Been writing an article about dating while being AuDHD. While I am not going to pretend I am some guru that is going to turn your dating experience upside down, I have a few things that have worked for me:
- Be open about your neurodivergency. If a person is worth it, they will be interested to know more about it, try to understand and accommodate your needs, and be charmed by your quirks.
- Respect your RSD. If you feel like you are receiving negative feedback don’t shutdown, instead ask for clarification. If you want to do something but are afraid how it will be perceived, ask them. Unsurprisingly, people tend to appreciate the check-ins, it is perceived as you being caring.
- Try pebbling. It is the act of sharing things that you think the other person would appreciate. Feel free to info dump, feel free to share relevant experiences.
- Be meta as fuck. Explain your thought process, why you are doing something, and that train of thought that led to you saying seemingly completely irrelevant. Allistic people don’t understand neurodivergence, but the right people will make the effort.
- Be honest. Maybe you don’t feel safe to expose your date to your fully unmasked self, and that’s okay. BUT, honesty can go a long way. See something you like? Turn that into a compliment! Feeling insecure? Explain that and ask for validation! Something bothers you? Ask for the appropriate accommodations!
- Don’t try to impress the other person. Instead give your date the chance to like the real you. It’s much more sustainable in the long term, you will feel more free and safe in your relationship, and it’s fucking good to be appreciated.
- Routinize flirting. The consistency feels great for the other person, everyone needs a confidence boost and a few words of affirmation.
Hi, I am a building a platform with the goal of supporting apps like this, and I would be interested to develop a plugin for your use-case as an experiment (no fee).
I am working alone on this and this is not my first priority, so I cannot make any guarantees about the timeline, or the scope of the plugin. But, if you are interested we can have a chat on matrix.
The project is not open source yet, but I am planning on doing so once (a) I figure out how to properly apply licensing, and (b) remove any potentially critical information (credentials) from the repository.