Is it common for women to have had a negative experience with an autistic man in their life?

Mentathiel · 2025-01-13T09:45:27+00:00

I know a few autistic men, some with a formal diagnosis, some not yet but they think they have it, but none of them have crossed any sexual boundaries or anything of that nature. They did violate some social norms in ways that can make people uncomfortable and can sometimes be easy to anger and difficult to talk to when they're triggered and feel like you aren't listening to them, but nothing I would call creepy, if anything it can seem either awkward or childish, but not like a violation of any sort.

I wouldn't generalize this experience, but I didn't have the problems you describe I'd say.

flipsidetroll · 2025-01-13T08:16:15+00:00

I’ve never had a negative experience with an autistic man. The only autistic man I know is my friend’s son. If I’ve had a negative experience with a man, and he is autistic, then I didn’t know he was.

_weedkiller_ · 2025-01-13T13:52:37+00:00

I am autistic.

Yes I have had problems with Autistic men.
Most recently it was at autism conference where one man was following me around and asking me to go to his room despite me expressing disinterest.

Another man at the same conference was talking to me about sexual stuff and paying excessive attention to me. He is actually in a polyamorous relationship with my friend. I spoke to my friend about it, they had a word with him and then he sulked for the rest of the time I was there and walked off whenever I went to talk to my friend.

As an autistic person myself I have had times where a person becomes like a special interest almost and I hyper focus on them. I do understand this may be happening for them but that’s not an excuse to follow me or make sexualised comments.

My only option now is to just be rude and very obviously unfriendly towards autistic men, to avoid them getting the wrong idea.

operajunkie · 2025-01-13T06:44:04+00:00

For me as a neurodivergent women, yes. I tried to give one a chance but he’d been hardcore red pilled and was now not only awkward and socially clueless, but also extremely obnoxious on top of it.

I don’t bother now.

hearyoume14 · 2025-01-13T06:49:20+00:00

I’m an AuDHD woman whose traits mostly present like a female autist and a mixture for my combo-ADHD.

The men I speak of had Asperger’s diagnoses.

1.I assume you were raised to have some social awareness. I have known autistic people whose parents (usually their moms) catered to them and excused their bad behavior so any negative traits were amplified.Think spoiled child behavior. I feel that this is also a generational thing as I’m mainly around fellow millennials or older people. When I was diagnosed with Asperger’s they told me that it is a mild social disorder…

2.I have had negative experiences myself. Mainly with stereotypical male autistics. They behave badly and then blame it on the autism.I know woman who self label themselves as presenting in a more male manner and they do not behave this way.

3.Every group has their anti-social members. It could be their behavior differs with you as a fellow guy but you are probably around men who weren’t raised as previously stated.

I will admit that I often don’t get along with other autistic people so my negative experiences might be influenced by that.

spanglesandbambi · 2025-01-13T07:53:38+00:00

I mean, mine is my Dad he is a horrible creature (we are talking criminal charges) and uses his ASD as an excuse for his behaviour.

I think the issue, though, is not the ASD but the way people around that person have treated them. If it becomes an excuse for poor behaviour, of course, they are more likely to turn into awful adults.

pentatonicartichoke · 2025-01-13T10:41:32+00:00

I've had far more positive experiences than negative. Same story as with neurotypical men. You'll find assholes in any group.

yamb97 · 2025-01-13T14:42:33+00:00

I don’t think the problem itself is autism. That being said, yes I absolutely have had a bad experience with a man (just one) with autism who became very hyper focused on me. He constantly and consistently projected his thoughts onto me. He refused to accept any explicitly stated boundaries of mine and would go as far as arguing with me for weeks on end about how my feelings are wrong but whatever he wanted to do was right. I honestly just think his issue was never being told no. He used his autism as an excuse for nearly everything. I ended up having to make a complaint which got him fired and I do feel like shit for it, but my work has been a much happier calmer place since.

