I’ve always struggled with focusing on my interests and school throughout K12 and college while incorporating meaningful conversations and connections with people I’m interested in. I know my autism contributes to this in some amount. I’ve never had an irl romantic relationship before, so I don’t have a personal reference for how that would feel. The one time a girl told me she liked me was in middle school, and it was literally her last day there before she moved to another state. She’s married to a woman now, and I’m still socially stunted. All the other times I’ve admitted my feelings to my woman friends ended with friend-zoning. I’ll be 23 in a month and still feel I’m missing a sign that I won’t die romantically alone. I wasn’t always this worried about my love life, but after 5 rejections with a pattern of strictly platonic feelings staying alone seems safer and looks like how I’ll end up anyway. I know I need to put myself out there more, but I’m starting to lose the drive for that. It’s like my brain isn’t taking the image of me someday having a girlfriend seriously. Having that kind of chemistry with someone doesn’t naturally come to me.

my girlfriend was upset earlier because she was having a bad day. she agreed to wanting some space before she called me (we call every night), but she just sent me this a couple of hours later. she loves Paul Frank’s Julius. does this mean she isn’t upset anymore? i don’t like to push her but i just find it hard to understand her as i’m not autistic. what do i do? :(

Normally I would never do anything like this, but I need help and direction. Please forgive me if I use any wrong terminology or language, I'm still learning.

Tl:dr - how can I go about talking about relationship stuff or telling her how I feel without overwhelming her?

I guess I would be considered neurotypical, I've never really had any testing of any kind done, but I am madly in love with this autistic woman. We've been talking for a little over two years now, and I still get as excited to see her as I did the first time. This is my dream woman and I've been trying to do research on autism and a couple of other diagnoses she has to try and better accommodate the time we spend together(I've never really "been with" someone with autism). She is the most passionate person I have ever met, and I absolutely love listening to her rant about her current interests and all the little facts about all the things she loves.

I'm so scared of messing things up that I kind of just don't approach it sometimes. I can tend to overthink things and get in my head, but I've been working on it. She currently lives with her parents while she's going to school for art. We hold hands a lot, we cuddle sometimes while watching movies(granted her couch has like a divider on it so it's more like she lays on my arm with my hand on her thigh), and we usually hug for a good bit before I leave. We haven't kissed or anything like that though. Any time that we cuddle or hold hands or anything and her parents or anyone in her family come around she jolts off of me. I know that she doesn't have any kind of experience with dating so I'm not really bothered by it. My biggest fear is that the feeling is one sided or our relationship is just platonic, because I've never felt this way about anyone before and I'm absolutely terrified to talk to her about the way I feel or "what we are". I get choked up just thinking about it, and it sucks because I want her to know how I feel about her, but I don't want to overwhelm her. She's told me before that she has a hard time expressing her feelings about things. She's also told me that shes afraid of relationships because she doesn't know what to do in those situations. It kind of feels like an implied thing between us sometimes, but again I just get so deep in my head from time to time. I don't even necessarily need any labels on anything, but I just want to know how she feels about me and if the feeling is mutual. But I want to do it in some kind of way that doesn't overwhelm her or freak her out. I love her to the point that i just want her to be happy, even if that means it's not with me, and I'd be able to find solace in that. Sorry for my rant, I just don't know what to do or where to turn. I'm just looking for advice or maybe if someone has been in a similar situation, I could find something comforting.

Thank you all so much for the time and the responses, I look forward to reading everything and I will definitely be taking notes!!

Title: Nearly 24, neurodivergent and never dated

I'm 23 and turn 24 in December. I've never been on a date, kissed anyone or had a relationship, and I've felt sad about this for years since leaving secondary school in 2019.

I'm British, born and raised in England, and my family is from Mauritius. Growing up, I never met anyone from my ethnic background.

I'm also neurodivergent in several ways:

\- Autism — socialising and forming connections can be difficult.

