DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in my early 20s, single, male, had less than a handful of dates in my life and I have a question: just where is a man supposed to meet women? 

You can’t hit on women at work, you’ll get fired for harassment, possibly sued and put on a list somewhere and if you break up you’ll probably get in front of HR anyway for creating a hostile work environment or something.

Can’t approach women on Instagram or TikTok or Snap, they’ll screenshot you sliding into their DMs and post it so their followers can laugh at you.

Can’t talk to women when you’re out during the day, they’ll call you creepy or say you’re harassing them. 

Try to talk to women at a bar? That’s not what they’re there for, go away please, you’re being creepy. Clubs? Same thing, try to flirt after someone’s been grinding up on your dick and rubbing her ass in your face, get told that’s not what she’s there for or she just lets her friends get in your way while she goes to dance with someone else. 

Obviously dating apps don’t work if you’re not one of the top men on the app. 

So where’s a guy supposed to meet someone? I clearly missed my window in high-school and the dates I had were with girls in college who were in my class and I never got a second date with any of them. So what do I do now, just stand outside like a homeless puppy and hope someone gives me a forever home? Because it seems like we’re not supposed to talk to women ever. 

No Talkie No Touchie

DEAR NO TALKIE NO TOUCHIE: If that’s going to be your attitude then… yes, there’s no talking to women, ever.

Ok, more seriously, NT2: I get that you’re frustrated, and not entirely without reason. But based on your letter I get the feeling that your bigger issues with not being able to talk to women is this surly attitude more than any “rules” about where you are or aren’t “allowed” to talk to women.

While I’m allowing for hyperbole, you’re coming in with a lot of assumptions and facts not in evidence. The way you frame these scenarios implies that these consequences are universal, unfair, arbitrary and happen because F--K YOU PENIS, THAT’S WHY. You’re coming into this with the presumption of not just hostility on the part of women but malicious intent, and that’s going to screw you far more than tripping over your dick while trying to do a cold approach. 

Some of these speak more to your ideas on how women think or move through the world while also exaggerating the risks to men, rather than the reality on the ground. This sort of antagonistic “I can’t do anything because Jenny Killjoy will complain to HR” attitude is going to salt your game far more than social norms. It tends to speak to how you think of women and how this is somehow abrogating your privileges, and most women are going to pick up on that before you even open your mouth.

So that’s the first thing you want to work on if you want to be more successful at meeting women.

Now I’m going to put the dating app issue aside; that’s an entirely separate beast and something I’ve talked about multiple times before. It’s also yet another misunderstanding of how the Pareto Principle works, and that’s before we get to the gender imbalance on most dating apps.

Instead, we’re going to focus on the idea that you can’t approach or talk to women in public anymore.

This is a complaint that I hear pretty frequently and to be perfectly fair to you and to them: everything you’ve said is true… to a limited extent. But before you run off and crow about how unfair it all is, the issue here isn’t about how women have locked men out of dating or whatever, it’s about expectations, attitude and not understanding… well, a whole lot of things, but mostly not understanding women’s experiences and the social contract in general. 

Now seeing as I conceded that this is true to a limited extent, for my next trick I shall astound the audience and acknowledge the validity of The Brad Pitt* Rule: it’s allowed if you’re hot.  

(*In reality, Brad’s star’s waned rather considerably, seeing as he’s been credibly accused of spousal abuse, and he famously smells like unwashed feet and pit-stank, but he’s still the person folks reference soooo…)

Here’s the thing: this rule is correct… in as much as “people enjoy talking to people they want to talk to”. I am willing to bet, for example, that you’re not necessarily interested in having a conversation with someone who looks like someone crossbred skin cancer with syphilitic blindness and stank so bad they had cartoon lines radiating off them. Nor, I imagine, would you be interested in talking to someone who kept trying to turn the conversation to why you should invest in his Bitcoin scheme or who kept insisting that joining NXVM would solve all your problems, even after you clearly said “not interested”.

You might also not be in the mood to talk to someone after you’ve had a s--tty day at work, a fight with your friend or parents or had to say goodbye to a beloved pet, no matter how friendly or attractive they might be.

In all of these cases, you have reasons why you wouldn’t be receptive to someone wanting to chat, and you would be understandably annoyed if that person kept insisting on talking to you, regardless of your opinion on the matter. And if this happened to you, repeatedly, whenever you were just out minding your own business and going about your life, you might not want anyone to so much as look in your general direction, never mind come over to say “hey”.

