Teenage Aspies and Date Sense

I'm often asked to contribute ideas and concepts to assist others in writing situations involving people with Asperger's and other ASDs. I find these questions quite interesting because they get me to look into areas of my past which I've "moved-on" from. Sometimes looking at these situations with fresh eyes helps me to understand myself better and quite often it makes me cringe.

Often, as is the case here, it highlights things that I just haven't covered properly on the blog.

The question I was asked this time was about how an autistic person would prepare for a first date in terms of clothes and gift shopping. The presumption is that we're talking about a male on a first date.

Is it a date?

For a start, it's quite probable that the person wouldn't know whether it was a date or just "going out". I know that in society, these terms are often interchangeable but to a person on the spectrum who is very word-specific, they might not be. I can remember agreeing to go out with a girl and then wondering exactly where we were going out.

As it turned out, we weren't going out anywhere. Even worse, I discovered via friends that she was upset that we weren't holding hands. Nobody told me that we were supposed to be holding hands - hey, we were just going out... weren't we?

It's just as probable that a person on the spectrum won't have had any "romantic" thoughts about that particular person. He may like certain attributes but he won't necessarily feel love or infatuation. This isn't to say that aspies are emotionless but just to suggest that often these things won't appear until later in the relationship. Certainly not on the first date.

In an example from my past, I thought that this girl had beautiful hair. I hadn't considered her personality or any other part of her appearance - just her hair. It looked nice. This all would have worked out fine and maybe it would have been the start of "something beautiful" except for one thing - the very next day, she got a haircut.

For me, that ended the relationship before it had started. 100% of the things I liked about that particular girl were gone overnight.

The Flip Side

Of course, there's always the flip side where the person on the spectrum has become so focused on the other person that they have more or less become a special interest. In that case, the aspie will presume that the whole thing is about romance, potentially with a specific end in mind -- even when it isn't. 

Those sort of assumptions can ruin a date very easily.

Date Tokens (Flowers, Chocolates Etc)

Aspies, and male aspies in particular, don't usually understand the importance of flowers or other date tokens. I remember being quite shocked at my girlfriend's suggestion of flowers because she'd never shown any interest in them before. My mother loves flowers and she's always showing me her garden and talking about them. Getting my mother flowers is obvious. It's something that she loves and talks about. 

My girlfriend never ever did this - so why the sudden interest in flowers? 

Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay

I've since learned that you're supposed to get flowers and that it doesn't matter whether or not a girl has any interest in them - it's simply "expected". Of course, getting flowers is a whole new level of complication. Since my girlfriend had never shown any interest in flowers and since they were obviously just a "token", it didn't make sense to me to spend a lot of money.

I know where to go or what to do because it was the first time. So, initially I just went for the obvious;

Red roses at a florist. I paid an absolute fortune and because I knew that it was customary for the male to pay for the date, I quickly realised that I couldn't sustain a financial hit like that more than about once every fortnight. 

Of course, these aren't the sorts of things that you're supposed to communicate to a girl (and she kept hassling for us to go out more often). I couldn't lie and I couldn't tell the truth - so I simply clammed up. 

In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best thing to do.

I looked around for cheaper sources of flowers and discovered that most petrol stations sold them. I started picking them up from there but they often didn't have roses and sometimes their flowers looked worse for wear. After a bit of correction (being told that they were too scruffy), I started pick them up at supermarkets - this is probably the best place.

Of course, the problem with supermarket flowers is that there are a whole lot of different varieties to choose from and no experts to guide you. 

Apparently the flowers all have their own secret messages. For instance, carnations and chrysanthemum should be bought for mothers - not girlfriends. Of course, I always chose the flowers which looked "coolest" to me. That usually meant that they had impressive decorations, like outlines on the petals, neat stripes, interesting shapes (orchids) or cool christmassy-shaped leaves.

They didn't all go down well but at least they were unique.

Clothes Shopping

A male aspie on a date wouldn't even consider clothes shopping to be important. They'd tend to think "I already have clothes" and would probably be completely unaware that he might need to get different clothes. He might even turn up in something which was very comfortable but totally inappropriate.

I know that on several of my early dates, my clothing prevented us from getting into clubs.

Clothes shopping with people on the spectrum is always difficult because they will reject a lot of the fabrics based on their texture. He'd probably find a lot of visual turn offs, for example, he could decide that he hates a certain type of buttons, which unfortunately usually end up being the main fashion item of the season. Even worse, he may not like the idea of buttons at all. 

I had significant button turn-offs but but worst of them were "tiger buttons". They made a lot of shirts completely inaccessible for me. 

Additionally, there may be certain fabrics which attract him but aren't really recommended for dates (felt/velvet is a good example of this). I had a few velvet shirts when I was younger and couldn't stop petting myself.

Shopping is always a stressful affair and lighting, sound and crowd issues would compound it. If he wasn't given appropriate space, an autistic person could start to have real anxiety issues and he'd probably be babbling/talking a lot and playing with his hands (fidgeting) while shopping.

If he has any obvious special interests (eg: Star Wars), then his taste in clothes could lean towards that. He may tend to pick out clothing with Star Wars logos on it - or even just subconsciously pick all white to look like a storm trooper etc. His idea of cool would not be the same as everyone else's. 

As a kid, I was always dressing in all black. Maybe some people thought I was goth but really I just wanted to be like Darth Vader.

General Stress

While shopping an aspie would probably be mentally stressing out about where they were going or who they were going with. Given the sensitivity issues with lights, smoke, loud noises and crowds, he might be concerned if there was no clear agenda to the date.

For example, one of the ultimate over-stimulation destinations is the dance floor - and it's a popular place to go on dates. A person with autism may stress out about it even if the date wasn't necessarily going there. 

His questions could be "what if she wants to go to a disco etc" .... even when reassured (she probably won't go there), he'd keep talking about it. "I don't think I could take all those smoke smells, I really hate smoke. Smoking should be banned. Nobody should be allowed to smoke". It would appear, to an outside observer, as probably quite neurotic and repetitive behaviour.

Questions

Would an aspie ask a lot of questions about the date? No. As far as questions are concerned, he'd probably not ask too many because he wouldn't think to ask them. What would happen though is that the conversation would reveal certain inaccuracies and the person with him would hopefully seize upon them and provide useful advice.

This example conversation could almost be a conversation I had with my own mother about 15 years ago.

MOM: "how about these pants"

BOY: "oh no, they're not good"

MOM: "why"

BOY: "They're just not what I want to wear"

MOM: "but what's wrong with them? Is it the colour?"

BOY: "ohh... yes...and that little stripe on them "

MOM: "what little stripe?"

BOY: "down there,... " [points to something so small that probably nobody would have seen it]

MOM: "that's just a pattern"

BOY: "yes but I don't like it."

MOM: "but they all have it"

BOY: "well, I can't wear it - and anyway, it won't go with the shoes"

MOM: "what shoes"

BOY: "you know, the sneakers"

MOM: "what! you're not wearing sneakers tonight"

BOY: "but they're comfortable"

MOM: "you need new shoes"

BOY: "I want to wear my sneakers"

MOM: "they won't let you into a club wearing sneakers"

BOY: "but I don't want to go into a club"

MOM: "yes, but she might"

BOY: "why?"

.... and the conversation would continue.

You can see that the boy isn't really asking questions but that his mother is "discovering" his intentions and then just offering advice. An experienced mother would know to do this. A friend would not. A sister would probably be a bit different - somewhere in between a friend and a mother in her reaction.