Past determining my future

[Neonatal RRT]

i assume you mean that she was the one that pursued you or made a move on you,

Exactly. Had she not initiated, I would have never known.

I am thinking that this may be part of the problem with autistics, in general, when it comes to finding a partner. We fool ourselves into thinking we are aware, when, in fact, we are blind.

I can distinctly remember a conversation when I was 18 with my roommate's girlfriend one day. She said something to the effect that I was an attractive guy and she couldn't figure out why I didn't have a girlfriend already, given how many attractive young girls there were on campus. I said, I've never had an opportunity, and I kid you not, she looked at me like I was crazy and started laughing in disbelief. She said she knew for sure that many girls were giving me signals, in fact, named a few, and I was oblivious. It shocked and confused me.

Fast forward a few years, my wife and I were married, and a conversation in the break room at work with some of my female co-workers. We were young, so of course, some of the conversation could get a bit "racy" and we are joking around with each other, and I mentioned that I had no clue when my wife was in the mood for sex. I said that I knew when I wasn't going to have sex, but I never knew when I was. The females around me just laughed in disbelief, "Seriously, how could you NOT know?" I went along with the joke to save face, but I was seriously confused by that.

Furthermore, I've been with my wife for nearly 40 years. I am STILL clueless to her moods and signals. As much as I love her and spend our valuable time together, all those years with each other, I have zero idea what she is thinking. I always have to ask. Welcome to "mind blindness", my friend. In my mind, I am a pretty perceptive guy, but I think the mind has a way of fooling us. In reality, we don't know what we don't know. We are sometimes unaware of certain disabilities and blind spots.

So, my theory here is that there may be situations where young, autistic men are simply not recognizing the "green light" to initiate courtship behavior. There may be women in our world that are interested in us, but they don't recognize that we are autistic and are blind to their interest. Then, they may be waiting for us to initiate, and when we don't, they misinterpret this as "He's not interested." and move on. I am thinking that we unknowingly miss out on opportunities and then misinterpret this as "No one is interested in me." when it might not be the case, at all.

Now, I'm not going to pretend to have any idea of what to do about that situation, but I do think this miscommunication and our "mind blindness" is a contributing factor hampering our efforts in finding a partner.

 

[Au Naturel]

I feel really weird not being with my wife, and she without me. If either of us leave for a few days for a professional conference or some other event, we both admit that we can't sleep and we just want to get back to each other. The world is an empty place without each other. The two of us make one good person. Sure, she will go out to dinner with friends, from time to time, but a few hours, at best. We pretty much do everything together and we value that time. Perhaps, because we are still both working 12+ hours/day and only have a few hours in the evening that we can spend with each other, then on the weekends, it's domestic duties like laundry, yard maintenance, cleaning the vehicles, shopping, etc. The few hours that we have each day are valuable. We both enjoy our own special interests, but we are still present. The idea of taking a vacation without each other would never be a thought in our head. It just wouldn't happen.

To each their own. Many different routes will get you to the same destination.

Of course, we do things together, but we also do a lot of things separately. Before we had children and after they were grown, that was easier.

When we had kids, vacations were often family time, but sometimes I'd take them camping, or my wife would take them somewhere. If we only did the things that both of us enjoyed, that closed off large areas of experience the children might benefit from. I tended to do outdoorsy stuff, while she was more urban.

The pattern of a marriage is often set long before any vows are exchanged. Wife and I have always been very individualistic. If you both enjoyed doing certain things solo before you married, why would marriage change that? Especially the things you enjoy that your partner doesn't. If you have to give up things you love and start doing things you dislike, that's not a good start to a marriage.

 

[Au Naturel]

i even got this quote right here from an e-book about meeting and attracting women for guys, here it is, sadly the author is right:

"A guy, man, human male will often distract himself with work, porn, hobbies, his friends, or other things in an attempt to mask the pain of being unsuccessful with women, with being unable to attract them or just not being able to attract the ones he wants, of being single and sexless.

No matter what they do, nothing replaces their primal, innate, natural, instinctive, biological desire to have a loving, sexual, intimate, romantic relationship with a real woman.

Accepting defeat is not going to fix any of your issues with women. Your desire to have sex with women and be loved by women is not going to go away if you continue play more computer games, video games, other hobbies, working harder on your job, career, education, or making more money. You want women and that is that, it is not going to go away."

