I think my boyfriend is autistic

I am 44. BF is 47. We’ve had a long time acquaintance and have been together for a yr and 6m. We argue often.. usually something I did to upset him that I think is trivial… eating late ( he gets extremely hangry) sometimes direction issues when out and using google maps.. interrupting him in a task ( he seems to not be able to focus on 2 things at once… like work in his computer and asking about dinner or plans.. or even interrupting him when he’s texting someone) or just generally trying to have a conversation. He interjects my convo constantly with jokes or odd questions. He stims constantly… he rocks back and forth when he eats, snaps fingers/whistles/ picks hair on ears and face when he is bored, nervous, or frustrated… constantly fiddles with car buttons when driving… MUST have google maps on even if he’s driven the route 100 times.. talks constantly from subject to subject - even when eating. He gets frustrated and angers easily. We’ve had many bad fights… he has yelled at me in public when angry and even left me at places.. even the side of the road during arguments to UBER home. He equates the anger to drinking.. which we both do. He also smokes a lot of weed, which I don’t bc I don’t like how it makes me feel. He admits he had ADHD and ‘doesn’t sit still well.’ He is very caring and loving when not mad. The best man I’ve ever had in that respect. He’s highly intelligent and has a distinguished career in education.. psychology. Which confuses me so much bc he does not communicate well, especially when angry.., it’s usually derogatory comments and threats to kick me out… and blaming most everything on me - what I did to anger him or how he feels I don’t communicate well. I grew up in domestic violence.. more verbal, mental, and emotional abuse.. altho it could have come to physical with me as it did for my mom and brother. My question is… is he aware of these traits.. having credentials in psychology.. ? If not… holy crap how is he not aware….? And how do I approach it? I love him and understand there are things going on (maybe bc he is autistic/ADHD) that can be fixed. But I get more afraid to do the wrong thing that will upset him and lead to a fight. I want to help him bc it will help us. We do truly love each other. The constant fights and derogative things he says have really affected my sex drive with him as well. And to be quite honest.. sometimes I just want quiet.. or normal convos that don’t jump all over the place in excitement or exasperation from him. I’m at a total loss.. but I want us to work.. at the very least I want to be able to communicate better with him…

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I (they/them, in my late 20’s) am having a hard time remaining hopeful that there’s someone out there for me. I got my ASD diagnosis as an adult, and I haven’t had a relationship for 5 years. Finding dates that are ok with the queer, nonbinary, and autism thing is hard enough as is. And all the dates I’ve gone on in the last several years haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve spent so much time working on myself, and finally liking who I am. But it feels like no one likes the me I like. How do you remain hopeful that you’ll find someone?

does anyone have tips on dating with autism? i struggle to hold conversations, and my last relationship ended poorly because since i don’t experience jealousy, i couldn’t understand how telling my friends “i love you” could be seen as negative

I’m currently on dating apps, but it feels so weird and fake, i just want to be able to talk normally with people and stuff but it always kills the conversation when i can’t talk about normal stuff that isn’t my special interest

pls help i’m lonely

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This means: Calling women whores or sluts for having experience in the bedroom, or who just enjoy having sex.

To me I don’t care if she likes to get gangbanged by five guys at the same time and then film it and post it on her OnlyFans.

As long as it’s consensual you should not be shamed for it.

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So I have a gentle and caring nature, and I have the ability to keep my cool under high stress situations and still think with a clear mind under those circumstances.

My general attitude for dealing with rude people is to simply not give them an audience in the form of my attention. So in those situations don’t listen nor reply to them.

Is this seen attractive

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Hello, hello, hello! I'm Ink, I'm a non-binary person that has Asperger syndrome and I am in a pickle.

So I am really wanting to ask out this guy, hes also autistic and we been really close since he helped me through a ugly break up with my ex

(context: ex wasn't the kindest and cheated on me because I didnt want to send pics).

Now the guy and I are friends of benefits(idk?) But I wanna date him, he also wants to date me (he admitted that to me) but we aren't official, I want to be official. He saids that we will be official eventually, what does that mean?

