This is a difficult one to articulate, but as a late-diagnosed ASD woman in her 30's currently dating, I have been doing a lot of work and self-reflection over the past two years to identify behaviours that aren't serving me well when it comes to meeting new partners and I'd be interested to know if others see any similarities with their own behaviour.
Firstly I should start by saying that, like many autistic women, I actually come across as very confident meeting new people. I'm a good conversationalist and I'm often told I have a knack for making others feel comfortable in my presence. I can mask for several hours at a time and come across as chatty, interested and curious about others during dates. I don't get nervous, and am genuinely interested in learning about the person I'm dating. I do however have a tendency to almost exploit this by sort of...psycho-analysing them. As soon as we start to move onto the more deep and meaningful stuff, I find myself asking lots of very pointed questions to try and understand their experiences, their emotions and generally how their mind works. I find we often end up analysing their personal relationships, moments of trauma or weakness etc... In the moment they are always very happy to share these very personal and intimate details because I've sort of lulled them into this feeling of safety... but I suspect that later on in the cold light of day it can leave them feeling a bit vulnerable. I usually leave dates knowing a lot about the other person and having not shared much about myself. I suspect I use it as a means of deflection because I feel I'm very uninteresting and two-dimensional, but also possibly to address some deep-rooted anxiety in myself when I believe that if I can just work out exactly what makes them tick, I can "learn" the other person and predict their behaviours and moods, perhaps adjusting my own behaviour to make myself more appealing/compatible to my neurotypical date. It's a behaviour I deeply wish to change because the other side-effect is that it often breaks down barriers of familiarity too soon whereby I end up becoming someone's agony aunt or listening to them go on about their ex girlfriend for hours.
For all my illusions of confidence, I have severe anxiety after dates when it comes to waiting for them to text to say they want to see me again. It's absolute torture and I become very low and emotional (though I would never show it). I also find myself avoiding texting potential partners much between our dates. I pretend it's because life is so busy, but I suspect I'm just trying to avoid exposing myself to too many opportunities where I could say the wrong thing and make them not want to see me again.
I also find myself overcompensating during dates to come across as overly generous or easygoing in some respects (being quick to offer to pay for things, being easygoing about the time and location of dates, not stressing if they're late, letting them decide what to do etc) whilst being completely oblivious to other social niceties. If a date stays overnight I often forget to offer them sufficient food and drink beyond the basic dinner and wine, when in reality people like snacks, a glass of water before bed, coffee and breakfast in the morning etc...)
I'm very picky about who I date and rarely want to see someone again, but on the odd occasion when I DO meet someone I like, I find myself catching feelings really quickly and nurturing a level of premature intimacy. I am desperate for their validation and heartbroken if things don't work out.
I'm giving myself a really hard time about all this at the moment, because it's very hard to change something about yourself that is so deeply ingrained in how your brain works. It's like trying to strip the manual gearbox out of a car and turn it into an automatic when you're not a mechanic and know nothing about cars 😂
Do any other neurodivergent daters out there recognise any of these behaviours in themselves? Did you manage to correct them? And did you disclose your ASD to potential partners very early on to help them understand, or would that immediately knee-cap the whole thing or leave the ASD person vulnerable to being taken advantage of?