Undiagnosed brother showing obsession with girls

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Hi. I hope I am okay posting in here. I am neurotypical (to my knowledge), but I wanted to ask advice about my brother. He is undiagnosed and nobody has ever mentioned autism to him, but I strongly believe that he could have aspergers. He shows many signs such as not making friends easily and diving obsessively into hobbies (he is an excellent sculptor of miniature figurines). He spent his childhood and teens bemused as to why anybody needed friends, and had an extremely close relationship to our mum. He has always struggled with getting a relationship and had his first girlfriend age 32 which lasted 4 months. He is 34 now and he is trying hard with online dating. The problem is he develops very strong obsessions with girls, and I know he has scared at least one girl he worked with. He showed me a text she sent him that said "No. Means. No. Leave. Me. Alone." and he had replied with a wink emojii and didn't understand she meant no?! The past 18 months he has been completely in love with a girl who is a friend but has said clearly to him 4 times now that they will never be a couple. He still talks about their future together and has her photo as his phone background, amd genuinely thinks it will happen one day. I am worried that he will never find a happy relationship and I really want to talk to him about aspergers but I don't know how to approach it. I love him dearly and want to help not hurt him. Any advice will be very welcome. Thank you.

I actually laughed at this, as horrible as that sounds. But it's totally something I would have done when I was younger and much less socially aware

That said, I feel bad for the girl.



Honestly, I'd start by finding a specialist in your area who is trained in diagnosing adults. The thing about diagnosing adults is they largely rely on accounts from the people themselves, so he would have to agree with you otherwise it might change the way he presents himself and his history to clinicians, if that makes sense. It was obvious that I had something going on before I was diagnosed as an adult, but I was pretty indignant and 'insulated' myself by making other people out to be the problem and inferring intentions for others that were ultimately shown to be incorrect. Basically I didn't know at the time that I was creating my own stories to deal with real-world issues that I had no better explanations for. When I finally got diagnosed, a lot of things started linking up and making a hell of a lot more sense

Two things that helped me to (reluctantly) accept I was autistic...
1) Realising I was the common denominator in my social failures
2) Watching YouTube videos of high functioning autistics and seeing a lot of myself in them

There's some online tests he can do also. I don't know how you can present it to him other than just tell him straight up, "Hey. You should watch this person, read this article and do this test online, because I see a lot of similarities for your life"

And if he does it, then "I think if you get a diagnosis, it'll help you learn more about yourself"
If he's genuinely autistic, he'll probably do a lot of research on his own

Here's a website I found helpful
http://www.lifeonthespectrum.net/blog/?page_id=1001

And a test
https://aspietests.org/raads/index.php

Thank you, your answer is really helpful. It sounds very much like him when you said about insulating yourself and making others out to be the cause. He is quite indignant that this girl he loves hasn't yet decided it's time to love him back. He just doesn't accept that he just isn't the man for her. Other scenarios where situations have gone badly he will usually say they must be mentally ill when O can see his behaviour led to at least some of what happened. Interestingly he has recently made an online friend with aspergers so perhaps he sees some similarities between them. I will have to bite the bullet and just go for it and explain I want him to be happy and fulfilled and hopefully he will find some useful insights by doing some research (which like you said he will do in very great depth if he is interested). Thank you for your help.

I would tell him to stop being a creeper and harassing women. No does mean no and he is going to get himself into trouble if he doesn't learn to respect a woman's boundaries. If he does not take women seriously when they tell him they are not interested in him, and to leave them alone, and thinks they are just being cutesy he could end up getting fired, or a lawsuit against him, or a restraining order, or arrested for sexual assault, or worse, rape. People often think of rapists as pathological, twisted men who hide in the shadows of alleys or in bushes and jump out and violently rape their victims, but most rapists are average looking men who don't consider the rapes they committed rape to be rape, because they felt they were owed something and didn't take their victim seriously when she or he said no.

Here is a video of one such man. He raped a woman who was telling him "no" the entire time and was begging him to stop and that it hurt, but he doesn't consider it rape because she had said yes initially (but she said no before he actually began) and justified hurting her with the fact that she was a virgin. He did not take her seriously. The rape was live streamed by a "friend" of the girl which is what actually lead to the prosecution so there's no question as to whether or not the girl was actually raped.



It's absolutely imperative that your brother understands that his behavior is not attractive to women. It is upsetting and frightening to them.

That is really terrible for that poor girl to have been through that experience. I do completely understand your point and of course you do not know my brother or what he could be capable of. I truly believe that he wouldn't physically force himself on somebody if she was saying no and scared. He is just so confused by all the subtleties of flirting, reading whether someone is interested or not and what he should do in response. I would say everyone can find that hard by text. I have never once seen him continue a physical behaviour that is upsetting someone. I agree with your final point that he needs to understand when he may be frightening a girl by continuing a conversation beyone what they want. He does need to learn that no really is no. I feel helpless as I have discussed it with him in very plain terms but I am not a physchologist and I have no idea how he sees it all. I think someone trained to help would be a good course of action.

If the woman had to spell out that no means no to him in plain text and he still didn't get it, what makes you think he would get it in the bedroom? People have this impression that women always scream and actively fight off men who have breached their physical boundaries and this is often not the case. In some instances she may say no or something similar but freeze up when the perpetrator continues.

With people like your brother who don't get it when it is spelled out to them so directly and plainly, the next step is to be direct and harsh about it.

"What you are doing is harassment and you will go to jail for harrasment or worse, rape, if you continue to disregard people when they tell you to stop'.