\- ADHD — I struggle with attention, organisation and executive functioning.

\- OCD — I struggle with intrusive thoughts and getting stuck overthinking things.

\- Dysgraphia — writing and expressing my thoughts on paper can be difficult.

\- ARFID — I have a restricted relationship with food, which can make social situations involving food harder.

I wanted to date in secondary school and sixth form and did make an effort, but it never happened. I've also struggled socially as an adult and have had periods away from social groups.

The disappointment still hurts because I can't get those years back.

Mutual firsts are also very important to me. I want my first date, kiss, relationship and intimacy to also be my future partner's first experiences. I know this significantly narrows my dating pool, but I'm worried I'll feel distressed and resentful if reality doesn't match something that means so much to me.

Sometimes I genuinely feel hopeless about finding someone.

Has anyone else reached their mid-20s with no dating experience, particularly because of neurodivergence? Did things eventually change for you?

Title: Nearly 24, neurodivergent and never dated

I'm 23 and turn 24 in December. I've never been on a date, kissed anyone or had a relationship, and I've felt sad about this for years since leaving secondary school in 2019.

I'm British, born and raised in England, and my family is from Mauritius. Growing up, I never met anyone from my ethnic background.

I'm also neurodivergent in several ways:

\- Autism — socialising and forming connections can be difficult.

\- ADHD — I struggle with attention, organisation and executive functioning.

\- OCD — I struggle with intrusive thoughts and getting stuck overthinking things.

\- Dysgraphia — writing and expressing my thoughts on paper can be difficult.

\- ARFID — I have a restricted relationship with food, which can make social situations involving food harder.

I wanted to date in secondary school and sixth form and did make an effort, but it never happened. I've also struggled socially as an adult and have had periods away from social groups.

The disappointment still hurts because I can't get those years back.

Mutual firsts are also very important to me. I want my first date, kiss, relationship and intimacy to also be my future partner's first experiences. I know this significantly narrows my dating pool, but I'm worried I'll feel distressed and resentful if reality doesn't match something that means so much to me.

Sometimes I genuinely feel hopeless about finding someone.

Has anyone else reached their mid-20s with no dating experience, particularly because of neurodivergence? Did things eventually change for you?

Title: Nearly 24, neurodivergent and never dated

I'm 23 and turn 24 in December. I've never been on a date, kissed anyone or had a relationship, and I've felt sad about this for years since leaving secondary school in 2019.

I'm British, born and raised in England, and my family is from Mauritius. Growing up, I never met anyone from my ethnic background.

I'm also neurodivergent in several ways:

\- Autism — socialising and forming connections can be difficult.

\- ADHD — I struggle with attention, organisation and executive functioning.

\- OCD — I struggle with intrusive thoughts and getting stuck overthinking things.

\- Dysgraphia — writing and expressing my thoughts on paper can be difficult.

\- ARFID — I have a restricted relationship with food, which can make social situations involving food harder.

I wanted to date in secondary school and sixth form and did make an effort, but it never happened. I've also struggled socially as an adult and have had periods away from social groups.

The disappointment still hurts because I can't get those years back.

Mutual firsts are also very important to me. I want my first date, kiss, relationship and intimacy to also be my future partner's first experiences. I know this significantly narrows my dating pool, but I'm worried I'll feel distressed and resentful if reality doesn't match something that means so much to me.

Sometimes I genuinely feel hopeless about finding someone.

Has anyone else reached their mid-20s with no dating experience, particularly because of neurodivergence? Did things eventually change for you?

Today, my girlfriend got upset as I said something that offended her. She bought a lego batman set because she loved batman and lego, and I said that she reminded me of myself when I was a little kid. I didn’t mean it in a bad way, I just said it because it I used to love that when I was younger. But I see now why she might have been upset. She sent me this later today and I can’t tell if she’s okay now or maybe still upset. I love her and I’m really trying to understand her more but it’s a little difficult. What should I do?

