Same problem here. I can get close to female friends and then suddenly there is a crisis. I think it's a realisation on my own part I can't really be "normal" and any attempt to be normal is doomed to fail. So, I go into a cold mode that possibly friends can't understand and this may last for a while.
Why does it happen? I know Aspergers is a big part of it and it goes way way back to schooldays. I believe what happens with aspergers is you grow up and develop apart from the mainstream so you then develop as an adult as more independent and, very definitely, less susceptible to social programming and behaviour patterns.
Sometimes you watcn "normal people" doing the things normal people find naturally. Normal people quite easily form friendships because they simply relate to one another more and all the interactions, norms and cues are mutually connected. The aspie doesn't quite fit in. His (or her) cues and timing and interaction is all off-beat and other people may feel either awkward, off-guard or even threatened.
Before I figured out I was aspie I had a Spanish girlfriend, very successful, smart and probably in love with me at the time. Had I known back then I had aspergers, I think we may have found a way to work through it but, as it was, she couldn't understand some of my behaviour. Worse still, her friends figured I was just odd and that didn't help. Funny thing was though, I think the reason we were beginning to hit it off was she herself wasn't quite normal, but very neurotic. Obsessed by cleanliness and strict routines.
In fact, I would go so far to say that all of my girlfriends to date were people who were not specifically neurotypical but not aspies either.
Probably in the future I will just be more open about the situation so at least friends have some idea there is a problem. For me it's a mix of isolation and loneliness mingled with more independence of thought and certain advantages normal people don't have.
I had tried for about 12 years to socialize with groups and I had been able to get into groups, the problem was staying with them (or even a single friend) for any longer than several months or so without a serious crisis starting. The cycle seems bound to happen: The person likes me. We become friends. We talk about stuff. And then the crisis is either they start wanting something from me like money or time that I can't afford, or they pull the rug out from under me and tell me they want nothing to do with me for just about no reason. It makes no sense, and I'm done.
I've decided I'm going back to gaming. I realize now why I should've never tried to make friends in the first place, even if I am a slight extrovert. I do not party. I do not drink. I have terrible taste in music. My interests are too different to most people. There's four things right off the bat that make me undesirable to anyone in a friendship or relationship. And at times, trying only leads to, and I won't repeat what I said in another thread why, having a danger of losing your job. So yeah, gaming it is. At least when you play by the rules there, you succeed, unlike in the social world, when you play by the rules, you set yourself up for failure. Games are logical. People are not.
Now the only thing I wish is that it was a Saturday night and not a Sunday...
