Thanks. I appreciate you coming at this from a different perspective as some other respondents (not that I don’t appreciate them too).

You’re absolutely right that I suppose I have found out we weren’t right for one another and in some cases yeah, it absolutely feels that way. Other times, just because of how it ended, it doesn’t feel resolved from my end but I suppose in a way, it has been.

Interesting thing to consider. Thank you.

Thanks for the words of support. Genuinely happy things have gotten better for you. In many ways, they’ve also been getting better for me.

In other replies I’ve approached why I want to ‘date’ rather than evolve but maybe it’s just a case of it’s yet another thing I can’t/shouldn’t do.

Cheers, the feeling’s mutual 😘

I think my initial reaction to your comment was ‘well, NTs can want to be in relationships, and they can date and get upset the “normal” amount. I only want what they got.’

And I’ve managed to come to terms with accepting I can’t have things “the NT way” before, so maybe that’s something I can explore.

Yeah, I see that. It’s just that I’ve finally found a career I enjoy and doesn’t make me actively suicidal. Downside is that it leaves me kind of time poor.

I’ve dated a couple of women from work and it’s been mixed. Also before I found this job, I fell in-love in-limerance with a friend with a long-term boyfriend (now engaged) and the internal angst between wanting to be her friend, wanting to be a good person, and desperately wanting her relationship to end really led me to wanting to ‘date’ so at least I wasn’t getting invested in unavailable people.

Sorry, don’t want to give the impression I’m completely disregarding you. I appreciate you contributing.

I’d certainly recommend therapy for that. Therapy has helped me move past quite a few ‘specific’ traumas. Regrettable habits like feeling suicidal at the drop of a hat have proven harder to break in the long term.

This is probably shit advice but if you want to make friends you need to be in an environment where 1. you’re interacting with other people (ideally in a physical space) and 2. what you’re doing is making you happy somehow. If you’re not in the habit of either 1. or 2., I imagine that’s petrifying and sadly it’ll probably just require some perseverance.