You might also start having strong opinions about autonomy and boundaries when those same people started complaining about how it wasn’t fair that you weren’t giving them a chance or how you should be open to talking to anyone who came over to you.

So it is with approaching women; it’s not that you’re not “allowed” to talk to them or approach them, it’s that you’re missing (or ignoring) that women don’t necessarily want to talk at that moment – either in general or to you specifically, for whatever reason. Doubly so if you don’t take the hint the first time around. Triply so if you think that they’re not being interested or open to talking is unfair because reasons.

While folks think the rule is “rules don’t exist for hot people” – hence “the Brad Pitt rule” – the rule is really about “people get to decide who they want to talk to, and when, and about what.” If you think it’s unfair that women “only” want to talk to someone if they’re hot enough (they don’t, hotness is idiosyncratic, etc.) then I would point out that fairness doesn’t actually enter the picture. Not when your definition of “fair” really comes down to “won’t give me what I want”. Nobody is obligated to give you an opportunity any more than you are obligated to give others the chance to talk to you if you don’t want. Welcome to having boundaries and bodily autonomy, hope you survive the experience.

Someone who isn’t interested in talking to anyone at that moment – because they’re busy, because they’re not in the mood, whatever – might, and I stress might, make an exception for someone they find attractive. They might also be willing to talk to someone who makes them laugh or is able to distract them from what’s bothering them. But all of this continues to fall under “talk to someone they want to talk to”; their reasons may seem shallow but it’s their reason. You may have opinions, but you don’t get a vote. But I stress might make an exception, because you can still be hot and still annoy someone, be rude or offensive or otherwise be unwelcome.

The real issue isn’t whether someone is “hot” enough to “get away with it”. It’s that most of the time, the guys who are complaining about this are guys who don’t bother to read the room. They aren’t bothering to try to see if the person they’re hoping to talk to is open or interested in talking and, more often than not, they’re not interested in a conversation, they’re just trying to get a date or into her pants… without knowing the first thing about her. This is one of the reasons why I tell people that if you don’t have a lot of experience or you’re not socially well-calibrated and you want to hit on women, you should focus on places where talking to strangers is not just permitted but expected – places that are explicitly for people to meet and mingle. In these venues and events, it’s understood that chatting up strangers is the norm and it’s a primary reason why folks go there. It won’t make up for a lack of charisma or poor social skills, but it’s a place where you can at least know that talking to strangers is the norm.

Compounding this is that – as I said – most of the time, guys aren’t interested in talking, they’re interested in approaching. That is: they’re trying to get a date from a stranger, not just make pleasant small talk. This changes the dynamic of the entire interaction. It’s no longer about meeting and connecting with someone, specifically it’s about coming in with an agenda and not caring about the person. It’s saying “I know nothing about you except that you have something I want,” and a lot of folks are put off by that. Even people who are down to clown with a stranger prefer someone who’s interested in them as an individual, not just an ambulatory Fleshlight.

There’s also the fact that this behavior works against the people who are doing the approaching. Moving in on a stranger in an attempt to get a date tends to be counterproductive. Leaving aside questions of whether the attention is wanted, or the person is single and open to dating, the vast majority of people don’t date someone they met only 20 minutes ago. Even on dating apps, there tend to be multiple conversations before a date happens.

Taking slower approach by taking dating off the table and instead just focusing on being social, getting to know someone and being fun to talk to isn’t as sexy to brag about to your friends (or strangers on the Internet) but it’s more effective and efficient in the long run. Giving someone the opportunity to get to know you and for you to know them is a much better method to building the sorts of connections that lead to dates and from dates to relationships.

Now putting this in practical terms: you’re totally within your bounds to talk to women when and wherever you meet them. But if you want them to actually be interested in talking to you and possibly get a date down the line, you need to take a different tack.

First: read the room. If you’re not in a social venue like a bar or a specific event like a singles mixer, pay attention to who’s actually interested in talking and who’s giving clear “do not disturb” signs and respect those. If you’re not sure, err on the side of “probably not”.

Second: don’t do approaches. Don’t just hit on women. Just strike up a conversation like a normal person. This could mean making chit-chat in line to get coffee, sitting next to each other at the counter at a restaurant or food court, even someone waiting for the bus or the train… but again, only if they’re actually interested and open to talking.

There are more opportunities for this than you’d think. People can and do enjoy small talk, even with strangers, if the other person isn’t a jackass. Focus on getting to know someone, learning more about them and seeing what makes them tick. You know you find them attractive, but that’s all you know about them. You want to know them as a person: the classic “what do they have going for them besides their looks”.