The problem with that "want" is that once anger and resentment take over, you go down dark paths. People are wont to blame and find fault, and pretty soon, you're whining about what a failure you are. You give up and become a needy annoyance to everyone you meet. That allows you to avoid the hard and often painful work of self-improvement.

Or worse yet, you start blaming others for not giving you what you want. Resenting others for having what you don't. That's a very dark path indeed and can lead to being part of the "incel" madness or even violence. That also allows you to avoid the hard and often painful work of self-improvement - with the benefit of bonding with other males who substitute rage for introspection.

I don't know how to convince people that having a hole in one part of your life ought not to ruin the rest.

 

[jsilver256]

So, my theory here is that there may be situations where young, autistic men are simply not recognizing the "green light" to initiate courtship behavior.

The other half is that they have to have something to offer as well. You were a champion bodybuilder and you have what I am assuming is a lucrative career. Not sure about your career but you credit your bodybuilding to autism.

You are as autistic as anyone on this forum, but never had a victim mentality. And so you will never lack for women.

 

[Au Naturel]

there may be situations where young, autistic men are simply not recognizing the "green light" to initiate courtship behavior

My gosh those signs are subtle!

The way it works. She does something subtle. It could be as minor as her eyes lingered on you for a few seconds. Giving you the slightest bit of a smile. She turned to face you. Or she turned to show off her figure for you. Moving to stand near you but not next to you. Passing you closely enough to get a whiff of perfume. You do something subtle back to confirm. She does something slightly less subtle to accept the confirmation. And you are off to the races.

Actual signals are usually very subtle and directed at a specific person. They aren't broadcast, nor are they part of a generally upbeat or sexy personality. Sometimes, a woman will broadcast desirability signals to the whole world and pick and choose who is the most interesting among the respondents. Or choose no one. Or just love the attention. (A desirability signal is not the same as an interest signal.) The opposite behavior happens when a woman puts on a "resting b**** face" to discourage men from even trying. Sometimes it even works.

All this signaling is fraught with misinterpretation and false attribution.

Recognizing that initial signal is half the battle. The other half is returning the signal. And males send similar signals to females. And one needs to accept the fact that most of the time, most women don't send any signals. They aren't interested. While many guys are so anxious, they see signals where none exist.

A supermarket chain instituted a policy that all cashiers had to smile at the customer as they concluded a transaction. Very quickly, the mostly female workforce refused to do it because many male customers interpreted this as a come-on.

 

[Markness]

You might not have the social and communication skills to initiate an interaction, but many other people do. If you don't make yourself available to even be seen, how the heck do you expect another person to find you? Get off the computer and phone apps and simply make yourself available in the real world. You might get a bit more traction.

Please do not make assumptions about my life. I don’t use my computer very much, I don’t use Facebook or any other social media platform, I barely even text people, and I leave the house almost every day. I have a job and I’ve attended social groups as well as events so I have made myself visible. Central Texas is just a really rough culture and I am often pushed into my older brother’s shadow. In fact, people to this day still compare me to him and often ask me about him instead of my life.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

The other half is that they have to have something to offer as well. You were a champion bodybuilder and you have what I am assuming is a lucrative career. Not sure about your career but you credit your bodybuilding to autism.

You are as autistic as anyone on this forum, but never had a victim mentality. And so you will never lack for women.

The "never having the victim mentality" was instilled into me from day one as a child. A strong sense of independence, responsibility, and work ethic. I think part of it was growing up in a stereotypical "Generation X" world, where children pretty much raised each other and the parents were pretty much "hands off". If we wanted anything, we had to get it ourselves. Work, earn money, pay for things, even as a child. We painted fences, mowed lawns, weeded garden beds, raked leaves, shoveled snow, etc. We always had money to spend, and never dared to ask our parents for anything. The kids in our neighborhood were our support system. We played baseball in the street, built "forts" in the woods, climbed and fell from trees, set up ramps on the street and jumped our bikes, sometimes at each other. No such thing as helmets. They hadn't been invented yet. We had a bowl of cereal in the morning, out the door by 07:00-08:00, never seeing our parents, and we fended for ourselves until the street lights came on. We rode our bikes and played in our bathing suits during lightning storms, high winds, and hail, because it was fun. We often found ourselves several miles from home and when we finally came in for the evening, not once, ever, did our parents ask where we were. Rubbing dirt and spit into a wound was perfectly acceptable. Bullying and fist fights were the norm, not the exception. Teachers were expected to deliver physical punishment in the classroom, and our parents always backed the teacher, never us. Second place was "first loser" and there was no award for second place. There was only one winner. Notice I said, "we" because everyone I knew growing up had the same story to tell.

