my $.02.

Welcome to AC, Millie. There are a lot of us 50 somethings here...

 

[ImAnAspie]

Having Your Cake And Eating It Too

...all I can say is that there was a guy involved too and I think we both were competing for his attention

Over the years, I have researched literally thousands of threads on various Aspie Websites, written by both male and female Aspies describing their social lives (or lack there of). One major difference I have noticed between the two is that the majority of female Aspies I have observed have social lives whereas the males don’t.

Socially, there appears to be no significant difference between the lives of many female Aspies when compared to their NT counterparts. You have relationships - friends, lovers, sex lives, one night stands, husbands, children, affairs, lesbian relationships etc. How is this different to a female NT's social life?

I have noticed, many will talk about being socially inept and not having social lives and yet, when looking back over their past posts, they discuss issues they're having with their friends, lovers, sex lives, affairs and how many partners they've had. Based purely on what is being written, there is certainly a huge discrepancy between what is being said and what is being done.

Men on the other hand (no pun intended), in general, talk more about their lack of being able to socialise, lack of relationships, non-existent sex lives, being virgins well into their 20's, 30's and beyond, still living with their parents as adults and not ever having had a girlfriend or been on a date.

This is not my opinion. There are literally 100's of megabytes of evidence - years of testaments written by the Aspies themselves. It’s easy to find (e.g. “find all posts by …”). It's all there on the Internet for all to see; for anyone who cares enough to look - and let me tell you, after being shot down in flames every time I mentioned this glaringly obvious fact on a forum, that was certainly enough motivation for me to go searching for the evidence.

I'm not stating this to cause trouble. I just want this fact acknowledged. Aspie men are not like NT males! It's hard for us. It's also very unfair and to be shot down in flames every time this fact is mentioned just adds insult to injury. Judging by what I've read, the majority of Aspie males have horribly sad and lonely lives compared to what many female Aspies are writing about their lives. Unless you were in the same boat, you wouldn't understand and let's face it, Aspies aren't the most empathetic creatures around at the best of times so I guess I'll just have to suffer with no understanding or compassion.

This has become a Special Interest of mine and a very important topic over the many years I have been researching it and I can state with absolute certainty, there is a massive, palpable difference between the lives of male Aspies and female Aspies. Many women hate this fact being mentioned for some reason and get quite sarcastic and hostile in their response to it. I'd like to know why? To me, it seems like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You don’t have to read too many ‘adults only’ threads (esp. female oriented threads) to become acutely aware that many female Aspies have very NT-like social lives – they just don’t like it being pointed out because having a social life isn’t very Aspie-like. So it looks as though you can have your cake and eat it too.

 

[LittleFiddle05]

Having Your Cake And Eating It Too

This has become a Special Interest of mine and a very important topic over the many years I have been researching it and I can state with absolute certainty, there is a massive, palpable difference between the lives of male Aspies and female Aspies. Many women hate this fact being mentioned for some reason and get quite sarcastic and hostile in their response to it. I'd like to know why?

I think the reason you're being poorly received is because the way you explain that sounds extremely dismissive, to me at least, of struggles aspergirls may have. The struggles are different, but I get the very distinct impression that you're saying that the struggles that girls face are less than, rather than simply different.

I'm going to go a bit into my personal experience here to try to explain.