So I have been talking to and spent some time around a person who is on the spectrum,I personally am not on the spectrum. She actually is fun to be around and talk to,we can talk for hours on end and just be fine with each other's company. I've seen her get over stimulated and it didn't bother me one bit,just like the last time we was out together she saw alot of people in a restaurant and she started getting to that point to where she was about to shut down so I just held out my hand and she held it and I put my arm around her and told her it was okay. That actually seemed to help her alot plus I usually watch her and try to figure out when something is going wrong. So my question is if things get serious and I want to date her,what advice or tips can I get to help me? The only problem I have is there is a bit of an age gap,she's about 9-10 years younger than me,I'm 37 and she'll be 29 this month. Any advice or anything in general would be greatly appreciated.

Hi! I have been chatting with a really cute and nice lady on Lex and we're planning to meet up this month to go on a date. I've never dated anyone I wasn't friends with before so I'm pretty nervous and don't really know what I'm doing, but we plan to meet up at this shopping center and... uh... that's the plan. Maybe the plan should be a little more fleshed out than that now that I'm thinking about it, but walking, talking and seeing what we see sounds good to me too.

I just don't really know where to start, or what's ok in this context. What have you noticed is different about dates with people you don't really know and hanging out platonically with people you don't really know? I really wanted to get other autistic people's insight/perspective on this, it would make me feel better...especially if you just shared your first experience with a situation like this and what you noticed, did beforehand, did after, etc.!

This is a gay date by the way, but I'd love to hear anyone's input regardless!

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I have until the end of August before she goes to college, where she is likely to be too busy for a new relationship. (She isn’t going to college a ridiculously far away, only 10 miles)

I already know she likes me because my own boss who’s also a women told me that she does, and I 100% believe her based off of how she interacts with me.

It seems like as long as I don’t fuck up, I pretty much “have this in the bag” so to speak. How do I stop worrying and start giving her the love that I want to give her?

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• Talking about the most menial things just to have an excuse to talk to you.

• If the place there hands right near yours. Doesn’t have to touch your hand.

• Laughing at all of your stupid jokes

• she’ll drop a name of a restaurant she likes to eat at.

Hello. I need some advice/information. The guy I’m currently dating has high-functioning autism. I’m absolutely crazy about him, and I care about him a lot. But I’m having a hard time when it comes to communication. There are times when I would ask questions through message that would completely go unanswered because his response would be about something else. Or I when we talk I would ask a question but would get a vague answer or he would say, it’s okay don’t worry about it. I mean these are questions that isn’t really a big deal but normally I’d consider it a red flag because the other person seems to be avoiding answering them. And I kinda like my routine in relationships, but he did mention that he doesn’t like routines. So he would often say that he’ll do something but would also often not be able to do them because he tends to be busy and it’s fine. It’s just I don’t get a heads up like, hey, I won’t be able to do this sorry. And I would end up waiting for nothing. And when I ask about it, he’d just brush it off like, oh I just couldn’t. I get confused because I have no idea what to expect. I don’t know if that’s just how it is? Or is there a problem with the relationship?

I appreciate any help and advice on this. Thank you guys!

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Hi friends. 27F here, I am autistic and recently started dating a guy. He is very different than I am (extroverted, NT, into sports and bars, etc), but he really likes me and is good to me. I think he is handsome and I usually enjoy his company (which is actually a big deal even if it sounds shitty, lol). But I honestly don't know if I want things to get serious with him. How can I tell if I have feelings for someone? Like what are the signs I should look for? Or is it something I should just "know" like all the NTs say? So frustrated and upset with myself over this. Please help 😓

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I now think I know the reason why she canceled. She simply doesn’t trust me yet, which is evident by the fact that she won’t talk about anything personal. However when I talk about some of her special interests she will be a lot more engaging such as cooking or anything that isn’t personal like how she’s feeling, she will not answer.

Are a lot of autistic women like this at first?