I think a lot of men probably act this way but autistic men are bad at navigating it in a way that makes them not look like a total ass.

hellokittysarchenemy · 2025-01-13T10:22:09+00:00

I wouldn’t say negative, but concerning.

I’ve noticed that autistic men will put me on a pedestal, they look at me in awe. You think this would be flattering, but they idolize the image of me they’ve made up in their head. They don’t care about the real me, even when I’ve attempted to correct them.

This happened years ago when an autistic man confessed that he was in love with me, despite knowing nothing about me.

RelativeYak7 · 2025-01-13T12:42:06+00:00

I prefer neurodivergent men and/or super smart weirdos. It's just my thing. My dad was like that so I'm used to the negatives. The super quiet autists can be frustrating to deal with.

HappyCat79 · 2025-01-13T11:06:08+00:00

Yes and no. My ex is autistic and he was very abusive. The love of my life whom I am with now is also autistic and he is absolutely wonderful. I also have 2 autistic sons. My older son is starting to turn out more like his father with little respect for women and unable to relate to women, which is unfortunate- but hopefully he turns it around before his personality sets in. My younger son thus far is more influenced by his stepdad and will hopefully learn by his example. My older son didn’t have his stepdad’s influence until he was 14, and they butt heads because my son disrespects me and his stepfather sticks up for me. Not in a loud of aggressive way, but it still ticks my older son off. My 12 year old stepson is also autistic and he used to be pretty violent and awful but he has a traumatic brain injury and that’s a big cause of his violence. He has been waaaaay better over the last year. He’s sweet and loving most of the time now.

But anyhow, I have never had a LTR with a man who isn’t autistic and neurotypical people and I don’t usually click well. Like neurotypical people, autistic people have a range in behavior and just because one autistic guy treated me like shit doesn’t mean they all do or would.

EssentialPurity · 2025-01-13T11:52:28+00:00

The problem is not Autism per se. The problem is how society is set up, in a way that anyone with any sort of disadvantage may end up flowing into dark places.

This is why you see radical Manosphere groups having an overrepresentation of people in the Spectrum. It's not the Spectrum that makes people bad, rather the Spectrum makes it very likely for them to experience the brunt of societal injustices and cultural flaws so they naturally develop strong sentiments of that things need to change.

I am ND myself (although diagnosed StPD and also taking medication for ADHD) and I can say that most negative experiences people have with NDs is just the tip of the iceberg of a long chain of failures. Women don't get the worst of it all for the simple reason that society already has very bigoted, low expectations from women's behaviours, and that very few ND women make it to adulthood without being very good at Masking.

UpbeatInsurance5358 · 2025-01-13T10:47:44+00:00

I married a man who was autistic. I didn't know this of course, and tbh it wouldn't have bothered me anyway. What did bother me wasn't necessarily the lack of capability to adapt to changes and transitions, but the vitriol in the reactions. We are now divorced, and while I still care about him, he simply wasn't capable of working within a family unit in order to raise children healthily. I also know the stress and strain of it drove everyone to unhealthy coping habits. Tbh there's just too much, between his lack of coping with responsibility and his childhood trauma that he didn't get the help for it ended up with him being physically violent and me drinking myself into oblivion. Funnily I'm now with a man who was recommended testing but again wasn't (he probably is) - but he can do the daily tasks of raising a family, he loves me and the kids and I love him very much.

I also discovered that I didn't think much about my ex being "quirky" ( and he is) because about 2/3 of my family have now been diagnosed as on the spectrum, including both of my children....

So in short, it's not the autism it's the person.

lle-ell · 2025-01-13T11:16:13+00:00

I can’t speak for all women, but I’ve personally had several bad experiences with autistic men. I also have had great experiences being friends with autistic men, but I’d be hesitant to date one. My experience is that the cluelessness autistic people sometimes display can be outright harmful.

-Shes-A-Carnival · 2025-01-13T17:40:22+00:00

i dont understand, are people who are diagnosed with autism unaware that it is a significant impairment in human socializing and the formation of human connection?

