Learn To Play The Game Of Love

• Difficult to get with: This means that any form of contact between me and the girl hasn’t been made, has been broken, or has been obstructed. The girl may also live in a far away country, or be unavailable for a love relation with me.
• Out of my league: This means the girl is more ambitious, more experienced and/or more adventurous than I am. In other words: she gets out of her comfort-zone way more often than I do. This make me me feel like I’m not good enough for her.
• Contradicting with my principles: This may mean the girl is too young, or too old for my standards. Another reason could be that she’s the ex of a good friend. Or something weird, like a single mom of the same age. Stuff like that. There’s also simpler things, like cultural differences.
• Intimidating: These aren’t girls, but bitches. They are gossipy and love to ridicule others. They can be loud and overly attentive, but most of all they are manipulative. I think that anyone with autism might have trouble with these personality traits.

Today, I decided to take this one step further. This time, I wanted to find out whether these forms of distance were in any way related to certain situations, or a girl’s personality. So I made another list of girls, and I checked which of the four categories applied to each of them. I noticed new patterns had formed themselves as a result!

• When all 4 forms of distance apply: It is not particularly enjoyable to contact one of these girls. Maybe I made them feel ignored. But whatever the case, they are noticably tired of my shit, and they don’t intend on taking me seriously any longer.

• When 3 forms of distance apply:
1. When she is out of my league, contradicting with my principles and intimidating: These girls are not my type. I feel absolutely no regrets for letting go of my chances.
2. When she is difficult to get with, out of my league and intimidating: These are usually just unrealistic and melancholic feelings speaking. I tend to regret not taking my chances when I still had them, even though these girls have never appealed to me before.
3. When she is difficult to get with, contradicting with my principles and intimidating: I met an impulsive girl like this over the internet once. It was a little overwhelming, as she was planning to come overhere and have sex with me. It made me uncomfortable..
4. When she is difficult to get with, out of my league and contradicting with my principles: Every inch of my body is telling me that it is wrong for me to be with her (even though I may be over-reacting). I conclude that I do not deserve her.

• When 2 forms of distance apply:
1. When she is difficult to get with and intimidating: Girls like these are either stuck up and scary , or were terribly hurt by something I have done to them.
2. When she is out of my league and contradicting with my principles: Nobody comes to mind, but these girls are likely to be a guilty pleasure. Someone’s mother, or maybe a family member?
3. When she is contradicting with my principles and intimidating: These girls were persuasive enough to get me to hang out with them. I was confused, and have been clueless on what to do.
4. When she is difficult to get with and contradicting with my principles: These are girls I never talk to anymore, mainly because their lifestyle does not appeal to me.
5. When she is out of my league and intimidating: These girls are indeed out of my league and intimidating! I fell in love with a girl like this 10 years ago. Sometimes I wonder if I have gotten over it.
6. When she is difficult to get with and out of my league: These girls are all very lovely. I’d love to be in their company. Yet, compared to them I’m an under-achiever. I don’t think I will be able to impress them.

• When 1 form of distance applies:
1. When she is contradicting with my principles: I don’t see myself being a couple with any of these girls.
2. When she is intimidating: These girls move way too fast for me. I wonder if I can trust them to respect me.
3. When she is out of my league: I feel like I would need to work real hard to impress these girls. Satisfying them might be even harder.
4. When she is difficult to get with: These are girls I (would) really get along with. Why aren’t we a couple yet?

• No form of distance: These girls are supposed to be a perfect match for me, yet it never even crossed my mind. I should really spend more time with them!

^{I think writing all this gave me a better understanding of how girls view me. It is strangely reassuring to know all this, even though it’s gotten pretty confusing. I must confess that I feel weird about this post. It feels unrefined, or incomplete somehow. Maybe I’m wrong somewhere… I spent all day on this too, so I don’t know. I think I’m just tired.}

I’ve got to be really honest with myself here. It’s as if there’s always some obstacles in the way that keep me from having a girlfriend. Obstacles that shouldn’t be here. They’re all in my mind! I feel like most obstacles are gone now that I live on my own, but I’m still not over it! Like, oftentimes I feel unprepared for visitors and don’t want to invite anyone over. Stuff like that. And then there’s other stuff, like me feeling uncomfortable around people I barely even know, which reduces my chances.

In other words: There’s really a lot to work on.

First of October, my favorite month. I should be happy, but I’m not. There’s way too much on my mind right now, so I’m just gonna write it all down and be rid of it once and for all!

I think it’s been Friday, the 21st of September when I went with rebelcassie’s advice. I decided to go and see if the girl at work would be okay to go out with me. But during the day she brought up her boyfriend more than once, so naturally I felt a little distance between us. Nonetheless, I joined her in assertiveness training. I happened to see her leave later that day, and so I walked outside to have a little chat.
“Uhm, you told me you want to work with people with autism right?”
“Oh well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I informed the other day, and it’s just way too expensive for me at the moment.”
“Oh, well… If you’re interested, there’s this informative night about autism tonight. It’s closeby.”
But she had things to do. I never wrote about it before because I ended up shrugging off the whole situation. It didn’t make me feel rejected so much, just a bit disappointed.

