I’m an autistic woman, and I’ve found great success in leaning into my autistic tendencies. By that, I mean just being blunt and upfront. One of my favourites is that if I’ve got chemistry with someone I don’t expect to see again, before I bid them farewell, I’ll give them a note with my number on and say something like “I had a great time hanging out with you tonight, would you like to go on a date with me sometime?” And then I hand them my number and scuttle off like a crab because I can only put on a cool face for so long before I crack under the anxiety.
Aspie man here, it’s harder for us to do that. I have a friend who I gave the standard, “Hi, my name is MapleEngineer and I have Asperger’s. That means…” speech to when I thought she was hinting. She said, “Ok, you don’t like hints?” “No.” “Ok. I’ve always found you attractive and have fantasized about sucking your cock. We should get together.” We did. It was awesome.
Life would be so by easier if the normies didn’t muddy the waters so much with their hints and clues.
Oh yeah, it’s why I mentioned I’m a woman - it’s certainly relevant to my experience here. I don’t have to worry about being perceived as threatening - if I flirt with a woman in an upfront way like I described, I never feel like there’s a risk of frightening her. Whereas on the flip side, if a guy asks me out, I’m always a bit on edge because of the small minority who are not safe to politely turn down. “Privilege” is definitely the wrong word for this, but being perceived as non threatening does make some things simpler.
I have been accused of being incredibly dense because I mask by playing all new relationships with women as completely natural. The woman I mentioned in my comment was hinting hard but I played it neutral. After I had a couple of hours to think about it I went back and said, “I have Asperger’s and here’s what that means. Here’s what masking is. I mask by playing hard neutral. I think you might be hinting. Hinting doesn’t work with me. If you’re hinting you need to stop and just say or ask what you want to say or ask. I won’t be offended. I will probably say, ‘Yes’ (I’m a sexy Aspie and I always say, ‘Yes’. )” So she just asked, I said, “Yes” and we had a good time. She told me that she had always found me and my attitude toward sex very appealing but thought I didn’t like her because I never flirted or expressed any interest. She said that in the almost 15 years we had been acquainted I had never even touched her. I said I thought it would be fun if the first time we touched was a kiss. The first time we touched it was a kiss. Now I’m waiting to find out if she’s going to go with me on a short road trip with one or two nights in a nice hotel this weekend.
I could’ve written this comment word for word. It really does make things a lot easier to just be direct, being able to do this is one of the very few outright advantages of our non-standard brains imo!
I don’t even think it’s true that men are particularly bad at this. Everyone is.
And I don’t think hinting is automatically a negative thing like so many are implying. It just depends on your preference and then ultimately comparability. Hinting is a form of flirtation. Flirtation extends the tension period of romance/sex, and can add fun and excitement. Some people prefer a direct approach.
Well first of all there’s no such individual as “men” so it’s impossible to generalize. Some can and some can’t. I think it’s however safe to assume that on average we’re not that great at it.
In my own case I think I’m quite good at reading the underlaying emotions of especially my girlfriend but then again I know her really well anyway. However this goes a bit against my suspicion about my autism because you’d think I had more trouble with that. Then there’s also the fact that I’m tall and somewhat handsome if I may say so myself so I haven’t really experienced the situation of a woman not wanting to talk with me but I can see when they don’t want to talk with someone else.
If I interpret what I see as a hint in the wrong way, and actually act on that misinterpretation, it could almost trivially lead to my arrest, conviction, and likely incarceration. And any sort of record - even if I was exonerated - could do significant to severe damage to my life-long economic potential.
So I just don’t fucking deal with hints. The math just does not make that a viable option in any logical or rational way.
If you, as a woman, can’t come out and converse like a functional adult, imma just gonna ignore you wholesale like the immature, games-playing child you are.
Unless your response to a hint is sexual assault, how do you think that it’s supposed to trivially lead to your arrest?
I think you need to update your 60s-era viewpoint to include unwanted attention and a metric arseload of other things a lot less severe than outright rape.
This world isn’t black and white. There are a lot of shades of grey, and most of that spectrum has been criminalized (for men, specifically; women aren’t affected) since your obsolete and archaic viewpoint ossified itself into your brain.
Men have been arrested for as little as making a woman uncomfortable. Even when he didn’t even realize she existed in the first place.
Shoo, incels. Women might be pissed when you approach them, and might insult you, but that’s about it, unless you actually assault them.
They actually have a lot of trouble making cops move their butts when actual rape is committed, so nothing important is going to be done about guys hitting on girls 🙄
You were saying? And that’s just one of the first articles in the search results.