It's true; I had friends growing up. The trouble is, I was quickly very aware that I was not like them. Male aspies are more likely to find themselves isolated? Perhaps, I'll trust your word, although the male aspie who encouraged me to get a diagnosis has at least half a dozen friends that he considers very close, so I will say there are definite exceptions to your rule... but aspergirls, at least from my experience, are more likely to think they have "friends" but still feel isolated as the odd one out. I had a "friend" from kindergarden until senior year of high school; we called each other best friends, everyone I hung out with was her friend, I kind of got to tag along by association, but I knew I didn't fit so I would always have knitting or a book to prevent becoming involved in the conversation. The result is that while I was sitting at a table surrounded by people who would probably be considered friends, if I spoke I was generally whispering to the girl I'd known since kindergarden, at least up until 7th grade. I had "friends" but this did not mean I had people I was close to; I had people whose drama I got stuck dealing with, but with whom I did not feel I could even speak. After graduating high school, I messaged that "best friend" of twelve years saying I hoped she was doing well. She responded by telling me that she'd never liked me, no one had ever liked me, she'd simply felt sorry for me and asked everyone to put up with me, but since we'd graduated she felt no further obligation to me and I should lose her phone number - she had already deleted mine months ago. So, yes, if you read my posts, you would see mentions of friend troubles... but I don't know that you could say that's a friendship typical of an NT girl. When you say that means I have more friends than a male aspie, that completely dismisses how traumatizing it was to put 12 years into someone, to think I'd found a place I was if not welcome then at least passively accepted, only to find that I was hated. The day after graduation, I went on facebook and found that most of the people I'd sat with had lunch had already unfriended and/or blocked me on facebook. Some of those people, I'd even had coffee with once or twice or been in an extracurricular together, I'd thought I was more welcomed by them; I was wrong. I won't say that that's worse than simply being isolated, but I do think it's a totally different monster. Being isolated completely will have certain affects, but knowing you don't fit, thinking you're being accepted anyway, only to have 12 years described as an act of pity? That's extremely hurtful as well.

(too long, sorry, posting as too posts to make it all fit... I'm sorry this is so long but I really want you to understand)

 

[LittleFiddle05]

(continued...)

The damage that is done by being able to "fit in" without being able to really belong is in many cases what allows aspergirls to establish relationships; we may be so beaten down that by the time we see our peers developing relationships, we are accepting abuse. Abusers pray on the people who don't belong, who are desperate enough to belong that they'll do anything. By 7th grade, I was already beaten down enough to put up with this. Not only that, but the Aspie obsessiveness can settle in on these relationships, increasing the propensity for abuse; I know for me, rather than having a special interest like studying the differences between male and female aspies, I always had a special interest person, and it was always a male and almost always abusive. It started gradually; in 7th grade, Doug made a project of getting me to talk. He pushed away my other friends, until I was solely dependent on him. The obsessive nature set in, and he encouraged it. He recognized that, in an almost ritual-esque way, I would completely fall apart if we usually spoke at a certain time each day and then one day without explanation he didn't answer; he used that to his advantage. He wanted sex. He pulled the "____ would give me sex, if she will and you won't then why should I be talking to you instead of out with her?" etc. That's a near-direct quote. It still amazes me that I managed to say no, but as a result he pushed me away. I didn't understand it. The only explanation I could come up with was that I wasn't good for anything but sex, that sex must have been his sole purpose and I was useless for the rest. This mentality continued, adding a sense of being good for money when $1,000 ended up sent to a "friend" in Morocco.

The tendency towards abusive friendships continued to worsen. This year, in college, after 3 years of isolation, I finally made a friend. He's an aspie, by the way. I think he's the best example of just how bad friendships for aspergirls can become if they allow the obsessiveness to create a sense of dependence, and if they allow feeling out of place to result in settling for anyone who will put up with them. This friend knew I was in a relationship; at first he swore he respected it. Before long, he was saying that if I didn't leave my boyfriend, he would never speak to me again. I was desperate, I had already learned to depend on him, I was convinced he was my last chance at friendship and my only chance of ever belonging anywhere. I broke up with my boyfriend for 4 days after that... and when I got back with my boyfriend, the real abuse began. He began to call me a ****, a whore, a slut - despite my current boyfriend having been my first kiss and my first physical partner. He began to demand sex; to everything I said, he would repeat "**** me." He said things like "**** me, block me, or hate me, preferably in that order." He would tell me that he would not talk to me again until I ****ed him. Once when he made such a demand, I told him I was too depressed at that moment to even move, let alone have sex; he told me it didn't matter, I could be a ragdoll, "so long as there's a warm, wet place for (him) to put (his) dick, what does it matter?" Meanwhile, I couldn't even bring myself to say "**** you" to him without being in tears. And I was so accustomed to not fitting, to being the wrong one, that it took almost no pushing from him for me to believe it was my fault, that I deserved it, that I must have done something wrong for this to be the case. That has been going on since November, and he and I only just said goodbye today. When you consider the obsessiveness, that he had become my special interest, that translates to near-constant contact for much of that time; texting from the moment we woke up til the moment we fell asleep, not saying goodbyes but rather "talk to you in the morning"... I don't know how to explain the toll that it takes to have that type of experience be the constant, obsessive focus of your life for months on end. I don't know how to describe how wrong it feels when, upon parting ways, you long for the abuse back rather than lose your only social network. I don't know how to begin to explain how much self hate can accumulate, how it feels to have every moment be consumed by those words repeating in your head because you know that if that's how you've always been treated then obviously it's your fault. I'm sure you understand how it feels to be kept away from your special interest; now imagine what it feels like to have your special interest reject you; imagine your special interest calling you a slut, and not being satisfied to say it; imagine it insisting that you repeat back that you are a slut.

