(This is going to be LONG by the way. It's basically a lengthy self reflection I wrote last year around this time. I've updated it since then with some things I've tried. I just don't know what else to do. But it needs the context so it all makes sense. It also uses pretty ripe language because I'm beyond prettying things up for anyone else and because if I'm not totally honest how will I ever get worthwhile results.)
So, finding me a gf. That's a difficult subject mainly for a number of reasons. The poles of interest that must be understood to get to grips with this are basically that I'm a sperglord, that I'm 37, that my last relationship was with the Alcoholic Ex and ended in 2016 and reduced me pretty much to square one in every way given I escaped her parents' country pile near Tiverton literally with the clothes on my back and two bags of stuff and my craptop into a state of unemployment and that because that left me "behind" compared to other people my age I'm not where people as a whole think I should be right now given my job (lawyer) and similar. Following on from this, there's the fact that I have always utterly hated socialising and find it far too high risk and cost for too little reward or prospect of success, and have interests which are utterly arcane to most people but which I can happily rattle on about for hours, and also which are a sausage fest. And then there's the black dog. But this needs addressing because I am genuinely starting to forget what actually having sexual congress with a woman is like, and possibly how to do it. That concerns me.
I also have no real filter. Yes, I have called someone an "ambulant glioblastoma" or "missed blowjob opportunity" in real life, and meant it.
So what does that mean that the real issues are? Well, the real issue is that the answer to the question, "would I enter into a relationship with me", is probably, "no." The reasons for this are that objectively, women aged 30-40 (my target age range) don't want to spend their time with a depressive autist. In part (I) we will examine what exactly peoples' expectations might be of a partner at this time (the major premise) and how I stack up against it (the minor premise), and then in part (II) we will consider how, and if, it's possible to paper over those shortcomings or whether a commercial solution might just be in whole or part worthwhile.
I - FAILURE TO LIVE UP TO EXPECTATIONS
The problem with being single at age 37 is that it is, in and of itself, not the "expected" condition, socially, for a person. Therefore in sub-title (A) we'll look into how we got into this mess, and in sub-title (B) we'll consider the expectations versus reality of the whole affair.
A - Historical Context
I'm 37 years old and a lawyer. As a teenager I found academia fairly easy. I was almost one of those really ***ing annoying kids that seems to be good at everything, but didn't quite make it to that level in every field. As I got older I hit the buffers in certain subjects. I found maths beyond GCSE an uphill struggle, but I could do it if I really tried though I had to stop and work through everything systematically. I have unfortunately forgotten large quantities of this because I've never used it. Differential and integral calculus in particular. I was really good, though, at languages and also English Lit. I could write really nicely. I still can. I can do very attractive prose at times and come out with incredible lines as people on here have mentioned. I got very good, if not world beating, grades in examinations and seemed to be able to just "get" things. They might have needed multiple explanations but something would just click and I'd know it.
In short, I'm probably not stupid. I wouldn't call myself smart though. Just smart enough to know I'm over the Dunning Kruger hump generally.
Anything involving social situations, though, was utter purgatory. I was not popular. I didn't understand why people were popular, just that I wasn't. Years later I read a piece called "Why Nerds are Unpopular" online which posited that nerds were unpopular because they prioritised other things when in fact the popular kids became popular because they made the active choice to prioritise it. There is a grain of truth in this. As a teenager I played chess and Magic the Gathering. I was quite good at those, entering tournaments for both. They made sense because they had clearly defined rules and because I was good at it I wanted to do better. I thus spent time autodidacting myself opening theory in chess and common endgame positions so I knew the best practice in same; and at MTG I taught myself statistical analysis as well as "the meta" for each set as it came out and also the mathematics necessary to know why, for example, in sealed deck play certain cards might be preferable to others (basically, a powerful card that you have a 10 percent chance of being able to play in the first five turns is not as good as a mediocre card that you have a 90 percent chance of being able to play in that period but might be worth including as a "finisher" in case the game goes on that long). I think you can see where this is going; all the time I spent considering and cogitating on this for the next tournament or game was time not spent with friends or obtaining social skills. I'm not getting back into MTG though because I like having money and besides I'm way out of practice.