Shoo, incels.
Interesting how the first thing you reached for was an ad hominem that is explicitly designed to shut down any conversation by shaming the other person into silence and into compliance with the female supremacist narrative.
Almost as if you had absolutely no viable counter-argument to provide.
Edit: And I am married. 18 years this year, 28 years with the same woman. So I am absolutely ineligible for the incel attribute. I just refuse to ignore uncomfortable facts, and will never bow to anti-reality ideologies.
Crybabies. Don’t be a creep, and you’ll be alright. Open streets are not the right place to pick up women minding their own business. And even if you do it, the worst you’re likely to get is an insult, meaningless anecdotes aside, because cops are fucking useless.
What business does a man married for 30y have in talking about seduction? You clearly haven’t spoken to actual women in a while to seduce them, by your own admission further down in the discussion thread, and you’re spreading FUD about things you haven’t experienced. Stay on your lane. The world doesn’t need your misogynist ramblings. We all have uncles at Christmas dinners for that, thank you very much.
I hate the idea of hints. Because A. You then have to make the person your interested in make their own way towards you, and B. Then they have to notice it and then take a risk. I think it's FAR better, to give your crush an opening, serve them a line on a silver platter.
For example:
My wife was interested in me and she opened with:
"Am I too close?" To which I could've replied "nah you're good" or "yes, a bit" without any fuss. but, since I was also interested, I replied.
"Oh nonsense, if anything you're not close enough" which, can easily be dismissed as me being silly, but nope, she's interested. So she responds
'OH really? So how close can I get?"
Like, set up a romantic line. If there's a romantic line to be had. If they're interested, they'll take it.
I know other people replied telling you already that this is exactly what the Op is taking about so I’ll be a little more exact in my reply.
I’ve had this exact scenario happen to me two different times and with two different women when I was younger. One viewed me as someone they were interested in and one viewed me as a platonic friend amongst a group of friends.
The first one was the platonic friend. I took this as her trying to snuggle up to me when we were sitting next to each other on a couch and she flatly rejected my advance where I asked if she just wanted to snuggle so she could be more comfortable.
The second time a similar situation happened with a different group of friends at a party and instead of trying to reciprocate what I perceived the first time as a flirt, I opted to stand up and go sit on the bean bag chair so she could have more personal space. Much much later someone told me she was flirting with me and asked why I didn’t try and snuggle with her. By the time they had told me this, she was no longer interested in me romantically. Presumably because I spurned her in front of everyone, much like the first person I mentioned did to me.
From then on I accepted that if I missed out on potential romantic opportunities because I didn’t interpret a hint from a woman correctly then it was no great loss. They’re clearly not a good match for someone like me who prefers clear and enthusiastic consent when entering into a physical relationship.
The first time I kissed my wife on our first date I asked her if I could kiss her. I’ve had multiple people tell me that it was lame to do or that I “should have just gone for it”, but I preferred to be very direct with my intentions and make sure I’m not putting someone else in an awkward position where they’re letting me kiss them because they’re not comfortable plainly rejecting me.
Making the conscious decision to always be direct with my desires and potential love interests was one of the better choices I’ve made in my life. It allowed me to by myself without requiring “game or rizz”. If the other person didn’t respond positively then no big deal as we likely aren’t compatible as potential partners.
TL;DR: Hints are fucking dumb.
Be open, speak plainly, and be direct. This isn’t just something for people who fall on the spectrum. Pretending to be anything other than exactly who you are around the people you’re most comfortable with is a silly game that will end up with you likely losing in the long term. You can’t keep up your “first date persona” forever and eventually the real you will come out and they might not like who they see.
I’ve never had a man not pick up on my interest. I have been called brutally honest though, so maybe I’m a bit more direct than most. I have had the reverse problem where they think normal politeness is an invitation.
Three things: one woman’s “hint” is another woman’s platonic behavior and “hints” are meant to be subtle so that they provide plausible deniability if there is no interest returned.
Dont blame us for not “getting” hints when part of the point is to be able to easily brush them off as not being signs of romantic interest. If you are interested in a dude, use your words.
And lastly, us not asking a woman out in response to her hints doesn’t necessarily mean we didn’t get the hints. It may just mean we aren’t interested in that particular person and dont want to make it awkward.
I’m a bisexual trans woman. I’ve dated men and women while presenting as male, and as presenting as female. In my experience the whole “not picking up on hints/not leaving strong enough hints to be picked up on” thing is not a gendered issue.
Honestly I really don’t think men and women are as different as they appear.
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