People cannot really expect others to believe them when they claim that people with differing interests, or neurotypical and neurodiverse people, can have fulfilling relationships when the evidence around us suggests that they cannot

lesliecarbone · 2025-07-07T13:56:43+00:00

Nerd here. Partners need a Venn diagram of interests --some his, some hers, some shared.

leosandlattes · 2025-07-07T14:13:47+00:00

I have never thought about whether sharing hobbies is important for me and my bf. He writes scripts to max out efficiency while playing (Old) RuneScape and fixes up a classic Mustang and can talk about tanks all day. I crochet and garden and play girly games.

I don’t think hobbies or interests is an indicator of anything. I think the shared qualities that are more important are morals, values, and politics, which we do share.

TopShelfSnipes · 2025-07-07T14:20:11+00:00

It's wishful thinking by antisocial types who want a social person. They want to inherit the status of being social without actually having to be social - which of course requires time and effort and...being social...and in the rare cases it happens, their partner comes to resent them when the antisocial/asocial person starts to drag them down.

"Nerds" and "nerdy interests" isn't a good way of describing it however. Everyone is a nerd about something. A gun nut is no less of a nerd than a gamer is when the gun nut is going off about some obscure 80 year old pistol of which only 200 were made and describing the exact variant model number. So too for the sabermetric types that analyze baseball on spreadsheets or dissect puck possession metrics in ice hockey.

What matters is that there is enough compatibility to form a connection, and no incompatibilities where a hobby is a non-negotiable that their partner shares, and the two communication styles are similar.

I love baseball - I could talk baseball all day. You'll lose me if you start going too deep into WAR fWAR and other advanced stats, because what I like is the game, not...math. I love hockey. I couldn't have imagined myself with someone who hated it, or wasn't willing to at least learn the basics. I don't like anime, political activitism/protesting/rabblerousing, or any kind of hardcore gaming (ie the game dictates real life rather than being a time-filler during downtime), and I wouldn't have partnered up with someone who did.

We each have our incompatibilities in these respects, when it comes to socailization. Desperate people are much less willing to have those standards and take what they can get. They're also likely to misrepresent how much a hobby is a factor for them until after the honeymoon period when the mask slips, which can become a dealbreaker if it's different than the expectation previous to that point.

KayRay1994 · 2025-07-07T13:56:25+00:00

Different people value different things and want differ things out of a relationship. Now, there is a lot of truth in the idea that people just settle for others and date out of just not being lonely - and that in itself is an awful thing to do to both yourself and the person you’re with, and the examples you provide is why. I also think, while ND and NT relationships are tougher, whether they will or won’t work will depend on the individual couple.

Now, speaking for myself - being with someone with adjacent interests who is also ND is a must. I don’t work well with most NT people I find, and something like music as a shared language is important enough to me to where it is indeed a deal breaker. They don’t have to have similar taste, but their taste should be unapologetically individualized to them. Many don’t see it that way, and that’s fine. Point is, there is no wrong way to do a relationship assuming both partners get a healthy dynamic figured out that fulfills whatever needs they have that the other can help with

bjwindow2thesoul · 2025-07-07T16:02:08+00:00

AuDHD woman in a happy relationship here with a NT man

Youre confusing «evidence around us» with «my anecdotal experience + this internet horror story about an abusive relationship»

If you and your partner has similar interests or not isnt related to ND. Theres a lot of debate and differing opinions about this so I wont go into it

With the ADHD_partners subreddit you have to remember that its a support group for those people who are struggling the most, and seek advice or to vent on the internet. They dont necessarily have any other place to vent. Its the same for subreddits like BipolarSO’s and BPDlovedones. I try to be on the ADHD_partners subreddit a little bit to make sure I dont make the same mistakes that those partners do. A general trend I can see in those subs are late diagnosed men who are completely neglecting their family and utilising weaponized incompetence against their partners. Many of the partners (both NT and ND) posting there have codependency tendencies and have grown resentful and burnt out in those relationships. Theres also some of those relationships where one or both partners are abusive and toxic where the partner has gaslighted the poster into thinking the abusive behavior is because of their adhd. You wont really see the happy parts of a relationship in an anonymous online forum; people who post about relationships anonymously often have nowhere else to complain. People can talk about happy moments with friends, family and «picture perfect» social media

