Snug Like A Bug In A… Hole

A short story in honor of those who cannot help digging.

Hello!

I can see by the look on your face that you’re confused. Look down.

Further down.

Hi! Yes, I’m the head that is protruding from a hole in the ground. As you can see by my waiving, I also have arms. I also have a body and legs, but a lot of it is not visible to you because, well, I’m in a hole.

Oh, don’t worry about me. In fact, this hole is exactly where I wanted to be. I ended up here while engaging in an argument with a friend. I was trying to score some points, but lo and behold, the ground started to cave, and slowly, but surely I ended up in this hole.

You know what? I feel rather comfortable in my hole. In fact, I’d like to enlarge it so that I can sink even deeper into it. Do you happen to have a shovel I could use for this task?

Oh, wow, what a stroke of luck! Thank you for the shovel. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get on digging. Have a nice day!

I regularly run into people who like to dig themselves into a hole.

The latest one was someone who approached me for dating. I sensed drama in their profile. I said, “no, thanks,” and they immediately proceeded to prove me right by tossing drama at my head with their response.

#arguments #AutisticWriters #DiggingOneselfIntoAHole #holes #YourAutisticLife

I Still Cannot Recommend Feeld

Feeld used to be my go-to dating app, but no more. How the mighty have fallen!

I let my subscription to Feeld lapse in mid-July. In the year prior, I spent about $270 on this app, in subscription fees and individual pings. However, they raised their prices at the end of Spring or the start of Summer 2025. If I had the same usage for the coming year, my cost would be about $410!

I’ve written an article already about the problems I had with Feeld:

https://www.yourautisticlife.com/2024/05/13/i-no-longer-recommend-feeld/

True to my own advice in that article, I returned to OkCupid. However, this app sucks too. I just had forgotten how much it sucks. I can say that, by and large, there hasn’t been a migration of kinky people to OkCupid. I did find my boyfriend on OkCupid. However, OkCupid was just too irritating for me, and I deleted my account there.

In the article above, I mention how Feeld had a problem with pings not getting through. This was a very serious problem. I’d get a notification that someone pinged me, and I’d tap the notification, but they did now show up among the people who pinged me. This problem has now been fixed.

However, the distance problem I mentioned in the article above remains. This, coupled with the price increase, and a new round of bugs, still keeps me from recommending it. What bugs? Read on.

It has happened twice now that Feeld matched me with people I had not liked. Normally, for a match to occur, both parties have to like each other. It is not possible for someone to just show up as a match if you haven’t liked them.

This first time this happened… I was confused and thought that maybe I had made a mistake somewhere. However, the second time this happened, the individual that showed up was so incompatible with me that I’m 100% sure I did not make a mistake.

What happened?

Did Feeld misdirect one of our likes? Was I supposed to match with someone else and Feeld misdirect the match?

Was Feeld’s display when I was going through the stack of dating prospects messed up and showed me the profile of person A when it meant to show person B? And then when I liked person A, person B got the like?

Did something else happen?

I don’t know. I’ve complained to customer service, but I had no reply.

Then, one recent morning, I got a notification that I had a new connection. I tap the notification, Feeld loaded, and I got a message that it couldn’t load my conversation. When I was able to load my conversations, it told me that the person had left the chat.

Wow… that was fast. Could the person have changed their mind this fast? Yes, they could. However, this is the first time I saw the error message that Feeld gave me. Coincidence? Maybe, but maybe not. I’m betting on maybe not.

“Why are you assuming, without absolute proof, that it is Feeld’s fault?”

Because of my history with Feeld. If you go read my previous article, you’ll see there was a bug so fucking serious that it demonstratably made me miss some matches. Let me repeat this, some matches that should have happened did not happen because of that bug! This was a major problem, that plagued Feeld for months.

So yes, I am assuming that it is Feeld’s fault, even if I don’t have absolute proof. If my history with a platform shows that it operates erratically, then my future inferences are going to point to its behavior still being erratic.

Finally, they tried to entice me to resubscribe with a 15% off offer. I did not want to resubscribe, but I checked it out nonetheless. Well, I went up to the Google Play screen for renewing my subscription and found that 15% off to be absent. Way to go, Feeld!

Moreover, after my subscription ended, I’m getting a suspiciously high number of people who like me without a ping. Since I no longer pay, I cannot see their likes. Yes, I used to get likes from deadbeats who didn’t read my profile even when I was paying, but the quantity and frequency of these makes me wonder whether Feeld is paying for some dunces to like people who don’t pay so that these people will subscribe to see who liked them. This hypothetical stratagem won’t work on me.

