News and Knowledge

“Mom,” said the phone message, “this is your son Matthew speaking. I have some seriously good news to tell you about women. Call me back.”

Matthew, who is 28 and has autism, has wanted a girlfriend in the worst way for a very long time. In the beginning, the girlfriend of his choice had to be “hot.” She also had to be “regular” (not developmentally disabled like Matthew) and she had to have long, preferably blond hair. Despite years of coaching from me (social stories are my specialty), my husband, therapists, mentors, and the like, Matthew’s stubborn notion of how to get a girlfriend–which was calling a prospect obsessively–had discouraging results.

So you can imagine my relief when I called Matthew back, and he told me the following:

I’ve decided that I don’t want to get married, but I’d like to find a nice girlfriend someday.

This time, he had a plan. He was going to learn how to get along with girls. He was not going to yell around them, and he was going to make sure he found one who liked hardware stores as much as he did. And he was going to wash his hair and look nice.

I attribute his wisdom to time, maturity, and life experience, including the coaching I mentioned above. Of the many strategies I tried to teach Matthew about dating, love, and relationships, the following five tips (with much repetition) are now ingrained in him:

1. Be choosable. I learned this approach from John Elder Robison’s book Be Different: Adventures of a Free Range Aspergian. Choosable people have good manners, take care of their appearance, and are interested in/receptive to what other people have to say. The best way to be successful with this approach is to spend time with people who are receptive to your interests as well.

2. Don’t overdo it. Calling a girl once is fine, but calling her over and over again will scare her away. This was a difficult lesson for Matthew to understand, even after countless (and true) social stories, usually starring his dad. The message that stuck, however, came from the mother of one of the girls Matthew “overcalled.”

   “Jane likes you as a friend,” she said, “but she won’t if you call so much.”

   This past summer, I needed to get a hold of Matthew and left him four phone messages. “One phone call is enough,” he scolded me. “Any more that that is inappropriate and annoying.” Bingo!

3. Don’t take rejection personally. Yeah, right. I had to dig deep into my own history of being rejected to explain this one and remember how my mother helped me cope:
   • If friends stopped calling, she said, “Your interests have changed and so have theirs. Stick with your loyal friends.”
   • If a boy told me he just wanted to be friends, she said, “In time, you will find a boy who likes you as much as you like him.”
   • If someone made fun of my hair, which was very blonde, she said, “You are beautiful just as you are. They probably wish they had hair like yours.”

Mom told me her own stories of rejection (before social stories were invented) that made me laugh and renewed my spirit. It just took more social stories (over many years) to make an impact with Matthew.

4. Make friends with a person that you are interested in. Being a friend is a more natural way to get to know someone, and is good experience for learning how to be in a relationship.

For many on the autism spectrum however, including Matthew, making a friend is far from natural. We tried a variety of strategies, including social skills groups, the youth group at our church, and special needs sports teams. These great ideas work for many, but not so much for Matthew.

In a moment of brilliance when Matthew was 14, I “hired” friends for him. I searched for and found male student role model types from a nearby college to hang out with Matthew. They’d drive around and listen to music, shoot hoops, play video games, go out for pizza, and do other “guy” things. Most of those friends are now real friends. Isn’t that great?

5. Be patient and compliment people. It takes time and practice to learn how to be a friend–or more.

I can’t say that I have ever heard Matthew give someone a compliment, but I’ve given him plenty of hints, and I’m confident that in time, one will stick.

“You are a nice, kind, funny, and interesting person,” I’ve told him more times than I can count. “And you are very handsome.”

“I know,” he replies with a grin.

That’s a reward in itself.

Laura Shumaker is the author of A Regular Guy: Growing Up With Autism. She writes an autism and disabilities blog for the San Francisco Chronicle.