I'm sorry this is so long, but I really want you to understand how much may be going unsaid in the threads you're studying. I didn't tell my psychologist about the abusive side of things until Thursday this past week; I'd been too ashamed, too convinced it was my own fault, and let's just say I didn't feel comfortable sharing the full extent of it here. If I can't mention it when it's relevant, please consider the possibility that other aspergirls whose posts you're reading may not be telling the full story either. Male aspies may be less likely to make friends or find relationships, but I think in that way they're also less prone to fall into abuse. Meanwhile, at least for me, I know that Asperger's resulted in me completely sacrificing any self respect or sense of self worth for years because I took the friends I could get, allowed them to use me however they wished, and took every insult to heart to an obsessive degree. I don't think anyone here is likely to disagree that female and male aspies are not alike; that's where this thread came from, is from that acknowledgement. But the way you present your hypotheses makes it sound like the females have it easier, and while I only have my own experience to measure against, I personally wish I'd stayed isolated rather than accept the things that I accepted. I wish I could have had a special interest that I could enjoy from the privacy of my own home, that I could disappear into, that wouldn't lash out at me for entertainment. I'm only one aspergirl. Maybe my personal experience is unique. But what I hope you will consider is, just because we're DIFFERENT from male aspies, just because we may manage to fit in socially, does not mean we have social experiences equal to those of NT girls. Mine is one story, and please trust my word when I say I left out the crueler experiences because it becomes more personal than I am comfortable sharing; other aspergirls may have in fact managed well socially. But when you explain it in the way that you did above, you leave the impression that you're saying that female aspies don't have it as hard as male aspies, and I'm not inclined to agree. I think we have it different, but that doesn't mean it's better. I think isolation is one form of harm, while experiences like mine are another; I suppose I would liken what you're doing to comparing losing an arm to losing a leg. Neither is good, and from either position you may envy the other (without a leg you may not be able to walk, but you can play instruments or do crafts because you have both arms; without an arm, sure you have to learn to survive one-handed but you have your full mobility!), but when it comes down to it, the struggles faced will be very different and it would be unwise to turn it into a comparison. You can't calculate all the factors that affect female aspies vs male aspies to decide who has it worse, but you come across as very eager to dismiss all our difficulties as females simply because we appear to have what you wish for; you might better understand if you took the time to realize the struggles that do still exist. If female aspies are saying they have trouble with social situations, consider the fact that an abusive relationship can be no less harmful than having none at all, and you may not know the full story.

 

[Warwick C]

Congradulations Little fiddle upon being so open and honest.

 

[millie33]

Wow. How to even begin to respond to having your cake and eating it too. I always thought I identified with males better because I certainly didn't fit in with NT females. Then I grew up and realized that men are every bit as hateful as females. In addition, they often have dominant positions over females. I have chosen to be isolated most of my life, and I've been hospitalized twice for depression with psychotic breaks. Yet I've never felt that I needed to take that out on society. The misdiagnosis of females extends far beyond Asperger's. Misogyny is incorporated into many cultures all over the world. I have one great male aspie friend, but I don't think he's a typical aspie male. He actually cares for me and for other people as well. He has friends and is very social, although he's an at-risk person because he thinks other people have good motives for their actions. I certainly do not share that theory.