I’d like to be able to recommend Feeld. I used to say that it was the least terrible app of a terrible bunch, because, yes, all the dating apps are terrible. However, I cannot in good conscience recommend it, to anyone, in any demographics.

What are the alternatives? I’m only going to talk about those platforms that I consider could be alternatives to Feeld. If I do not talk about some platform in this article, then I do not consider it to be a viable alternative.

Taimi

Taimi is a platform for LGBTQ+ dating. I plan to publish a more extensive review of it in the future. For now, suffice to say that Taimi has become my go-to dating app. It is not perfect, all the dating apps are terrible, but it is decent, and definitely better than Feeld. I’ve made some nice matches on this app.

Masked Kink

Masked Kink is a platform for people into kink or BDSM. It definitely is not great. The geographic search leaves me with no matches within 1000 miles of where I live. However, this app has several bugs, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the geographical search is buggy too. As a matter of fact, I’d be surprised if it weren’t buggy.

One of its bugs is extremely vexing. I managed to be liked by a scammer. I did a reverse image search on their dating profile picture, and found a hit on Threads. Then, I quickly discovered their YouTube channel and their OnlyFans page. I wanted to report this scammer, but try as I may, the UI would not let me submit my report. Tapping on the submit button did nothing.

I plan to let my subscription to Masked Kink lapse when it ends.

KinkD

KinkD was already rather inactive when I left it about a year ago. I came back to it for two or three weeks recently. It is now completely dead. I sent messages to easily eight people. Nothing whatsoever happened. They did not even log into the system to check their messages. KinkD was not worth my money when I first went there, now it is not worth my money and my time. I uninstalled.

KinkD is also a great example of how Google reviews are largely worthless on their face. It has a rating of 4.4 as we speak, and keeps getting glowing reviews. I’d bet a leg and an arm that these are fake.

#AutisticWriters #Dating #Feeld #KinkD #MaskedKink #OnlineDating #Taimi #YourAutisticLife

Tone is hard when you're neurodivergent. Sometimes I sound like a customer service bot with anxiety. Here's how AI helps me sound more like the soft, weird human I really am. #neurodivergent #autisticwriters #freelancewriting #chatgpt #writingtips #robotvoice

https://dreamspacestudio.net/2025/08/04/dear-ai-please-make-me-sound-like-a-human/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

Masking leads to burnout—and neurodivergent freelancers know this all too well. Here's how AI tools can help you unmask, work sustainably, and write without performance fatigue. #AutisticWriters #NeurodivergentFreelancers #BurnoutRecovery #AIWritingTools #FreelanceLife

https://dreamspacestudio.net/2025/07/29/how-ai-helps-neurodivergent-freelancers-unmask/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

Dating: The Attitude Problem

To find a lasting relationship, you have to accept those relationships that won’t last.

I’m a strange creature. At 53, I have a fair amount of experience at living. However, when I joined the dating world just over three years ago, I had no experience to speak of regarding dating, and the minute experience I did have was from over 26 years earlier. There were no dating apps back then.

My inexperience led me early on to naively accept behaviors that I shouldn’t have accepted. There was the “polyamorous” woman who used me as a pawn to get her husband jealous. There was also the woman I went on a date with, but who seemed only interested in getting a free meal and promoting her business. They both displayed behavior that now would put me off from pursuing anything with them.

I’m a quick learner, however. My many adventures and misadventures quickly taught me what I call an aphorism of love:

To find a lasting relationship, you have to accept those relationships that won’t last.

I don’t see any way around this aphorism. For one thing, the statistics are operating against us. Still, I was in a relationship that lasted 26 years. We were married for 22 of those years. She was my first relationship. Wow! Lucky, right? I had beaten the odds! I thought I was lucky, until we started talking divorce. Absolutely nothing is guaranteed.

Now, I do run from time to time into those who will declare that the dating apps have always been or have become a large wasteland in which it is impossible to find anyone. I accept that this has been their experience, but such hasn’t been my experience.

I expect the vast majority of such individuals to be straight, monogamous, vanilla, and neurotypical. In all likelihood, they are also trapped by the dominant ideology of our times, capitalism. This entrapment has multiple manifestations. There’s the fact that wages have not risen at the same rate as inflation. This means that they have to work harder to keep their standard of living. This leaves less time and energy for forming connections of any kind, including romantic ones.

Another way in which this entrapment manifest itself is the desire for optimization. A lot of people these days get into debt while trying to impress the crowd. They buy expensive things that they cannot afford. People in this type of situation are likely to look for a specific type of mate. Someone who plays well the capitalist game.

