Typically, I write political articles but I know a lot of people who probably would like insights into my experience on the spectrum in less fiery and polemic ways. Such as dating and why I’m not doing it. One of the main things I notice, being on the spectrum, is what people think things are like is not actually what they’re like. They get their ideas about what it’s like on the spectrum from stereotypes. Maybe I’m too nervous to ask a girl out? Maybe I don’t know how to? The truth is different than that. The primary way that the spectrum has affected my dating life is making me asexual enough and more concerned with other metrics so that the factors against asking girls out outweigh the factors in favor of it. My sensitivities to ideological factors, fears of vigilantes, childhood trauma, emotional fragility with regards to character assassination, and no sex drive to make trying to date worth all of the downsides.
I have never had a real girlfriend and have not had a first kiss. I discount prepubescent relationships I had. The messages society sends about dating are confusing and discomforting. One is told from both ends different strategies although being characteristically stubborn, I refuse to deviate from my own. Generally, I am told to take risks and ask girls out and at the same time girls regularly complain about being “hit on” and I am certainly feminist enough to refuse to be a part of the problem. The former does not make an argument I’d heed since the guys say that I shouldn’t care whether girls are into it. Ethically, since girls, on the whole, incessantly complain about being asked out, I’m just not going to do it. And the girls have a weapon, they’ll likely label me a creep for asking them out which is the same label child molesters get and I might take risks but I’m not going to risk jumping onto that landmine in an age where stuff can get dug up years later.
I’m a heteroromantic asexual which means I like girls, a lot, but I’m not sexual. In terms of how much I like looking at attractive women, it’s as much as Bill Clinton or Donald Trump, but I’m asexual. My tastes are classic, romantic, and gushy and include lots of physical intimacy even if they don’t involve pornographic or what are usually described as sexual fetishes. While many women may also enjoy that, the culture, by and large, rails against it. With the fear of society judging me mentioned in earlier articles, something even as seemingly innocuous as having classic, chivalrous, tastes in romance would be enough to trigger poisonous and significant amounts of derision. I also enjoy some maternal elements such as being coddled and babied, romantically, which would also be the subject of painful derision.
The most popular sexual fetish in the media is BDSM and the fact that it is so popular is a huge disincentive to joining the dating scene. While some people who have been traumatized by abuse, including corporal punishment, cycle back into it and want to relive their traumas. I want nothing to do with any of it ever again and wish Fifty Shades of Grey never made it so popular so I wouldn’t have triggers of childhood trauma set off not too infrequently by its regular inclusion in pop culture. Merely entering the world of sexuality where the corridors and nodes of the social networks are walled with grapevines, while it couldn’t directly happen to me without my consent, I don’t want to be in smelling distance of scenes that would trigger childhood traumas. That’s not just a disincentive to dating, per se, but a disincentive to going near the dating scene, at all.
All in all, I would rather just have platonic friends. While I am a heteroromantic asexual who would enjoy a relationship, all of the elements of the culture, right now, are not aligned in such a way as to make dating conducive to my participation in it. I think I’d prefer to be a token male member of a female clique and benefriends with the other members. I’m a tomgirl, a boy who prefers the platonic friendships of females, and would absolutely love to join a sorority or the unofficial equivalent of one. I want a strong group of supportive friends who love me and I don’t want to be alone. Yet, right now, I don’t really want to be anyone’s boyfriend and I may never. My strategy for dating, now, is to have my telomeres extended, wait until the culture is more conducive to my dating, and then relive my late adolescence and, this time, date.
The Autistic Resistance 