Have you ever dated a socially awkward guy?

[Summerisgoinggreat]

And if so, how did it go?

I have a friend who has expressed some interest in me recently.

But he's socially awkward in person, so I've put off some meet ups in the past. Great at texting and we've always had a great connection, despite the social awkwardness. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's how it is. We have loads of hobbies in common.

I was thinking we could watch movies and just chill out together. İt's really hard to meet up as friends unless there's an activity to do, as he's not the type you can sit and have a full on flowing conversation with at a dinner table. Possibly some neurodivergence there.

Just wondering if anyone has experienced similar and could advise.

Yes, my husband 😆
It works for us because I have that kind of garrulous ASD, so I can fill silences with all of the information my oddly wired brain will store. I precipitate; he responds. He is socially very anxious and almost silent in groups. I can find this tiring sometimes but I just leave him to it. It's not something that needs fixing and it's not my job to even try.
We have a lot of shared likes/hobbies too, which gave us the stepping stone. We are very good friends, aside from husband and wife.
Also a mutual love of cake 😁

The traditional British solution for this is alcohol.

Honestly, it was pretty rubbish in the end. Boring as he never wanted to go out, and hard work when he did as I had to carry him in conversation.

This sounds really beautiful! Your husband sounds a bit like my dad.

Oh no! This guy loves going out, perhaps even more than me, so that might not be an issue. İt's more when we stop and sit, that it's hard to keep a conversation going with him. I'm very fond of him though and we've been friends a couple of years and hung out properly five times in that time.

Brilliant. This is actually true and could help haha.

I find that conversations happen naturally when you do things together. Long walks, art galleries, museums, etc lead to personal tales. I had a lovely conversation with a taciturn friend at the Museum of Childhood about their upbringing.

My husband too. 19 years in. He's still socially awkward. He doesn't do small talk. But he has hidden depths. 😃 People really like him when they get to know him.

How did you get comfortable with the social awkwardness in the beginning?

Thats beautiful! I spent a lot of time there as a child.

I'm married to one. Get comfortable with companionable silence, or just talk at him. DH responds sometimes. He talks at me about trains. We do have conversations if we go for dinnerbut the topics are very unpredictable, partly because I'm very butterfly minded

I wonder if he would become more comfortable to speak more, the more time you spend together?

I think when I've been in this situation before I've assumed the person wasn't interested in me as they rarely asked any questions but this wasn't the case. I find that hard to understand as when I like someone I want to know everything about them. X

We had / have a lot of shared interests (mainly music) so we naturally ended up at related events were there is less pressure to converse formally and it gives you something to talk about.