Thus, these folks will compare their dates against an unrealistic ideal of what their mate should be. Thus, their experience on the dating apps will be molded by this attitude. They won’t connect, and when they connect, they will run at the first sign that their date does not hold up to their ideal.

Your Autistic Life is supported by readers like you. Use one of the links below to support my writing! Thank you.

My own experience has been different. For a start, my demographics make me a minority. I’m pansexual, polyamorous, into BDSM, and neurodivergent. I do not hide these things from my dating profile. These characteristics make me unpalatable to a lot of people. In addition, I have my own dealbreakers which narrow the pool of candidates even further.

For instance, I do not date cops or the military. Yes, I know for a fact that this requirement of mine has cost me some potential matches. Someone I had contacted, who was polite about it, told me as much. In addition, I pass on all the straight folks. I just don’t think that the random straight individual has any idea of what being queer entails.

My demographics and my preferences make it extremely difficult to meet anybody by just going to social events. I do go to social events that have nothing to with dating. My chance of running there into someone who is looking for a mate and is going to be okay with me being pansexual, being polyamorous, being into BDSM, and being neurodivergent are extremely slim.

I also go to queer events, events for neurodivergent people, or events for people into BDSM. When I go to these events, there is a greater chance at compatibility. However, it is usually the case that the people I find there are going to be compatible with me in all respects, except one. This is highly frustrating. Do not make the mistake of thinking that one characteristic entails the other, especially if you are not part of these minorities. For instance, pansexual people are not all polyamorous.

So this leaves me with online dating. I’ll note here that all my relationships started online. Yes, even the one with my ex-wife, which started in 1996. It started through email. I did not start using the dating apps until after our divorce, in 2022, however. Truth be told, I’ve had my successes on these apps. I’ve heard from several people that they got absolutely nothing out of them.

So what counts as success? As far as I see it, a match is already success writ small. Then there’s having a nice date, which is a bigger success. Then there’s being intimate with your dating prospect, which is even better. Don’t get me wrong, some of these encounters were unmitigated disasters. The net balance, however, is a positive one overall. Ultimately, what I seek is a lasting relationship. However, I feel the need to point out that all relationships last, right up until the moment that they don’t. I do not possess the crystal ball to tell me which relationship will last, and which won’t. Moreover, remember my aphorism of love:

To find a lasting relationship, you have to accept those relationships that won’t last.

Because of this, I always approach relationships with an open mind, and assume that they will last. Yes, I’m most likely mistaken, but it does not matter. I let myself be pleasantly surprised by my partners, and I hope to pleasantly surprise them too. It has happened. And yes, opening yourself to pleasant surprises, means you can also get unpleasant surprises. I’ll say that almost every time a relationship has ended, it was an unpleasant surprise. And yet, these are inevitable.

Furthermore, I do not attempt to make my partners fit into some narrow confine of how my “ideal” partner should be. Now, I do have boundaries. Most of these revolve around money. However, if a partner does not respect those boundaries, the result is not typically a breakup.

Finally, I’ve rejected the ideals of capitalism. I do not aim to optimize my life, or my relationship, and I do not impose such optimizations on my partners. I aim to be present in my partner’s life, and so I do not favor living the rat race that capitalism likes to foist on us.

I am currently partnered with my boyfriend. We’re at the nine or ten months mark, right now. The longest relationship I’ve been in after my divorce. We found each other on OkCupid. Prior to this, I was in a seven-month relationship with a girl. We found each other on Feeld. Other than these two post-divorce relationships, I’ve had unplanned one-night stands, and some relationships that lasted one weekend, or a few days.

It may be a function of my demographics, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about how I present on the dating apps. I use all the space at my disposal to fill out a thorough profile. There is little I hate more than profiles that have pictures but are otherwise empty. It is pretty much guaranteed that you are going to get likes from misguided people who are trying to fit square peg into round holes, even with a filled profile. How much more of those are you going to get if your profile is empty, and how many of them will treat you as an object? You’ve given them no reason to do otherwise with your empty profile.

Moreover, I go to the apps with the attitude that nobody owes me anything. I’ve had matches, and sometimes short-lived relationships, where I was thanked for my understanding and kindness when things, for reasons that have nothing to do with me, unravelled and the relationship came to an end. I cannot, and do not want to force someone into a relationship with me if it is not in the cards.

I’ll conclude by saying that attitude is not the entire reason people do not find success on the dating apps, but it is a significant reason. The choice of the dating app, and even geography can affect someone’s experience significantly, and yet the effect of one’s attitude is non-negligible.

