My Top 7 Tips for Dating (or Just Loving) an Autistic Person
Read now (7 mins) | A crash course in cultural competency
April 18, 2023
Yesterday I got a call from a friend who just started dating an Autistic woman. He called to ask me for some advice but I was in a rush so I rattled off a few things quicker than I wanted and had to run. This morning at sunrise, I thought, let me make this a longer post for a neurotypical who is dating someone Autistic. Here it is!
If you have a spouse, kid, co-worker, or client who doesn’t share your neurotype this might help you too, but specifically, this is advice for a neurotypical cis het dude dating an Autistic woman. Here’s what I think a well-informed, well-meaning, heart-centered guy, like my friend, should know to be an ally, a good dating partner, and to really find out if this person could be his match.
My list of 7 things anyone should know when dating an Autistic person:
#1
The first and most important thing anyone dating outside of their neurotype needs to understand, in my opinion, is the Double Empathy problem. You have to understand Autism is a Culture.
If you go to India as a culturally uneducated American and you meet a culturally uneducated Indian person—Even with a translator, you will NOT understand each other and the problem will be MUTUAL. The Indian person will think you are rude, you will think they are aloof. You will make a million wrong judgements and a LOT will be lost in translation.
Autistic people do not have an empathy problem with other Autistic people. Non-Autistic (Allistic) people do not have an empathy problem with other Allistic people. But put an Allistic and an Autistic together (like this potential love match) and there WILL be a 2-sided empathy problem.
Do intercultural relationships work? Absolutely! (Been there done that!) But what it takes is a willingness on the parts of both people to understand each other’s culture. NOW… If you are an Indian and American couple living in America, the Indian person in the couple is going to have to do a LOT more work every day living outside of their culture, that means the American partner needs to make a special effort to WORK to understand Indian culture.
In this example, the Autistic partner is SWIMMING in Neurotypical Culture. They already understand A LOT of your culture because they live here in this world. So the work to understand Autistic culture has to come from the Neurotypical partner.
If you aren’t willing to do this, no hate, but this relationship is sunk. This is a decision you want to make early.
Now my friend who is dating this Autistic girl has a few things going for him.
First, he’s really smart and has a good friend who is Autistic - oh, wait! That’s me!
He’s also lived in other cultures performing music, so he understands cultural differences on a deep level.
And, he is a communication junkie. If he can do something to communicate better, he will.
I know he is capable of this if he wants it. The trick is, you have to decide in advance. You can’t say, well, if I end up liking the girl, then I’ll learn about her culture. You have to learn about her culture to see if you like the girl. You are dating the exchange student—you can’t show no interest in her country until you find out if it’s a fit.
#2
A big part of our culture as Autistics is shaped by our extra sensory sensitivity.
We all have 7 senses - not 5:
Vision
Olfactory
Auditory
Tactile
Gustatory
Vestibular
Proprioception
(Vestibular and proprioception are the 2 you might not know). For each of these 7 senses, Autistic people tend to be significantly over or under responsive (when compared to allistics), which makes us either sensory avoidant or sensory seeking in those 7 areas.
As a dating partner, I would focus on understanding those 7 senses in my partner and how being over or under stimulated affects them. For instance, do you love driving a sports car on windy roads to a vineyard and then want to go drinking for a few hours? If your partner has a vestibular over response, she might pretend she’s okay (mask), but this will not be sustainable for her.
Love seeing scary movies with your beloved? If she is under responsive in her auditory and vision senses, this could be your perfect date! Take me (over responsive to light and sound) to a scary movie and I’ll meet you in the lobby—assuming they have passable coffee. (I once went screaming out of a movie theatre when in one of the new Star Wars films they threaten to kill the little Jedi kids in school. No idea what happened there. Way too scary for my sensory system).
Your dating life, and eventually home life and relationship, will be impacted in many ways by your partner’s (changing) sensory profile.
If any part of you wants to tell her to get over it, you are driving her to masking. Masking leads to meltdowns and eventually autistic burnout.
It will not be a fun or fruitful relationships and is best avoided within a relationship since life makes you mask a lot as an Autistic whether you want to or not. We can’t do it at home too.
