Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

My life would be so much easier if things worked like in The Sims. Toilet getting dirty and instantly changing from the "clean" asset to the "dirty" asset? Nice, that's a call to action I can understand.

Meanwhile in real life everything just gets slowly and continually more and more dirty and my brain completely filters it out because it "doesn't look different from yesterday"

Do you ever look at the shape of a toot and go "nah, I'm not gonna read, that it has awful vibes" before reading a single word?

@joepie91 And that's why broad technology education and telling people that they can still find the pictures and the related information on the wayback machine of the internet archive is important!

@gnomekat the way I flirt IRL probably isn't very pleasant for autistic folk to try to do. but what's universally the key, for everyone, is to find people who are into you in particular. you want to be the exact opposite of a PUA, never try to *convince* people into going out with you, rather find a scene where people like you are desired, where they want to do the things you want to do. and then be ready for people to say no. it will happen often and it stings, but why would you want to date someone who isn't into you? it would be a miserable experience for you, too. think of it not as an evaluation of who you are, but as an information discovery procedure. "hey do you want to play D&D with me?" "sorry, I only play TCGs". well then you also don't want to play with them, right? it's just a datum you discovered, "we're not a match".

eventually someone will be glad you're there. I guarantee you, no matter what type of body or neurodivergence or age or kink you have, there's someone who's into that.

in my case if I go on fetlife or BDSM stammtisch and say "Hi I'm a big boob lesbian mommy and I want someone to do shibari", well I don't have to do much more than that, do I. when I say that I'll probably be successful if I invite certain cuties for a coffee, it's not confidence in my smooth talk, it's confidence on my read that yeah this person is into my type of deal and has already sent a couple keymashes to my lewds, they'll probably say yes when I ask.

(but at every new coffee date I'll try to smoothly highlight the information that: I'm 41; I have children and live with them; I'm very promiscuous. these are dealbreakers for a lot of people; so I want the filter to come out sooner rather than later.)

I think most of my ASD friends flirt online, by being open about their romantic-sexual interests and engaging in seductive behaviour like infodumping and trauma bonding. then if you want to have something physical you can just go and say something like "hey I find you really cool and attractive, would you like to go out for diner?" and meeting in person if you think your attraction is corresponded you can just flat out ask "dang I'm really into you, would you like to be kissed?"

(this is also how I come onto non-ASD people, btw. contrary to popular opinion, direct statements of desire and intent are actually well received, as long as you're ready to be graceful to a "no". the only difference is that with non-ASD people a lot of the preamble is with body language and especially eye contact, which works as a sort of TCP handshake offer—if they don't return your smiles and looks at the club they also won't dance with you, let alone respond to a verbal offer. )

tl;dr—it's not how you flirt, it's who you flirt.