I can't feel love for people!

[Whattup]

I'll keep this short; aside from my relationship with my mother and brother, I don't know if or when I've felt "love" towards someone.
I've had dating relationships in the past, and they all ended very nicely, no one was mad at the end. But I think that's because I don't know how to feel or care for the other person.
Is this an Asperger's trait? What causes it? I'm in my 30's and was diagnosed in my 20's, and I'm a woman.
I just don't know if I've ever felt anything for anyone, and I've known a lot of nice guys and nice people. I'm getting concerned because I want to get married, but I don't know what's going on! And I've met another great guy!
How does one become emotionally invested?
Thank you.

 

[Calibar]

I assume no one can force love. I certainly cannot. We can only love certain people, not everyone. I haven't been in any romantic relationships so I don't know what I am talking about but I think you need to ask yourself what are you are passionate about. Theoretically, what kind of man do you think you would be able to love? Once you know they type, try and find him.

 

[Tyrantus1212]

Whattup Whattup!

I've never been romantically in love before, and I've never dated before. I'm almost 30. I love my mom and dad very much, and I have no brothers and sisters. I have a small number of friends whom I can say I love as if they were my siblings. I just wish we were all roommates or neighbors or something. I've practically had no friends throughout the majority of my life so this is very special to me.

We're very much capable of loving but we might have trouble showing or expressing it. In my case, I have trouble with sympathy when it comes to my parents and it makes me come off as a jerk because I'm very bad at expressing it; instead of being supportive I end up throwing a temper tantrum, and it makes the parent (or anyone else) think that I'm actually blaming them - when in reality I blame, well, reality.

As for romantic love, I'm sorry but I don't have much advice for you because I have no idea what romance feels like. I yet have to go on my first date. I do know however that when love strikes, one would definitely know it. It develops automatically and cannot be forced. Just keep dating more guys and you might just fall in love with one of them! It'll happen for you someday - like I said I've never been in love before and I know I'm capable of it.

As for emotionally invested, what exactly did you mean by that?

 

[SusanLR]

Bonding and feeling close to anyone but my parents was always a problem for me. I've had a couple of boyfriends I thought I was in love with, but, we never lasted .
Being romantic asexual wasn't a problem either. It was just me. Boyfriends, like anything else in the world, had their place. A diversion. I liked to go out with like once a week for a dinner/movie/ and do something fun like play chess, bowling, pool, tennis or go rock hunting together on Saturdays. That was it. At the end of the day's outting, we went our seperate ways with a "See you Wednesday night at 8pm?". I felt love, but, then I love trees too. Make sense? I never wanted others inside my space. Just never able to bond. Now my parents are both deceased, leaving me with me, myself and I, alone in the forest. Still trying to adjust to this cut off alone feeling as I don't think at my age I can ever let anyone else really close.

 

[Judge]

Wow. Simple question, but not simple to answer IMO.

It is difficult. I'd assume it is directly related to being on the spectrum.

Exactly why? I have no idea. When it comes to deep emotions, it's difficult for me to be consistent with them. Projecting love, or even empathy. I can experience them, but actually projecting it to someone doesn't always come out as I'd like.

As Ringo Starr would say, "It don't come easy!"

In this sense at times I feel hopelessly "complicated".

 

[Momo]

I have this problem exactly! I find it very difficult to get emotionally attached to people as well, though I always attributed that to losing so many people I loved during childhood. Perhaps it is an aspie trait, or a female aspie trait. Difficult love life, what fun. *sigh*

 

[xudo]

I'm in love with my husband, but I honestly couldn't explain it to anyone. I couldn't live without him and I'm always happier when we're together. I know I'm in love with him, but I couldn't even begin to put it into words, and I'd always assumed everyone else was the same. I also know it's different to the love I feel for family and friends, but again I couldn't explain it.

 

[Datura]

I don't know if I feel romantic love the same way as other people. For one, I don't care if my partners are romantically involved with other people. It doesn't bother me at all, and discovering this surprised me. Even the polyamorous people I know tend to struggle with feelings of jealousy, but my understanding of such feelings is entirely theoretical. I am not even sure if that is an aspect of romantic love, but if it is then I lack it.