Would you say that completely misreading a response like that is nothing to do with potential autism? I came on here as there are many other reasons to think he is on the spectrum. I read about the top features of aspergers and he was a strong match for nearly every one. I have perhaps given the worst example and out of context it sounds threatening. She had flirted with him for months, used him to make another guy jealous then overnight dropped the flirting and friendship without explaining to him. Of course I agree no means no. I was raped in my early twenties and i know how devastating that is. It took me many years and therapy to come to terms with it. I do think this situation taken in with all of the context is more about his lack of social awareness and inexperience in how to behave. An earlier commenter on this post said it sounded like a familiar behaviour. My brother spent his school days generally alone by choice, and struggled with basic friendships for most of his twenties. I think it is important that he can find a way to understand himself and hopefully find the happiness we all deserve.

It's difficult to say. We are typically more inclined to take things literally and at face value but we don't all lack the pragmatism to try new strategies. He may have been given or came by some false information that has lead him to take misplaced risks. He might have got it into his head that "yes means no" or "don't take no for an answer" or someone could have told him he needs to be more confident and persistent and he could be executing these things inappropriately. Or he could just be very socially and emotionally immature.



We are not able to diagnose. Only give thoughts and opinions. But if you wanted to know for sure he would have to have an assessment.




I'm very sorry to hear that. I hope the perpetrator was caught.



Well lack of social awareness can be problematic even if the person is not ill intended.

Thank you, they never caught the two perpetrators, but DNA for one is on the police system so if they do anything again it should link up. Yes you are right a lack of social awareness has definitely caused him some problems through life. I think two things that holds him back the most dating-wise is his tend to fall in love too quickly, overshare and plan things out and it scares the other person off before things get a proper chance. He also has trouble knowing how and when he should smile. Smiling is one of the most important features on a date in my opinion. It eases the flow of conversation as both parties are getting feedback that they are saying the right things and it is going okay. He never really smiles naturally and in family photos we have always had to tell him to smile. He shows his teeth in an attempt but it always looks a little strange. If he does that on dates I'm not sure how it would be receieved. Anyway I do need to discuss things with him and then it is his choice to persue it if he wants to. I will always be there as his friend and trying to offer some help or advice when he asks for it. Thank you for discussing it with me.

Misinterpreting a response, and not adjusting to a change in tone, are very common traits with ASD. That's not to say it happens to all people with ASD, or that it's always indicative of ASD.

In general, people with ASD have difficulty taking on another person's perspective. We also have difficulty with change - because we like sameness and routine. So when another person goes from giving lots of green light signals to suddenly dropping those signals altogether, the person with ASD will more than likely perseverate in their understanding of and response to the situation. This sounds like what he did, but I don't know the situation first-hand so it might have been generally hard to read anyway

Again, back to my diagnostic journey... It wasn't one or two social issues and traits that flagged it for me. I could easily explain those situations away with other causes - "everyone makes mistakes", or what have you. It's a number of little signs that add up, and then ASD provides the missing link. I wouldn't have known that there WAS a link between certain issues if I hadn't read up on ASD quite extensively, more out of curiosity (and initially disbelieving that I could possibly have it). But then I got to know the disorder, and all the dots started connecting in my mind. It was almost like solving a murder mystery - I'd been having so many issues and I knew I was different but that provided the explanation

You will need to somehow incite him to become interested in ASD and do some research on it. I wasn't so opposed to it when I first started reading about it because you hear of people like Einstein and Steve Jobs having had it. So you can try approaching it from that angle - "These successful people I've researched have a lot of traits that you share too, like a sharp focus and deep knowledge of certain things... And they had ASD"

Yep. Same here. I basically never smiled as a kid, around people or in photos. I was teased for it a bit too (still am as an adult). I've had to gradually teach myself to smile around other people, but I still don't smile in photos..more like smirk. I've figured it's to do with not understanding how I look from other people's perspectives - I know nobody does, but obviously I lack that understanding to the extent that I don't smile lol

I had a weird thought, but it might work. Many people with ASD like "guides" in areas they are interested in, in my experience. Maybe compile some Youtube videos about dating (preferably by women) into a playlist, as well as a bunch of articles? That way, its a "research endeavour", and not "you're terrible at this thing".

I personally pored over every magazine, book, Youtube video, and article about dating, flirting, relationships, etc - on a regular basis from ages 12-20. I'm pretty competent in this area now, although I'm also a girl so I think that helps.

Anyway, knowledge is power.

I agree with this. I did this too and it's very helpful

But a diagnosis and self-awareness would help a lot too

I don’t understand how having AS makes one not to understand “No”.

This is probably a serious manners issue or serious impaired IQ issue.

How severe is his autism?

I would say he is very high functioning. He has lived on his own for several years, held down jobs successfully, changed his routine and travelled abroad without issue. He is able to be in loud unpredictable situations like busy bars. He has a higher than average IQ and two degrees with a 1st class honours. He now works in finance. It does make sense what other people have said about him not understanding a sudden change in tone. Every person he has become infatuated with did flirt with him initially and the girl at work went for several drinks just him and her and opened up a lot of private stuff to him. I think there is a very large gap between his emotional and social maturity and other areas of his life. He showed zero interest in dating at all until we sadly lost our mum 8 years ago. That shook his world as he relied so heavily on her. Since then he has been seeking someone to fill the void of companionship. As time passes he gets more desperate and I think he feels some panic about getting to 40 still alone.

That is a really good idea. Thank you I will get together some bits that may help.