I had at this time heard of autism and Asperger and began to think I might have this. This was good to know, but it didn't get me anywhere.
I did have a gf at age 18, sort of. Her name was Leila (her parents really liked Eric Clapton) and I was attracted to the fact that she was an intellectual equal and also that she had really big boobs and really nice legs as well. (I did say I was going to be honest here.) It didn't go very far because she was one of those people who was smart AND popular and the idea of hanging out with someone who was Not Popular was less appealing in case my lack of popularity rubbed off on her. So that didn't work. Because she was also smart she knew how to really hurt me with words. Which she did. And because of spergliciousness I continued to lust after her thinking that I could persistence her into changing her tune. That didn't work.
As a student I didn't really get lucky very often at all, in fact. I had a couple of trysts and that was it. Nothing a relationship. Even the trysts were thin on the ground because I'd miss opportunities due to not thinking that she were interested when she was. There was also the black dog which began to start barking at this point, added to the fact that I continued to be Not Popular and hated socialising and thus felt myself falling behind everyone else, and then academically I did, and only just scraped through my second year because I spent most of my time unable to motivate self to do anything useful because there was no bloody point. Pulled it out in the final year by working feverishly at everything academic and staying in most of the time to do so because I'd realised that you cannot become a lawyer without a 2.1 and I kind of was not on track for that. I managed, just. I celebrated the end of the year by buying a bottle La Fée 68 absinthe and demolishing it over two days with the people in my hall (I spent all the years in halls basically by having the sharpest elbows and arguing the toss over everything until they complied to get rid of me; a skill which I have found of use professionally). This left little time for social interaction and didn't care about being popular because I had a degree to snag.
I ended up getting a job in legal aid once I'd graduated and been through law college. I had no relationships whatever from 2008 to 2011, or even trysts. I had no money, was in debt for a "career development loan" to the bank which I'd taken out to pay for law college, and lived in a ***e shared flat in Hackney. This left nothing for going out anywhere really. After I qualified I had a bit more money but still was *** at social things and so kind of didn't care really.
I did have an on and off relationship with a Japanese lass from 2011-13 or so. Masuimi, her name was. Thing is, we never got to see each other as much as we'd have liked due to stuff coming up and similar and then she went back to Japan. I think she may have been carrying a bit of a torch for me and would have wanted to see more of me but I was too sperglicious to notice and also rationalised it as 6,000 miles being an awful long distance for some pork swordsmanship. Which was a pity because honestly, she banged like a *** house door when the plague's in town and was quite funny. I think in retrospect I kind of treated her a bit poorly because I didn't realise that she wanted to be more serious about me and I never noticed, and she years later contacted me again and sort of implied that she felt rather hurt by this. This was not my finest hour and I admit that.
Then, enter the Alcoholic Ex, at a networking event at a bar belonging to a client in central London. I didn't want to go myself but I was ordered to by that client (I had 4 cases for him) and another client who I had 5 cases for.
The first six to nine months were all chips and gravy. She was funny, sweet, amusing, smart, and enjoyable in the sack. I didn't realise she was an alcoholic. I moved in with her and then things turned. She started going from witty to waspish to full on shrewish. She went from being affectionate and sexually available to using it as an instrument of control. I found out she was an alcoholic after I'd run into her family and they'd all love bombed me as well. I think they spotted that I was an easy mark for them to offload her onto. I tried. I'd get in from work and she'd sometimes be insensible and I'd have to physically take her to bed. Or she'd have had a fit or something and I'd have to call a doctor or similar, which she'd then lose her *** over me doing even though it was for her own good. She stopped eating because she was convinced she was a "whale" and this caused her to physically deflate. She really wasn't a whale. At one point she weighed herself constantly twice a day and plotted a graph of her weight fluctuations and was given a choice of agreeing she was a whale which would lead to screaming ugly crying fits, or disagreeing which would lead to allegations that I was lying to her. I took the battery out the scales to head this off and she threatened to kill herself and would scream if I were in the same room as her while at the same time sending me passive aggressive texts about how I didn't care if I wasn't.
