 Hey up friend, welcome back to another autism related video on the Asperger's growth channel. Today I've got a very different video for you people out there. You there watching me in the camera, I'll see you. We're going to be looking at the new Netflix show, the new dating related Netflix show called Love on the Spectrum. I'm going to review the show in all its glory, all of the little ins and outs, pre-forts, my post-forts, giving my own autistic opinion on this very lovely and awesome new show. It's been very positively reviewed by a lot of people. Is it a good thing for the autistic community? What do I think they could have done better? Is it entertaining and true to the real lives of autistic people? My first thought when I viewed this show on the Netflix homepage was pretty much the same as all of the reactions that I have to any sort of autism related content on mainstream sites. I don't want to watch this, it's probably terrible. As an autism advocate, I am incredibly emotionally invested in anything to do with autism. Just from a logical standpoint, there are already heaps of misconceptions and stigmas around autism. So if something manages to penetrate the impregnable barrier of the mainstream media, there's a lot riding on it getting positive responses. You only need to watch films like Rain Man or Adam to realise just how stereotypical and negative some of these movies and media content can be for the autistic community. Not that they weren't revolutionary and important for their time. So I put off watching this series for a long long time until my girlfriend finally managed to convince me to watch them. These were my first thoughts. For the first couple of episodes, I sort of took a little bit of a step back and watched it quite tentatively, with a little bit of emotional distance just to make sure that it didn't brew up some large negative emotional responses to this show. But immediately I was confronted with people varying in race, gender, sexuality, a lot of diversity in the show. So that's already one plus point. I was also confronted with these very strange descriptions of likes and dislikes. They sort of put on this very smooth talking and nice voice. I mean this was sort of good because it did explain some of the sensory difficulties, but quite often a lot of the things that they mentioned had no correlation with anything that happened within the series. And in a lot of cases they didn't mention their special interests. This was one of the first things that I disliked. I mean it's not a massive major problem, but it just feels like they're trying to like categorize them and put them to a box and like explain all the the odd or the generally odd sensory things that they struggle with in an effort to sort of, I don't know, just show how different they are. Maybe I'm overthinking it, probably, probably overthinking it. My girlfriend immediately fell in love with the show, but for the most part these first few episodes I was still being fairly skeptical and judgmental. I was willing to give it a little bit of time and attention, just to sort of give it time to develop and not jump down its throat too much, but for the most part I just found a lot of the episodes extremely uncomfortable to watch. I'm sure that many people out there, many neurotypical people who watch it, probably view these awkward social situations as being either quite cute or interesting or any other kind of positive thing, but for me it just brought back lots of flashbacks of bad dating experiences that I had. I found it very comparable to that cringy, uncomfortable feeling that you get when you watch shows like The Office, the British UK one. A sergeant major spends all his time training his men to be killers, he doesn't polish his own boots. I'm sure many of you can empathize with not being able to watch upwards of one or two episodes of that show. It's very good, it's very funny but it just makes you feel a bit uncomfortable and irritable. On a more positive note, I thought that the inclusion of the relationship specialists, the different events and training seminars that they put on were very good and actually contributed a lot to the dating experiences of the autistic people, especially those who really couldn't get around the ins and outs of the dating scenario, the dating scene rather. I am fires a lot with that, it's a very difficult thing to do for anyone to do, but especially when you are autistic. It was still early days for my watching experience, but to be honest there wasn't many characters in the show that I felt a genuine sort of connection with, I don't know how else to put that. I guess people like Maddie and Chloe were quite relatable for me, just because of how much they use humour to dispel awkward situations, but also their inherent shyness which if you didn't know, I used to be very shy and withdrawn, so it kind of reflected a lot in my experiences. Lovely black coffee because there is no milk in the house. So bitter. After all, this show is all about the people in it, all about the cast, so I just want to go into a few of the most iconic and important people for me during this series. Firstly, let's start with Michael, the cover man of the Love on the Spectrum series. To be absolutely concrete and honest, I didn't like Michael for the first part of the couple of episodes that he was in, until I saw him and how his parents interacted with him, but also just how kind, thoughtful and patient he was when he was going out on these dates. I think the way that he interacted with, I can't remember a name, the other girl, the one that they went to that anime convention with, it was just very sweet, it was very patient kind, he thought a lot about her, asked if she was okay, tried to make adjustments, tried to do everything in his power just to make sure the date went as smoothly as possible. He's a little bit quirky, he's got some very