Relationships

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all process for deciding how, and when, to talk with a date about being autistic.

Are you now or have you ever been floating and gooey or jangly and excited or blissed out or feeling downright tortured or just plain imploding from the giant wave of what even are all these freakishly distracting feelings? There’s a song here for that: even if you haven’t ever had a crush before you just might wind up feeling like you have one now.

Whether your friends are your boyfriend, your dog, your best friend from almost the minute you were born, your third cousin, your booty call, your Dad, your guitar teacher, your downstairs neighbor, your brother, your girlfriend, your iguana, your teammates, your band, your Mom, your gaming group, your sister, your cat, your uncle, your cool new friend from work, your lover, your secret crush, your guardian, your gerbil, your stepmom, the kid you mentor, your choir director, your sponsor, your lab partner, your co-author, that cool person you always talk to the whole way home on the bus, your training buddy, the lunch lady, your locker next-door neighbor, or anyone else, this one’s for them. And for you, friend.

It sounds like this is really stressing you out. Hopefully I can help by answering your first question right off the bat: yes, this is normal. I think you’re right that the lack of contact could have been a factor in the cooling of your feelings towards your long-distance partners; that’s a common…

You’re facing down a process that, according to a bazillion sitcoms and teen dramas, ought to fill you with dread: introducing the person you’re dating to your parents and trying to peacefully navigate their feelings about your budding romance.

You are not being unreasonable. I don’t think his response and behavior about the lube is fine. I don’t think it’s okay for him to tell you that not having sex isn’t a big deal for you, or to tell you how important sex is to your relationship for both of you. I don’t think it’s fine for him to be…

I can understand why you aren’t feeling loved and wanted. It sounds like your partner is acting in a distinctly unloving way. I have some thoughts about ways you can approach conversations with him, to see if he’s willing to change his thoughts and actions here, but unless he is willing to make some…

When people ask about lowering their standards and whether it’s worth it to do so, the answer to that question depends on what those standards are. You didn’t describe yours in detail, so I don’t have much to go on, but in general, I’d divide what people tend to call “standards” into two types of…

It took a long time for me to come to terms with my singledom, but now that I’m here, I couldn’t be happier.

As the children of immigrants in the U.S. look for love, a question emerges: how do you deal with the idea of losing your cultural identity?