I stayed with her because I thought I could help her get off the drink, which I did try to. She went into rehab over the Christmas of 2015 after several spells in hospital being dried out. I visited her as often as I could because I wanted to make it work. I thought, if she wasn't drunk all the time maybe things would be better. More fool me. It turned out that drunk her was the nice as pie her and sober her was bitter, shrewish, and constantly unsatisfied in every way. On medical advice we moved in to her family's after I lost my job through being unable to concentrate and worrying about her and not being able to get things done (I really lost my rag with the managing partner of that firm when she fired me; it was just before the firm's Christmas dinner and I said I hoped she choked on it and it turned to ashes in her *** mouth) - the idea being that being closer to her family in Devon she'd have a stronger support network. Then her family chucked me out, twice, from their place because I was being "awkward" and had apparently sought help from my own family on an emotional or other level and told them that she was alcoholic; AE read my e-mails, found it, and there was a huge shouting match in their front room. The next morning I decided to stop being an organic abuse accumulator and got a taxi to Tiverton Parkway railway station. Yep. Apparently the fact that she couldn't function without a bottle and a half of vodka in her system every day and would not get help with it unless forced and then used it as a stick to beat everyone else with was my fault.
2016 I spent being very depressed and running around between contract jobs trying to rebuild my CV. No relationships. Didn't want one. I would probably have only expressly or implicitly taken out my frustrations at AE on her anyhow. You know how in the really *** sequel to Love Story Oliver is accused of wanting his new gf to be horrible so he can ditch her and stop feeling like he's cheating on Jennifer? Something like that. 2017 I got a longer term contract, 2018 I got a permanent job in my current area, moved across country again, and now I'm here.
So what's my current situation? Well, not as much money as I'd planned to have right now. Living in a rented flat due to *** credit (AE spent all my money, if not on drink, than on me spending it trying to do things for her that she would like so maybe she would stop hating me for just a few moments). I haven't ever checked my credit score because it's probably awful. Still have sperglicious interests (heavy metal, PC stuff, retrotech and retrodevelopment, clay shooting, literature, etc.) Still hate socialising. It's been 7 years since I last had even a sniff. Actually, that's not true. I did meet someone fairly nice in the autumn of 2021 but though she clearly liked me, I didn't really like her all that much in the grand scheme of things. And I didn't want to compromise just because they're the only thing on the menu. I want someone who is right for me. I have made that mistake already and it left me destitute in a car park.
B - Current Situation
So, what do women in their thirties want in a single man? Well, financial security seems to be top of the list. Can't give that. Not indebted or bankrupt and have a steady job which pays quite well but none of the outward trappings of stability. I drive a budgetmobile because it's all I can afford and because I refuse to get a nicer car on credit because I have always hated borrowing money (I didn't have a credit card until 2013 and didn't even try to get one) and in any event, my view is that cars on finance are a mug's game because by the time it's really yours it's worth a fraction of its new value. I can't buy a flat because I just don't have the savings and efforts to get them usually are foiled when something comes up, and I am too proud, if I'm honest, to ask for help from any family members and feel I've used a lifetime of goodwill in being able to escape AE. I wear fairly nice suits for work (not Saville Row but from a proper menswear shop and properly tailored) and fairly nice shirts and ties also but the rest of the time dress in band shirts, black jeans, and stompy boots (they are surprisingly comfortable and hard wearing and the thick soles are a plus point because I go through shoe soles very quickly otherwise) because it's comfortable and functional.
Social skills? Well, there's the problem. I don't have any. Or at least, not good enough. I despise socialising. Mainly because it's not something I'm good at or know how to be good at. I have tried to go out places and practice. All my life this has been an utter failure. What would usually happen is that I try to talk to people, they don't want to talk to me or I alienate them without knowing how or why, hide in a corner out of shame and slink out after a while, or have a panic attack or self hatred attack and spill spaghetti everywhere, or worse, visibly and audibly freak out and get physically hauled out the premises for making people feel "unsafe." The latter of which happens more often than I'll admit. This happens every time, but only with people I don't know. It's okay with people I know because they will know what to talk about and I'll know what to talk about with them.
