The vacuum post about the Dream Girl got me thinking about this whole ideal about dating as a woman that is neurodivergent, but hopefully everyone can get something out of it. Also this is long af, but I tried to make a TLDR at the bottom.

It should surprise exactly no one that LVM/NVM men tend to date parasitically based on what their lives lack. For example, we see a lot of men who want a mommy or bangmaid because they’re filthy, lazy and view romantic relationships in solely sexual terms. There are men who want therapist girlfriends because they lack the ability to be alone with their thoughts and have shallow, unfulfilling relationships with other men. These are all pretty well-documented on FDS.

But a big subset of men, that I haven’t seen discussed much is boring men projecting their own insecurity of their lame lives in the form of a manic pixie dream girl...friend. For the uninitated, MPDG is a trope where women only exist to show smart-yet-boring, unhappy men how exciting life can be if they jUsT eMbRaCe non-conformity. MPDG’s have no wants, needs or demands for their lives, their only purpose is to support a man’s journey towards personal growth. They allow men to get everything they want with none of the responsibility for reciprocity.

It’s a trap that I frequently find myself forced into, and something I have to be constantly aware of. I have ADHD which makes me a uniquely intense person to be around, and I want to caution other ADHD/neurodivergent ladies to take special care to watch for this behavior. Men, but especially LVM/NVM men, are drawn to our demeanor because they think we’re interesting and novel. This type of man is a combination of a desperate desire to be the savior/hero and the cool, deep guy.

This type of man is much more insidious than the your garden variety bangmaid-seeker, mostly because on the surface, they seem genuinely interested in your hobbies, values, and joie de vivre. They ask lots of questions about your life, and ask your opinions and follow-up with other questions showing they’re actually listening to you. They tell you how much they admire your outlook. All good right? After all, aren’t these HVM qualities?

Wrong.

Look I’m not necessarily saying to bail on someone the second they show a deeper interest in your life, just to proceed with caution. Yellow flag. Take a timeout. Because men with nefarious intentions have a contradictory desire to both take care of us and be us... but like a lesser version since they view as “too much”, inferior, or stupid. They want us to rely on them, and keep us for themselves and their needs.

And it’s really easy to become infatuated with men who seemingly accept and value our quirks. They like our energy and encourage us to be our creative selves, our hot take opinions are welcomed, they validate our struggles, and can help us temporarily forget our insecurities about not being enough. They simultaneously admire our eccentricities, yet explicitly prey on us because we can’t hide our vulnerabilities as easily. They know we tend to be eager to please and exploit this for their own benefit.

We’re special to them because we reject the status quo (even though many of us don’t have the option to function in the norm), something they desperately wish they could do. We’re kind, empathetic, and often willing to accept shitty behavior because we understand what it’s like to struggle for acceptance of who you are, or because in the moment we can’t recognize that the behavior is objectively wrong and not linked to something we did.

Many men attracted to us are having some kind of life or identity crisis. They use us to make themselves feel like they’re interesting, that they haven’t wasted their lives precisely following the outline given to them by society. They want excitement and novelty, but from a safe distance, and can disengage if it gets too uncomfortable.

These men want to put your under glass to perpetually observe, they want to siphon your energy hoping that it will make them as exciting and interesting as we are. We are not faeries captured in bottles, butterflies pinned under a display case, or fodder for energy vampires.

WE ARE NOT SUPPORTING CHARACTERS IN MEN’S LIVES. WE DO NOT EXIST SO MEN FEEL LIKE THEIR LIVES HAVE MEANING. WE DO NOT EXIST TO SHOW MEN HOW TO LET GO AND ENJOY LIFE. WE ARE NOT TOYS TO PROVIDE NOVELTY.

Because eventually, the excitement of having this qUiRkY, iNtErEsTiNg girlfriend wears off, and the day-to-day reality sets in. It’s not fun anymore. Your stimming is embarrassing and annoying, your timing is inappropriate, your life is too tumultuous. Our needs go unmet because they require patience, yet we’re gaslit to think the cause of our relationship issues are 100% because of our neurodivergence and we work 3x as hard to try to fix things.

They’ll work through their crises at our expense and once they feel they got to live impulsively for a while, realized they like the status quo better because it’s easier. They leave us for someone who can give them the stability they’re used to. This leaves us to feel blindsided and confused because we thought they liked us for who we were.

We don’t deserve to have our needs neglected, be gaslit because we process the world differently, or feel like failures because we can’t meet a literal impossible standard of no emotional wants or needs.

TLDR: A big, long rant about how boring LVM/NVM force neurodivergent ladies to play the manic pixie dream girl role so they feel like their lives mean something. Be extra careful and vet carefully. We have way too much to offer to let some selfish jerk siphon our energy or make us feel unworthy. You deserve better :)

EDIT: Wow I wasn’t expecting this kind of response! I’m a little saddened that so many of us have had this collective experience, but I just want to take the time to validate every single woman’s experience in this thread. Your experiences are true and your intuitions are accurate. None of us deserve to be treated like this and I hope that we all can see our value and strength in a world that’s doesn’t understand us ❤️