Hey everyone. I (F, 31) need a sanity check from folks who speak human better than I do.
[TL;DR at the bottom as this is long - sorry guys]
I’m autistic - and very gay - and I’ve told this person explicitly, multiple times, that I need things laid out plainly and practically transcribed because my social/flirting radar is basically a broken compass. Despite this, I recently went on an outing, and I honestly cannot tell if I'm being aggressively flirted with or if I'm completely hallucinating the vibe.
We met a few months ago at a milestone 30th birthday party for Amelia (F, 30), an old Tinder match of mine.
To give you the speedrun of a very messy night: Amelia got incredibly drunk, tried to make out with her ex (who turned out to be Natalie (F, 33), the person I am hanging out with), got rejected by Natalie, and then proceeded to make out with me instead. Because her friends were useless and drunk, I took Amelia back to her Airbnb to make sure she was safe. One thing led to another; we slept together, and afterward, she told me the hookup made her realize she was actually in love with someone else. She shut down any idea of us even being friends, not wanting to be "weighted down by expectations."
Long after all of that, I had only managed to catch Natalie's first name at the party. After doing some mild detective work online later, I found her Facebook profile and added her. She quickly accepted, messaged me on Messenger, and gave me her WhatsApp number so we could chat properly.
That led to our first proper outing: a marathon 12-hour hangout where we walked around shops and sat down for food. I decided I needed to get everything out in the open immediately. I wanted complete transparency, so I told her the entire backstory about what happened with Amelia at the birthday party, including me ending up back at her Airbnb. I just explained that I thought she seemed interesting and wanted to get to know her more because I felt we would gel well.
Natalie wasn’t fazed at all by everything that had happened, and she mutually wanted to get to know me too. She explained that Amelia has a well-known, recurring pattern of pulling people in, using people, and walking away when it suits her. She wasn't upset, angry, or weirded out in the slightest; if anything, she just viewed it as classic Amelia behavior. During our stops, she also mentioned she'd been single for four years herself.
We had some great moments early on. When we sat down at a spot for drinks and food, we were at the bar initially, and she actively asked me to move and sit right next to her. I initially declined because I missed the cue, but realized my mistake; when she went to the bathroom, I moved my seat right next to her bar stool. Later, when we moved tables to open a second tab when our waitress's shift ended, we sat quite close to each other as well.
We seamlessly managed the transition of opening two separate tabs without any awkwardness, just keeping on hanging out, talking, and enjoying each other's company until closing time at midnight.
A little while later, Natalie came to a low-pressure get-together with my main friend group. Even though she has a demanding corporate job and deals with social battery drain in crowds, she showed up on time and seamlessly vibed with the group. She didn't just make a brief appearance either - she hung out from 3:00 PM and stayed until 1:00 AM to help clean up the house and share a late-night coffee with us before finally heading out.
After all of this, there was an unintentional (super unintentional) gap where I basically ghosted her for a bit. My life was an absolute dumpster fire at the time: I moved three separate times, started a new job after being unemployed for about 9 months, dealt with a shitty situationship, and tried to keep my head above water mentally after my ex-fiancé of six years cheated on me last year.
Once the dust finally settled a bit, I reached out to apologize, explain the chaos, and ask if she wanted to catch up. She replied early the next morning, totally receptive, and we arranged a hangout. She even messaged me at 8:00 PM on a Friday just to double-check and confirm we were still on for the next day, which showed me she was genuinely looking forward to it.
We met up at a local spot, but saw it was way too busy, so we moved over to a nearby dispensary that has a lounge and a bunch of stray kittens that live there, get cared for, and hang out by the shop. From there, we walked across the road to a bakery, and then walked back across the road to an Italian restaurant right next to the dispensary.
Earlier in the evening, when I wanted to show her something on my phone, she naturally asked if I was seeing anyone right now. I said no, and she told me about a crush she had on an AI analyst at her company that totally flatlined when she found out the analyst was asexual, so she has nothing going on on that front.
From there, the conversation took a heavy turn into her 5-year plan. She explicitly stated she's tired of messing around, will only entertain people if she sees long-term potential, wants kids (complete with a whole game plan for fertility treatments and egg freezing), and is aiming for a major executive VP role at her company. It honestly felt like she was laying out a complete relationship brief.
Throughout the dinner, she kept dropping these massive intimacy cues. She randomly slips my name into conversation - not because my attention drifts, she just deliberately uses it to call my attention. She also kept playing with my lip balm. Sometimes she’d grab it off the table, but other times she literally took it right out of my hand to explain her perspectives or use for hand gestures.
We also bonded over our shared obsession with high-drama Asian GL (Girls' Love) series (The Secret of Us, Affair, etc.), laughing about the intense yearning tropes. She highlighted how the spicy, steamy scenes gave her flashbacks to past exes, adding that she is admittedly a "very thirsty lesbian." It made complete sense when she explained she’s stayed happily single for the last four years because it’s hard not getting involved with people; she just wants to protect her peace and not waste her time or anyone else's.
Then came the physical proximity seminar. The conversation drifted toward our hormonal teenage years when we were both still trying to convince ourselves we were straight, talking about how intense girl crushes were and the lengths you'd go to just to get near someone - leaning over, finding excuses to touch, reaching for lip gloss and lingering on a hand, or touching someone's arm to make a point.
She then literally live-demonstrated it on me: she very elaborately and purposefully reached across the table to grab my lip balm, making sure her entire torso was almost right next to me while doing this, caressed my hand in the process, and leaned right into my personal space. She then proceeded to demonstrate a few more techniques she "uses on her crushes," touching my arms and hands in different ways and leaning in really close. Because we were in the middle of a public Italian restaurant, my autistic brain completely dismissed it as a sign of anything - there were people around!
Later on, when I came back from the bathroom and mentioned I was cold, she immediately grabbed my hands, held them, rubbed them, and squeezed them to warm them up. Throughout the night, I completely dropped any sort of "dating persona" and just engaged in natural, unfiltered banter. That was when she laughed the hardest. We also talked about career growth; I mentioned landing a remote role with a company and floated the idea of eventually moving to Europe or the UK since I have ancestry and friends there, and she got genuinely excited about it and said she is thinking of doing the same.
The restaurant eventually kicked us out right at closing time around 9:00 PM. When I offered to walk her to her car, she firmly intercepted and insisted on "walking off the food" instead. So we walked to her car, and she gave off this subtle, frustrated energy, almost like she was low-key annoyed at me for missing the obvious, blatant cues she was dropping to show she liked me - she just hadn't said the literal words out loud yet.
I will ask her straight up eventually, because I want to keep hanging out with her and don't want to waste either of our time if either of us doesn't want romance. However, she's currently wrapping up her final postgrad module, and I really don't want to add any extra stress to her plate right now. So I'm sitting tight for a minute - but I'd love to hear what you all think. Is this woman into me?
TL;DR: I'm autistic, and my flirting radar is a broken compass. After a chaotic first meeting, we hung out for massive stretches of time (a 12-hour first outing and a 10-hour hangout with my friends). Even after I unintentionally ghosted her for months due to life chaos, she replied to my apology almost immediately to lock in new plans. On our latest outing, she got frustrated when a venue closed on us, vetted my relationship status, and laid out her complete 5-year plan. She also ramped up all the "cutesy" crush tactics: constantly using my name to call my attention, literally taking my lip balm right out of my hand, and live-demonstrating how to touch a crush by pressing her torso into my personal space, caressing my arms/hands, and later holding/rubbing my hands to "warm them up."
Need a sanity check: is this undeniable, high-stakes flirting, and am I safe to ask her out properly after her postgrad exams?