I should mention that since leaving AE I haven't really drunk much. In fact I often go weeks without alcohol. This is very unusual, not drinking. I have the best of reasons, namely, I have seen what alcohol does to people in excess and I utterly hated it and I don't want that to happen to me on any level. In retrospect I do think I drank to excess as a student myself. I don't think that did my academic ability any good the first two years. I drank a lot in my last year also but because I was spending most of my time studying and trying to get that 2.1 I don't think it had as much of an impact as otherwise it would. And at law college likewise.
Would I be a good parent? Well...
[THIS SPACE LEFT FOR YOU TO INSERT AS MUCH LAUGHTER AS YOU THINK FIT]
Do I have interests that would be socially acceptable to her friends? This from my research seems to be not uncommon as it does seem that a lot of women, both from my research and my own experience as set out in (A) above, rank this fairly highly. Would they gain or lose status if they exhibited me to their friends? Because of the above, probably lose it. "Hey girls, this is Sam, he likes music by long haired lads who can play arpeggios in hemi-demi-semi quavers at 176 bpm and novels and games involving swordplay." Going down like status: Cup of cold sick. I have to admit that I kind of hid this from the Alcoholic Ex the first few times I met her and realised I was going to have to admit to it.
Can I cook? Yes, after a fashion. Though it wasn't good enough for AE, who wouldn't let me for the longest time and then alter would find anything I made objectionable on spurious grounds and reject it. But then we can discount that on the basis that AE was kind of a ***, frankly.
Why haven't I had any relationship since 2016? Well there's a "red flag" right there. Without the wall of text above explaining this, the assumption will me that there's something fundamentally wrong with me that puts people off. And giving that wall of text is in and of itself a red flag. It's like trying to explain a five year CV gap. The most common assumption will be that someone's been in prison, I'm afraid. Also the fact I'm 37 and single with a string of failed relationships gives rise to the rather glib aphorism, "if the common factor in all your past ventures is failure, it's most likely you that's the problem." Yeah. Thanks for that, motivational speakers.
What are my politics? I heard somewhere that the biggest predictors of relationship compatibility were similar political outlook and drinking habits. I've covered the latter of these, the former; well, I call it "radicalised by reality" but frankly it's what the mainstream, sadly, would consider "far right." I have little time for XR or BLM, I voted for Brexit and would do so again and in fact I think the Government needs to do more to diverge with Europe where it's in our interest now we have the ability so to do, notably by deregulating biotechnology and GMOs. I don't believe in purity spirals, I'm ardently in favour of free expression in all things, I hate Big Tech and its influence on current society, I think most activists are creephats or grifters, I think our environmental policy needs to be more based in reality (build nuclear power plants everywhere and invest in energy efficient technologies) rather than lecturing and taxing the plebs (my tax burden is something that makes me unspeakably angry even though it doesn't make my life unaffordable, it's the principle of the thing, and how Government seems to waste it), and I think uncontrolled mass migration was a mistake and that the Government needs to do a lot more to get a handle on it. I think, in short, that all the main parties are totally out of
Appearance? Well, I'm told that facially I'm not that bad looking though I think I have too big and ungainly a nose. I am ginger and when a student I had really long hair which had just a wee bit of a wave to it. If I'd been a woman, well, hnnnnng. I am a Big Lad though, mainly due to comfort eating due to the black dog. Though I'm less fat than I was during lockdown; I go swimming 2-3 times a week, have taken up lifting recently, and use a calorie logging app to ensure that I'm eating sensibly and I've got down from 150.0 kg in Christmas 2021 to 132.7 kg.
So you see, with the exception of my job and my ability to sort of cook, there's not all that much there that might meet expectations without vast footnotes.
II - TURNING FAILURES INTO SUCCESSES
Now we've got to the root of the problem, let's see if we can resolve in. In part (B) we'll consider the "easy option" of what could euphemistically be called a commercial arrangement but what most people call whoring, but in (A) let's consider what can be done to address the fundamentals of it.
