I was inspired to write this post by a question asked in my autistic female Facebook group: is it ok to date multiple men? Obviously I believe it is ok, as long as you don’t try to tell them that you’re exclusive with them, when you are not.

The lady who asked that question stated that she was approached by a couple of men with offers of dates and was asking how to deal with the situation. I believe she should say yes to every one of them and, if the date goes well, somewhere towards the end she could say something along those lines: I am really enjoying spending this time with you and I’d be happy to meet you again, if that’s what you want, but I wanted to make it clear that I am not ready to choose that one man yet.

This way she communicates that:

1. She likes him – and we know that we, autistics, don’t communicate our intentions well with our body language so it’s better to communicate them verbally.

2. She wants a relationship

3. She’s confident than when she’s ready to choose the man will want her too. (There’s very few things worse for a man than an insecure woman).

This is all said in a very assertive and non threatening manner. Also if it turns out that the man she’s with says he decided she’s not the one for him, it will not be a big deal because she is still in the process of choosing so it’s not a rejection.

This can however only be used if the man you’re on a date with expressed an interest in you. What I mean by that is, sometimes men on dating websites want to meet up shortly after you started exchanging messages. He may say for example that he doesn’t like talking online to people who he doesn’t know and would prefer to meet in person and take it from there. It is my understanding that men do that because they either have a very specific look that they are attracted to and want to check if you meet his criteria – which doesn’t have to be a bad thing, or possibly he met up with a few women in the past that he thought he would like but who looked nothing like on their photos and he doesn’t want the same thing to happen again.

In the above situation that man didn’t express any interest in dating you so telling him you’re not ready to choose to date him exclusively wouldn’t be appropriate, but it will be if he asks you out on the second date.

I hope that is clear and will help somebody.

Also I remember, when I was in my 20s, some popular magazines for women would suggest that we should hide the fact we want to be in a committed relationship. It never made sense to me because:

1. What if a man wants a relationship too and, as he thinks the woman is not interested, he’ll move on to look for somebody else?

2. What about assertiveness and confidence that the same magazines are trying to teach women? People who are assertive don’t hide their intentions.

3. Hiding your real intentions is a lot of effort and frustrates people, both men and women alike. It’s possible that the frustration can make the woman act in ways that jeopardise a relationship that would otherwise have a good chance to develop into something good.

Taking into consideration that I’m autistic is actually surprising that I know those things while some neurotypical women don’t.