 it could could be seen as sort of speaking in terms of friendships. But what about like romantic relationships or any of our class of partner partner relationship? Yeah, so one thing that I come across with a lot is kind of generally speaking, again, our inability to decode flirting. I was running a class on this other day on dating and relationships. And somebody was saying that they had gone out for drinks and somebody come back and their friends were like, how was the date? And she was like, that was in a date. And they're like, that was the date. So just knowing like she had been invited on a date, went on a date, didn't know that it was the date and came home and like all of her friends were like, you went on a date. So I think there's a lot of the decoding where unless it's like very specific, like I want to date you, I want to hold your hand, you know. So I definitely think it can be hard to receive flirting and understand it also to give, you know, to be flirtatious. Because that to me, that almost feels like a mask. You know, again, I just like to be kind of straightforward about what I'm thinking and feeling. It's kind of it's difficult, isn't it? Because as much as we would like to avoid it, there is, you know, there is some kind of playing aspect of the whole, you know, are we going to are we going to go on a date, whatever we are trying to do to each other? And it's kind of that whole, especially at the start, that kind of strange dynamic where you both know that you both understand what you're trying to do and you're trying to work with that. Especially with the flirting, like, I've had I've had people flirt with me before. And I know it's it's hard to believe, but no, it's not. And it's, I pretty much always take it as a negative. Like if people are like poking me and like, picking at me, I'm like, I don't like that person. It's like, I'm pushing the side. And, you know, you have that whole rhetoric of, Oh, if you're, you're younger and you're at school, and a girl's like, hating you and like picking at you, it means that I like them. It's kind of like that. But I just take it straight as a negative. And it's interesting. Like the whole sort of flirting dynamic, it's very, very like, I don't like it really that much. Yeah, it's confusing. And I know that it's something that's needed. Like sometimes, especially if you're wanting to date in a very typical individual, it can be quite hard, definitely. Like, Yeah. Because it's definitely an important part of a relationship in the sense that you're, you know, flirting is a way to express interest in each other. And, you know, I think along with that comes physical touch, which can be very challenging. You know, a lot of people on the spectrum, our, our need for physical touch is going to be very different. So some people might need a whole lot of it and might need like really, you know, firm kind of physical pressure. And then some of us don't want to be touched at all. Kind of sensory defensive, kind of. Yeah. And then that might, that might change every day. So like maybe today, you need lots of attention and affection and the next day you don't want any. So that can be very hard to navigate in a relationship because it, you know, most of the time, I get generally speaking for the autistic population, like it's not personal, you know, it's not because I don't like you and you're making me mad. It's like, I just need some space. Just don't want to touch anyone. I don't want anybody to touch me. And especially as a mom, when you have your kids climbing on you all day every day. The Aspie world is talking about that as well. I was listening to that one the other day. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I was thinking it would be great to talk to you about about parenting and stuff, just, you know, in, you know, how you present yourself online. I think I think it's really interesting. I, I, I forgot something and then I remembered it about sort of that whole flirting dynamic thing. And it's, it's very indirect. It's all in, it's indirect communication. Like direct communication, most of the time, for me has not worked, like going up and saying, Hey, I like you. Do you want to go on a date? You know, like, do you want to do this? Like actually having the, you know, doing the questions kind of detracts from the whole process that a lot of people go through when they find someone new. And so they kind of think it's a bit weird. It's kind of a bit desperate, even, even though they may be feeling like that's something that they might, you're something that they might want to pursue. Yeah, it still comes back to the fact that, you know, you're being direct with them. And that's kind of rushing things along in their brain. Like, Yeah, it's very confusing. No, it does. Like, like you said, you can be direct about something. And then the other person might want that too. But it's like the fact that you were direct about it kind of throws everything off, which is, but I like what you said about flirting, being indirect communication. And that makes a lot of sense why autistic people would struggle with that because we do prefer direct communication. And we have a hard time reading between the lines. So that makes a lot of sense. I've done a lot of work on improving cognitive empathy, which is, are you aware of the adaptive cognitive empathy stuff? A bit, I've done a little bit of research on it, not enough to like, explain it to you. So adaptive empathy is showing the, it's pretty much what we think of empathy being. It's showing the correct response to someone's emotional state. And there's another half to that there's the cognitive empathy part of it, which is being able to notice based on indirect signals, like bodily cues, how they're speaking, whether they're acting differently than usual. And if I think that that's, you know, over time, I've, I've really been sort of trying to build up my cognitive empathy. So I can tell nowadays, if people are like interested in me, I got to whether they want to be friends or whether they want a relationship, but I know that they want to interact with me. But the actual like, especially if I was thinking myself as a single man going out in the world. I didn't have access to any online apps or anything like that. I would just walk around thinking nobody likes me, like, because I just literally I just don't pick up on any of those like signals, those signs. So I almost in the past, you know, primarily use dating apps, which, you know, that could be a whole conversation that we can have about that stuff. Yeah, those early