#3
Our sensory stimulation often leads to feeling disregulated emotionally, which can lead to things like situational-non-speaking or Autistic meltdowns. You should be familiar with those.
Every Autistic handles this differently but it’s common to want to co-regulate—or to “borrow” a loved one’s emotional regulation. Don’t freak out when we freak out if that’s possible. And don’t ask if we are okay. We’re not. Ask what we want or what would feel better right now. “Is there anything you can think of that might help you right now?” Is a great question to have at the ready.
That said, if we can’t answer or don’t know, try just being there. Just sit next to us. No touching without permission when we are disregulated. A lot of us don’t really feel comforted by hugs but will give them to you to make you feel better because we feel guilty for being disregulated.
#4
Stims and SPINs (SPecial INterest) can help.
Stims, like rocking or knee bouncing, can help us regulate. So can listening to the same song over and over and over. Regularly engaging with our SPINs can also help us stay in a more regulated state.
Ask us what we love. Relish the infodump!
#5
Sometimes we get so into our special interest we lose track of time or forget to eat or go to the bathroom. Bring us snacks and water if we are deep into the research rabbit hole. We will love you forever.
#6
Speaking of loving you forever…We really, really, really hate it when you add stories or interpretations of what we said. Autistic Culture values straight-forward communications. We aren’t manipulating you. We aren’t lying. We don’t have a secret agenda. We said what we meant and when meant what we said—and we assume you did too.
We don’t value small talk and BS. We value clarity and honesty. If you want to date an Autistic person, you will get the opportunity to become a more direct and clear communicator which means you need to become a clear thinker. Know what you mean, say it, and stick to it.
Our whole lives are focused around two things—our special interests and controlling chaos. If you introduce chaos by not being a person of your word, we will likely need to cut you loose or spend our relationship masking to the point of pain and often self-harm.
#7
Okay last point for now…Sex, gender, and gender-expression for most Autistic people is not clear cut. Most of us identify as Queer and many of us identify as gender non-binary. So, good news for you! You get to learn more about inclusivity and Social Justice if you love an Autistic person!
If I wasn’t rushed on my call yesterday this is what I would have told my friend about his new Autistic love interest.
Of course, I don’t know her (yet) and every Autistic person is different. So the most important thing I would have said is to ASK ASK ASK. Curiosity is your best tool if you love an Autistic person and want to know them better.
*Side Note for Nerds: I’m using a capital A (which presumes this woman is a part of Autistic Culture and not just someone with a diagnosis) because she disclosed her neurotype so early in their dating, I’m assuming that means she’s coming at it from the shame-free social model of Autism and not the a pathologized medical model—but that is an assumption.
Oh and one last thing I’d tell my friend: show her this post and get her opinion on each of my 7 thoughts. You should do that with the Autistic person you love too if you are still reading!
Hope this helps you if you love an Autistic! The key to understanding why we do what we do and not get frustrated, in my opinion, is to look at it like you are getting to know someone from a different culture and embrace the whole package.
Remember—most happy Autistic people prefer identity-first language. We are not a person WITH autism. It’s not separate from us. Just like I’m not a person with Italian heritage. I am an Italian-American. I am an Autistic person. Person first language is pathologizing. (Most Autistic people and research agrees on this but of course use whatever language the person you love asks you to use.)
What would you add to this list? What’s been your experience with cross-neurotype relationships? Tell me about it in the comments!
*Background note: Most people only have a vague (often, highly stereotyped) version of autism in their minds and believe that autistic children need (traumatic) ABA therapy to "overcome" their disability and appear "normal." After receiving an autism diagnosis in her thirties, Dr. Angela Lauria realized that she too had been mostly unaware of what it means to be Autistic. Like so many people, she started her journey by first gathering information and resources from the omnipresent (and problematic) Autism Speaks, but eventually moved away from the 'autism community' in favor of the 'Autistic community,' where she found kinship with other Autistic individuals and learned to let go of pathologizing language like 'autism spectrum disorder' and 'Asperger's Syndrome.' This autism blog (and her autism podcast, "The Autistic Culture Podcast") is meant to share her lived-experience insights to support others on a similar journey of diagnosis, understanding, and community. Embrace Autism--differences are not deficits.