 

[millie33]

P.S.: Many aspie males are also married, many have children, many have friends. So do some more research lol

 

[Aspie@60]

(continued...)

The damage that is done by being able to "fit in" without being able to really belong is in many cases what allows aspergirls to establish relationships; we may be so beaten down that by the time we see our peers developing relationships, we are accepting abuse. Abusers pray on the people who don't belong, who are desperate enough to belong that they'll do anything. By 7th grade, I was already beaten down enough to put up with this. Not only that, but the Aspie obsessiveness can settle in on these relationships, increasing the propensity for abuse; I know for me, rather than having a special interest like studying the differences between male and female aspies, I always had a special interest person, and it was always a male and almost always abusive. It started gradually; in 7th grade, Doug made a project of getting me to talk. He pushed away my other friends, until I was solely dependent on him. The obsessive nature set in, and he encouraged it. He recognized that, in an almost ritual-esque way, I would completely fall apart if we usually spoke at a certain time each day and then one day without explanation he didn't answer; he used that to his advantage. He wanted sex. He pulled the "____ would give me sex, if she will and you won't then why should I be talking to you instead of out with her?" etc. That's a near-direct quote. It still amazes me that I managed to say no, but as a result he pushed me away. I didn't understand it. The only explanation I could come up with was that I wasn't good for anything but sex, that sex must have been his sole purpose and I was useless for the rest. This mentality continued, adding a sense of being good for money when $1,000 ended up sent to a "friend" in Morocco.

The tendency towards abusive friendships continued to worsen. This year, in college, after 3 years of isolation, I finally made a friend. He's an aspie, by the way. I think he's the best example of just how bad friendships for aspergirls can become if they allow the obsessiveness to create a sense of dependence, and if they allow feeling out of place to result in settling for anyone who will put up with them. This friend knew I was in a relationship; at first he swore he respected it. Before long, he was saying that if I didn't leave my boyfriend, he would never speak to me again. I was desperate, I had already learned to depend on him, I was convinced he was my last chance at friendship and my only chance of ever belonging anywhere. I broke up with my boyfriend for 4 days after that... and when I got back with my boyfriend, the real abuse began. He began to call me a ****, a whore, a slut - despite my current boyfriend having been my first kiss and my first physical partner. He began to demand sex; to everything I said, he would repeat "**** me." He said things like "**** me, block me, or hate me, preferably in that order." He would tell me that he would not talk to me again until I ****ed him. Once when he made such a demand, I told him I was too depressed at that moment to even move, let alone have sex; he told me it didn't matter, I could be a ragdoll, "so long as there's a warm, wet place for (him) to put (his) dick, what does it matter?" Meanwhile, I couldn't even bring myself to say "**** you" to him without being in tears. And I was so accustomed to not fitting, to being the wrong one, that it took almost no pushing from him for me to believe it was my fault, that I deserved it, that I must have done something wrong for this to be the case. That has been going on since November, and he and I only just said goodbye today. When you consider the obsessiveness, that he had become my special interest, that translates to near-constant contact for much of that time; texting from the moment we woke up til the moment we fell asleep, not saying goodbyes but rather "talk to you in the morning"... I don't know how to explain the toll that it takes to have that type of experience be the constant, obsessive focus of your life for months on end. I don't know how to describe how wrong it feels when, upon parting ways, you long for the abuse back rather than lose your only social network. I don't know how to begin to explain how much self hate can accumulate, how it feels to have every moment be consumed by those words repeating in your head because you know that if that's how you've always been treated then obviously it's your fault. I'm sure you understand how it feels to be kept away from your special interest; now imagine what it feels like to have your special interest reject you; imagine your special interest calling you a slut, and not being satisfied to say it; imagine it insisting that you repeat back that you are a slut.