stages, those are those were really hard, but and then can be quite difficult to navigate, especially if you don't have a lot of experience, but if you haven't dated anyone before, if you haven't, if you don't have a lot of practice with social interaction with neurotypical people. I'm talking of course, in the context of autistic neurotypical, but yeah, now that can be a barrier. But what about, you know, during, you know, once the relationship has been somewhat characterized as you guys being together? What kind of issues do you think sort of come up as far as like maintaining that relationship? Well, I think it's a lot of the same, actually. I mean, I think it's just continuous communication challenges. I mean, and that's any relationship like it's important to evolve your communication skills. But particularly, you know, one thing that I do talk about a lot is whenever you're in a neurodiverse relationship, we'll say one is neurodivergent, the other is not. It can be really helpful. Oh, let's just say autistic. If an autistic person can can become more aware, and this is something we work on kind of in some workshops, become more aware of what your signs are when you are having a meltdown. And that takes practice that takes time. And then when you're not in meltdown mode, at in a safe space and a safe time, being able to communicate what that looks like to your partner. So they know, like, that's a really major thing in neurodiverse relationships is autistic people feeling bad that they can't communicate what's happening when they're in meltdown or shutdown. So if you can learn to communicate about those things before, after they happen, to kind of give your partner the understanding of, Okay, this is what's happening. It's nothing personal, the things I can do to help our give space, bring them a snack, like take the kids for a while. So I think, you know, for a lot of autistic people, it's learning how to communicate about these things when you're not in a state of shutdown. And that has been really instrumental for a lot of a lot of relationships that I've worked with recently. Yeah, I think it's always a difficult one, because, you know, there's that whole concept of double empathy. You know, we can find it a little bit harder to understand and empathize with the neurotypical experience and, and likewise. And so there's always some level of understanding or awareness gap, like around communication, especially when there's emotions involved, like in an argument or something. You know, where oral logic goes out the way in some, some emotional state. I think it's definitely like, it's definitely a hard thing to do, because it requires you to really, really understand yourself, but also understand yourself in relation to the neurotypical brain. It's different about them. How am I different from them in these areas? And then you've got to try and find ways to explain it so that they understand. And they have to do the same. So the opposite of it. It's very convoluted. Yeah. And it, like you said, it involves a lot of self awareness. And this to me is like a lifelong process, because our meltdowns and shutdowns are going to evolve and change over time. And so just continually checking in with yourself and having that self awareness of what is going on. And like you said, how do I communicate this? And how is it different than what my partner is experiencing? It's a lot. It's very challenging. I found that for anybody who is maybe struggling and kind of sort of bridging that gap, I found writing really helpful, like having my own space to speak because socializing inherently has some kind of like driving force behind it like some kind of right, we need to continue the conversation on. So sometimes it's really hard to speak in a detailed, understandable way, like on the spot. Like, especially if it's not something that we've, we've been thinking about for a long, long time and we don't have those views sort of inherent to us. And I really like your suggestion about communication because it is ultra important in every relationship to communicate. Not many people get it right. A lot people do. And then then adding the aspect of having two different brains together, it's like, Jesus, you need to like properly understand the communication. You know, if someone feels that something's a bit off, that you have a conversation about that and you try and get to the bottom of it, it's not a fun process. It's not like a romantic kind of right ideal kind of in the moment. In the moment, it's not romantic. But but yeah, I think then afterwards, you feel the safety between the two of you, you know, so it's definitely worth that investment of time. Something interesting that might be helpful. So in the community group, I was running recently on dating and relationships, there was a suggestion from one of the community members that I thought was just fantastic. So in relation to physical intimacy, we were talking about how difficult it can be to transition into that space. And so they use they have a light, like a special light and either either partner can turn it on whenever physical touch is okay, whenever that's something that they want. And nobody has to respond like it's, it's, you know, take it or leave it kind of thing. So nobody has to talk about the fact that the light is on nobody has to respond if they don't want to. But it's it's one way they're able to communicate like I am open to receiving physical touch. And it kind of cuts down on the need for communication and the and it helps transition and like from one mental state into another one, if that makes sense. Yes, it's kind of like the like the red light umber green light kind of system that you have like autistic people in school, autistic people at events, they have like the system where it's like green, come up and talk to me, you know, amber, it's like, I prefer to not talk. But if it's important, come talk to me. And then reds like, no, like, get out get away. I don't want to talk. I suppose you could do it doesn't necessarily have to be a light does it could be like a reversible wrist band or like a one of those those octopus plushies where you turn them inside out once I have them wrapped them I have them wrapped under the Christmas tree right now. Nice. The number one thing on my daughter's list, she wrote a billion reversible octopuses. I love I love the autistic sense of you. I guess stuff like my my mom's friends, you know, I'm quite close with my mom's friends. And she has a daughter is his autistic. And she comes out with the most beautiful statements because she's so