#attitude #AutisticWriters #capitalism #Dating #love #OnlineDating #relationships #YourAutisticLife

Therapy: “people call me cold!”

The Daily Isotope has obtained the notes and transcript of the following therapy session. It has been edited for length and comprehension.

Therapist: Welcome to therapy. What’s on your mind?

Patient: I feel like people are asking me to change my very nature.

Therapist: What makes you say this?

Patient: They say that I’m cold. It hurts, you know!

Therapist: I understand.

Patient: Some of them even say I’m downright frigid.

Therapist: How does that make you feel?

Patient: Terrible! What’s more, I have a friend I regularly go out with. Everyone calls my friend warm.

Therapist: Do go on.

Patient: Heck, they even call my friend burning hot at times.

Therapist: Okay, but why does this make you feel terrible?

Patient: It is a bit on the nose, isn’t it? They are intimating that I should change my nature.

Therapist: How so?

Patient: I’m a refrigerator! It is my nature to be cold!

Therapist: I had noticed, but it is good to hear you voice it.

Patient: I do have a warm side, but people ignore it.

Therapist: Oh?

Patient: My coils are hot, but people never think to look at them and comment about how hot they are. They are on my back. It’s not like I can move them to be more evident.

Therapist: You mentioned a friend.

Patient: What about my friend?

Therapist: This friend is…

Patient: Oh, it is an oven.

Therapist: I see. For a second there, I thought it might be a furnace.

Among the therapists notes, we found the following scribbles:

A new pickup line?? How would it go???

“Hello, pretty. You must be a fridge.”

“What? Are you saying I’m frigid?”

“No!!!! It is because your coils are so hot.”

“Fuck off…”

Hmm… maybe not.

In a similar vein:

https://www.thedailyisotope.com/2024/10/30/machines-now-diagnosed-with-mental-conditions/

#AutisticWriters #dating #TheDailyIsotope #therapy

I have a book on how to make a comic.

At the first suggestion of creativity, my body screams 'no', much as it did this morning when I tried to get up for my regular chat with a fellow language learner.

Is there a term for Discrimination Fatigue? Like: being so clawed by prejudice and unrelenting hegemonic demands that you stop wanting anything anymore, as a way to protect what's left of you.

#AutisticBurnout #BurnOut #AutisticWriters #NonbinaryArtist #QueerWriters

Yvonne Rorrer Declares Herself Ethically Non-Monogamous

Good for her, and for those of us who are also into ethical non-monogamy.

I have never heard of Yvonne Rorrer until Stephen Colbert talked about her on The Late Show last night. I know she is a Democrat, but I don’t know more about her political positions. At any rate, it is a good thing that she declared herself ethically non-monogamous in a statement. I’m not saying that she came out because I got from a Huffington Post article that she was already out.

Colbert talked about her as a swinger. Mainstream media often does such a piss-poor job at reporting about things they do not understand that I was wondering whether swinger was her expression, or whether the journalists jumped the gun, and assumed. The Huffington Post article I link to above confirms it is her expression.

Ethical non-monogamy is a large umbrella term. Swinging falls under this umbrella, and so does polyamory. (I am polyamorous.) In all cases, of ethical non-monogamy, the assumption is that everyone involved knows what is going on. Ethically non-monogamous people do not hide one relationship from another.

One thing irritated me in Colbert’s talk about Rorrer. It came across to me as mononormative. Colbert said,

She might be one of those people who thinks everybody wants to hear about their thing.

😩 Why did he need to go there? Why?

Colbert, like the majority of our population, monogamous, and straight. People will assume, correctly, those two characteristics about him. When people run into someone like me, or like Rorrer, they make the same assumptions, and they are wrong. We are both ethically non-monogamous. I am because I’m polyamorous. Rorrer is because she is a swinger. I’m moreover not straight, because I’m pansexual. I don’t know about Rorrer’s sexual orientation.

We do not talk about our ethical non-monogamy because we think that everybody wants to hear about it. We talk about it to normalize it, and because some people will benefit from it. In a world where monogamous people are in the majority, we who are ethically non-monogamous are assumed to be monogamous too. That is, until we tell people otherwise.

I’m open, too, about all kinds of things. I cannot count the number of times when, after being open about being pansexual, polyamorous, or autistic, I had a nice chat with someone else who was in a similar situation. This discussion would not have happened if I had not been open about my identity.

Please do not assume that when someone is in a minority group that, when they are being open about their identity, their intent is to shove their business into your face.

#AutisticWriters #EthicalNonMonogamy #polyamory #SexualMinorities #StephenColbert #swinging #TheLateShow #YourAutisticLife #YvonneRorrer

Healthcare in the US: it all makes sense if you’re a squirrel

The Daily Isotope obtained the transcript of a discussion between a customer seeking health coverage, and a customer service representative at a state agency.

