Is online dating a breeding ground for unhealthy fixations?

‘She mentioned that neurodiversity in dating is ‘like everyone else has a plan to follow and I’ve not been handed it’.’

Modern-day online dating is overwhelming to anybody, but how does it make neurodiverse women feel? As a neurodiverse woman (ADHD) I wanted to focus on the lack of clarity within online dating, the lack of commitment it delivers and figuring out if our experiences differ from the norm. If so, why does this happen and how does it make us feel within ourselves? Delving deeper into the way we think and if the nature of online dating is just a breeding ground for unhealthy fixations? 

During this article, I draw ideas from not only my own experiences but also from others, ultimately finding out how we date and why that may not fit into societal expectations. I do however also consider the positives such as what we bring to the table. But overall I wanted to reveal how online dating challenges us in ways neurotypicals wouldn’t even think of. 

In our day-to-day lives neurodivergent people ‘can struggle with interoception (understanding and regulating the feelings and sensations in the body)’, as a child this can manifest in not knowing when you’re hungry but as you get older it can relate more to emotional regulation and lead to struggles with navigating or even understanding our feelings. Our feelings can easily overwhelm us which can be why we tend to feel like we live in chaos. The idea of interoception suggests many things but a sex and relationship therapist from Intimata suggests ‘Most importantly, we may be more likely to be internally flooded by our intense emotions and find it harder to put this experience into words’. These struggles with regulating our emotions suggest we feel things deeper than others and that we feel them in different ways. In the world of dating this can be dangerous, it’s almost as if neurodiverse people are more vulnerable to getting hurt.

When reaching out for other’s experiences I spoke to Sophie, 28 she/they. Firstly I asked her if she feels our dating experiences are different to neurotypicals. She answered ‘I think so’ stating she felt that when speaking to friends about dating her experiences differed. She mentioned that neurodiversity in dating is ‘like everyone else has got a plan to follow and I’ve not been handed it’. Sophie felt she didn’t know how to handle issues in dating, sharing ‘I don’t have the language or the tools to do it’. Leaving her feeling like, in her words, she’s ‘on a different level’ to others. 

When researching, I decided to do a survey to find out how people really feel about online dating (open to neurotypicals too). I asked questions surrounding how it makes them feel, the casual nature of it and what problems they face. When asked if online dating affects self-esteem 50% said it affects their self-esteem negatively. If online dating affects the self-esteem of neurotypicals so heavily, how does it affect others – especially when we bring things like lack of emotional regulation into the picture? 

Not only did my survey suggest it has a negative effect on self-esteem but when asking how online dating made them feel, there were responses like ‘insecure’, ‘terrible’ and ‘cheap at times’. There was evidence to suggest it makes some feel good, people saying it was ‘fun and exciting’ but overall, it’s obvious that online dating takes pleasure in ruling our emotions. It has a great influence on how we feel, what we think about and ultimately how we see ourselves. Most of the time negative, making it harder to repair blows to your self-esteem. As I said earlier, neuro-diverse people struggle with emotional regulation, meaning if you sit there feeling really awful about your hinge date, you may just think you’re feeling depressed in general and not be able to find the trigger. Separating your emotions as a neurodivergent can be more challenging due to the influx of emotion at one time. As I spoke to Sophie, she said ‘I tied my worth to him’ sharing that a day not hearing from him was indeed a bad day. 

Within my survey, I asked if people felt there was a lack of clarity when online dating – 85% said yes. Some of my results from other questions also came back to this. People say that their problems with online dating have to do with ‘guys not knowing what they want’ or ‘knowing if someone likes me’. Lack of clarity to a neurodiverse person feels draining, it forces us to look inward instead of seeing the external behind it all. Sophie stated that in times of uncertainty with dating she ‘couldn’t take a step back and look at it as a whole’ the way others can do. This is where hyperfixation can come in, instead of letting life take its toll, we zoom in on problems and seek solutions that aren’t there. A cycle of intrusive thoughts can appear, and hyperfixation can leave us blaming ourselves. It takes you to an unhealthy thought process as Sophie states ‘I don’t know where I stand, it must be me’. Due to lack of clarity, it makes online dating quite inaccessible to individuals with neurodivergence, or at least leaves dating with more consequences than rewards.  

When speaking about social media and dating, we discussed 24/7 access to this person and how it can be troublesome to neurodivergence, as people are at risk of developing fixations – this element of dating feels ‘dangerous’. Sophie explained that when you have that access you also have easy contact, which can start to take over your life in ways it wouldn’t to a neurotypical. You start messaging too much – which can not only scare them off but be seen as unhealthy and ‘before you know it you’re sitting by your phone thinking I hope they like this’. Now we’ve entered the not-so-casual territory and you’re in a relationship alone, or to put it more bluntly you have a hyperfixation. 

Dating neurotypicals can be hard also, not only is it a different experience Sophie shared that ‘there’s an added difficulty when you know the person you’re speaking to, their brain might not work the same way that yours does’. Things you do can be misunderstood, according to Medical News Today things like ‘impulsive texting, which could involve flirtatious texts, inappropriate questions, or changing topics.’ Or ‘being frustrated by texting if the pace is too slow for them’ is common. Leading to the perception that you are too much, someone who throws all their eggs in one basket. It’s said neuro divergents ‘may hyperfocus on a new relationship due to their excitement. This can look similar to love bombing, but the motivation is very different.’ It’s as if neurodiverse people are at constant risk of coming across as toxic when it’s just our inability to regulate our feelings. These behaviours that are triggered are then deemed wrong making online dating a very intimidating place for neuro diversities. 

There’s also the dreaded moment of actually letting someone know you are neurodiverse, of course, this isn’t necessary in the beginning but sometimes it feels like the only way for people to understand you. This comes at a cost, to many some stereotypes cloud their judgement. People may judge you for your condition without getting to know you, in fear you may be more difficult, less fun, and less easy to date. This can be insulting, it can feel like rejection, something you can’t change about yourself is the one thing you are getting judged for. With online dating, there’s already a bunch of different things to be judged on – your looks, your online persona, and your reply times. Realistically you are putting yourself out there to either be accepted or rejected. But when it is appropriate to tell people about your disability, is it too intense to bring up when you’ve never even met? Will it change the tone of your bidding relationship? Or will it make them run away? 

The anxiety of this could make neurodivergents isolate themselves from dating, I know for me the complexity of my disability really comes into play here. You want to be honest, but it comes with all sorts of pathways. You’re opening up a door where you don’t know what’s on the other side, the uncertainty is scary. And let’s be honest, rejection is never pretty. 

Although there are difficulties within online dating as a neurodivergent, there are also positives. When speaking to Sophie we spoke a little bit about the positives where she told me she feels that we offer more understanding than others and that we can be a bit more ‘chaotic and spontaneous’ which is fun to an extent. Other qualities are fundamental to us that are very useful in relationships, like our ability to communicate directly and our honesty – something Sophie called the ‘black and white approach’. Most of the time when we say something, we say it how it is. We also assume everyone else does this when sometimes they do not. According to Mashable ‘Neurotypical people all too often assume that there are lines to be read between, however, that is not the case. Communication for most neurodiverse people needs to be crystal clear.’ I guess this one could also be seen as a negative when it comes to how online dating works, but in terms of relationships honest communication is seen to be a pillar of health. 

Drawing from my own experiences dating with ADHD feels like you’re constantly having to think before you act, something which feels harder as an ADHDer. It feels like you are in constant training, and not to let anything slip. It feels like masking. For the years I’ve spent trying to unmask myself, trying to feel like myself in society, dating is just another thing that leaves me masking almost automatically.