A - Inward Improvements
The biggest problem set out in (I)(B) above is probably the social skills. Being a sperg this is probably the root cause of the problem. The black dog, antidepressant usage, low self esteem, all come from this. Even the fact that I was willing to put up with untold mistreatment comes from this. I was thinking that I have no option but to take it, and take it, and take it, and suck it down, because nobody else would ever want anything to do with me. This was one thing that AE said to me at one point and given my history with relationships I kind of thought she was telling the truth. I felt like I was very much in the last chance saloon. Of course I know now that being single and alone is better than being shackled to someone who thinks that of you and acts accordingly. But it isn't a solution. Fundamentally, I appear to suck calamitously as socialising. And unfortunately, there is no solution to this. I expand.
Practice at socialising does not help. As stated above, it ends up with me alienating people and spilling spaghetti everywhere. Even when it's with people I know I manage to alienate them after a while or upset them somehow without understanding how or why and asking them how or why I've done this doesn't elicit any explanation, as if they expect me to somehow guess at it or pick it up by osmosis. (This was incidentally what the Alcoholic Ex used to do whenever she was in a snit with me. Just ***ing say it rather than make me play stupid guessing games you cancerous ***holes.) I thought at one point as a student this was something soluble by brute force and ignorance. I had also almost fallen in with the PUA (pickup artist) crowd, sort of, who recommend "attempt 500 approaches" as a strategy. This doesn't work. A saying about insanity and repeating the same failed methods over and again in the hope it'll succeed comes to mind. This is also why I find it difficult to get into anything social really. I tend to either spill spaghetti or freeze and panic and hide. I tried to join a writing group back in 2016 over this and the latter happened. Then there was in 2014 being banned from all offline meets from some other website I used to post on for reasons that made no sense and were as far as I could see outside of my control. A used I asked on that side sent me an e-mail about it. I read it as "we hate you because you're an autist, go die in a fire."
(For the record, I didn't fully get in to pickup artistry. I noticed that it was all a scam. They basically sell you books and seminars which they promised to tell you their secret methods, then they give you a load of psychobabble and a signup for the next paid seminar.)
In a sentence, socialising is therefore far too much risk and cost and effort for little to no reward on any level or prospect of success. It's just not a worthwhile value proposition. The cost/benefit analysis doesn't add up.
In 2012 at one point I signed up for social skills classes for autists. I lasted one session before binning it off because it felt like stuff I already knew, and because, oddly enough, I was not spergy enough! Honestly, the people there were bigger sperglords than I and I think at least some of them might have needed actual support workers to function day to day. This wasn't me and I didn't want to waste other peoples' time anyhow. It didn't seem to be providing the answers that I wanted. The really frustrating thing is that I can understand the theory behind everything, I think, almost, but can't put it into practice. It also really makes me angry that other people seem to get it effortlessly and I just don't even when it is explicitly explained to me. It's like my brain is broken. I can probably liken it to having some sort of social equivalent of motor neurone disease. Much as you know how to make your limbs and extremities move, they just don't want to.
A user on another board suggested speed dating. Went a few times as there's a bi-weekly thing in my area that does it for over 30s. Though this week it mysteriously got cancelled after all the women pulled out, oddly enough just after I signed up. I don't think it's connected because they had no way of knowing that I was coming beforehand. Unless the organisers spotted me and decided that I wasn't the sort of person they wanted to go along because reasons they lack the testicular fortitude to tell me and hid it behind a smokescreen.
Most of my interests are a sausage fest so I won't meet anyone there. Whenever I try new things, like a writing group or more recently a board game type thing, I felt like I was excluded because I was being systematically ignored. I ended up hiding in a corner trying not to cry and then claimed I needed the toilet and just ran out the building before I lost it irretrievably. I have lost it irretrievably in public before for that reason - feeling excluded and like when I try to talk to people they ignore or shun me, as if they can smell something wrong or dangerous about me. I feel like it is something I have no control over but I am being punished for it anyhow.
