Please tell me there are HVM, I’m autistic and after seeing so many negative posts lately I just need some reassurance that life isn’t black and white the way my brain defaults it as.

kayethewitch · 2021-06-20T02:53:53+00:00

It's so hard especially being neurodivergent! There truly are good men and women out there, but the main focus should be on YOU! No person is 100% perfect but (being neurodivergent myself) I would recommend working on strong boundaries for friendships and potential relationships to protect yourself. The most important questions are if someone is adding value to your life and if they are adding stress. I always use those questions as my litmus test for friendships and relationships and in combination with FDS strategies I think you will be in good shape! You've got this sweetie, there truly are good people out there and you can also spoil yourself and work on confidence and independence (two things I struggled with earlier in my life)

ASeaOfQuotes · 2021-06-20T04:34:59+00:00

If you haven’t checked out the podcast already there is a whole episode devoted to interviewing some neurodivergent FDSers that you would likely connect to. The world can be overwhelming sometimes but I’m proud of you for stepping out of your comfort zone. There are good people out there, you just gotta prepare yourself as best you can for the not so good ones.

c_a_t_lady · 2021-06-20T03:38:00+00:00

I am right there with you. 💕

I am a young neurodivergent person as well, and I've started to feel like HVMs wouldn't exist. (I'm bi, so it wouldn't be the end of the dating world for me, as I can also date women and I even prefer women a bit.) However, I recognise that's mostly a feeling, not a rational fact. At least I hope so.

I can relate to the part about the brain being black and white. Mine works that way too. It has been hard trying to convince myself that even though there's a lot of bad men, there's also some good one's.

I know that there are not only men who are horrible or that would just be unsuitable partners, but I have a hard time actually comprehending it, if that makes sense. Especially since I don't really come across men who would show me that.

I know you were looking for reassurance and nice stories, sorry that I couldn't offer any! 💔

Candid_Check_4843 · 2021-06-20T05:31:18+00:00

Sweetheart, there are definitely kind, empathetic, loyal, and sweet men out there. There are men who treat women with respect, and know right from wrong. They understand that women are more vulnerable and face more threats, and so they are protective over the women's safety.

I've had guys walk me to my dorm at night, to make sure that I got home safely. I've had a guy tell me to "be careful" in a caring way when I walked to the library at night. I've had a guy help to get me breakfast when I was running late for an phone interview. I've had a guy offer to take a look at my shower drain when it wasn't working properly. I never dated any of these guys, and I wasn't looking to date at those times either. They were just caring people being kind.

And a big one: in graduate school, during a department picnic, I was chatting with two professors, both male (statistics is still a male-dominated field), one new professor who I didn't know that well, and the other the department chair who I had known for a few years. Unexpectedly, the new professor starts asking me more personal questions, and seems like he's trying to hit on me. I was uncomfortable, but felt like I had to be courteous and answer since I was a graduate student and he was a professor, so I pretended that I wasn't aware of his intentions (ugh I know) and politely answered. The department chair could see what was going on, and he actually took the new professor aside, away from me, and they chatted between them for a while. I'm presuming that the chair was telling the new professor that his behavior was not acceptable, and that he could get in trouble for that. Whether the chair did that on my behalf or on the new professor's behalf, I'm not sure, but either way it was a very High Value thing to do.

extragouda · 2021-06-20T04:27:26+00:00

You see a guy dancing in a parking lot and think that maybe there are good men out there. What you are responding to is his happiness. Not him. You don't know him. You don't want him either because you don't know him. What you really want is to dance in a parking lot yourself. You can't become confident by dating confidence. It isn't something you can absorb by osmosis.

I think a lot of posts on FDS are cautionary for good reason. It's easy, when you are desperate to be loved by another person, to abandon (or stop cultivating) things about yourself that are valuable because you are focused on GETTING love from another person. Actually, you should have everything you need inside yourself.

Having said that I do understand that life can be lonely sometimes, especially if you are neurodivergent. In my experience, this does not get better with age. We just become more practiced at managing ourselves. What you have in your favor is time. You have time to level up to become the best version of yourself. When you become that, people will be drawn to your light... and eventually the right people for you will be drawn to you.

