Two quirky ASDs finding solace in each other, but too quickly?

[CanLoveBeSafe]

So I met a woman around 5 days to a week ago online.
I had responded to her community facebook post and she liked my response so much that she sent me voice notes in return on messenger 😯
Flash forward and we've really been connecting with each other very well, slowly getting to know one another.
I'm a 31yr old guy and she is a 41. We are both ASD/ND, quirky as hell and even share some of the same stims 😆

At first I had just anticipated friendship, but when she revealed to me that she held a desire to meet in person and see if it was even possible that something more could develop I confessed to her that I too was really curious but a little bit scared, I then felt scared about what she would say about me revealing I felt a little scared but to my relief she said she felt relieved because she too felt a bit scared and like me struggles with vulnerability.

So earlier tonight (well, last night) we spent the whole night sending each other voice notes and messages on messenger and really started to open up a lot to each other. Despite our intentions to just start really slow, build up friendship etc she sent me a voice note where she says she feels completely safe talking to me and how she doesn't feel embarrassed about saying anything weird or stupid around me and she feels like I'm special etc.
I really appreciate hearing all that, it really made me smile and I feel similarly about her although I don't feel like I extend as much trust to her yet as she does me, I feel like I'm needing to go a little slower and like well actually meet her and have coffee (yes, just coffee!) and maybe go a walk and you know the usual stuff getting to know someone. I feel like she's leaking out a lot of feelings about me already and it's making me feel anxious and erratic despite really liking her so far over the internet.

We're both autistic and so struggle with feelings a lot, identifying them, sitting with them, reflecting on them. I'm so used to either just feeling numb or not much or just shoving them down to not deal with the mess.
She's a very sensitive person with a heart of glass, a bit like Blondie! I guess I'm the same, or maybe my glass heart is walled up with bricks.

I felt really engaged and in tune with our convo tonight until towards the end she suddenly wrote "you make me wanna just snuggle up with you 😉"
Immediately upon reading that I felt a kind of tingling feeling in my chest, stomach and...down there 😳but I also felt it mingled with a really erratic unpleasant energy, anxiety I think. So much for taking it slow! but at the same time I felt enticed by her desire and a little bit aroused, wtf I haven't even met her! she hasn't met me!

I really wanna meet up with her and we will, we plan to on Monday, she asked if we could go skipping stones in a loch somewhere and I said I'd love to!
I'm just anxious that she's gonna want or feel compelled to move a lot faster than I'm ready for, I mean emotionally, and I'm also worried that the low level arousal/lust might quickly intensify between us into an escalation that might leave us both feeling confused or hurt?
Why is this so confusing?

She also has a primary school aged daughter, I love kids and will love meeting her but I've been single and not really had kids in my life for a long time, I'm worried I've forgotten how to even interact with them 😕I'm worried that like I'll either baby talk her or I dunno get all existential over her lego set, wait what age is Peppa pig? Bratz? I'm so clueless around kids 😕What if snuggles leads to more of them 😳

Seriously though, I know this is long but any uhhh advice? insight? I don't even know what I'm asking for really I'm just feeling so erratic and arrgghhh

She is ‘leaking’ and getting carried away because she probably doesn’t meet many nd men and feels safe and able to be her authentic self with you.
im nd and I get this instant connection with many fellow nds and it makes me over excited because I don’t have to pretend to be like all the nts.
it may also be that you’re her current special interest and she is really into the idea of you at the moment
this is your life too though and it does sound very full on considering you haven’t even met yet.
You can be completely honest and say it’s moving faster than you’d like and ask to rewind a bit. If she doesn’t respect your boundaries then maybe it is not a relationship for you

Wow I could be her current special interest? Considering how fast we nds can drop a special interest and pick up a new one that's unsettling and probably going to make me feel insecure and that will transfer over into connection and fragment it and screw everything up.
I hadn't even considered human subject special interests. God I hope not.

Is it appropriate at this stage to express to her that "I feel uncertain and anxious that what you feel for me might just be special interest?" Or is that just too wack to type even if it isn't too wack to consider?