strange ways of viewing relationships, just from my opinion, but a cool guy, all the less, all the more. What's the word? I've lost it. In terms of the parents, the way that his parents interacted with him, I was just very confused. Everything that came out of Michael's mouth, the parents just seemed to laugh at him, for no reason like I was understanding that, I didn't understand why it was funny. My girlfriend actually agreed with me on this, they thought that it was quite rude and patronising that his parents treated him like that. Maybe they were just trying to laugh it off, just to sort of offset the quakiness that Michael inherently has in his being, but either way, I did not approve. Mr Henley did not approve that. Mark, not Mo Farrah, that's a different guy. Mark is the absolute bomb, I absolutely love Mark, he is a chivalric, he is kind, he is well spoken, he is sociable, and he is a gentleman. Will you go out on a date with me? I feel like in that first date that he went on, maybe he went a little bit too far with the dinosaur knowledge. There's not much else that I can say about this guy, because he's just all round a really lovely, friendly dude. It's a little bit strange with his execution of phrases and general social niceties that people have, but he is one of the first characters that I was just, this guy's awesome, you know. Okay now, this is our last person that I'm going to review, and for the past three ones that I've done, the ones that I just did, the previous ones, this is the one person that I really didn't like to watch. Every time that she came on screen I just really didn't enjoy my experience, and the episode that she came in and she had that date and so I went round to her house and checked out her place and all that kind of stuff. I had to start watching after that, I just couldn't take anymore. Now please don't jump down my throats on this, because I think she's got a keen, wicked sense of humour, but I feel she just brought so much nervous energy and discomfort to my very being. I was starting to get very irritable and anxious from watching her. Other than that, she burped on every day without fail every time. And that interaction that she had, I think the last episode with that very lovely sociable guy, you know when they were dancing, they were having a good time and then she did a little bit of a stim and then he copied her because she thought it was a dance move and she said, don't make fun of my disability. What are you doing Olivia? He's a lovely guy, he obviously did not mean that. Geez, I'm sorry, I've got a very irrational dislike of this person that I've never actually met, but you know, I've got to be honest in my intersections of these individuals. Yeah, I just didn't enjoy watching it. The couples, the autistic couples. I could go into every single couple that was in the show, but just for simplicity's sake, just to sort of narrow down the video a little bit more, I'm going to talk about two couples that I liked, two couples that I thought were a good addition to the show, other than the extreme PDA couple, Ruth and Thomas, to which Thomas is an absolute romantic gent of a specimen. The main couple that I gravitated towards was Jimmy and Sharnay. Jimmy and Sharnay. Oh golly gosh, what a beautiful couple of human beings if I do say so myself. A beautiful couple in romantic love together who support each other and encourage each other and have a good time and do things different together and the love and passion these two share together is only second to just how well they work together. Sharnay's way of approaching and behaving around Jimmy is a great model for anybody who has an autistic partner that struggles with one or more of the negative characteristics of an ASD diagnosis. Patience, understanding and a calm, friendly voice. Jimmy obviously struggles on a lot of fronts, a lot with the social anxiety, a lot with the disturbing system routine, but the way that Sharnay treats Jimmy and tries to work around these issues is a very good thing. Very good thing. She cares and understands him. Jimmy is just an all round awesome dude. He's got the looks, he's got the skills, the love that these two share together, that romance is just bursting at the seams. Both me and my girlfriend thoroughly enjoyed every single time that these two were on the screen. The addition of these two, especially during the end of the series, I thought was a very good addition because it highlighted just how well an autistic person can do in a long term relationship. The later episodes, from about the second or the third episode, what did I think about them? Well in these episodes they started to introduce couples, autistic couples, into the show and I was actually starting to enjoy the show a lot more. I was starting to get a little bit more invested in the characters and the relationships and I felt like they did a good job of bulking it out with different seminars and courses that they did. I thought it was really good and I enjoyed the interactions between the autistic people and their parents and their friends. It was really interesting to get into their lives and see what they're about. My initial thought that the show was going to be one of those feel-good kind of cute shows for neurotypicals to watch and look at how badly we are at socialising. In these later episodes it really challenged a lot of those initial thoughts that I had. It might be surprising to you but I've never actually dated or had a relationship with an autistic person, well at least to my knowledge. So it was interesting to see what the couples were like with each other and how they interacted, how they got over hurdles, how they helped and supported each other and it was also interesting to see two autistic people going out on a date with each other. I can remember you know my first proper dating experience you know going to uni going out on a date