I think the best you can do is read stories there when youre in a space of being open to critisism on what not to do. My previous relationships ended partly due to codependency. I didnt take accountability for my own part in the codependency because I never asked for help, just accepted it. But you have to really set clear boundaries on that the NT person cannot solve your life for you. It will be quite difficult for them because they love you and see that youre struggling with something that they could so easily help with. Its also hard with adhd to notice that they help you with things, so its hard to acknowledge the help, and its hard to notice youve slowly become dependent on them. You need to have a hard conversation about this, and how its not sustainable for them to help you with all of your ADHD things. Also, you can scroll past comments where people vent and scroll to the comments where people have implemented a successful routine or tactic to mitigate some adhd stressors in their relationships. I save comments like that that I feel are useful for later

Ruztomski · 2025-07-07T14:18:36+00:00

I think the problem is more likely the intensity of the interest in the hobby or the time commitment.

backstabber81 · 2025-07-07T13:54:29+00:00

Part of being compatible with someone is to share something, whether that's values, hobbies, similar personalities...Also, people in happy relationships don't go posting online about how happy they are with their partner, people who want to vent are a lot more likely to do it.

Having nerdy hobbies is not a dealbreaker for most people these days, I think in the 2000s there was some negative stigma equating nerds to losers, but nowadays being a nerd is almost trendy. I guess it also depends on the hobby, do you like videogames? Great! Your partner might not like the same games as you, but might for example like mobile games. Do you like taxidermy? Huh, that's a bit harder to share with a partner.

RelevantJackWhite · 2025-07-07T16:05:30+00:00

They say that it's possible for people to appreciate each other for differing hobbies, but I find it hard to believe them. Why? Because people like the women in this thread from a few months ago exist

I want to focus on this in particular, because the logic just ain't logickin' here. A counterexample can exist without disproving the possibility of something. If someone said "it's possible for men and women to like each other romantically", would you point out a gay guy or a guy who hates his wife and say "no way!"? You example here is not evidence for what you're trying to say.

I don't think anyone is claiming that every neurotypical person is going to be fine with every neurodivergent person. Obviously that isn't true. But it's 100% possible to have a healthy and happy relationship between a neurodivergent and neurotypical person. They exist within my friend group.

Even my wife and I have hobbies we do not share passion for, and it initially hurt her that I wasn't really into some of her hobbies, but talking it out made it work. We tell each other about them when we truly think the other person might appreciate it, and we try not to just info-dump onto the other person lol

Tylikcat · 2025-07-07T17:32:38+00:00

A really large number of folks in my social circle have been diagnosed with autism in the last ten to twenty years. Not a huge surprise - we're talking some pretty techie, geeky circles. But most of these folks are in long term relationships and have been for years (and have adult children in many cases). Not all, and obviously the spectrum is a spectrum for a reason, and people have different quirks and/or support needs.

Now, a bunch of things are different from when I was a kid. And it wouldn't surprise me if social isolation hits folks on the spectrum even harder. (Also, I was born in an era of increasing birthrates - so there were generally more slightly younger women than there were slightly older men. Y'all have been dealing with the reverse.)

But I'm wondering if some of the support we're giving folks who receive early-ish diagnoses is doing as much good as we'd like to think. I'm thinking more generally about the increasing literature that learning about mental health interventions and such frequently leads to people being more depressed. (I'm talking the general population here, not specifically people who were already depressed. Though a bunch of it was with teenagers, who run angsty?)

I'm a GenXer, and there were a lot of fucked up things about how we were raised. But I'm not sure that all of that being left to our own devices and figuring things out on our own didn't have substantial upsides. (Okay, I'm sure it did, and I think it might have in this area.)

(Of course, my circles are heavy with other folks who went to college at thirteen, so it's certainly not a representative sample?)

Downtown_Cat_1745 · 2025-07-07T14:13:21+00:00

Then find someone who has the same or similar interests. There are neurodiverse women.

My husband is a railfan and I’m a birdwatcher. We don’t like the exact same things, but we understand where the other person is coming from

Odd_Quit_8905 · 2025-07-07T20:27:32+00:00

I don’t know a woman (in person) who’s a hardcore ufc or a warhammer fan, nor do I know a straight man who is a hallmark channel, Sabrina carpenter and makeup enthusiast. I’d have questions for both individuals if they exist.

I have a lot of adhd, and I don’t want someone who has 100% my interest, let alone 50%. Part of managing adhd is learning new stuff from someone else (I.e. avoiding 100 rabbit holes), and any multifaceted, not boring individual can suffice.

If there’s a problem today, it’s that people’s hobbies are increasingly limited and their willingness to explore is less and less, but there’s no point complaining.