Speaking of…

Third: focus on your social skills, especially being fun to talk to. Leaving aside that this is a very valuable skill to have overall, if people enjoy talking with you, they’re going to want to keep talking with you. Nobody says “well I enjoy that person’s company and so I will never speak to them again,” after all. They say “man, I want to keep this conversation going!” They will prioritize talking with you because you’re fun to talk to.

I can’t emphasize how most of the sex-gettingest men I know aren’t the hottest, richest, fittest or most famous. They’re dudes who simply know how to make people feel good when they chat and are fun to be with.

Similarly, I can’t tell you how many women I know whose relationships always start with “I just had the most amazing conversation…”

Yes, you can and should work on your presentation – your style, your hygiene, your grooming and so on. It’ll make you look better and feel better, which will help your confidence and thus improve your physical attractiveness. But it’s your social skills and ability to actually connect with people that are what lead to relationships.

You want to be the sort of person who can talk to anyone at any time, in any place? Start working on being interested in talking to everyone and being someone people like to talk to.

Do that and you’ll never have to worry about being “allowed” to meet or talk to women again.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m an autistic 27 year old virgin university dropout (Years ago by this time) that worked a string of crappy jobs, with my most recent being not-so-crappy, so an advancement.��I work from home, and am terribly lonely in my personal life.��I have good friends, and different circles of friends but this post isn’t about that.��I keep sabotaging any chance of a relationship, even a date.��See, the way it normally goes is:��I meet someone cool via online dating or in person,��I get to know them and I ask them on a date.��But then something compels me to cancel it, I panic like crazy and legit shake for hours afterwards.��In my younger years I isolated myself but in my older years, I have these self-imposed limits on myself, like I was an NPC that was coded for friendship, but the relationship pathway was half-finished.��So when someone tries to hack the relationship pathway and play it, it softlocks the f--king game or crashes it.��Metaphor over, but still.��I don’t know where to go or what to do to meet new people romantically, I’m a classical nerd so I’ve met loads of good friends at conventions and playing RPGs but I don’t want to f--k things up with them now, I’ve known them for years.��I don’t really believe in charity, as I don’t want to be labelled as someone who does charity work. A new-Simpsons-season Ned Flanders, a complete moral paragon who’s no fun to be around.��I’m sitting here in a cluttered, dirty and nerd-s--t filled room, bags under my eyes from not sleeping enough due to procrastination, and with one hell of a porn habit.��I just don’t know what the hell I can do anymore, and I can’t imagine anyone actually being interested in me romantically.��I sabotage my own life constantly, I don’t sleep enough, I procrastinate too much, I isolate myself out of fear and depression.��Believe it or not, I couldn’t give one solitary s--t about politics, or whatever hot-button-issue is striking the internet this week, as I’m as dull as they come, romantically and socially.��I never really learned how to flirt when I was younger, and in my adult years people tend to expect you to have some experience romantically.��Look, I think it’s come to the point where I’m not to expect anything romantic or sexual in the next few years, or ever.��Women can get away with being shy, or socially incapable, but as I am a man it does not appear to be acceptable.��I just don’t even know where to start in terms of finding a relationship, and how to stop sabotaging myself.��Anyway, that’s enough out of a bitter, regretful virgin 27 year old university dropout failure that wasted his best years on video games nobody plays anymore, and metric tons of porn.��Thanks,��Waifu Broke Up With Me

DEAR WAIFU BROKE UP WITH ME: Why does it feel like I just answered this letter? Probably because I answer one every other week. And to be perfectly honest, there’re only so many times I can say the same thing over and over again to people who seem more invested in detailing and maintaining all the ways they’re f--ked than actually fixing them.

So at this point, why fight what folks seem to actually want? OK, WBUWM, congratulations. You win. I agree with you: you’re f--ked and you’re not going to see any sort of sexual or romantic success any time in the next several years.

And it’s all entirely your choice. Nobody else’s. This isn’t to say that there aren’t challenges in your life or issues in the world that are stymieing you. There absolutely are, the same as there are in everybody’s life.

But you’re the one who’s decided that you’re f--ked. And until you change your mind and decide that you’ve had enough, nothing is going to change. Ever. And you’re going to have to accept that you’re the one who’s chosen this path and created this situation. Not God, not the universe, not genetics, not your autism. You. Because you have decided that this how it is.