hyperlexic. She has all these this vocabulary to use. And she just presents it in a way that just like, it's so adult, but she just says it as a kid. So it's like, and she doesn't really comprehend it. That's great. It's brilliant. It reminds me my daughter will tell me about so my daughter's nine, my son six, she'll talk about her younger brother. He's antagonizing me. No, he's being mean. This is that antagonization. Yes. Indeed. Mom, he's gas letting me. He has some cognitive empathy for me right now. I mean, there's the stuff that we could that I could touch on quickly. So I made like a sort of a single post over on my Instagram, Thomas Henley UK, if anyone wants to follow. And I went through some of like the common barriers that that have come up for me and through talking to other autistic people. It was the direct verse indirect. I think that's a really big thing. Because, you know, it's the whole thing of, you know, the neurotypical may interpret it wrong. And they're like, you know, what you said, you know, how you said that, it didn't really sit well with me. And we're like, my words mean my words. They're like the same. Yeah, it's also those touch needs as you were saying, like, I think, for people who don't really understand autism and sensory stuff, like you saying to your partner that your partner's coming over to cuddle and you're like, no, no, no, I don't want to cuddle now. And some people take that really badly. So people are okay with it. I think that is definitely another one. There's also a lexifimia. Like, as we're talking about earlier, like, how are you supposed to, if your partner asks, well, how do you feel about it? Like, how well, how are you feeling in our relationship? Or how do you feel? And it's like, oh, my God, I'm gonna have to spend like a week trying to figure out how I feel about it. Yeah, yeah. And just having having the space I think is really important. Obviously, the cognitive empathy, you know, neurotypical is getting frustrated at us because we can't understand how they're feeling without them telling us. The hyper focus, I think is in everyone. So one may try to start a conversation with you when you're engaged with your special interest or when you know it's like, it's not, it's not gonna happen. It's like, can we not do this now? That's another thing that people find out that kind of a inertia is hard for people to understand. Yeah. And also the processing, especially during arguments, processing time. Massive, massive. That's one thing I was going to mention is the delayed processing, for sure. That makes it difficult because I can, we were also against saying in community groups, like a lot of times the, the answer that you give is not the real answers. Like if somebody asks you a question, you give an answer, it's not necessarily how you, let's say the question is how are you feeling, you give an answer, it's not necessarily the real answer, because the delayed processing of it, it's like, like you said, it's going to take time, like days, a week later, you'll be able to understanding from behind the side, understanding, start internalizing what actually, what the impact of that conversation was, how it affected you, like it just takes a lot of time and it can be really uncomfortable for the other person when you like come back to a conversation a week later, and you're like, Hey, this is how I really feel about it. And they're like, how are you heading me with this now with no warnings? Like, yeah, you asked me to think about it, and I thought about it and here I am. And a week later, I'm trying to explain it to you. But yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's really, really critical because I've, it's not currently out, but I'm sort of making a series that's kind of talking about autism in relation to, like, manipulation or emotionally abusive tactics, like, there's a particular one, which I have experience with. And it's absolutely awful. It's called a word salads. Yes, have you heard of word salads? Yeah. Someone rattles off content, like continuous points unrelated to each other, with the intention of just discombobulating you. Yeah, making you confused and forgetting what your point was in the first place. Exactly. And what we really need in an important conversation, especially when it's about the relationship is even even less speed than usual. And just time to think and time to like process and talk to it, talk to each other about it. But obviously, it's not always like that. And, you know, some people may get frustrated and say, like, well, we need to talk about it. Now it's important. I want to talk about it. I'm feeling this way. It's like, it's probably not the best time to be talking if you're feeling like you can't sort of rein things in and just have a have a conversation. Yeah, I don't I think there's this stuff around that that's definitely pressing processing time. Especially with people who are perhaps not the best for you, can really sort of mess you up, because you feel like you have anything to say that you stupid and you're like, yeah, you're not, you just don't have the time to explain things and answer questions. Right. And when you're dealing with the word salad and other manipulative tactics, it just it's like somebody spins you around in a chair and it's like, well, wait, exactly. You know, I had a point and it was important for our relationship. But now, you know, that it just kind of exponentially increases your processing time, I think is what what you said. Yeah. Yeah. And Ziori is trying to like, catch up with it. Shut downs, meltdowns, obviously can be another whole different ball of eggs by ball of eggs. A whole different ball of eggs. The other day I was shooting a video and I said, I was I meant to say can of worms and I said bag of worms and I didn't catch it until I was editing. I was like, what bag of worms? Oh, man. My brain does that sometimes. I take well known phrases and I just change one word in it and it just completely doesn't land. Yeah. But yeah, the shutdowns obviously, I think are probably more problematic in a lot of senses because if you had the selective, selective mutism, that can really be hard for people, especially if you're having an argument. Yeah. And then they push you further and then you have a meltdown. It can really just get in the way of like productive conversation about like things that really need to be talked about within relationships. Yeah. But the risk of sort of pushing pushing things onwards, I mean, I know we're sort of the overarching topic of the podcast is talking about autism in women.