So, no, I didn't know I was autistic. Neither did anyone else. There were no such things as "victims". No "accidents". Everything had an explanation. Bad things were "avoidable consequences of being stupid." Welcome to my upbringing and the foundations of my thought processes as an adult. Lord of the Flies style.

 

[Markness]

You can't change the past, but you can change your present and your future by doing something proactive to connect with women. You can join a social group. Please see if you can find one close to you that shares interests in common with your interests.

So far I can’t find one that was like one I used to be a part of.

My therapist had me download an app called Kaboose but I am feeling anxious about it due to past failures with similar apps.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

The problem with that "want" is that once anger and resentment take over, you go down dark paths. People are wont to blame and find fault, and pretty soon, you're whining about what a failure you are. You give up and become a needy annoyance to everyone you meet. That allows you to avoid the hard and often painful work of self-improvement.

Or worse yet, you start blaming others for not giving you what you want. Resenting others for having what you don't. That's a very dark path indeed and can lead to being part of the "incel" madness or even violence. That also allows you to avoid the hard and often painful work of self-improvement - with the benefit of bonding with other males who substitute rage for introspection.

I don't know how to convince people that having a hole in one part of your life ought not to ruin the rest.

basically what that author meant was, the desire or urge of wanting to be in a relationship with someone is natural instinctual, innate, its a biological, natural, innate desire that never goes away, just like the desire for eating food and drinking water, its a desire or urge that never goes away unfortuneately.

Its one of the more cruel things about life, as in, those who feel their situation is hopeless, they wish they could switch off that urge or desire, so they can just focus on other things in life, yeah its just another reminder of how cruel and unfair life can be.

 

[tree]

https://www.kaboose.app/about/

 

[Au Naturel]

The "never having the victim mentality" was instilled into me from day one as a child. A strong sense of independence, responsibility, and work ethic. I think part of it was growing up in a stereotypical "Generation X" world, where children pretty much raised each other and the parents were pretty much "hands off". If we wanted anything, we had to get it ourselves. Work, earn money, pay for things, even as a child. We painted fences, mowed lawns, weeded garden beds, raked leaves, shoveled snow, etc. We always had money to spend, and never dared to ask our parents for anything. The kids in our neighborhood were are support system. We played baseball in the street, built "forts" in the woods, climbed and fell from trees, set up ramps on the street and jumped our bikes, sometimes at each other. No such thing as helmets. They hadn't been invented yet. We had a bowl of cereal in the morning, out the door by 07:00-08:00, never seeing our parents, and we fended for ourselves until the street lights came on. We rode our bikes and played in our bathing suits during lightning storms, high winds, and hail, because it was fun. We often found ourselves several miles from home and when we finally came in for the evening, not once, ever, did our parents ask where we were. Rubbing dirt and spit into a wound was perfectly acceptable. Bullying and fist fights were the norm, not the exception. Teachers were expected to deliver physical punishment in the classroom, and our parents always backed the teacher, never us. Second place was "first loser" and there was no award for second place. There was only one winner. Notice I said, "we" because everyone I knew growing up had the same story to tell.

So, no, I didn't know I was autistic. Neither did anyone else. There were no such things as "victims". No "accidents". Everything had an explanation. Bad things were "avoidable consequences of being stupid." Welcome to my upbringing and the foundations of my thought processes as an adult. Lord of the Flies style.

This pretty much describes life as a boomer kid, too. If something bad happened to you, there's a chance you brought it upon yourself.

Classic example. A dog bites you. What were you doing to get bit? was the first question. There is a presumption of agency on your part. Now, it might have been just a vicious dog, but it could easily be something really stupid like teasing a dog or approaching a strange dog. And a lesson would be learned. If parents pour unconditional support on you, no lesson would be learned.

