There are actually a lot of people here who are on the spectrum, who have high IQ scores, who have social issues, who have trouble with their emotional intelligence and empathy toward others needs (although you do clearly actually care in your own autistic way) and find life in general frustrating. They're generally around their 20s or 30s and have a kind of odd stack of achievements and perception of how they value themselves, and wish to be valued by others. This is a drug nerd site with a heavy duty and basic need for harm reduction. Mental health and psychosocial neurological deficiency, or overvaluation and both together, or neither at all in some obsessive knack in trying to figure out what the hell is wrong rather than right with you is like a motto here.
I am exactly like this just like you. I have neurological issues with some major autoimmune disorder in combination with the autism and mood disorder and all that shit that's wrong with me and I don't have much for postsecondary marks to prove my dysfunction, but MENSA is now no longer able to score me according to the Norway site which was an interesting result for me as I've been going through some kind of savant syndrome the past two years and my addictions have plateaued and health plummeted. That's pretty fucked up.
I think that when you were doing that puzzle, you actually knew exactly how you were being off-putting to that man you were 'dating' because you explain exactly where you went wrong and then had to get your friends to voice to you why it's okay for you to be kind of mean like this because you're on a spectrum. There's nothing really that amazing here to me man.
I'm sorry if I'm being kind of (more than kind of) condescending here in my tone but this whole subject is such a special one for everyone involved - that no one actually gets what they want from the other in these situations. By not being honest with someone and telling them they need to leave if they're expecting a romantic partnership, and then you can't even be bothered to get off a fucking jigsaw puzzle to give the poor guy a hug? You need to start being kinder to people. That's all. When you want to be, obviously. Like me, right now. I'm not really being nice here, but I do mean well.
I'd go lay down with the guy though at least. I don't need a scripted sounding board to validate my autism either. I need to be made into the sweet, loving person I'd be trying to be if I was at your apartment or whatever and you were ignoring me to do a puzzle.
See the issue here man is you're doing the same thing everyone does when they see a smart autistic person.
I have level 3 autism. That's the most severe you can be. I do shit like this all the time - girl and I have a date, she walks me home (opposite direction to where she lives) with her bike, stands outside my apartment talking for 30 min, I eventually go 'well goodnight, I had fun' and go inside.
Then she sends a message saying I upset her, so I ask why. She says she wanted me to invite her inside and made that obvious. I'm here scratching my head and asking how it was obvious at all, seeing as I missed it. Apparently her going the opposite way and waiting around was obvious. Plus she wanted a kiss. But there was zero indication for that.
I apologised and asked her in the future to be very direct with me when she wanted physical affection given and that worked well for us during the period we dated. She would ask, I would happily give it. If I was unsure, I'd ask.
You're not understanding how autistic I am. This isn't mild, this is profound. Yes, I'm very articulate, but I'll spent 10 hours a day playing animal crossing and not eat, drink, piss, or shit.
I asked him over for lunch and a puzzle. He asked me if I wanted a cuddle, which I didn't, so I told him that and the reason why. When I invite people over for sex I say 'do you want to come over for sex' it is very very simple. Honestly if someone invited me out for lunch and then to do a puzzle and then acted like they wanted sex or pushed me in that direction I would be extremely annoyed because I would have gone with the expectation of lunch and a puzzle lol.
If my IQ was lower you wouldn't question my inability to pick up on social cues. I'm the level of autism where I was painting my friends house with him and he goes 'Eli I'm leaving a coke for you on the kitchen counter' then 6 hours later his partner goes 'Haydn why is there a warm coke sitting on the counter' and my friend goes 'Fuck Eli I forgot that if I don't put the drink or food directly in your waiting hands you won't even glance at it to eat it. I'll bring you another one' and he's right - this is why I have support workers paid for by my government for 5 hours a day, 7 days a week. And this is why I do intensive speech therapy, occupational therapy, psychology, positive behaviour support, and other interventions.
Your experience with autism is just that - yours. But mine is not the same. I am a kind, generous, good hearted person. And when I do fuck up, my first move is to always ask people exactly what I've done wrong so that I can apologise *right* and not just make a fake generic apology, then I can store that event in my brain and not do it again.
But then I miss things like being at the gym and lying in the middle of the path so my friend goes 'looks like you found a great place to sit' and I go 'i did yeah' then he sighs and goes 'fuck this autism man, you need to move you're in the way'
When I got diagnosed people weren't surprised at all, and the assessor told me that if I'd have been assigned male at birth I'd have been picked up ages ago, same if I was less intelligent.
My autism is actually so severe according to my report, that it actually got me granted disabilty payments against the general rules relating to autism. Usually a recent diagnosis cannot qualify you, but my 6 month old diagnosis did. That's the extent we are talking about.
Like dude, I can barely do anything. Being smart doesn't do shit for me, and I'm sick of people viewing autism as some cool little personality quirk. It's fucking debilitating man, and some of the shit I do is so illogical. It impacts *every* aspect of my life and I dream of waking up and being level 1 again like I was before I burnt out. Like if give anything for that.
People on this forum really don't have a solid grasp of autism more than their own diagnosis, and that concerns me.
Getting the government funding that I do to the extent I do, plus disability, would not be possible without the evidence of how much autism disables me.
I know the type of people you're thinking about who use their autism as an excuse, but mate, I wasn't diagnosed until August last year. As in, after I went on a date with that guy. Therefore, I wasn't able to use autism as an excuse since - no diagnosis. No diagnosis, means no excuse. I simply missed the cue. I've never had the chance to use it as an excuse because I grew up without the diagnosis. I just had to suck everything up and bottle it up until it all fell apart. So I'm aware some people who have been blessed with a long term diagnosis tend to sometimes do this, and I've been party to it throughout my life, I wasn't privileged with that ability.
I can't change your mind, but perhaps with this new information you may reconsider your opinion.
It is pretty poor form to talk over high support needs people. So few of us have the ability to communicate our thoughts, then when we do, people come in and invalidate what we say.
And I gotta say, I actually find it a bit bizarre that you think I need to put my personal boundaries aside for a guy I had been on literally TWO dates with because he wanted sex, all because 'he wanted romance' like the reason I invited him to do the puzzle was because he said to me that he liked doing puzzles. So to me I picked a fun, shared activity that we could enjoy while getting to know eachother more.
It isn't actually my fault he wanted to get laid immediately, that's on him.