I do feel fondness for my partners and am invested in their well being, but the same can often be said for friends, or even strangers under the right circumstances. I rarely feel a longing for specific people's company, even if they are my partner. This is different with my current partner as I actually do miss her sometimes. I think that's love. It's confusing because people tend to prefer that the profound also be ineffable.

When it comes to building fondness I have heard that it helps if you assist the person in some way. It seems almost counter-intuitive, but we tend to like people more after helping them.

 

[wight]

For some people (aspie or not) feelings of love and emotional connection to people are difficult. There are a host of psychological reasons/bases for this but we can skip that I think.

I have this same "problem". (in quotes because it's not really a problem)

At 47 I am married (2nd try) and have spent considerable time on this question. So here are some signs you love someone and/or are emotionally connected with them, even if it does "feel" that way:
1) you like being with them, spend time with them without making a particular plan to do so, or wanting to be around them
2) you like it when you are together or are more relaxed when around them
3) you do things for them (even little things) that they talk about needing done but they didn't specifically ask you to do
4) you don't mind them being physically close to you or touching you (for some people this is a huge deal)
5) you text them random stuff, or pictures you just took, or just to say hi
6) you will talk to them about stuff you won't talk to anyone else about

"love" in reality is not what we see in movies or read in books. It's a much subtler thing, in my experience.

 

[watersprite]

Thank you @wight, this is good, helpful information for those of us who have relationships and struggle (for lack of a better word) with clearly identifying emotions, labels, and the quest for decisions which must unfortunately be partially based on illogical foundations.

 

[ksheehan88]

I can love. When I do it is very, very deep. Its a burning. I sometimes wish I couldn't though, because although the good bits are ecstasy, the bad are so painful I feel it physically.

 

[Whattup]

Bonding and feeling close to anyone but my parents was always a problem for me. I've had a couple of boyfriends I thought I was in love with, but, we never lasted .
Being romantic asexual wasn't a problem either. It was just me. Boyfriends, like anything else in the world, had their place. A diversion. I liked to go out with like once a week for a dinner/movie/ and do something fun like play chess, bowling, pool, tennis or go rock hunting together on Saturdays. That was it. At the end of the day's outting, we went our seperate ways with a "See you Wednesday night at 8pm?". I felt love, but, then I love trees too. Make sense? I never wanted others inside my space. Just never able to bond. Now my parents are both deceased, leaving me with me, myself and I, alone in the forest. Still trying to adjust to this cut off alone feeling as I don't think at my age I can ever let anyone else really close.

This is exactly how I feel. I'm so sorry that your parents have past away; that's something I know will eventually come in my life, and it terrifies me!

 

[1564]

I don't know if it's true but I have read an article about aspergers that said "People with aspergers tend to unnotice their feelings unless the feeling is super strong".
I don't know if I'm aspie or not but I certanly have that. I cannot notice my smaller feelings until they become huge. Sometimes I get very grumpy for no reason, but after that I realise it was because of something I didn't notice was making me unhappy.

I will advise you not to marry anyone that you are not absolutely sure you love with all your hearth. If you do that it will make not only you unhappy but the other person too.

 

[Larisa]