You are lovable. There a lot of people in the world -- billions. You have only met a fraction of them.

TrixieFriganza · 2021-06-20T08:05:23+00:00

I'm autistic too and starting to get really scared all men are selfish, narcissists or even psychopaths. And I sometimes get afraid they're after us because they hate us so much and are angry because we are getting more independent which they feel as unfair. All the women I see murdered really makes you feel down. I'm pretty okay with living alone rest of my life because even if I don't meet an abuser I really don't want to waste my time on a cheater and porn addicted man, I'm more worried for the humanity and all the women and children. Though I would like to have children but it doesn't really feel smart with more and more pornsick and entitled men.

Sorry I can't give much resurrance as seems like I go with sort of similar feelings even if I try to be open mind d but the fear and anxiety often controls me. But with autism you probably know that what your brain tells you isn't always the complete truth, I have att least got to learn that in a pretty hard way and that I can think something about people and they're not at all like that or think like that about me. I know though that this sort of gives you another worry that you will make a mistake if you actually finds a man but maybe try to look at it logically instead, I'm happy this site has taught me what warning signals to look for and stay away from.

myoklife · 2021-06-20T12:52:36+00:00

On the spec' myself and between you and me and the other folks on the spec' -

You might benefit from limiting your time on this sub and making sure you balance it with real-world experience. Here there is a lot of focus on the negative (and for good reason - we need a place to talk about it to learn how to avoid it) and for me at least, sometimes if I spend too much time here it kind of expands to fill my brain if that makes sense. Happened during the pandemic when I was interacting with people IRL much less.

Now being in real social situations I have noticed I can spot what this sub warns about quite easily. Sometimes I will fixate on that. But what I have also noticed is that it's only a small subset of the people at the gathering. There are always people around who aren't like that.

For me it also helps to talk with a therapist. I've found a good one who is much older and very experienced. She agrees with FDS principles (!!!) but she's very good at helping me put it in perspective and remember that not every single guy is a LVM (not using that term of course lol). She tells me that every week. One exercise she has me do is to deliberately think of people I have met in my life who are HVM and to kind of have a list ready for when I fall into the pit of despair. It's random people like the mailman, old coworker, uncle. It helps though.

pancakejourney · 2021-06-20T13:46:07+00:00

When I was in my late teens I had a male friend who would always offer to be on a call with me when I walked home from clubbing. Sometimes for hours when the train was delayed or cancelled. He always made sure I was in my bed before we ended the conversation.
He always openly admitted when I knew more about a topic and wouldn't be shy to say things like "it's incredible how much you know about this" or "It's impressive how you can empathize with people and understand their point of view so easily" and valued our conversations.
We were long distance friends for a long time and rarely ever talked about anything sexual related.

I miss that guy. Even though he had to flee from Africa with his family as a child, watched peoples hand get chopped off and had to learn my mother tongue by himself he was very grounded, emphatic and cared a lot about how things made me feel. A true friend and great support.

Rock_hard_jellyfish · 2021-06-20T03:54:23+00:00

I cant really do much to be reassuring, but you sound real smart and insightful. Don't get too discouraged and you'll find someone that's the same. This post is already pretty telling that you know when to question the things that are supposedly black and white. You'll find your van-waving-dancing guy

vowelsareimportant · 2021-06-20T12:29:13+00:00

My best friend has a nice man who also happens to be autistic. He lives in a town an hour and a half away from her but he always makes time to visit. During those visits he has been remodeling her bathroom for her and also helping me with projects around my house. He changed my oil for me the other day, for free, just because I mentioned in passing that I had to go in for an oil change in the next week or so. My bestie has PTSD and anxiety and he does his best to calm her and reassure her when she's in one of her spirals. They've been together just over a year and he's been looking for jobs in our town so he can move and be with her more. Every interaction I've had with him, he's been kind and thoughtful towards me and loving towards her. They've been talking about marriage lately and I wouldn't be surprised if he messaged me soon about engagement rings. I feel it's coming.

