Oops, long comment ahead.

So the last man I was seeing is still a really good friend now, a little less than a year we've known each othe and we still talk and see each other frequently. He is the first man I ever told I am autistic (after we stopped dating), and my first after fully accepting the diagnosis. I never pretended anything with him and I evaluated our time together from a totally different perspective than I did my previous lovers. All the "little things" I don't like, I didn't minimise them. They seem picky to society but they are huge to me-- mostly sensory and stim related, but also just my precise tastes. If I was dating him with my mask on, it'd be with society's standards in mind and totally ignoring how big a deal what I'm seeing/not seeing, feeling/not feeling is because we look good together, we really care for each other, we vibe and can talk about anything, and he's perfect "on paper." But.... all the butbutbut's, is where my mask would've come in an made up for, and they are numerous.

I wouldn't say it's less pressure, but it's less cognitive and emotional dissonance. I really like this person but thanks to seeing him clearly, I know without any doubts that it would never work longterm and that I don't want it to even though he's "almost exactly" everything I want in a partner. We're great as friends, but as lovers, we had fun and I'm open to dating again, but there are so many things lacking that I know it could only work in the shortterm before going back to friends. Before, I'd have exhausted myself in the process of succeeding in making something last and locking into quiet dissastisfaction all mixed up with the euphoria of a love simulation, which is badbadbad when it comes to forming ideas of what love is and feels like. I'd eventually end when the facade inevitably slips anyway. I feel terror and sometimes anger having to disclose to him my special needs but I do it and he listens with care. And beyond the masking, I also had a wall all around my heart with him in the beginning and with everyone before him that I didn't even know was there. Letting it down is a great lesson in how not to run away when ish gets real. It's probably the scariest thing I've ever done but it allows me to move through my states instead of clamming up, melting down, blacking out, going silent, etc. This is what removing the mask has allowed me to do, and I feel really lucky that I happened to meet him and learn how to exist with a lover and a now close friend and not pretend anything. I want to go into my next relationship already knowing how to do this, already knowing what it feels like.

I already don't date a lot in the first place; I don't like online dating, and I'm "intimidating" so men don't often approach me. But I think the biggest pressure release has been just letting these guys know I'm celibate. It saves me from having to deal with a lot of lying and sweet talk, and the ones who do stick around are curious about my path to making that choice and open to friendship, which is what I know I need before jumping into a romance with anyone. I'm graduated to the slow burn desires now instead of instant sparks and a forest fire lol. I still need to feel the heat-- there's never been any with my friend and that's something I would have come in and provided because society would laugh at this being a so-called dealbreaker... but I literally cannot for actual embarrassment, thanks to my mask being gone, even though I can see how to clearly. But I can't do that preserving, faking, observing, processing, filling in, making up thing anymore. It's so consumptive and I am too burnt out.