The dating/relationship game

It is difficult when you have Asperger Syndrome to find an enter a relationship. Firstly there are the high expectations on you as a man and secondly the rules of courtship which can often be confusing and hard to fathom. I have contact with many adults who would like a relationship but simply give up, or continually try and find self esteem and confidence are affected by continually being knocked back and living with low self esteem. What can be done to assist adults with Asperger Syndrome find and enter a relationship. It is a very difficult question to answer because you can create chemistry between two people, it has to either develop or exist and happen. Dating for an adult with Asperger Syndrome is like a job interview. The adult is confronted with an upfront situation and being able to sell themselves to other person in terms of playing the courtship game is virtually impossible. Like a job interview which requires the adult to jump through hoops and overcome hurdles, the dating scenario can take on and present itself with the same problems. Furthermore, there is the added problem of understanding hidden social queues and understanding body language and unwritten codes of behaviour. In my communication with other adults with Asperger Syndrome on Skype, we talk about many issues with the often familiar problem of knowing what to do and how to enter a relationship. Some adults have never experienced a relationship nor intimacy and have learned to live life the best way possible in order to adapt to this. As an adult with Asperger Syndrome and being highly involved in awareness of Asperger Syndrome in Adults, I find it difficult to know how and where to assist adults find love, chemistry and a relationship. Can dating agencies be established to assist with finding love or can certain accommodations be made available to cater for certain requirements? Just going about finding an answer to this very problem and obtaining a solution is no easy task. The only solution it seems is to promote more awareness and hope that adults will find love and a relationship if at all possible. Having been in a relationship myself and finding it hard to enter another one, I am not sure what I am supposed to do or what emotional requirement is expected of me in order to reciprocate my emotions with another a female. I am not sure that in my lifetime, I will find another relationship but my only solution is to leave a door open to allow for one if one does venture my way. It seems that you cannot complete separate yourself from baggage as most women my age are either divorced, have children and have a multitude or problems which tend to stand in the way of a relationship. Furthermore, you have no choice but to live life the best you can and hopefully one day that someone may walk through the door. In the adults I speak with, it is interesting to hear of their own accounts of relationships. One adult suggests meeting females from overseas but the immigration process often sabotages and destroys any hope in anything succeeding. I have contacted Minds and Hearts here in Brisbane and have suggested some ideas but I don't know the answers and having contact with Dr Tony Attwood, he is busy for time and cannot always respond to my ideas and questions. I think adults with Asperger Syndrome have their own desire or need for a relationship or not a relationship and I cannot cater for everyone in terms of offering a workable and simple solution to this problem. Some adults have been through painful experiences, knock back and rejection and having been hurt and rejected, their self esteem and confidence levels drop. I speak from personal experience in that adults with Asperger Syndrome perhaps lean more towards an Aspie vs Aspie relationship more so than NT vs Aspie etc. The corrosion of confidence and self esteem makes the process harder and some adults are trying harder and harder to simply ask someone out and finding they are not getting anywhere or perhaps misread social queues of the other person saying they are busy and start to lean towards giving up. There is no magic wand to create chemistry between to people but encouragement needs to allow for platonic friendships to perhaps evolve into something more committed. This in itself is no easy task and for most adults, they simply want to meet a female and start to get to know her and then hope that this may lead to something more serious. As stated before, the relationship area is like the job interview where the adult firstly needs to get through the interview process to demonstrate their abilities within employment, how then can the same apply for an Aspie to meet a prospective partner and also jump through this hurdle to enter the relationship phase? I guess all that can be done and all I can do within my capacity is to try and put some ideas and suggestions onto the table. How this can be done is through research and liaising with Dr Tony Attwood and Minds and Hearts to come up with some solutions. There has to be a way but finding it is the tricky question. Perhaps Brisbane needs a dating agency for adults with Asperger Syndrome?? Some of the experiences adults with Asperger Syndrome confront with relationships: 1. I feel there are too many expectations placed on me and I don't know what to say. 2. I don't how to sell myself to a prospective partner in terms of courting 3. Boring or weird guys miss out as they are considered boring. 4. If you are unable to play the dating game then you wont get anywhere 5. I have asked a girl out and she said no and I have to keep trying to improve. 6. I was in a relationship and it is too painful emotionally to enter another one 7. Being very emotional I am vulnerable to being hurt and rejected. 8. I find women want to go out with guys who are confident and have a good job. 9. I am a woman with Asperger Syndrome and I can never read the intentions of a man I am with. I am concerned about my security and my barriers. 10. I find sharing of space difficult and I find it a struggle to keep up with mental energy requirements. 11. I have given up on looking for relationship and I find my pleasures can be better catered for by other means 12. What is wrong with me and why am I not dating material? 13. I find I am judged too quickly before a woman can ever get a chance to know who I am and my good qualities such as loyalty and commitment. 14. Being single I am seen as deviant, dysfunctional and nobody wants to bother with me. 15. As I am single people assume I am wanting to play the field when all I want is a steady relationship. 16. The immigration process made it impossible, there wasn't a way and furthermore adults with Asperger Syndrome are discriminated by this process as it favours people who don't have Asperger Syndrome as they can satisfy the immigration requirements. 17. Too many expectations are placed on me more so being a man and I find the dating process overwhelming. As you can see from the questions above canvassed across the spectrum of adults, dating and relationships are a big issue but knowing how to tackle the problem is not an easy one. All of us in Asperger Syndrome awareness are working on strategies at present to try and deal with some answers and solutions to such problems.