CatallaxyRanch · 2025-07-07T15:03:59+00:00

My husband has nerdy interests (video games, comics etc.) that I could not possibly give less of a shit about. Likewise I have interests (baseball, music) that he doesn't care about. As long as you don't make one interest your whole personality, it's unlikely that you'll have NOTHING to connect over, whether it's religion, politics, other shared values or just the shared life you build together over time. After being together for 13 years I can tell you that our "interests" comprise very little of our conversations these days. We more often talk about our kids, our extended family, our pets and our house.

I've dated guys who shared my interests and I didn't enjoy it because it's like I didn't have anything separate from them. Plus, men have this weird habit of trying to make interests into a competition or debate ("oh we both like this band, let's argue about which of their albums is better for 16 hours"). That's not how I like to engage with my interests, so in those relationships I often ended up liking certain things less because I couldn't stand how the guy engaged with it and he kind of ruined it for me. I'd rather have some things that are just my own.

Compatible values and personalities are much more important.

Lemon_gecko · 2025-07-07T13:58:22+00:00

happy people don't complain and living their lives outside.

Nearbykingsmourne · 2025-07-07T15:38:22+00:00

I'm mostly with you. I'm pretty acoustic with my interests and I cannot fathom being with someone who doesn't "get me" like that.

My previous relationships failed because of that. I got bored. It felt performative.

Was it my fault? Perhaps. But it was bad for both of us.

I do think people misunderstand the difference between "being into video games :)" and "being neurodivergent about video games" like this whole thread shows.

Outside_Memory5703 · 2025-07-07T17:39:20+00:00

Your choices appear to be:

Mask, have a normal dating pool

Don’t mask, have a much reduced dating pool

So, what’s the issue ?

CanaryHeart · 2025-07-07T20:11:39+00:00

I’ve seen mixed neurotype marriages be successful, but bridging the double empathy gap is a huge barrier, and I generally think neurodivergent people will be happier with other neurodivergent people and that neurotypical people will be happier with other neurotypical people. Learning to communicate and collaborate is difficult in any relationship—mixed-neurotype couples need to be patient, curious, and open about their differences and just really dedicated and intentional about making things work.

I know a lot of people in long-term relationships or marriages who don’t seem to share a lot of interests—they go to the movies separately, they have separate hobbies, sometimes they even go on separate vacations! They tend to be very independent people who really value solo time and time with other people in their social group. They respect each other’s interests, even though they don’t share them and find ways to spend time together without needing to directly engage with each other’s interests—one partner might knit near the other partner who is playing video games, etc.

That type of relationship looks like a nightmare to me, honestly, and I don’t think it’s a typically a great fit for neurodivergent people like me who are more monotropic. Both my husband and I have a strong desire to share interests and hobbies, so while we’re not 100% aligned 100% of the time (and who is?) we share a general ‘core’ pool of interests and we engage more with things the other person is also interested in. We try to be flexible and attentive, so that we’re suggesting things that might genuinely appeal to the other person, and we’re willing to try things that the other person suggests.

I can’t read the post you linked, but from the title and comments I would wager that the issue here isn’t that they don’t have similar interests, but that one partner doesn’t respect the other person’s interests while also lacking basic common decency. I’m not really interested in playing Warhammer 40K (a game my husband sometimes plays with a friend) but I’d never belittle it—I can appreciate different aspects of it and at least show basic respect towards the hobby and the people playing it without wanting to play myself.

Flightlessbirbz · 2025-07-08T00:48:56+00:00

First things first — people go on anonymous platforms like Reddit when they have a problem. People who are getting along just fine in their relationships with ADHD partners aren’t seeking out advice and support. That’s like going on a mental health sub and concluding that almost everyone in the world has clinical depression.

Second, neurodivergence is a whole spectrum. Some neurodiverse people have a lot more or less trouble with relationships than others. I’ve found I can’t really maintain relationships or friendships with neurotypical people, mainly because the power dynamic is off and I end up getting treated like a dog and getting hurt. But I can with people who are neurodivergent in some way even if they’re quite different from me. It doesn’t matter if we have exactly the same interests or issues, as long as there’s some overlap, which usually there is enough.

_weedkiller_ · 2025-07-07T14:08:23+00:00

I can’t see the full post.
I think I expect people to believe it because it’s true. I know so many women who are in relationships with nerdy men. I’ve seen how Red Pill men will refuse to believe evidence in front of them (often claiming it’s an outlier) so I don’t trust that they aren’t encountering these dynamics. They just don’t register them because of their cognitive bias.

Being a nerd doesn’t mean you have to abandon your responsibilities or ignore your partner. It’s definitely important to have some differing interests as it’s not healthy to be doing everything together.