And until you decide to change it, nothing is going to change. You haven’t boxed yourself in or painted yourself in a corner, so much as put up a much of cardboard boxes and decided that they’re penning you in and making it impossible to succeed.

Much of it comes down to weird choices that you’ve made and beliefs that you seem determined to hold onto for no reason other than it makes it easier to give yourself permission to give up. You’ve made yourself unpleasant to be around and taken on beliefs that seem to have been chosen specifically to make it so that you can’t proceed.

The idea that women are “allowed” to be shy or socially incapable is a prime example. This is entirely a “you” thing, part of the bubble you’ve decided to encase yourself in, not reality. It’s not like various anime where the shy, inexperienced girl is fetishized by a male audience who finds her cute because she’s less threatening to them. Outside of that bubble, you might have noticed all the terms people have for “shy, socially incapable women”. Like “spinster” or “cat lady” or “standoffish”, “snobbish” or just good old-fashioned “weird” or “freak”.

Then there’s the idea that someone who does charity work is “no fun to be around”. Considering your example is a cartoon character and one who is consistently shown to be happier, healthier, more well-adjusted and more successful than his neighbor, I’m kind of wondering what your basis for comparison is.

Or, for that matter, being perversely proud of “not giving a single solitary s--t about politics” or “whatever the latest hot-button issue is striking the Internet”. All you’ve done is further isolate yourself so that you aren’t bothered by the pesky thoughts that tell you that things could be different if you wanted them to be. Better to pretend that none of that stuff actually matters or makes a difference in people’s lives, lest you find that there’s a world going on outside your apartment.

It seems pretty clear to me that these are entirely the work of your trying to make yourself unpleasant to be around. After all, it’s much easier to not care for others if you don’t let them near enough to care and those who do try to get closer get pushed away by the attitude you project. Far better to wallow in loneliness and to pity yourself than to lift a single finger to make even the slightest difference. Because if you acknowledge your agency, then you might have to accept that maybe much of this is a situation of your own making.

This is pretty clear in all the ways you talk about your life and your character, as you compare yourself to be an “NPC” and these self-imposed limits. You are at the mercy of the programming that other people have imposed upon you, rather than being an autonomous individual and there’s no reason to change or point in even trying.

NPCs, after all, can’t change their own code. They can only follow the instructions they were given. To be an NPC implies that you’re a creation of others, not an individual with will and purpose and self-awareness.

You know. Like someone who might write into a dating advice column looking for suggestions.

Well, here’s a suggestion for you: knock it the f--k off. You don’t like what your life is like right now? Cool. What are you going to do about it? Because you have two choices: you can do nothing and let things continue – and at which point you must give up complaining, because you have chosen to exist like this. You have decided that this is what you want. Complaining about it is just self-pity, a lament that life hasn’t interceded to save you from the consequences of your own actions.

Or you can, as the Bard once said, take up arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.

If you want things to be different, you have to do things differently. But first, to do that, you have to give up the belief that you have no control, no agency and no ability to change. You have to start taking active steps to make a difference and you have to acknowledge that doing so is as much of a choice as not doing so. There can’t be any dodging around the fact that this ultimately taking responsibility for your position in life. There are things in this world that are absolutely outside of your control, yes… but that doesn’t mean that everything in this world is outside of it. And that means that the decisions you make about what you do control are that much more important.

The first mistake that folks in similar circumstances to you make is that they focus on the wrong things. They’re too busy focused on the big, grand reward to realize the number of much smaller steps they need to take before they are even going to be within smelling distance of their end goal. They want a starting position on the Olympic team when they haven’t so much as put on a pair of sneakers, never mind learned how to play the game.  

You want to make those big goals? You want that hope of someday having love and romance? Cool, you’re going to need to start small. You play RPGs, so you understand this: the level one character isn’t going into Hell to challenge Vecna or ascending to Ruidus to confront Predathos the God-Eater; you’re going to be busy killing rats and running from kobolds first until you can afford more than the basic starting gear.

Your first step is going to be very simple: you clean your room. That’s your primary task: clean and de-clutter your room. You open the windows to air it out and let sun in, you dust and vacuum, so you aren’t living in a miasma of mold, despair, dust mites and stale semen-crusted socks. The carpets get steam cleaned, the mattress gets vacuumed and flipped, the sheets get washed and your bed gets made.