Alternative_Chain330 · 2025-01-13T18:15:20+00:00

I have had a bad experience, but I wouldn't say that on aggregate they are worse than neurotypical men.

Most creative, interesting people are on the spectrum, so naturally I'm drawn to them (as long as they're the extraverted kind).

AutoModerator · 2025-01-13T06:04:38+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "Debate" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Innanaspeaks · 2025-01-13T13:00:31+00:00

Yes. Im autistic myself. I have had the following issues:

black and white thinking especially when it comes to gender roles.
limited sphere of interest. They only want to talk about thier own niche interests and do what they want to do. I was expected to join in thier interests but when it came to mine they wanted me to find a friend to do it with instead.
difficulties with teasing and banter. They took it personally, got upset and then over- retaliated.
difficulties recognising when interest wasn't returned and kept pursuing.
making hurtful comments which , though technically the truth, didnt need saying e.g. you have a spot, you've gained weight etc. They believed that if it was true then i had no right to be upset.
never wanting to have light hearted and whimsical interactions- they always wanted to have serious chats. Sometimes you just need to be silly.
generally self- centered and arrogant.

Sorcha16 · 2025-01-13T14:52:22+00:00

No more so than I've had issues with neurotypical menm

CatchPhraze · 2025-01-13T15:02:00+00:00

Some autistic men will only talk about what interests them, call things they don't like dumb, and play the perpetual victim when their selfish behavior earns them backlash. I've met a few. But I've also met a few good ones.

Autism makes hiding who you are harder, a selfish or mean person will be that turned up to a 9. But so will a good kind person.

YMMV.

Werevulvi · 2025-01-13T17:48:04+00:00

I'm also autistic and tend to be generally drawn towards men who are also autistic, but I have dated both autistic and neurotypical men, and in my experience there hasn't really been any dramatic difference in who's worse at respecting boundaries. However, it does seem like men who are autistic are possibly more likely to have a poor or skew understanding of boundaries.

Fyi I'd much rather date a guy who's just ignorant about how boundaries work with no ill intent, than a guy who doesn't give a shit. Also because I know being autistic can mean we sometimes don't get or make sense of certain social rules, etiquette, etc. So that's not me trying to be all shaming, or making any kinda moral judgement. It's fine. As long as there's some kinda interest to learn. I mean I'm sure there are some social shit I don't understand either, and that an autistic guy may be able to teach me.

Sillysheila · 2025-01-14T05:34:51+00:00

Well I have autism and I was early diagnosed in the late 1990s so I grew up with a lot of different autistic boys and men.

I’ve had mixed experiences overall. It wasn’t even really to do with dating/romance for most of the autistic boys. I found for a lot of them when I bluntly told them I wasn’t interested the good thing about them is they’re rule followers so most just leave you be, and respect it, it was honestly a lot better than experiences I had with NTs in that regard.

It’s just that some of them were perhaps too blunt or rude. Women with autism generally tend to be a bit more sensitive, so for the guys that were kind of gruff I didn’t really want to be around them. We also didn’t have many interests in common often, and some of them would believe girl’s interests were “worse” than boy’s interests or laugh etc. Some were also more angry or perhaps grizzly on average than I am, so that didn’t make a good friendship combination because I’m just not like this.

I had a lot of very positive experiences with autistic men though. I had a drama and acting group specifically for teenagers with autism and there were a lot of kind boys there who really did care about how I was going and were genuinely invested in my wellbeing. We would went back and forth about growing up autistic, and this is honestly how I got into the topics of PPD specifically; listening particularly to boy’s issues on the spectrum, bullying by other boys, feeling inadequate in masculinity, dating woes etc.

I had some close guy friends with autism growing up because of my more masculine and autism dominant hobbies; things like board gaming and video gaming. I’d do stuff like that with my mates and we’d talk about life, how difficult it was to socialise and not embarrass ourselves. I still do have some links to autistic men today through the board gaming hobby because it’s one of the things I do in my spare time, go to strategy game meets.

