relationships

Suddenly, a person you’ve been regularly communicating with is M.I.A. Without warning, a fixture of recent life can become a memory. Somebody you’d bonded with has abruptly stopped contacting you. The text messages have ceased, all traces of their presence in your life have been yanked away by them, and without warning or explanation. But just because the experience is stressful doesn’t mean it’s impossible to endure. There are ways for autistic people to come out the other side of getting ghosted.

When you gain weight and want to talk about it -- whatever your feelings about it are -- with partners or others you're in intimate relationships with, how can you do that, especially in a world where so few people are equipped with the skills to talk about weight in healthy, sensitive, supportive ways?

Being autistic, some things just haven’t come as naturally for me as they seem to for other people. Unfortunately, these have included hallmarks of American life often used to symbolize being “an adult” like driving on my own or getting my first paid job. But human beings are not on a strict timetable to do all the same things at the same time. This is just as true of dating like anything else. Just because you (or I) haven’t been actively dating when a lot of other people in your life have doesn’t make you (or me) a failure. You’re just on your own timetable. So am I.

Two smart, insightful and autistic people who like talking about relationships walk into an interview. What comes out is this fantastically rich conversation between Scarleteen columnist Lisa Laman and Love and Asperger's author and therapist Kate McNulty.

Sex educator and therapist Dr. Lexx Brown-James talks talks about her line of work, how Covid-19 is rampaging peoples’ emotions, and how the work of POC sex educators continues to be devalued, stolen and co-opted.

Hi Parvati, It's great to hear that you're trying to be a good ally, and doing some of the self-examination and learning that comes with that! Since you helpfully broke your question down into three parts, I'll go through them one by one. 1. Is gender really only a social construct? The short answer...

Hi Susan, It sounds like you have two separate things going on here. We can break it down into smaller pieces and talk about them individually. 1. Your friend likes you, but you don't like him like that. The most immediate thing is that your best friend has expressed a romantic interest in you...

It really sucks that during something that can make us feel lonelier than ever, the most dangerous thing is being close to other people. It is still safest to limit our up-close-and-personal contact, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still safely seek out and experience intimacy with new people, nor that there aren’t things you can do to make it safer if you do decide to get physically close to someone. Here are some basics to get you started.

You can read a book. You can read a map. But reading people, that’s difficult in any situation. Reading people to figure out if they’re actually into you romantically or sexually is even more difficult. Lisa Laman is here to give fellow autistic readers a little help.

If you are a teen or young adult who lives at home during COVID-19, and are dating or sexually active with a partner, navigating this part of your life -- with your partner, with parents or guardians -- is complicated. A lot of households and families are having to negotiate what the new dating normal looks like. Here are some ideas to help make those discussions smoother.