Next, you organize your living space and your closet. You go full Marie Kondo on your possessions. All that “nerd-s--t” you speak of derisively? It’s time to winnow it down to the only things that you actually care about; everything else needs to go. Maybe some of it can go on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, but most of it probably needs to go to Goodwill. Bid it a fond farewell and send it on to someone who needs it more than you do now, someone who isn’t going to see it as nothing but oppressive clutter and piles of shame. If it’s something you’re going to refer to derisively or point to as another way of punching yourself in the junk, then it’s time for it to go away; the self-imposed shame of having it has clearly outweighed the benefit that it was supposed to bring to your life. The rest can be organized, cataloged, displayed or stored as appropriate.

Congratulations: you have just unlocked your first achievement – a room you’re no longer ashamed of, that’s fit for human habitation again. Your reward: a clean room that doesn’t smell of knob-cheese and failure. You might even get a decent night’s sleep now that you aren’t living in squalor, surrounded by things that you bought in hopes that they might magically make you a different person.

You also, critically, have reminded yourself that you have agency and control. You have just proven this by demonstrating that you have control over your immediate environment. You’re now no longer living in squalor and surrounded by “nerd-s--t”. This is already a manifest improvement and upgrade to your life. It’s the first step of many to changing and improving your life.

Next, you’re going to take inventory of your life and make a list of what you want to change and improvements you want to make. You separate it into three categories: short term, medium term and long term.

Short term are things that are within arm’s reach; that is, things that you can do relatively quickly and simply. Cleaning your room on at least a weekly basis. Establishing a consistent sleep schedule, so that you aren’t constantly exhausted and making things worse. Planning meals for the week so that you can ensure you’re at least mixing in a vegetable and a more balanced meal. Blocking off time in your calendar so that every day you go out and take at least a 20-minute walk and get fresh air and sunshine. If the weather isn’t permitting, that 20 minutes can be spent doing sit-ups, push-ups, squats and planks. You may also want to actually start educating yourself on local politics and social issues, so you have a better idea of what’s going on in your immediate vicinity. 

Intermediate term are things that you want to change but will take more time, effort and planning. Examples would include things like being a college dropout or working towards improving your social life, finding a better job and working on your social skills. With each goal or change you want to make, you list out the steps it will take to get to each – seeing the options for taking individual classes so that you can get enough credits over time or seeing if your college credits will transfer to a local community college, making a point to go out and try new social activities, finding volunteer opportunities,  sprucing up your resume and starting to investigate what jobs are out there. You might also look into self-guided therapy options like MoodGym to help start managing the panic and intrusive thoughts regarding dates and relationships.

Long term goals are ones that will take much longer to achieve. This includes therapy, especially DBT or exposure therapy to address those panic attacks and self-sabotage. It also includes building towards being in good emotional working order so that you’re actually able to date or find a relationship. Again, you want to create a list of what steps you’re going to take to achieve these goals and how you’re going to achieve them.

But you aren’t just making a list and calling it a day. You also need to be marking off each step as you accomplish them. There’s no point to assuming that the map is the territory; making a list isn’t the solution, it’s the path to your solution. If you treat the lists as the goal in and of itself, all that’s going to happen is that you’ve spent more time spinning your wheels and pretending you’re going somewhere. The same goes with making plans but then throwing your hands up and saying you don’t know how to do it. You work backwards from the goal: what’s the step immediately before that goal? What’s the step before that? What’s the step before that? Don’t know what the next step would be? Good thing that you live in a time when you have access to almost limitless amounts of information and the education to sift through it to find what you need.

But it can’t just be a list of intentions. Intent is meaningless without action. Action is will made manifest. If you sick of your life enough that you want it to change, then you need the will to change. If you have the will, then you need to use that will to spur you into action. It’s only through deliberate action that you’re going to improve or make a difference to how you live now.

Or you can continue to behave as though you were hapless and helpless, without so much as a cleaner room to show for it. 

The choice is yours.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So I’m 21 years old. I’m apparently not sane person. I have autism, ATH, borderline mania, borderline depression and personality disorder.

I have managed to somewhat fix the big problems and started to act like a normal person. I work and I’m keen to learn new things every day.

But for some reason, when I meet some women, they always act interested and even sometimes tell or show the interest of intimate relationship. And with in 1 to 2 days they always disappear. Then they text me that they need some time. While telling me that she is terrified of me. And they can never tell me what it is that terrifies them.

I know that I’m a somewhat huge (not fat) man. And it looks weird when I love cute things. But is it that.

Why So Scary?

