Autism Affected My Love Life Today

Romantic partners are the collateral damage.

I almost started this story with the line, “Growing up, I always felt different.” That’s cliché. Most people can say that.

Instead, I’ll say this: growing up, I always felt like I was running in wet mud while others ran by. Everything seemed easier. It was like they had a piece of information needed to go through life whereas I was ambling forward, just trying to keep up.

When my son was diagnosed with a chromosome disorder and autism, my research was purely to help him. We learned that he had inherited the chromosome disorder from me. The more I learned about autism, the more it felt like pieces of my puzzle were finally falling into place.

Problem is that it’s hard to get a diagnosis as an adult. There isn’t a point when there isn’t much you can do in terms of physical and behavioral therapies that will help me transition into adulthood. Missed that window by about forty years.

Despite the lack of resources to diagnose adults, I found an organization that is working on standardizing autism testing in adults. Sure enough, they said I fit the bill of autism.

Slow clap from the peanut gallery. Hurray.

While it’s helped me understand myself and be kinder to myself in some areas, it’s not at the forefront of my mind. Until today.

It started with a text thread from Jon, a guy I dated for a year but had a rollercoaster of a time post-breakup. After feeling like complete garbage for something he wrote, I replied with a long text telling him that he overlooks that I have human emotions. I went on about how he constantly tells me about my inexistence in his life and that I will no longer tolerate it. My massive text ended with me telling him not to contact me if his only reason for reaching out is “I don’t know, I don’t feel any better.”

It’s been months since I cried over Jon. It’s not pleasant to tell someone who used to love you that the way they’re treating you is unacceptable. It’s easier for me to put on my logical autism hat and process all the things that I did wrong rather than think, “oh, he’s an insensitive dick.” But people treat us the way we allow them to treat us and even logically, I knew it wasn’t okay.

Then I met up for lunch with Bruce, who I dated at the end of last year but broke things off. He was somewhat the collateral damage after my heartbreak-filled breakup with Jon but he was made aware of it and chose to continue anyway. He told me recently that he wanted to give us a real, solid chance.

In my head, I feel like I communicated to him that I have enough on my plate and that I didn’t think it was a good idea. But if he wanted to stick around and be put in some dating rotation, then sure.

It seems my autistic brain didn’t grasp that I hadn’t conveyed my intentions (or lack of them) well enough. When the conversation segued to our dating situation, it went south fast. Bruce was upset at how I treated him and went off on me. My default mode is to avoid confrontation but when a switch is flipped, I’ll go balls in.

Which I did. I pointed out the flaws in his statements to me and defended myself like I was on trial. At one point, we were almost yelling at each other in the parking-lot-turned-outdoor-dining-because-Covid restaurant.

It was a shitty way for me to behave. The poor guy wasn’t upset at me because he hated me; Bruce was upset because he genuinely likes me and wanted more of me.

I feel awful for not communicating effectively but I’m not sure I know what I could have done differently. There are dozens of ways I could have reworded the things I said over the past few weeks, but my brain just doesn’t naturally see things that way. Even if I had taken the time to be more intentional with my words, my brain wouldn’t have gone to the right ones that would have made things clearer.

My day progressed. Having been hurt by one guy and then being the one to hurt another, I felt like I should be honest with someone I had lunch plans with next week. Previously, I had let Ryan know that I didn’t think it would work out if we went on a date. He persuaded me and I agreed.

Today, I texted him to tell him what happened over lunch with Bruce and that I didn’t want the same thing to happen with him. I’m already juggling a couple of guys as it is and I’m not in a position to drive 2 hours to hang out with someone (he lives far away but offered to come here for lunch). Plus, he’s younger than me; I’ve dated younger guys and I’m too terrified of aging to feel anything but old around them. Ryan is a wonderful guy and while we’ve been messaging for quite a while, I tried my best to tell him how I felt.

As suspected, Ryan said that in the grand scheme he felt confused because my behavior seemed to indicate that we were headed towards going on at least a date. Again, my autistic brain replied with, “wait…what? That’s not how I saw things.”

Sigh. Zero for three on communication.

My attention then turned to Marc and Sean. I don’t know what the norm is for text frequency when dating. I even told Sean that with him, he could ghost me and I’d never know it because he’s so non-communicative by text.

I hadn’t heard from Sean since Sunday and I was the one who sent the last text. It’s been three days and I didn’t want to look clingy. I don’t chase dudes. And yet, my autistic brain is too impatient to allow any unknowns. I sent him a text and he sent a quick one back, running from work to hit up his son’s basketball game. At this point, I’m vowing to not message him first. If he ghosts me, so be it. I can create arbitrary rules and my autistic brain will keep me in check like they’re set in stone.

Finally, I messaged Marc. He’s the only one that I know where I stand; he asked me a few days ago to go to his house for dinner this weekend.

End of day total: one out of five was a success. That I would even quantify my communication and relationship status further makes me feel autistic, but assigning a quantitative metric to things helps me gauge situations.

I don’t know what’s worse: my frustration from my lack of understanding how I’m communicating incorrectly or their frustration because they thought I conveyed something entirely different.

My friend Ellie and I have formed a strong bond during the pandemic. She’s obsessing over her emotional affair partner and questions everything he says. I give her my thoughts on why either of them behaves the way they do.

“I’m not blowing smoke up your ass,” Ellie begins. “But you are really good at this social behavior stuff. You’re very succinct when it comes to explaining it.”

On the outside looking in, I’m a pro at decoding human behavior. When I’m in the center of the relationship storm, I’m still missing the ball.