In terms of the sub of people complaining about ADHD partners, I’m struggling to understand what conclusions you are drawing from this? The sub exists and people complain, but that is a tiny fraction of people. Additionally often men with ADHD are not nerds. They can be very charming. Whenever I see that kind of sub though it’s mostly a situation where their partner is blaming unacceptable, even abusive, behaviour on their ADHD.

But also, I waiting for ADHD assessment and I make myself irate with my messiness and lack of organisation. It’s extremely annoying and makes it virtually impossible to keep a clean and tidy environment. If I had a partner who didn’t have the same issues I can imagine they would really get annoyed with me.

Gravel_Roads · 2025-07-07T14:30:00+00:00

Being a nerd myself, I’ve only ever dated other nerds. I met one of my girlfriends in a tabletop RPG game. I met my current partner because we liked each other’s writing posted on amateur writing sites. We’ve been together for over 25 years.

My boss is autistic (he tells people openly). It’s been enough of a burden that he’s been committed before. Dude said he spend a lot of his teen years scream-singing at the ocean. He still has a wife and 3 kids.

coiled-serpent · 2025-07-07T22:04:21+00:00

neurotypical and neurodiverse

These are fake concepts that do not mean anything. Mental disorders aren't "real" medical conditions, they are merely a collection of traits/behaviors that society has deemed to be abnormal.

Thinking "I have ADHD so I am impulsive and have executive dysfunction" is incorrect. In reality, it's "I am impulsive and have executive dysfunction so I meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD". Do you see the difference?

If a mental disorder is just a label for a set of characteristics that society has deemed to be negative or abnormal, then of course people without those behaviors will find them insufferable. That's the entire reason why the diagnosis even exists, if everyone thought people with ADHD were normal, there's be no reason to diagnose them.

It makes a lot more sense when we remove the psychiatric terminology. For example, "I am frustrated with X person because they're unreliable, lazy and annoying" sounds more reasonable, even justifiable, than "I am frustrated with X person because they are neurodivergent".

CuckCake321 · 2025-07-07T14:23:55+00:00

The disability pill is a hard one to swallow. It's really men that tend to not have fulfilling relationships when it comes to being Neurodivergent. ADHD and Autism are an absolute death sentence for a man's love life considering men need to have the ability to discern social ques in order to court women since most women will not make the first move unless the man is extremely attractive.

For the most part being a neurodivergent woman is actually a plus in most men's eyes. Because as fucked up as it sounds men will think a woman having ADHD or Autism will take off some points off her attractiveness level and lower the competition he would have to do deal with to get with her.

But unfortunately this has the opposite effect since a lot of men think the lowest hanging fruit will be the easiest to get and thus artificially raise the value higher making a woman with autism or ADHD harder to get than it should be. We don't see women adopt this type of sexual strategy like men do. So men with these conditions will be weeded out of the gene pool as women only want to procreate with the best of the best.

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oppositegeneva · 2025-07-07T13:56:20+00:00

Yeah I usually only see people with nerdy interests being with people who have similar interests.

The couples who aren’t matched in this way seem to have a lot more tension in their relationships, not always though.

My husband and I joke all the time that if we didn’t find each other it would be incredibly difficult to date someone who didn’t have “nerdy” interests

Mad_Mundy · 2025-07-07T14:56:56+00:00

A few people on Reddit having issues doesn't mean that it doesn't work, it works plenty in real life.

Remember that online and Reddit aren't real life. Reddit makes up probably less than a single percent of people across the world, if they're lucky.

wtknight · 2025-07-07T17:06:25+00:00

People can find other people attractive for a wide variety of reasons. Just having an interest difference or being neurologically different doesn’t mean that people can’t be attracted to some other quality about each other.

Business-Stretch2208 · 2025-07-07T17:24:47+00:00

My boyfriend loves making desmos graphs. He spends hours a week on it. I do not like math very much. I love playing chess and reading non-fiction books. He hates non fiction and thinks it's are boring, and is pretty bad at chess. I have ADHD, he doesn't. Our relationship is perfectly loving and healthy because the basis of our relationship isn't a graphing calculator lol.

Reddit isn't a good sample of the real world lol. I bet for every person on ADHD_Partners, there are like, 100 neurotypicals with ADHD partners who don't really care or notice that much.

Literally just go outside and talk to real life people

abaxeron · 2025-07-07T17:29:10+00:00

Evolution never needed men and women to be compatible; it only needed them to be horny enough for roughly 100 intercourses (or 2 very lucky ones) to pass down the genes. Relationship is always a sacrifice. If any person wants someone they "can be themselves" with, they should get a dog. Regardless of their neurodiversity.

