How to Date an Allistic Person

Sometimes even just talking with neurotypical people can be difficult-- let alone dating them! How can you manage a relationship with an allistic person? Let's discuss!

I think I started "dating" when I was around 16 years old. I played a lot of MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games when I was a child, and my friends would ask to "date." These mock-relationships would blossom, as I aged, into relationships with classmates, friends in-person, and more.

However, most of them fell apart because they couldn't understand my Autistic needs and reactions.

How does dating look different when you're Autistic? For myself, I'm a lot more comfortable with meeting people online vs. in-person. I struggle with conversations, knowing when to speak, and typing makes that far easier instead. I also struggle with knowing what's appropriate, and thankfully that comes up less often in the virtual sphere.

Whatever locale or method you prefer for meeting people, it's important to make sure you're building a relationship healthily and safely. This article will primarily discuss how to do so with an allistic person, due to the complications that can arise from someone not understanding the Autistic experience.

Let's dive right into the details of how to make this happen!

Table of Contents

1. How do you create a healthy relationship as an Autistic person?

2. My experiences

3. Mutual Respect

4. Communication is key

5. Setting expectations

6. Negotiations to compromises

7. Knowing what your needs are

8. Autistic-neurotypical relationships vs. Autistic-Autistic relationships

9. Final thoughts

How do you create a healthy relationship as an Autistic person?

There is a misconception outside of the Autistic community that Autistic people don’t date. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Autistic people, like neurotypical people, frequently make friends, find love, and have kids. But how do you make a relationship work when you may have different needs than your partner? These needs could be sensory-based, organizational, or other facets of life that your partner may not feel or understand themselves. How do you bridge that gap and create a caring partnership between two disparate people?

Let’s jump right into it. 

My experiences

I’m 27 years old and I’ve dated around half a dozen people in my life, each one lasting about a year or two. I’ve had bad experiences and, more recently, good experiences. I’ve been with my current partner for almost 4 years. My partner experiences ADHD but isn’t Autistic. I’m Autistic, and I was screened for ADHD, but the conclusion was that I don’t have it. We make quite a pair, with his chaos and my order.

When we first started dating, we had to have several conversations about our needs. 

I had to ask him not to raise his voice, as the loud volume hurt my ears. 

He had to remind me to not be on his case so much, in my quest for planning and organization.

However, we work very well together. It was a journey of exploring a person with different needs from my own. We worked from a position of trust and respect. We worked on accepting what the other person needed (within our own limitations), and continued from there.

We fundamentally respect each other. We have grown to understand the other person’s needs.

In my former bad dating experiences, the biggest shared factor was the lack of respect. Sometimes, on both sides. 

Mutual respect.

Without respect, you can’t accomplish anything. It’s the gas in the car. It’s the oil or butter in the pan. It’s needed. Necessary. Without it, you’ll only have a dysfunctional mess. 

I have no scientific proof to back this up, but in my opinion I think Autistic people are a lot more vulnerable to abusive relationships than most people. 

Why? 

1. We’re creatures of habit, routine, and regularity. If we live with a partner and the relationship starts going south, we’ll have to uproot our entire lives– along with our routines, personal structure– to disentagle ourselves. And once our lives are uprooted and changing, often– in my own experience, at least– we tend to collapse. 

2. Once our foundations are disturbed (e.g. living situation), its negative effects ripple outwards. An Autistic who’s facing trouble at home likely won’t be able to continue working their job and might lose their position. That regularity’s disturbance can ripples outwards into huge effects.

3. Autistic folk may struggle to make friends. I know, for me, my partner is my best friend. But if we broke up and it divided our friend group, I would be without much of my established support system. Again, that would have huge ripple effects into my general ability to cope with life as a whole. 

For these reasons it’s important that you, as an Autistic person, examine your relationship for mutual respect. 

Here’s how: 

• Does your partner respect your desires and wishes without criticizing them or bullying you into dropping them? 

• Does your partner lift you up, e.g. encourage you and support you?

• Does your partner isolate you from friends and family? 

• Does your partner ignore your needs, or insist they’re not reasonable expectations?

• Does your partner try to argue with your Autistic sensitivities and needs e.g. overstimulation making you need to leave an environment?

It’s also possible that you may be bringing disrespect into the relationship as well, so consider asking yourself these same questions.

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you might want to examine more critically how healthy your relationship is.

Your partner SHOULD:

• Acknowledge how your Autistic symptoms are difficult for you, and work to accommodate your needs to limit them

• Support your desires and wishes in general

• Lift you up: e.g. support your ambitions, be your cheerleader

• Validate your needs as reasonable things

• Support you when you face challenges e.g. overstimulation, shutdowns

But how do you let your partner know what your needs are in the first place?