You didn't finish the race last because the world was unfair. You finished last because you were in the worst physical shape. If you don't want to finish last, do something about it. Make some other kid finish last. If you aren't willing to put in more work than the other kid, don't whine.

It starts to fall apart with the whole friend-making thing. For autistic people, it is like running a race with a bum leg. There is the presumption that if the other kids don't like you, it is your fault. However, the friendmaking skillset didn't come in your package, so there's really no "fault" anywhere. That brings us to the next lesson. It is what it is. Now get on with life.

Whether you were successful in life or not, that is how most boomers grew up. There was no special consideration given for hi-functioning autism because it was not recognized as a disability.

It is what it is. Now get on with life. was a generational motto.

 

[jsilver256]

It starts to fall apart with the whole friend-making thing. For autistic people, it is like running a race with a bum leg. There is the presumption that if the other kids don't like you, it is your fault. However, the friendmaking skillset didn't come in your package, so there's really no "fault" anywhere. That brings us to the next lesson. It is what it is. Now get on with life.

I didn't grow up knowing I was autistic, but I did grow up knowing I was severely disabled with the metaphorical "bum leg." And I can affirm this.

To be clear, I am not blind that my brain works in a highly specialized way, even by autistic standards. It fulfills certain media stereotypes about autism, and it does make my livelihood. So I don't judge others for lacking this trait - that is something I used to do in the past, but thankfully my heart has been softened.

But, either way, "it is what it is. Now get on with life" sums it up well.

 

[Mary Terry]

LOL! That's exactly what we do.

We have a few family events I will go to over the course of a year; mostly seders. Every now and then, she'll drag me out to some cultural event, but we do lots of things separately. She's not going hiking with me, drive a hundred miles to catch a rocket launch at Vandenberg that might or might not happen, or show up at a nudist event.

But she'll go on a cruise with her girlfriend or spend a week with her in Vegas. Not going to get me there. I will tell her, "You go and have fun without me." If she wants to see a movie that I'd find dreary, she can go and I'll stay home.

And that's how we don't end up resenting each other.

My husband and I are much like you and your wife. We love and trust each other, love being together and share most things in common. However, my husband enjoys things that I don't and vice versa. He likes deep sea fishing, but I get seasick, so he goes alone or with his friends. I like to socialize and travel with my female friends, but he doesn't enjoy tagging along with us. He likes to meet up with his doctor friends, but I often get bored listening to their medical "shop talk". I like to meet up with my lawyer friends and I know that bores the heck out of him. Sharing our lives together is enhanced by our ability to enjoy things separately from one another.

 

[Mary Terry]

So far I can’t find one that was like one I used to be a part of.

My therapist had me download an app called Kaboose but I am feeling anxious about it due to past failures with similar apps.

I'll help you look online for something, Markness. What kind of group do you think you'd enjoy?

 

[Mary Terry]

Which big town is closest to you? Austin, Houston, Dallas, Amarillo or some other one?

 

[Markness]

Which big town is closest to you? Austin, Houston, Dallas, Amarillo or some other one?

Austin. It’s an hour + drive for me but it’s manageable.

The kinds of groups I would like to join would be ones for gaming, geek/nerd culture, alternative music, autism, and there’s other topics I can’t think of at the moment.

 

[tree]

Gaming?

Does that include tabletop gaming?
Or only video/computer type gaming?


Hobbies: Gaming Events & Tickets in Temple, TX | Eventbrite

Chay Comas | Substack

https://www.meetup.com/meetup-group-tpibbzdd/

 

[Mary Terry]

Austin. It’s an hour + drive for me but it’s manageable.

The kinds of groups I would like to join would be ones for gaming, geek/nerd culture, alternative music, autism, and there’s other topics I can’t think of at the moment.

Excellent! Austin is a very cool city. I'll see what I can find and let you know. I have to babysit my grandbaby this afternoon so won't have time till later to look.

 

[Au Naturel]

Excellent! Austin is a very cool city. I'll see what I can find and let you know. I have to babysit my grandbaby this afternoon so won't have time till later to look.

Austin is a liberal enclave in a very conservative state

 

[Cryptid]

Austin has 7 universities. The University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest schools in the nation. It’s divided into 13 schools and colleges, the biggest of which is the College of Liberal Arts.