DEAR RWHY SO SCARY: OK at the risk of sounding dismissive, WSS: I have no idea what you’re doing. I’m not there, I’m not seeing whatever these women are seeing and, critically, I’m a guy, so what is terrifying to them may not necessarily be as terrifying to me. Hell, it’s even possible that you really weren’t doing anything wrong, and this was all on them.

Now that having been said: if it were one person, that could be a fluke. Any individual can have their own hangups, fears or triggers and you could well have stepped on a landmine that you had no way of knowing was there. But if this has happened two, three, four or more times? That’s a pattern, and it’s time to start looking for what each of those incidents have in common. And the most obvious thing they have in common is, well… you. So part of what you’re going to want to do is to start examining your behavior and what you’ve been doing and what you’re acting like. Once you have some ideas of what you’re doing wrong, you can start correcting that behavior and hopefully avoiding creeping people out by accident.

You’ve given a few details that could possibly help narrow things down. The first is, quite simply, your size. You say you’re a huge guy. That can make a significant difference. Men on average tend to be larger and heavier than women. That alone can be enough to put women on their guard; the knowledge that you could hold them down and they wouldn’t have leverage – metaphorical or literal – to get you off can be intimidating in and of itself. If you’re larger than average, then that can increase the intimidation level exponentially. And if there are other issues going on or behaviors that are setting off their Spidey-sense, then your size can be a significant amplifier to something that already gives them the wiggins.

Another potential cause is your behavior, especially in relationship to your mental health. You mention at the top that you have a personality disorder and that you’ve got issues with mania and depression. It’s certainly possible, for example, that if you had a manic episode when you were talking with these women, that you came off as being incredibly intense, possibly to a level that people would find frightening or intimidating. It’s also possible that you have a form of rejection-sensitive dysphoria; this tends to be co-morbid with a number of mental health conditions, including borderline personality disorder and ADHD. If there was a point where you were worried that they might be pulling back or that you were feeling like you were about to be rejected and you were doing something to try to pre-empt that – even something you thought wasn’t all that bad, you may have come off as obsessive or pushy or overly invested in a way that made you feel “off” to them.

You might even have been over-eager or overly excited in a way that you didn’t realize was off-putting, but that made them feel like something was wrong, even though you had nothing but the best of intentions. This is actually a very common way that guys end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory; they get so worked up and excited about seeing the other person that they end up pushing at things – wanting to meet up sooner, wanting to meet up for longer or more often, wanting to skip straight to the naked parts and so on. God knows I’ve ended up missing out on an all-but-sure-thing because I got out over my skis in the weeks before we were supposed to hook up. Even if it wasn’t actively scary, that sort of behavior can make folks say “ok, I don’t want to deal with this guy if he’s going to act like this.”

But even well-meaning behavior, behavior that seems like golden retriever energy to one person can feel like an excessive or frightening level of intensity and interest to someone else. This is especially true if said golden retriever is much larger than the person on the receiving end of it. Just as a large dog can accidentally hurt someone without meaning to, that excitement can go from adorable to “oh s--t, what if I upset him by disagreeing?” very quickly.

Or it’s possible that you’ve done nothing wrong, and you’ve had a string of bad luck. It’s certainly possible that they were reacting to your being autistic and rounded up “I’m unsure/unused to what I’m seeing here” to being scared. Multiple times in a row seems unlikely but it’s not impossible.

This is one of those times where it would be helpful if you have someone to give you an outsider’s opinion. If you have some female friends, it may be worth asking them if you give off a weird or intimidating or creepy vibe without meaning to. It’ll be important that they be honest with you and not hedge their judgement because they know you well. They may know that you’re as harmless as a puppy and understand the whys and wherefores of how you act, but they should be able to say “yeah, to someone who doesn’t know you, this could be scary.” 

From what you’ve said, you’re only starting to get your conditions under control. If that’s the case… well, I think we may be back to the combination of your size and the mental health conditions you’re dealing with. If you’re still early in your treatment, you may still have lingering behavioral cues that aren’t well managed yet or that are still problematic for you. If so, you may want to give it a bit more time while you adjust and learn how to manage your conditions more effectively.

Regardless, I think you may want to take dating off the table for a bit while you try to work this through. Do as thorough of an assessment of what you’ve said and done when you were in touch with these women and, if you possibly can, reach out to some female friends who you trust to give you their honest opinion. Failing that, talking to your therapist could be helpful in drilling down and figuring out where the disconnect is. The sooner you figure out what’s happening, the sooner you can address it and not run into these issues again.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com