I look around and reconsider what I see going on between real people and what I feel myself - and how relationship 'have to be' according to social rules.
General niceness:
I noticed that the rule of 'being friendly and attentive' is only refers to people who can be used in any way (i.e. people of the same or the higher social status). There is no rule about being friendly to the homeless and other people of lower social status.
I am friendly with people who respect my private space and with whom I have some common interests. Thus - from a bystander's point of view - I disrupt the social norm quite often.
Friendship:
The social norm of friendship is to keep in touch with some people to spend time together in any form. It's not about liking them or trusting them - it's only about looking like 'having fun in a company'.
I can't make myself to be around people I don't trust personally (who can belittle me, laugh me out and seek to gain a higher social status in any form).
I only call 'friends' the people I can be myself around - with my thoughts, my doubts, my joys. And I feel strong in being me around them to accept their differences: their thoughts, their experiences, their hopes and their joys and sorrows. Love:
Once on a site I have met an aphorism (for women): "Your husband is your only real friend in the world". There were many hundereds of 'like' under it.
I was astonished - is 'deep romantic love' really just 'the only possible sincere friendship"?
I started to look how people interact: on streets, in workplace - and I noticed fluctuations of 'attraction-despise' - 'niceness-hatred' - in cirles to the same people.
My opinion about a person does change in time - but based on the facts and actions of this person - not only towards me, but in general - to the world and other people. I can be of good opinion about the person who doesn't show liking me.
I like and respect a lot of people who keep their distance from me.
I talked to my former colleagues - and they don't understand how it is possible: they only like people who like them and nice to them.
Contrary to them I'm really stressed by other people's attention and efforts to show they like me.
I realized just recently that my efforts to protect my private space - from my coleagues' point of view often looks 'rude' and 'haughty'.
But that about conflict between 'to be' or 'to appear'.
My colleagues do not understand how I dare to _be_ and why I am not terrified of failing to represent the proper appearance.
In fact I am terrified to meet hostility on my words and actions - I am terrified of being accused based on wrongly perceived appearance of my behaviour by other people.
I try to tell people that the same appearance can be the result of many different - and even opposite by their meaning - circumstances.
Curiously, in talk with me one-to-one any of my colleagues agrees with my reasons, but when it's more than two of them - they deny that point.
I was amazed to realize that they are afraid of angering each other - they terrified of arguing among themselves, so in group they stick to the social norms because nobody dares to question these norms in open. So people make sure of being united together and tentively avoid any possibility of disagreement.
I realized that it's unspoken fact that people just hate out of fear each other.
And exactly on that is based the comcept of 'passionate love': to find the only one true real friend among enemies.
Just look at 'Romeo and Juliet' by W.Shakespear: they fall madly love not because they simply meet each other.
The point is the background around them: EVERY other person in the piece is obsessed with anger, intrigues, resentment, hatred and desire to shed blood of enemies.
Juliet and Romeo are just so lonely among their spiteful family members that they immidiately notice each other once they met: 'Wow, the other person - like me - who wants to live their own life!'
I understood that I can't 'love' like this because I routinely notice a lot of people I like (even if I don't have common interests with them and I don't want to actively communicate with them).
I may be wrong on this conclusion but I think that to fall in love with someone madly and deeply - one have to fear all the other people in the world...

 

[kris]

I can love. When I do it is very, very deep. Its a burning. I sometimes wish I couldn't though, because although the good bits are ecstasy, the bad are so painful I feel it physically.

I have felt this once... it's taken me a year to get over that intense pain after things ended. Quite badly. I have never been so hurt in my life. But I had also never felt love for anyone (including my parents) before ... so I guess it's good to know I'm capable of love. I was not in love with my husband.

I do, however, love my child and feel that love... it's hard to describe. But way different than romantic love.. it's more like a protector.

 

[GoldenWanderer]

This is a rough topic for me. I don't love my family as NTs seem to. I see them as a resource, for lack of a better word, that I have been given for the rest of their lives. They have always been more of a support system than a family to me. I appreciate the assistance they provide me and the things they do for me, butI wouldn't describe that as love. Maybe dependency? That being said, I only trust one member of my family, my oldest sister, which is likely because I ever had a relationship with her when I was young, and my relationship with her "began" when I was 19'and she was 24. She gave me drinking advice to try to keep me safe. (She didn't know I already drank). She lives hundreds of miles from me, and we speak a couple times a year. That's my ideal family member.
My other sister "bullied" me my entire life (bullied is in parenthesis due to my lack of understanding of implication and sarcasm, and I have to be open to the possibility I experienced the negative things I did do to my autism and lack of knowledge of being on the spectrum). I felt bullied, abused (not physically), and misunderstood my life. Because of that, I cannot trust her.
My relationship with my parents are finicky. They are very spiritual. I tried being involved in their beliefs, but that just lead me to being atheist (more so agnostic, as I cannot say god is real not fake due to the lack of supporting facts on each side). Quickly after this, I realized my relationship with my parents was different than others. I quickly realized I didn't share the emotion for my family they share for me. I told them this, and despite that, they still seem to "love" me. I'll never understand that.