GoldSailfin · 2025-07-07T18:29:47+00:00

I am the nerdy girlfriend with a Chad normie boyfriend. He is entertained by my sperging out on my fave topics.

Schleudergang1400 · 2025-07-07T18:44:55+00:00

They say that it's possible for people to appreciate each other for differing hobbies, but I find it hard to believe them. Why? Because people like the women in this thread from a few months ago exist:

All men with nerdy interests in my social environment are in relationships. I have nerdy hobbies and i have had fulfilling relationships with women who do not share the nerdy hobbies.

The subreddit ADHD_Partners exists, a subreddit that seems to exist purely for people stuck in relationships with people with ADHD to air their dirty laundry about how much they despise their partners.

Sure, you can find places were the outliers gather for every topic. Look at r/regretfulparents that doesn't mean that most parents are regretful.

Seems like you are just anxious about getting into a relationship and being secretly detested for your issues. Wait until you read about break up rates or cheating rates. if you go into mating with this kind of anxiety, you are doomed to stay inactive.

SivalV · 2025-07-07T19:15:11+00:00

Nah. In fact for me it's the opposite. Even from the get go the more we seem to have in common the worse it seems to be

TheCounsellingGamer · 2025-07-08T16:43:11+00:00

I have ADHD (and I'm probably autistic as well, but I haven't decided whether I want to pursue a diagnosis). My partner is neurotypical. We've been together for 9 years, and overall, our relationship is good. There are some aspects of my ADHD that have impacted the relationship, specifically my procrastination and rejection sensitivity. We've figured out ways to navigate that.

We share some of the same interests, but we also have very different ones. He likes football (proper football), and I have very little interest in it. I'm a huge theatre nerd, and that's not his thing at all. He goes to the football with his dad. I go to the theatre with my mum. I listen to him talk about games, and I like to hear his enjoyment. He listens to me talk about what shows I've seen, and he enjoys knowing that I had fun. I'm in an amateur dramatics group, and he's coming to see me perform.

Even if you don't enjoy the activity yourself, you can still enjoy seeing your partner having fun.

Putrid-Storage-9827 · 2025-07-13T06:46:53+00:00

Women and men don't have to have everything in common. Some women actually like having different hobbies and interests than their husbands and it makes them feel more womanly to have their own things and see the man having the same.

Other women like doing everything together.

The fact that some women get annoyed or irritated with mens' hobbies doesn't mean everyone will. Let's face it, lots of people generally end up breaking up for all kinds of reasons. Playing the same video games or watching the same capeshit movies or whatever isn't necessarily going to keep people together if they've lost the spark.

Confident_Counter471 · 2025-07-13T11:16:38+00:00

So my husband and I are both neurotypical. And we both can find each others conditions annoying at times. That doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. It’s bad taste to complain on the internet, but I also get venting for a minute to get a feeling off your chest (can’t talk to friends, don’t want them to judge when it’s not a big deal…should talk to a therapist instead of the internet though) But sometimes even the things you love about your partner get annoying (especially if your already overwhelmed)

LimbBisquet · 2025-07-07T14:59:47+00:00

If you have working genitalia, you are able to fuck and date people of the opposite sex. Hobbies, interests, career, etc., are irrelevant. These things are a nice to have but they absolutely have nothing to do with primal sexual attraction, which concerns itself with one thing and one thing only: is this person good for making healthy babies.

Because this is the only concern sexual attraction has, it makes sense why men care so much about looks (they are a proxy for reproductive health and fertility) and why women care so much about a man who is in demand by other women (his sperm is valuable) and has balls which means he will be able to protect the woman and the baby from wild animals and male competitors.

Hobbies and interests have absolutely nothing to do with sexual arousal.

throwaway73737828 · 2025-07-07T15:00:31+00:00

This doesnt occur when men is seeing the women who have different interests. She can be doing horse riding, voleyball, yoga, pilates etc. the only hobby that can be a deal breaker for most men is dance lessons, where the women dances with another man very intimately. Other than that men are not too controlling for womens hobbies.

On the other hand most women do have a problem with men doing hobbies. They start arguements or fights because of your whatever interest. It could be gaming, watching football, playing sports etc. this doesnt only occurs in hobbies but it occurs with mens friendship as well. They start a arguement when you see your male friends.

In the end tho, I guess women have a deep tendency to control everything a men does, and when men act spineless and obey her, they lose everything they love. Thats why not being spineless is important.

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