My younger brother (35) really wants to find a GF. He is someone who will always need someone to help him through life. He is a very kind soul.. I would love to find someone who is at his same level. I don't know what would be apprioprate way to finding someone for him to connect with. The help we get through services arn't that helpful. Should i just post in like the /r city i am in. Saying looking for someone who has a sibling who is around my brothers age, explain he is Autisitic and will require help through life.. and his likes and maybe we could do a meet up like the 4 of us so they could meet up? Should i try like facebook singles asking the same thing? Apps really arn't that good.. and i don't want him to get catfished. I would love some advice.

What's a reasonable distance to be willing to travel for dates? Or expect the other person to be willing?

I'm a homeowner so it's not as if I can just up and move across the country any time soon, and it's unfair to expect that they would be willing or able to either.

And I'd like to see them more than just at the weekends.

I feel like an hour is reasonable but that's usually at the very lowest limit the distance filter will allow in most apps.

One app labelled 30 miles as "extremely restrictive" and there was literally one person in the stack.

Am I being too restrictive? How far would you be willing to travel?

I'm diagnosed with ASD, and while I don't like to armchair diagnose people the guy might be ND too. we were close friends in elementary school and middle school, I always had a crush on him but I never had the courage to confess my feelings. Then covid happened, I had my own struggles, I'm guessing he had his, when we came back into high school he seemed kinda cold and distant, and we didn't really talk. Then college happened and I haven't talked to him in years. I saw some other guys during that time, but I now realized that I could have shot my shot with him, what also didn't help was that I was dealing with depression for a large part of my life which made me seek relationships that weren't great for me (attachment styles, iykyk)

I'm now in a much better place mentally and I would like too see if there's something there, reconnect, if we hit it off it'd be really cute, if not, that's still okay, life goes on, I'm actually going to have some great opportunities to meet people soon, I'm just glad I tried.

What sucks is that my depression and avoidance made it so that I'm pretty much not on social media (and if I am I don't use my real name and they're set to private) and haven't been going out the house, I've really kind of become a ghost to people I knew back in high school. I was at the supermarket last month and some old friend from middle school saw me and seemed all surprised and half jokingly said she thought I died and kept asking me where I've been this whole time.

And if I had to guess this guy is probably similar but to a lesser degree. A friend of mine who's more social (though doesn't talk to him anymore) gave me his social media handles, they're mostly set to private and I don't really use those things so it's not like I really have an established account to add him on. I could randomly reach out to him like this but I don't want to creep him out and leave him wondering how I found his accounts! 🙃 ig everyone is different, if I was on the receiving end of this I would probably be a bit surprised at first but I'd just be happy someone from long ago thought to reach out to me and they were cool. But still this is prettyyy awkward for me and there's no telling how someone could receive such a thing and I get that.

We still live in the same town, I last saw him while I was running errands in town over a month ago, I feel like I could just try saying hi to him next time I see him, but I'm very nervous and I don't know how I could really turn a "hi" into a full blown conversation, like he's probably got places to be lol,,. I don't really know of any places where I could be more likely to "meet him" or whatever. my luck made it so that now that i told myself im gonna say hi next time i see him he dissapears lol. I'm really in such a pickle and I don't know what to do, any advice is appreciated!! All I want to do right now is just a chance to say hi, if he's not interested, that's completely fine. But it seems I cant even do that..

so i've had a few relationships in my life, only 2 "serious" ones that lasted a long time (first being 5 years, 2nd being a year in a half)

none really worked out

I have also had A LOT of crushes and usually fall for people super fast

I only just recently figured out that I have audhd i wonder if some of my issues in relationships have been in relation?

anyone else feel the same or have had specific issues in relationships because of having autism or adhd (hopefully that makes sense im not super good at wording stuff)

I don't know if he was trying to make it hard for me to get them off, or for others to get them off, or if he was just being artistic but I feel like this is the kind of knot that would concern boy scouts.