dating

The options for people on the Autism spectrum looking to go out on a date are few. This lack of options can help to compound problems people on the Autism spectrum already have with dating. Navigating social hurdles, like avoiding over-talking, while being on a date is, on its own, a plenty daunting prospect. Realizing that the options for a backdrop to a date are exceedingly limited is just adding salt to the wounds. Together, these challenges can make a person feel like the prospect of going out on a date at all is far more trouble than it’s worth.

First off, in case it helps to hear this: it's all right to want to break up with your boyfriend. You're allowed to end a relationship for any reason, and "I only want to date women, and my partner is now very clearly not a woman" is a perfectly valid one. Sometimes, a person's gender transition...

Despite the initial shame, guilt, name-calling, jokes, and fear related to disclosure, my STI presented me with a chance to love myself more deeply. It gave me a chance to sit with myself, who I thought myself to be, who I thought I was going to become, and who I really was.

As a person on the Autism spectrum, I know all too well that living with any sort of disability brings about a barrage of challenges. Your own difficult experiences living with those challenges are important and you have a right to feel all kinds of emotions about them, including frustration at the larger world. However, just as your own humanity and emotions should not be discounted, the same goes for other human beings.

The news is full of the wrong ways to try to have sex. Forever we’ve seen high profile men – almost always men – chasing people for sex, abusively. For the last few years, some high-profile men have been held at least a little accountable for it, which means it is not always swept under the rug anymore. But now that the abuse is more visible, if you stare into that abyss long enough, it might start to stare back at you. You could end up lying on your bed wondering if being a guy while being horny is somehow inherently tainted and gross. Most of us want to find someone or a few someones, for relationships or hookups, but right now, looking at some of that foulness, it might feel like trying to find a partner is a minefield of red flags because men’s sexuality is inextricably abusive. It isn't.

It can feel like the world will end if you haven’t had sex or a sexual or romantic relationship by your mid-twenties. There are countless ways in which our culture puts pressure on young people to gain experience in romantic and sexual relationships. But truthfully, if you don’t have much, or even any, experience with dating and sex, you are not doomed to never experience romantic and sexual connection. The world also will not end.

A short, fast, sex ed summary about the bare basics of healthy relationships.

I love this question, because it's something I think doesn't get discussed enough, and while I think the answer is fairly simple, that doesn't mean it's easy. I know the thought of asking someone out can be intimidating even to people who've done it before, so when you haven't had any experience...

It sounds like this is really stressing you out. Hopefully I can help by answering your first question right off the bat: yes, this is normal. I think you're right that the lack of contact could have been a factor in the cooling of your feelings towards your long-distance partners; that's a common...

You’re facing down a process that, according to a bazillion sitcoms and teen dramas, ought to fill you with dread: introducing the person you're dating to your parents and trying to peacefully navigate their feelings about your budding romance.