My hypothesis is we experience love differently, as we do many other feelings and emotions. I spent a few months with a friend who I had feelings for, which was very strange as I had never felt this way. My love for someone is shown by being able to sit in silence in a room with them, and being able to say things with no repercussion. Being in love with them is wanting to to be sitting alone with them, regardless of the activity. I just enjoyed being with her. Her presence lit a fire in my heart, like a burning exstacy, but I compared that to love I experienced on tv or through observing my friends' relationships. I'm also sure I was pretty blank emotionally as I remember her always asking if I was okay, though to be fair, this time frame was my first taste of being suicidal as well, so I wasn't okay, except when I was her.
I'm not going to finish that story as it ends with her saying "I'm sorry, but I can never talk to you again", but it's been 2 or 3 years now, and she's the only person I've never been able to let go of. I think of her nearly every day. I think that's love? I don't know. Maybe I'll experience it again. Maybe I won't. I guess that's "love", or something. I hope this jumbled mess of a thought process helps someone!

 

[Sherlock77]

I have trouble emotionally bonding with anyone I meet, male or female.

For one, I'm now 45 without ever having a girlfriend, maybe one on the horizon now, that's another story.

But in my past experiences, I've been told that I'm an excellent listener which can be a skill of empathy or even feelings. I've sat with homeless people downtown and heard their life stories, and have had what I believe to be empathy toward them. I can say much the same about other people I know, have met, have gotten to know, even people I've known for many years.

Even with my family I tend to have trouble with feelings. I know they are my family, factually, but have difficulty with the emotional aspect, moreso the expression of it.

 

[LogicalMind]

Greek had a few words for the English equivalent of love...1) agapey - decision, selfless, self-sacrificial, desire for good 2) phileo - friendship, care 3) eros - sensual love, arousal, emotional passion

People today make the wrong choices, and base their love on feelings... on number 3... love isnt supposed to be about feelings, nor friendship...that is subjective... love is supposed to be about objectivity deciding to be loyal, to honour and cherish someone, to respect someone.

As supporting evidence, divorce rates are spiked in relationships where both partners have had intercourse with other people outside of marriage...but divorce rates are greatly reduced where both couples have had no prior dating realtionships nor sexual relationships prior to marriage...and it is not to do with sex at all...but to do with the willpower and psyche...the mindset if you will...that a person is supposed to self-sacrificially fill a single responsibility of a relationship with no other concerns in life... it is the objective love that is also described for people who take care of their own babies, or die for a cause...it has nothing to do with passion

If you want any references I can google it for you or help you...but do not worry...real love is an objective decision, that one makes inside onces core... it is not a transient feeling... alexithymia does not mean you dont love someone...just means you are not subjectively emotional, which is somewhat irrelevant to a successful marriage anyway...the feelings disappear after the first few years...and what carries you after that is the desire to protect and nurture

 

[Buzzerfly]

I spent 23 years not really liking anyone. I guess I loved a few people, in that I got upset when they changed or seemed to stop being real. In college, I wanted a boyfriend. So I forced it into happening. With this guy, I found my self acting out an emotional drama at all times, without really feeling anything real. The "play" got so bad, I started to get suicidal.

I broke up with him and tried gaining the attention of other young men...but I was almost repulsed by the idea of intimacy with all of them. I felt alone. And I had my own issues: like not getting along with my parents or struggling with school.

One day, after the burden of school was over, I was introduced to my husband. I really liked him, and being around him loosened me up. I wasn't uptight and felt free. I was VERY attracted to him physically and mentally. I wanted to always be around him. Now we are always together.

If you have a mate out there, perhaps it's just a timing issue!

 

[Keigan]

I'm now 54, six months ago I discovered that my DNA is suggestive of AS and Alexithymia. Not a single relationship has had an emotional connection, so now I know why. It is a significant relief to understand the why and I'm very accepting of who I am. With this understanding I might some day have an excellent relationship, though it would have to be based upon acceptance of my brain being wired differently.

The interesting thing is that now that I know why I am different, there is actually more openness for my emotions to develop - just the other day I told someone "I need you" with feeling, which is proving to be very rare for our tribe.

Try to find love where you can, be gentle with the love you do find, always remember that everyone has a different definition and expression of their love.