I also have complex issues with CEN and probably some trauma from being a "looked after child", I plan to get therapy but I honestly just didn't expect a woman like anytime soon and it looks like it could go somewhere, I've done my best to introspect and honestly I guess I need to feel that love is safe before I can be vulnerable? Is that it?

...also you could be being catfished by an old man. Any NT person would easily be able to mirror your interests and lovebomb. You are already gushing and investing emotional attachment in this person, who you haven't seen. I recommend meeting asap so you can assess who you are dealing with. But fgs, don't go to a solitary Loch with them, make sure you are safe by meeting in a very public place like a cafe. It's also easier to leave then if its not for you after a quick coffee. If they push for solitude for a meeting, smell a rat, it could actually be dangerous.

My dh and i are nd and very quirky.

Go for it!!!

Have you actually spoken to her or video called her. Rather than just voice messaging? You need to do that first, before meeting up.

I see your concern it's totally valid but I should have mentioned that she's sent me a couple videos that she made from her house (we live same town, oblivious to each others existence until now) and I could hear her daughter interrupting her talking to her at times and some other things like I've seen her workout pictures as she showed me them, she's very into her lifting as am I ☺️ and her pictures match the video and her voice in videos matches her voice in voice notes so it'd have to be a very elaborate catfish.

I'm curious to why an old man would want to catfish a 31yr old man tho? Surely they would anticipate rejection upon meeting and revealing themselves?
I think she's probably taking more risk than I am to be honest she wants me a 31yr old guy to pick her up and take her away to a loch, particularly as she's shared that she experienced DV in the past with daughters dad, so I do indeed feel she should be at least a little scrutinizing of me.

Just want to add that I will absolutely be expecting initial meetup locally or cafe and coffee prior to any driving to loch activity, I do feel uncomfortable in her being so trusting of me when there are indeed lots of dangerous men out there, she'd be very safe with me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually but she doesn't know that. You make an extremely valid point so much so I felt compelled to expand on my original response to it.

Well, I get the sense that it's likely to happen organically over the next few days over the weekend, albeit in the shared-ness of our quirky missing a beat style. I'm going to suggest a few video calls over the weekend, I mean that's kind of the pace I'd expect, I'm not exactly in sync with the energy flows of neurotypical bonding but even as ND I know she's probably going too fast for either of us

I love this, it's inspiring.
It's good to hear a nd/nd success story

I think if you're both on the spectrum, and able to share bits of info about yourself relating to that, then that must understandably give you a sense of security and safety with her.

However, your alarm bells ringing are because you actually don't know each other at all yet, and you're right in that you need to slow down. She's getting very invested in you very quickly. It sounds like it comes from a genuine place, but at the moment she's building this up into something it isn't (yet - it could develop, who knows).

You just need to be very honest with her about how you feel, and tell her this is going too fast and that at the moment you'd just like to meet for coffee, see if you're compatible in person and take it from there.

You'll be OK if you're honest. It's OK if it doesn't work out, and it's also OK to take things very slowly to see if it does. Meet up soon so you're not worrying about things that may or may not happen. Good luck - it sounds like you have the potential to hit it off, but listen to your feelings and go at the pace you want.

My son is ND. This is lovely to read. I really hope it works out for you.

Try not to overanalyse. Just meet up and see how it goes. It sounds like you're a great match for each other. Best of luck.

Did anyone read the liberence thread the other day?

OP, you are experiencing a case limerence. It may end up consuming you.

Just attempt to calm down.

DH and I are not diagnosed with anything at all but we are quirky I suppose and the list of what makes us possibly ND is vast. lots of people call us weird but find us very sweet. We heard a sound when out walking with friends on Sunday and both started to hum it at the same time rising in volume, we didn’t even realise we were doing it.

She has massively overshared about the DV. You should not meet her child at all for quite a while. It is very unfair on the child. There is obviously risk but also even if a man poses zero risk of harm it’s confusing for a child to have people in and out of their lives. When I write quite a while I mean months.

Yes, I will have to just be honest.
She is most definitely starting to go way too fast for me and I feel anxious, almost feels a bit uhh threatening? I understand it and I feel empathy for it, I'm reluctant to make her feel rejected or the need to retract into her shell, but we spoke about that earlier and she directly addressed this and stated that she's aware of her rejection sensitivity issues and not great self esteem, I mean at least we have that in common but it's not a reassuring place to pull out bricks for the foundation.