Adhdathon · 2021-06-20T04:37:10+00:00

Also autistic. They do exist, I haven’t had a relationship with one but I have 2 friends who have married HVM and one of my uncles is one. It’s possibly harder for us to navigate dating and identify HVM but it’s more necessary because our confusion with social cues makes us easy victims for LV and abusive men. I’ve found FDS has really helped me not feel guilty or anxious about setting boundaries and keeping to them. Wishing you all the best sister xo

fireforestfairy · 2021-06-20T12:47:27+00:00

I think people here are more likely to talk about LVM. It's a form of bias where people are more likely to rant about negative experiences than talk about positive ones. They're not wrong that the vast majority of men are shitty though. HVM do exist but they are a minority.

This shouldn't make you feel unhappy, although it's not a good thing when you realise so many people out there are shitty. See this as a good thing as you can know what red flags to watch out for. Learn to become strong and independent. You don't need a man to make you happy so if you don't come across a HVM, then fuck it.

Corvus25 · 2021-06-20T07:52:33+00:00

Yes there is! The majority may be LVM but spot them early on so you can move on. I found mine, and I know there's other good high quality men out there.

dangerouswyzzard · 2021-06-20T13:26:24+00:00

Aw man, I wish I could sit you down in real life and make you some tea or something when I tell you this: let stuff you read on the internet give you perspective, but don't let it become your ENTIRE perspective. I was in almost your exact position at almost exactly your age. In my late teens, I spent way too much time lurking on very angry feminist forums on the internet. I soaked it all up like a sponge and was just in DESPAIR about the idea that men all wanted nothing but a sexy maid they could stick their dicks in and abuse. This was before I realized that I'm bisexual, so I sincerely thought that I would have to choose between being alone forever or trapped in a miserable relationship with a man (my parents' IRL marriage was also, from my perspective at the time, a really raw deal for my mom). At that age, boys completely ignored me, I'd never been on a single date, and I was convinced I would die a virgin -- and that that would be better than living in a nightmare of a relationship.

Fast-forward a couple of years and something interesting happened. My practice and increasing confidence with being alone (being a single traveler is AMAZING) and wariness from the reading I'd done gave me really strong boundaries. Guys started acting interested, but if I personally felt even a little bit unattracted, uncomfortable, or just bored I would extract myself from the situation with zero guilt. Why would I deal with discomfort from a man when I was doing great by myself? I started seeing a variety of male behavior in real life, for myself, and learned that it was a lot more nuanced than what I'd picked up from much older women on the internet who were just trying to vent with like-minded adults and definitely not thinking "what would an impressionable, sensitive teenager make of this?" They weren't LYING, but they were choosing to go onto this one forum and say this one thing at this one moment in time. The stuff they were talking about was as real as the number 6 on a six-sided die: that doesn't mean that the numbers 1-5 aren't there, too.

When I was twenty I met a gorgeous, sweet, gentle guy who treated me in a way that was COMPLETELY unlike how I'd read that "all men" behave. We've been together for over a decade now and married for seven years. He cooks, he cleans, he decorates, he buys me flowers, he fusses over me when I'm sick, he tells me that I'm smart and talented and beautiful. I've had other women who've met us in real life tell me that they can't believe he actually exists. Well, he does, and now I use him as my yardstick: if he can do it, so can other guys. I love FDS because it's telling women to not just expect but DEMAND better, which is something that I've been doing for my best friends for years now. Keep those boundaries and standards high, and then go out into the world and experience it for yourself, with the knowledge that you can learn from other women's bad experiences without being fated to go through the exact same thing, and that if you DO deal with some crap you're more than capable of dusting yourself off and trying again. You can do this, I believe in you!

Beginning_Note_21 · 2021-06-20T23:40:44+00:00

Please read “Autism in Heels”. I feel like it was pages from my diary and would love to have you avoid some of what I have faced. I turned off my DMs but please let me know if you need any help. I am in the middle of my own diagnosis so I am not the most helpful but you’re not alone.

papanezismysaviour · 2021-06-20T15:05:12+00:00

They do, but a HVM for a woman might not be one for another. Also, you have to keep vetting anyway. Don't worry so much about him, you decide who you keep in your life. There won't be LVM in it as long you don't put up with them.

Treat yourself as an elite good people club, only HVM are allowed.