Disastrous-Chart-928 · 2025-01-13T19:06:10+00:00

Autistic men are what made me come out of the toxic misandrist/femcel spaces, part of maturing is realising real men are just big silly softies. It also made me realise just how harsh life is for these men, they're just suffering in silence.

I think basically all men are autistic in some capacity, at least real men. If I sat down all the men in my area down to do a screening test I'm certain they'd all come back with a fairly certain score xD

That being said no, my partner is autistic, his friends are autistic; grandfather is certainly autistic. I adore autistic men, I recommend them to every girl I can. They won't cheat on you, spend hours looking at Instagram girls, go out and grind with girls at raves while on drugs... all they want to do is enjoy their little lives in peace and quiet, when they make friends they're truly bonded as well and just as unproblematic.

I will say they need their alone time, so if you're intensely clingy it could be a problem. They very much need their own space to carry out their little hobbies, which is nice in it's self so many neurotypical men and especially women have hobbies that extend to swiping on social media and yapping.

S0yslut · 2025-01-13T10:22:14+00:00

I don’t go around asking/assuming people have autism. That feels mean.

AngeAware · 2025-01-13T14:44:48+00:00

If you're a woman in any male-dominated field, hobby, etc. yes you do get a good amount of experience with autistic men both positive and negative. Especially being neurodivergent yourself.

Most positive case would be my SO, who I met at a bookstore, definitely has ADHD, was never formally diagnosed with autism but has many traits of it. I actually didn't get a good look directly into his eyes for quite a while since he isn't comfortable making eye contact with people unless he knows them extremely well. I treasure the fact that he's comfortable enough to look directly into my eyes now. They're beautiful. He's always been polite and kind. He always apologizes if he interrupts or accidentally speaks over me. I'm his first romantic partner, and the way he's adapted and learned to be an amazing, attentive SO means the world to me.

The negative cases essentially involve ND men who are the exact opposite of my SO. Saying inappropriate things in inappropriate contexts, talking over people, interrupting people, complete lack of awareness of social cues and lack of interest in learning. Another thing I've noticed is resentment/disdain toward people who act exactly like them, ime they will almost always gravitate toward the more masking and polite ND people like my SO and I. He has more patience for it than I do but even he acknowledges how exhausting it can be and needs his space from it at times. I saw a post once about ND people not getting along, and a highly upvoted answer was the different degrees of masking causing frustration/incompatibility.

MailenJokerbell · 2025-01-13T16:11:28+00:00

It ultimately depends on the guys experiences and awareness of his situation. I have friends on the spectrum that are hyper aware of their behaviors and mask accordingly. They're considerate so they are clear of no-no's even if they don't agree with them.

Then I see other people who use their neurodivergence as an excuse to act like assholes. You're responsible for your own neurodivergence and need to plan accordingly.

Personal example: I have bipolar and ADHD, possibly mild 'tism but I'm not gonna pay for that test. Bipolar is no longer an issue as my meds have basically eradicated by suicidal depression (sadly not the impulsive side of the mania, as my credit card would complain about). My ADHD I am highly aware of so I do a conscious effort to not show it depending on the type of people I am around. Meaning, I try not to overwhelm people with information nobody gives a fuck about and try to be as present as possible when talking to people. I also avoid noisy and distracting ticks, opting for something that would not affect people (opening and closing a cap in my pocket, for example). I know from my posible 'tism side that certain sounds and movements highly annoy me so I extend the same grace I want to be extended to me.

MiddleZealousideal89 · 2025-01-13T17:43:07+00:00

I'm not sure if the guy was autistic or something else was going on, so I'm not sure if it's appropriate for this thread. There was this one dude who ended up being banned from every expat bar in town due to his behaviour - he'd walk into the bar/club, pick a woman, and then he'd follow her around and ask her to go home with him until he inevitably got kicked out. He followed me around for one evening, I ran into some male friends of mine at the club and just chilled with them for a bit, the guy never pestered women if there were men around them. It wasn't a great experience, even if it wasn't necessarily scary.