Can I help her build herself up and become more secure in herself in the process of bonding? Maybe we could both do that for each other and then evolve our relationship when we both have a strong secure centre of self?

She said that she's liable to panic and get skittish and wall up, she also said she's worried she will misinterpret any "woah let's slow down" from me as rejection. I told her I'm so happy she's expressed this to me because I feel maybe I can help her sit in it, I also told her if she does feel the need to retract back into her shell or wall up then she knows i will still be here when she comes back out! I will wait patiently for her to feel more secure again in her connection with me, because whether platonic or more - I want her to feel like she can trust me with her vulnerability

A what? I'm sorry I don't intend any rudeness here but I didn't understand any of that

This apl feels far too depp for someone you have 'known' 7 days.
Just slow down...all thia talk of waiting for her if she retreats, you don't even know her yet. You might not like her in person.

There are lots of red flags including her telling you she is a victim of DV, oversharing so quickly is a boundary issue and it sounds like she hasn't done the freedom programme.
Telling people about DV early on screams vulnerable and men can take advantage of that.

I suggest you both go very slowly, meet for coffee, go backwards on the hours of messaging and voice notes and both get therapy for your respective paths and hopefully in a few years you'll both be ready for a relationship with healthy boundaries.

I told myself for so long I'm happy being single and don't need anyone, I think because it's simple that way isn't it? No complicated dynamics and interpersonal complexities to navigate, but it's lonely and not fulfilling, I'm starting to believe in love, I just don't trust or feel safe in it and noone ever showed me good examples of it. I'm sure your ND son will do just fine! He will lose hope at times, he'll question what the point of it is, he'll wonder when the mother ship is coming back to get him, but the truth is noone is coming to save us and I'm not sure it's healthy to use love as escapism.

I'm autistic and mèt an autistic man at a dance class. The connection was instant and absolute. It was like we'd known each other forever. A few days later he came to my house and never left. 25 years on and he's still here.

I'm autistic my DH is autistic
We met at uni
I have to say ,
He was obsessed with me ,and seemed to pop up everywhere I went .
I totally wasn't interested in the slightest and used to hide from him
Untill I realised he had a car .
Still together 35 years later and married with 4 kids .
However neither of us knew we were autistic untill the kids started getting diagnosed.
So you know op ,you and her need to meet up and see how it goes .
It could be a match made in heaven

Also things with us moved very fast ,within a couple of months we were living together.
So it may move quite fast once you do meet

There is an ASD section on here ,that is really helpful, especially the mumsnetters with ASD one

Don't over analyse ( l know that's hard!) and ask her not to overshare so much as you need to know each other better first. She's revealing a lot, very quickly and that's why you feel anxious. You need to slow things down to feel comfortable. Meet up for a coffee date and see how it goes in person. Online to real life is very different and you can't know, or predict, how you will feel until you meet in person.

Hopefully not since she has a child to protect.

I think you should trust your own instinct. You do not have to match her intimacy and intensity. She doesn't actually know if she wants to snuggle up with you. You've never met. She just hopes she does.

I think it's lovely when people 'find' each other but self preservation is a thing and yours appears to be working well.

Take it slow, meet her and see what happens. If she's too much for you, she's too much. If it feels natural, great!

Please trust your instincts on this. You're a 31yo guy who was just looking for friendship. She's a 41yo mother who has rapidly accelerated that into more, and kept up that intensity even when you've expressed wanting to be sensible about it. Someone has to be the grown up here and clearly it's got to be you, even though she should be looking out for her DD and her own glass heart and not going so fast to fantasy snuggles and non stop contact. Keep your sensible head on and try not to get swept up in this whirlwind. Course it's nice to be wanted and complimented and all the more so when you often feel misunderstood. But you're right to remember that you've not met, don't know each other, and aren't necessarily compatible just because of your NDs. You're arguably at different life stages, though if you genuinely fall for each other that may not be a dealbreaker. However that's all to be seen, so keep a healthy open mind for now and if friendship is all it becomes, that's all you wanted anyway.