I'm sorry this is so long, but I really want you to understand how much may be going unsaid in the threads you're studying. I didn't tell my psychologist about the abusive side of things until Thursday this past week; I'd been too ashamed, too convinced it was my own fault, and let's just say I didn't feel comfortable sharing the full extent of it here. If I can't mention it when it's relevant, please consider the possibility that other aspergirls whose posts you're reading may not be telling the full story either. Male aspies may be less likely to make friends or find relationships, but I think in that way they're also less prone to fall into abuse. Meanwhile, at least for me, I know that Asperger's resulted in me completely sacrificing any self respect or sense of self worth for years because I took the friends I could get, allowed them to use me however they wished, and took every insult to heart to an obsessive degree. I don't think anyone here is likely to disagree that female and male aspies are not alike; that's where this thread came from, is from that acknowledgement. But the way you present your hypotheses makes it sound like the females have it easier, and while I only have my own experience to measure against, I personally wish I'd stayed isolated rather than accept the things that I accepted. I wish I could have had a special interest that I could enjoy from the privacy of my own home, that I could disappear into, that wouldn't lash out at me for entertainment. I'm only one aspergirl. Maybe my personal experience is unique. But what I hope you will consider is, just because we're DIFFERENT from male aspies, just because we may manage to fit in socially, does not mean we have social experiences equal to those of NT girls. Mine is one story, and please trust my word when I say I left out the crueler experiences because it becomes more personal than I am comfortable sharing; other aspergirls may have in fact managed well socially. But when you explain it in the way that you did above, you leave the impression that you're saying that female aspies don't have it as hard as male aspies, and I'm not inclined to agree. I think we have it different, but that doesn't mean it's better. I think isolation is one form of harm, while experiences like mine are another; I suppose I would liken what you're doing to comparing losing an arm to losing a leg. Neither is good, and from either position you may envy the other (without a leg you may not be able to walk, but you can play instruments or do crafts because you have both arms; without an arm, sure you have to learn to survive one-handed but you have your full mobility!), but when it comes down to it, the struggles faced will be very different and it would be unwise to turn it into a comparison. You can't calculate all the factors that affect female aspies vs male aspies to decide who has it worse, but you come across as very eager to dismiss all our difficulties as females simply because we appear to have what you wish for; you might better understand if you took the time to realize the struggles that do still exist. If female aspies are saying they have trouble with social situations, consider the fact that an abusive relationship can be no less harmful than having none at all, and you may not know the full story.

Oh, LittleFiddle, you have described to a "T" my attempts to fit in, my belief that I was successful, the truth that I was not and even my abusive 5-year relationship with an emotional abuser. To I'm an Aspie, one of the reasons you see female aspies fit in apparently so well is that we tend to be chameleons. Once we are older and wiser, we figure out we really just want to be ourselves. Our mothers expected us to fit in, so we tried. I'm not trying anymore. I wish you nothing but the best.

 

[Aspieistj]

If you believe men are from Mars and women are from Venus I guess it is sort of natural that Aspie women find Aspie men to be difficult. Actually, all my life I have done a little better getting along with men rather than women. It can't be because they were hot fo me because I have always been sort of to extremely overweight.

 

[LittleFiddle05]

If you believe men are from Mars and women are from Venus I guess it is sort of natural that Aspie women find Aspie men to be difficult. Actually, all my life I have done a little better getting along with men rather than women. It can't be because they were hot fo me because I have always been sort of to extremely overweight.

Maybe I completely missed what you're reacting to, but I very much disagree with regards to Aspie women finding Aspie men to be difficult. From what my psychologist has told me, most aspergirls find it easier to befriend men than women; women tend to be much more spontaneous in conversation, while men are easier to predict and more straightforward, which may explain why so many comments here seem to state having more ease with males than with females. I know in my own case, I've never felt really close to a girl; I've had female friends, but more in the "I've known you forever we must be friends" sense or the "We sit at the same lunch table so I'll invite you if anything is going on" sense, but everyone that I've really talked to openly has been male. One of those males is a diagnosed aspie, and he's the person I understand best out of everyone I've met; another isn't diagnosed but because he's so similar to the friend who IS diagnosed, I wonder if perhaps an aspie diagnosis would explain certain things for him. If not, he at least has some aspie traits. Personally, I'd say I get along best with aspie males, I would guess that aspie females would come next (though I can't be sure, I've never knowingly met one off the internet but I have had female friends online who are aspies), then NT males, and NT females are the most confusing grouping; that's very much generalizing, but it's my own understanding of my tendencies.