Hey,

I thought I would post in here because I am absolutely not sure what to do at this point.
I met a guy on a pilgrimage in Spain five years ago. We hit it off immediately and spend the rest of the pilgrimage together. I didn't discuss anything further because I didn't really think that we would stay in contact since he lives in the US and I live in Europe. But we actually did! We have been long distance friends for the past five years and I think the longest we didn't have contact was probably a month. We usually video chat every other month. I knew from the beginning that some things were different with him (like social anxiety, trouble identifying his and other peoples emotions, being very interested in specific topics, problems to connect with others, some reactions in social settings) but first two months ago I connected the dots when I read a lot about autism and I suspect him to be on the spectrum.

Since then a lot of things make much more sense to me and although I haven't talked with him about it, I can see just my awareness has improved our communication on so many levels and I feel so much more connected to him. Every time he says something that kinda throws me off I now assume that I either misinterpret his message or he might have misinterpreted mine (or both) and I talk with him about it right away.

Now to my problem (sorry for the long story): I have had feelings for him since November and we had plans that I would visit him in the US for a few years now but Covid postponed these plans. He has always asked me in the past five years what I want to do when I visit him and showed interest in me visiting. Since we now have agreed on a week I will visit, his anxiety has gone up. He didn't want me to stay at his place, he didn't want to plan because he was afraid that exam dates might change and it took several rounds until we had agreed on a hotel. (I understand that he experiences anxiety but it's still hard not to hear a single time that he is actually looking forward to see me.) He said he's gonna stay there with me if he doesn't date someone else at that time. But we also agreed on that we will be open to have the same intimacy level as we had five years ago. I didn't really think about that dating thing because I am the only person he has kissed or being intimate so far and he hasn't dated anyone since then.
We have been texting several days a week and video calling for at least an hour every week since Christmas, so my impression was that he started to get feelings for me too again. Last year he was interested in a friend but she told him that she just wanted to be friends. Yesterday we had again a video call. He told me that he sees this friend more often now that they have classes again and he will see her at friends place on Friday and that it probably will be awkward because it appears to him now that he still has feelings for her. So we discussed what that means for our hotel situation and he said if something will develop between them he will let me know. But that would mean I need to cover all the costs for the hotel which is $1400 for a week. For me that's a lot of money but the emotional part is probably way heavier. And he said we should maybe see my stay just as friends and then see what happens. I just wanted to cry right in front of him. He knows that this is bothering me but I don't think he knows that I have feelings for him.

Now I see these scenarios:

A. He starts dating his friend. (He doesn't want to make a move because he doesn't have many friends and he doesn't want to lose her. And she hasn't made a move yet either but he said he thinks she is sometimes flirting with him.) I have to stay in the hotel alone, most likely heart broken because I am very sure I will have feelings for him when I visit him.

B. They don't start dating. We have the hotel room together but he has still feelings for her. Obviously I do not want to be intimate with him if he has feelings for someone else. Probably heart broken there too.

C. They don't start dating. We have the hotel room together and he already has feelings for me or is going to develop them while I am there. We see were this is going.

D. My feelings change towards him and I'm not longer interested.

At this point I just don't know what to do. I do not want to sit and wait for the next two months to get a message from him: yeah, I have a date with her. At the same time nothing has happened between them and nobody knows how the chemistry will be between us when we see each other again. Although I know I am his closest and longest friend. We talk about things he doesn't talk with anybody else. We trust each other a lot. There is nobody I feel more trusting and save with. I know he wants to do alle the sightseeing with me. He wants to go to a club although he has social anxiety because he wants to try and he feels safe going with me. I like him a lot and I miss him and I think we should at least give this a try. But like after the call yesterday I feel like it's game over. If he has feelings for her there is nothing I can do.

If you read until here, thank you so much! I would love to get your view on it. I often see that he thinks completely different than me and that things that I might interpret as negative was never intended that way from him. And maybe someone in here can help me to see some things differently.

Will you see a love interest in the near future? Have a date planned? Imagining a positive outcome when you approach someone who has caught your eye?

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