I haven’t seen her since. Last week’s been very weird, and it makes me glad to know my community service workplace is flexible like that. I overslept on Monday and didn’t show up, Tuesday I felt depressed for some reason and decided to take the day off. I showed up on Wednesday and caught a cold along the way. The weather’s changed so fast over the course of two weeks, I should have worn a coat! Also, it was crowded with sudden visitors, very unlikable people in my book. Thursday I must’ve gotten sick, didn’t show up. Friday was the same, though I felt a little better at the end of the day and decided to go through with the family dinner that night. I didn’t eat much, to everyone’s surprise. And then on Saturday I had a party.

The party involved many people I hadn’t seen in a long time. Most importantly, my childhood girlfriend. She dyed her hair blond and it looked fantastic. I complimented her about it, and we talked. Seeing all sorts of kids jump around, she jokingly said “I’m the smallest kid around here.” But I quickly disagreed and said “No, that’s me!”. She then scolded me with some made-up slang only the both of us knew from when we were still kids. A pleasant surprise, as I had almost forgotten about it. I think she might miss those days, I really like that she brought up that part of our childhood. Also, face to face with her, she reminded me of a fictional character I had been working on quite recently. It was actually my favorite character so far, so that felt pretty special to me.

She used to be in a relationship for the longest of times, but she’s been on a break, or breakup, or something… I didn’t quite know, but I decided to milk it for all that it was worth. I felt weird about it. Not about her, but about her friends, the people she’s involved with. I didn’t meet them, but just watched them socialize from a distance. Her ex took a while to get there, and when he did, I hesitated no second. I walked up to her.
“Hey, I don’t think I have your phonenumber.”
“Oh hey yeah, what is yours?”
So I gave her my number, and she gave me a ring.
Sweet.

So I stayed toward the end of the party, and watched her ex make attempts at getting her back.. In the meantime I’ve spent time with some old acquaintances with better beards than mine, and tried my best in acting out a happy-go-lucky personality. I also ended up meeting the girlfriend of that old friend of mine. It wasn’t as much of a shock as I thought it’d be. Good for him! As the party came to an end, I learned that this childhood girlfriend of mine and her ex were going to attend some other party. There’s probably some intent in him coming on his motorcycle, but I think it’s pretty rad. Before leaving I sneaked her three kisses on the cheeks.
“We’ll keep in contact!”, she said, with a hint of expectation.
“Definitely!”

But…
Now I’m not sure how to feel about it. I think I’m intimidated with her lifestyle, her being a student and all. And motorcycles are pretty damn cool. How do I even top that? She’s attending a medical university in a different city, while I’m not even a functional member of society. It doesn’t feel right, in the way it feels right with that colleague I like. Everything seems so complicated all of a sudden, and I’ve been a zombie today.

I really needed to get my head straight.

Things just seemed to keep getting better between me and that girl at work. A few of her qualities were noticeably corresponding with a set of features I seem to be looking for in girls. She mentioned how she hopes to get her motorcycle drivers license, and that she grew up to be a “boyish” girl. It’s not necessarily “tomboys” I’m attracted to though. Girls whom I fancy, all seem to have grown up as the only girl in a nest of brothers. This too, has been confirmed.

The girl trains people in becoming more assertive, and I decided to join a session. Apparently I was pretty clear in showing my boundaries. They were reasonable boundaries, but when the session ended, I decided to tell her something about them.
“I haven’t always been this reasonable about my boundaries. I’ve always been pretty distant and I still feel like I don’t let people come close enough.”
After I told her this, she probably did some math about things I’ve told her before. A little while later, she asked me something in private.
“Regarding what you had told me before, and you being autistic, do you have any guidance?”
I told her I did.
“You seem more emotional than most men. You probably don’t get along with regular men and their sexist jokes, do you? ...Which is the better thing to be!”
Spot on.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about this, still am. Is she pitying me? Or is she honestly interested in the type of person I am? Then what type of interest could this be? Does she think I’m an interesting personality? Does she want to be a friend? Does she just want to spend time with me? I’m eating myself up here.

Speaking of food, a barbecue had been organized at work that evening. It had become clear over lunch that she too is a vegetarian, and that’s another reason to like her even more. I was a little overwhelmed by all the people, but the atmosphere was good. Everyone was allowed to bring their partner to the barbecue, and she was a little late. She showed up with some guy. As soon as I noticed, I stopped paying attention to her arrival and faced my empty plate. Soon after, I overheard her asking where I was. She ended up sitting next to me. I had no idea what to do. But she did, apparently. She was going to get some food, and asked me if I wanted some. I was already stuffed, so I declined. She might have dressed up for the occasion, but I wasn’t sure. I never brought it up. In fact, I barely talked with her at all. Some colleagues left, and I didn’t stick around very long after that. There were some friends I wanted to meet up with anyway.

I still don’t know what to make of all this, but I’ve shown signs of depression ever since this happened. I’ve stated the life before this was perfect, apart from the lady companionship I’ve been missing out on. Lately it’s been on my mind, and I can barely think of anything else. And the situation has made me realize that whenever there’s a girl I like, and she likes me back, she already has a boyfriend, and that’s when I always give up. It’s demotivating…

I’m not taking any taken girls.
Why not?