Communication is key

You should always have an open line of communication with your partner. 

As an Autistic person, sometimes that means having a backup channel other than just talking. Depending on what kind of Autistic you are, you may frequently go nonverbal, so another method is vital for communicating with friends, family, and especially your partner about what you need. Not being able to communicate your needs can lead to meltdowns, shutdowns, and general overwhelm. It is key.

I learned the basics of ASL as another option if I get overwhelmed and become nonverbal. It’s slow, because it’s just fingerspelling the alphabet, but it’s better than nothing. My partner understands that when I become nonverbal, yes/no questions are FAR better and easier than open-ended questions– I can just nod or shake my head. We also have texting available via our phones, always on hand. 

If you frequently shut down, melt down, or experience overstimulation, I recommend having a conversation with your partner about expectations, communication methods, and more. 

Here’s a list of communication methods that might be useful: 

• Text (phone, whiteboard)

• Images (some people have necklaces with different symbols they can flip to for communication)

• Signs (American Sign Language or your region’s Sign Language)

• Gestures (Nodding/shaking head in response to yes/no questions)

• AAC devices (laptops or tablets with images that communicate your needs for you)

In addition to having a backup communication method– because overstimulation can easily lead to shutdown if a troublesome sensory event continues– it’s a good idea to have a plan in place. E.g. “if I start shutting down, please help me get to somewhere quieter and more removed from people.” Or, e.g., “Please help me find my earplugs (for my noise sensitivity) or my handkerchief (for my smell sensitivity) when I start to seem overstimulated in public.”

If you don’t communicate what to expect, your allistic partner won’t know what to do. This will be distressing for you both, and potentially lead to a traumatic event with a public meltdown.

Communication will also help with the health of your relationship in general. Share your needs, make compromises, and work together to make it work.

Setting expectations

Another key step in a relationship with an allistic person is setting expectations. 

Maybe they really like going to concerts, but that is almost unthinkable for you due to your noise sensitivity. You could discuss that you’ll probably never go, but you might or might not be open to trying it.

Maybe they love fragrances like candles and perfume, but that is a source of sensitivity for you. You could communicate that you would prefer them not to use those products while you’re at home. 

As a disabled person, your needs take high priority. This doesn’t mean you should railroad your partner into following your every whim, but rather, examine what is truly necessary for you. While Autism is invisible, it’s just as valid as someone who needs a cane to walk. A person using their cane to walk expecting their partner to de-snow the driveway because they might slip is reasonable. So don’t think it’s unreasonable that you ask that your partner not play loud music over the speakers while you’re home too. 

Having a discussion about what’s possible, what’s doable, and what’s practically impossible is practical for any relationship, but particularly vital for us. 

Negotiation to compromises

Every good relationship has compromises. Because, in actuality, this whole “dating” business isn’t just about you. It’s about making it work for your partner as well. Because they’re flexible for you and your needs, you need to be flexible for them too.

For example, maybe your favorite stim is clicking pens but that absolutely drives your partner crazy. You should have a conversation about alternate stims you could use, e.g. a clicky stim toy that’s silent, or about you doing that only when they’re not present. 

It’s hard to work around Autistic needs, but we all live in this world together, let alone you and your partner potentially living and working together. You’re sharing a space, and for that reason you need to be considerate– Autistic or not. 

Knowing what your needs are

So we’ve talked about communication, respect, and flexibility– but what if you don’t know what to ask for? 

As an Autistic person who was undiagnosed until I was 22, I spent many years journaling and introspecting, trying to figure out what was “wrong with me.” I can highly recommend doing something like this to better understand yourself.

Pick up journaling to figure out what, in particular, overstimulates you. What sense is it– touch, hearing, sight? Why does it bother you? In this way you’ll grow more informed about what could upset you in the future. 

If you don’t know anything about yourself and your Autistic needs, it will be a lot harder to communicate these needs to someone else. Do yourself a favor and start informing yourself today about what bothers you.

Autistic-neurotypical relationships vs. Autistic-Autistic relationships

Many of the things discussed not only apply to Autistic-NT relationships, but also to Autistic-Autistic relationships. Communication, respect, and flexibility is something all of us should have in our partnerships. However, for us it is even more vital. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. And if you are afraid, this is your sign to maybe pursue other people. 

Final thoughts

I hope this helps you pursue a healthy relationship! Remember: it all begins with self-knowledge, and then being able to communicate that knowledge to other people, most notably your partner. Your partner will appreciate it, you’ll feel more comfortable, and the world will feel much more accommodating and friendly to your Autistic needs.