I have friends who are on the spectrum, and they're great people, they try to be polite and respectful and will listen if you tell them they're going too far with something or if they're making inappropriate jokes, hogging the conversation with their special interest, etc.

StrugglingSoprano · 2025-01-13T23:31:48+00:00

I think this kind of counts but I have no hard feelings towards the guy

Back in high school, there was this guy that I met in my school’s chess club that was on the spectrum. He was really smart and funny and we actually developed feelings for each other and were sort of unofficially dating. The problem is that he was an unrepentant asshole to basically everyone else and thought he was smarter than anyone he came across (the kind of guy that uses brutal honesty as justification for shitting on people). I thought it was kind of endearing because I was a dumb 15 year old and it made me feel special that I was the only one he had any respect for or treated nicely.

Things fell apart because any time I brought him around other people, he was rude and condescending. He also had beef with just about everyone in his entire grade. We remained friends but I distanced myself from him after that.

To this day I have a lot of neurodivergent friends because I’m neurodivergent myself and I find that I tend to click with them easier. A lot of autistic guys are really chill and fun to hang out with but there are some who struggle a lot with social cues and boundaries.

kayceeplusplus · 2025-01-14T06:25:33+00:00

lol yes. Me and most of my ND women friends.

Objective_Ad_6265 · 2025-01-14T17:25:45+00:00

I'm not neurotypical myself but it's not that bad in my case. An autistic guy literaly told mev"I'm ugly, you are ugly si let's be together", we didn't even understand each other and had no chemistry. And then he fed me red pill bullshit. He looked totaly normal and I just wasn't his type, I'm definitely not ugly.

He just thought he was ugly because women are not attracted ti him, in reality it's not looks but lack of social skills.

I also used to think I'm ugly but that's because I don't pick up non-verbal signals so I just don't notice and I also have some non approachable aura as I don't make eye contact, walk fast... I already learned I'm pretty and attractive, it's just neurodivergence that is blocking you from seeing the signals and I also don't know how to send the signals.

Outside_Memory5703 · 2025-01-13T15:27:20+00:00

Plenty of the users here and in the manosphere subs have said they are

Realistic-Ad-1023 · 2025-01-13T21:47:11+00:00

It really depends on the type of autism. I worked with developmentally disabled adults and autism really is just a catch all for a group of symptoms that might be related. Some get their diagnosis just for having a mild intellectual impairment and nothing else fits; and some people who have lower support needs just seem to have a social deficit.

They recently merged Asperger‘s and Autism spectrum disorder but I do foresee there coming a day when more nuance diagnosis are available.

That being said, half of the autistic men I interacted with made me uncomfortable - and I’m autistic. I’m very comfortable with awkward. These men aren’t awkward, they’re hateful and violent. And typically of very average to below average iq and eq. But they think they have a higher iq than they do and are thus easily tricked into grifts, conspiracy theories, and other harmful communities.

The other half are wonderful. My two best friends are guys with autism. They’re great.

Sophiatab · 2025-01-13T22:13:59+00:00

Autistic men with a formal diagnosis, no. Once I explained the rules I have about dating I never had a problem with an autistic men who had an actual professional diagnosis of autism. It's the self-diagnosis guys that are problems. They were always assholes. I suspect they were using the description of being autistic as an excuse for their horrible behavior.

Title	Is it common for women to have had a negative experience with an autistic man in their life?
Author	Stock-Argument-1040
Upvotes	31
Comments	93
Date	January 13, 2025 6:04 AM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1i07k44/is_it_common_for_women_to_have_had_a_negative/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/is-it-common-for-women-to-have-had-a-negative.1541080 https://theredarchive.com/post/1541080

Comments