Customer: Hi.

Customer Service Representative: Hello. Can you confirm your name [etc…]

C: [Confirms name, etc.]

CSR: What can I help you with?

C: I’d like to buy health coverage, but your site says I’m ineligible.

CSR: That’s correct.

C: But it makes no sense. They are going to cut my current coverage soon. I should be able to buy new coverage.

CSR: Can you take notes?

C: Yes.

CSR: You cannot purchase coverage because you are still currently co…

C: This does not make sense!

CSR: Sir, let me finish. The script I’m following is super important. I must finish what I started telling you.

C: Or what? The universe is going to explode?

CSR: I am offended by your insinuation.

C: Alright, go on.

CSR: Because you are still currently covered. You need to go to [this website] or call [this number].

C: But it does not make sense!

CSR: Yes, it does.

C: Why should I have to talk to a different agency? You are responsible for healthcare in my state. It does not make sense.

CSR: It does!

C: How so?

CSR: It makes total sense… if you are squirrel.

C: What?

CSR: You just have to look at it from the perspective of a squirrel. They do not stash their nuts all into the same hole, do they?

C: No, but this has nothing to do with my situation.

CSR: It does.

C: How come?

CSR: Just like a squirrel spreads his food among multiple hole, we’ve decided to spread resources among multiple agencies.

C: Anyway. What do I do with the information you gave me?

CSR: You’re going to have to make an application for financial help at that website or phone number.

C: What? I know I’m not eligible for financial help. I’m going to have to apply just so that they can reject me before I can purchase coverage.

CSR: How would I know?

C: But you’ve just told me…

CSR: I don’t know. I don’t work there.

C: Good grief! None of this makes any sense!

CSR: Actually…

C: What? I must look at it from the point of view of a squirrel again?

CSR: No, you need a lobotomy for what I’ve just told you to make sense.

This story was inspired by an actual discussion between a customer and a customer service representative.

#AutisticWriters #health #satire #squirrels #TheDailyIsotope #USHealthcare

Why I Usually Don’t Get All Pissy When A Relationship Fails

I don’t like drama.

Finding a picture for this article was hard. That’s because a lot of the pictures I found imply feelings that I don’t have. (I’m not crushed, or angry, etc.) Or they imply the end of a long and intense relationship. It wasn’t the case here.

My latest date told me minutes ago that she was polysaturated, and that it would not be possible for us to have a relationship. I replied that I understood, and she thanked me for my understanding.

For those who may not know, the term “polysaturated” implies that we are polyamorous. I already have a boyfriend, and she already has a husband and another partner. I don’t wish to give a lecture here about polyamory. Suffice to say that our existing partners were duly informed about our date. Polyamorous people do not hide their new romantic liaisons from their existing partners.

The term “polysaturated” also indicates that someone has too many partners, and cannot conceivably add another partner to the mix. What this number is will vary from person to person, and from situation to situation. The person in question has four kids, besides her husband, and one other partner. I readily understand the issue.

The behavior I displayed is not unusual for me. This is actually how I want my relationship failures to happen. No drama. Just people who tell each other their truth. This time, she passed on me, but I’ve sometimes been the one passing on the other person. It is never fun, but not devastating. In the case at hand here, we did not have sex, but sometimes the failure happened after we did have sex. Some external factor caused our relationship to end prematurely. I still did not get pissy.

I’ve qualified my sentence with “usually” in my title because it is in fact possible for me to get pissy in these circumstances, but you have to have also betrayed me in some fashion for this to happen. This hasn’t happened often, and the mere fact that our relationship is not going to evolve is not in and of itself betrayal.

However, I’m the type of autistic person who likes, at times, to consider the path not taken. What if? What if I had become pissy and indignant? “How dare you pass on me? Don’t you realize what it is you have in me?” There are two likely outcomes to this hypothetical behavior.

She can respond in kind with her own indignation. In this case, I’ve made an enemy. Not that I think there’s a lot she could do to me, but I don’t want to make enemies unnecessarily.

Or she can change her mind to please me. In this case, I’ve won, right? Not at all. This putative “victory” is illusory. What good does it do me to be with someone who agrees to be with me only to pacify me? What kind of relationship would we then have? It would be a relationship based on fear, which is not what I want.

It is a shame that this relationship is not going to flourish, but I never pressure people into things they do not want or cannot handle. It is just not my style.

#autistic #AutisticWriters #Dating #polyamory #relationships #YourAutisticLife