I was clocked as a sperglord by 2 of the women the last time I went speed dating around 2 weeks ago. They just came out and asked me pretty much. And I all but heard their interest completely vanish when I said that I was. Turns out that if you do some googling autism seems very much the ultimate red flag because nobody wants to put in the effort to try to work with you on things like that. I think this is frankly disgusting. Would you write off someone who had no legs because you couldn't be arsed to push their wheelchair atimes? Well, yes, yes people would, in all honesty, but they wouldn't openly admit it. There used to be a site called Heartless Aspergers or something which was basically a giant catalogue of women moaning about how autists are all awful people and wilfully refused to meet their emotional needs (which seemed to require ESP to determine). This is not the only such site. Reddit and Quora are full of similar tales.
I do not have a formal diagnosis but professionals have in the passed tried to get me one. I have refused it on all occasions and still do because I don't want the stigma of that attached to my person. And I'm sorry, but there IS a stigma despite what people may claim.
(I wouldn't, for the record, turn down someone just because they had no legs. I'd happily be with someone who was physically disabled in such a way. It doesn't make them a bad person.)
I didn't spill spaghetti at any of the speed dating efforts recently but despite attempting the Glengarry Glen Ross method ("ALWAYS BE CLOSING!") got 0 matches on every occasion. I quite enjoyed going even if it was a failure, though getting 0 matches made me so full of the black dog on one occasion that I was still upset about it on Sunday morning and ended up ringing the Samaritans. Who listened and nodded to simulate comprehension but didn't actually suggest anything workable or specific.
I was on antidepressants for years. I have got off them though because the one I was on, venlafaxine, was more trouble than worth. It also was giving me utterly weirded out dreams and I felt wonky in the brain if I was late with a dose. I'm not going back there. Counselling sort of worked but I was only allowed six session ever because R NHS is not worth the tax stolen from me every month and spends it on adminstrative crap and nonsense rather than stuff that might help, and pointing this out to them makes them angry for some inexplicable reason. I refused to clap for them for this reason.
Being a Big Lad is probably the most soluble issue frankly. Which I am dealing with. Like I said, I'm down by over 18 kg since Christmas 2021.
The only solution that really might fit is some sort of way of instilling confidence by basically playing a character. But that is a hollow solution and seems to paper over the cracks. I am well aware, contrary to what you might think, of the saying, "if you can't fight, wear a big hat." I have used it in litigation. What happens when you are called on this is not pretty and leads to dismal failure as well as wasted time. Also, could I really keep up a character for an indefinite period of time? I don't think I could.
I am not prepared to change my political or social views for anyone. That is not an acceptable solution to anything. If you give up your principles then your principles aren't worth having. I might hide my power level until I was sure they could be trusted but that brings me on to the next point. How can I be sure they are trustworthy? I find it difficult to trust anyone if I'm honest for various reasons for obvious reasons (see above). Myself, I like to ensure that I can verify things before I believe them and I always like to insist on some sort of surety if I'm putting myself at risk of any form of betrayal. I had a work colleague very early on who moaned to our mutual employer about something I posted online (I made the mistake of adding them on faceache) and got bollocked over it because my liking Skyclad's song "My Naked I" (even though she was not mentioned in the post whatever, it was just a song I liked) made her feel "unsafe." For the same reasons I've generally never discussed any of this with people I know IRL because I cannot be sure I can trust them, other than family, who weren't really much help.
Looking at how I did manage to get lucky in the past, usually it is literally more by luck than judgement. There was one lass I met as a student who I did succeed in getting into the bed of. Leanne her name was, and she was very witty and I could keep up with her but she wasn't interested much after that. Either she was only in the market for one and done or I was so dismal a shag it put her right off. Pity. I liked her. And from what I spoke to her about that didn't involve trading innuendo she was what we'd nowadays call based. But she buggered right off without an explanation or anything. The only thing that really fits is that I was totally uninterested on those occasions in getting with anyone at all. But then this was also the reason why I obliviously missed out on a lot of things as a student as well.
B - Commercial Shortcuts
Whoring, basically. (For the avoidance of doubt this is legal in the UK.)