But then again, I certainly don't subscribe to "men are from mars, women from venus" - am I mistaken in thinking that association is meant to draw on mythology, with mars representing war and venus representing love? I of course recognize that genders have individual tendencies, but I think that particular phrase implies more that men will have a certain set of priorities and interest while women will have others; I tend to think that men and women can have the same interests, the difference lies in the way in which they pursue those interests. If that's the case, while there will be a difference between aspie males and aspie females, I think aspie vs neurotypical is more likely to be a deciding difference than gender will. Sorry if this is disorganized, just my 2AM musings...

 

[dragonwolf]

I agree with Little Fiddle on this. We may "appear" to have social lives, but they tend to be superficial or even downright abusive.

That's not to say that they're all like that. After all, if you've met one person with Autism...you've met one person with Autism. However, I can attest as well to the superficial, deceitful relationships, as I had been a victim to many over the years, particularly in elementary school. The major difference between me and Little Fiddle is that I became more guarded about my social interactions, and it would take quite a while to really even consider opening up to someone.

Yes, I am married, but my husband is the only person in over 5 years that has gained that level of trust, and only the second person in my life with it.

I think you're making the same mistake with us that NT people do with autistic people in general - you see things as an outside observer and aren't privy to the inner workings. Because of this, you come to conclusions that seem accurate, but actually aren't.

 

[Evy the Owl]

I agree with LittleFiddle05 too. I'll tell a bit about my experiences

TRIGGER WARNING

Age 4-11: I've had ONE friend. No other interaction with other people from school, they bullied me. That friend was the other person who was bullied. She is "gifted", extremely intelligent. Not much of a social person, she has some aspie-treats. I was molested when I was 11, because I was too scared to say no. It almost happened a second time.

Age 11-16: No friends at school. My only "friends" are online. The person who talked to me was 21 year old who probably wasn't up to much good. Also, a 40-something year old talked to me.

Age 15-16: A very autistic guy (18) stalked and sexually harassed me. He pretended to be a girl online (he said he knew "her" from work) just to get naked pictures of me, he send me letters and gave me a vibrator, which I declined. It was traumatizing.

Age 16-17: Some friends, mostly online. I see real friends like 10 times a year, at most. The only people I talk to are at work. (and Sander now, he's a sweetheart)

 

[ImAnAspie]

When a man makes it to 50 years old without any sexual contact whatsoever in his whole life, even sexual harassment is welcome.

It's only harassment because you don't want it but after 50 years of boring nothing, nothing is considered harassment and anything is welcome... and it still doesn't come and you die a sad, sad lonely old man and don't mind dying because life is so empty and horrible!!!

 

[Tarragon]

It's not just female aspies that can end up in abusive relationships. It happens the other way round. I don't want to write more after seeing the last couple of comments made by males here. If I do, I'm likely to get banned from the forums. :/

 

[King_Oni]

When a man makes it to 50 years old without any sexual contact whatsoever in his whole life, even sexual harassment is welcome.

It's only harassment because you don't want it but after 50 years of boring nothing, nothing is considered harassment and anything is welcome... and it still doesn't come and you die a sad, sad lonely old man and don't mind dying because life is so empty and horrible!!!

That might be something rather personal. This might not apply to all people, regardless of age. Don't make it look harassment can be glorified because "it's at least something".

 

[ImAnAspie]

It's not just female aspies that can end up in abusive relationships. It happens the other way round. I don't want to write more after seeing the last couple of comments made by males here. If I do, I'm likely to get banned from the forums. :/

I'm talking about not having any relationships at all!

 

[ImAnAspie]

That might be something rather personal. This might not apply to all people, regardless of age. Don't make it look harassment can be glorified because "it's at least something".

But that's how it is for a lot of men who get nothing their whole lives. Anything is better than nothing after an entire life of nothing. The men I'm speaking of will take anything. They can't afford to be choosy because if they do manage to find someone else who shows interest in them, it's likely to be their only chance of getting anything. Beggars can't be choosers!