The question that must be asked is this. Do I want someone for a long term relationship or just to dunk my dinger. If the latter, then why not go and hire a hooker. Now I have considered this. I have done my homework into working girls in my area, how not to get scammed on Adultwork, how not to get scammed, how to recognise a bait and switch, how to avoid obviously trafficked sex workers, and what sort of rate I can expect to pay and still get value for money. I could probably do this fairly easily. I have an old Galaxy S3 backup phone that I could slap a PAYG sim into and log in to Adultwork using a burner Gmail and a VPN. I could find someone a couple towns over and even adopt a persona under a false name that I use when doing this. Maybe hop on the train to avoid having to risk parking in iffy places even.
Were I to do this, the not having had any in years problem would be resolved in a stroke.
Of course it has its own risks but by doing one's homework one can alleviate those. Basically, I'm told that one should never pay a deposit, walk immediately if the girl who answers the door is not the one in her AW profile, agree all services in advance, park legally a couple streets away in case her pimp likes breaking in to cars while you're engaged, bring nothing in other than the socket money agreed in advance and your burner phone so there's nothing to steal, use your false name at all times, and shower afterwards so you don't smell of... whatever she might smell like. Oh, and if there's even a sniff you think she might be trafficked or exploited for gain, walk immediately because it's an offence to have sex with a trafficked person even if you didn't know they were trafficked.
It therefore occurred to me that I can't have done this because I don't want it. The whole business would make me feel, well, unsatisfied. I'm not just wanting to sling my muck up some tart. I'd much rather find someone who I can have a meaningful relationship with, because at that, I kind of am a virgin. Every single one was failed or defective somehow but I stuck with it like a glutton for punishment and in a triumph of optimism over reality. I think Masuimi could have been such a one but I didn't push it anything beyond the casual level because I didn't realise at the time how much of a torch she was carrying for me and I think I probably hurt her. And it wouldn't be fair to truck off to Kyoto years later and impose myself on her and would be doomed to failure in any event. AE probably could have been if she wasn't a soak and a *** and a drama llama. Leila was what I should have learnt from but too sperglicious to realise that if someone is prepared to keep you hanging around just to satiate their own ego they are best avoided. But I had internalised the idea that nobody would want me for me anyhow because they didn't seem to.
On the other hand, maybe I am being too ambitious here and the reality of the matter is that the occasional commercial arrangement with a friendly tart who, if she sneers at me, at least has the decency to do so where I'll never find out is probably what might at least help, even if it's solely on the "okay to practice on" level so I don't totally forget how to do it and end up spilling spaghetti or failing to keep the milk in the bucket once I do find a gf and she gets her knickers off. This however is another can of worms - isn't having ever hired a prostitute also considered a "red flag" for some reasons or another (even though I know for a fact that more men have bought sex than will ever admit to it), and I'd have to be sure that I could keep my adventures in buying it totally secret from her under all circumstances. Which would in effect mean denying that I even have done the homework above, and to say nothing of if the rubber breaks and I come down with a dose of the syph or herpes (which is a friend for life).
There is no conclusion, other than to say, over to you. What I would like to know is this:
1. What am I doing wrong that I put people off before I've even spoken to them, and that they seem to circle the wagons against me to exclude me on sight?
2. What exactly is the right things to say and do to get them to be interested but at the same time not seeming desperate of forward? If you can provide a flowchart, even partially, that might be useful. Please answer this without speaking in riddles.
3. Where do I find someone that I won't just spill my spaghetti, have panic attacks, or similar?
4. How do I not creep people out? What is the correct thing to say and do that would prevent this yet not seem boring yet be able to be authentically me? Please give worked examples and flowcharts.
5. If it truly is a numbers game, how do I "fudge the dice," so to speak, as other people seem able to? Give detail and examples and full explanations. I accept some people are naturally more sociable than others, but what are they doing that I'm not that means that when they go to meet new people and attempt relationships and dating, they get successes, while I get shunned and accused of being a creep probably as a result of my autism, and then by being excluded or ejected from the locale, am punished for something that I have no control over. Give examples and step by step guides.