and it took a lot. It took a lot of effort for me to maintain the conversation and I don't know whether it would be harder or easier to date an autistic person. I think it definitely depends on the person but yeah it was it was interesting to see that stuff. I feel like most shows, most shows about autism and relationships and dating hyper emphasize the difficulty of dating hyper you know focus around people who are doing badly who can't get a date but including those couples who have already established and already have a very fruitful long-term relationship actually did a lot for the integrity of the show. It showed a very positive image that autistic people can have those long-term fruitful relationships and it's very important to emphasize that because some of the stigmas around autism would lead people to believe that we don't like socializing, we don't like it. When in reality it's just that we find it excessively difficult to learn those social skills and deal with their social anxiety. It doesn't mean that we don't want it including all of that. It's a very good move by the producers and I'm very happy with that. Through their different dating experiences that they had, the different dates that they had, they seem to grow a lot and learn a lot and I thought that was a really nice addition to it you know not just focusing on the initial date by doing those sort of follow-up things and showing the improvement that they made in such a short space of time was very good. I felt very emotionally invested in these characters at this point and it was it was just really great to see. Overall I would you know I would recommend the show you know if you haven't seen it if you're autistic if you know what's typical for autistic people just give it a little bit of time and as I said have a little bit of that emotional distance because sometimes it can rive up a lot of negative emotions just due to the the amount of bad stuff that was the amount of bad stereotypical stuff that happened in the past. It's very multifaceted it's you know it's not very it's not very linear there's lots of different outshows outshows different outcrops to the to the storyline you've got different seminars and there's a lot of variation in the people in that in terms of as I've said of diversity but also in their special interests in their ability to socialize their general mental health their living situations there's a lot of different dimensions to this show and I actually quite enjoyed it don't tell anyone though it sends a very good positive message to autistic people as well it tells us that we can work on our social skills with the the right support with the right experience with the right reading and research it is particularly hard as the show has demonstrated but it is entirely possible in terms of what I would like to see from the next episodes the next series of the I was going to say dating an autistic series that's my series not that one the Netflix one love on the spectrum I'd like to see autistic people dating neurotypicals non-autistic people I feel like that's something that they stayed away from quite sharply like they didn't want to go down that route of showing autistic people going on dates with non-autistic people I don't know why I have some inkling that maybe the people that they interviewed may not have the social skills or the confidence to do that kind of thing not all autistic people date autistic people not all autistic people want to be in long-term relationships with autistic people there's a lot of difference person to person and depending on their social skills the people that they met you know they can have long-term relationships with anybody I feel like in order to have a good show that's realistic and that encompasses all parts of the autistic dating experience you need to include people who date neurotypicals if they did that then that would be absolutely amazing I definitely want to watch it definitely so that just about rounds up the video thank you very much for watching I really enjoy doing these little sit-down reviews I should probably do more of them for any of you observant types you may have realized that I'm in a different environment to my normal place of recording and that's because I've taken a week away to stay at my mum's house get myself back into that routine for the ever-close date that I go back to work in conclusion I think that this series is a great step towards autism inclusion in the mainstream media hopefully in the future production companies will realize just how interesting and novel autism related content can be if you are interested in learning the ins and outs of the dating arena for autistic people maybe you are dating an autistic person yourself and you want a little bit more information of the common difficulties more novel things to dating an autistic person if you do want to check those out I have the dating and autistic series up there if you want to check it out just for any future times I think at some point I'm going to be making a website as well website about me and with the creation of the website I'm going to put together a little blog from all the videos that I've done put out articles to deal with the videos just so that if you're not too keen on watching videos then you can read the blog articles I just want to say thank you so much to julian marx and mole mccarty for supporting me on patreon and of course mr patrick veddie I hope I've said that right if not please slap the back of my wrist him both mole and julian thank you so much the documentary as bird is in society has been entered very interesting piece of news has been entered to the international documentary awards and I think I'm gonna be told what comes of that around October mid-October so I shall let you know on my social medias and if you want to follow me and stay up to date with all of that stuff get notified when the blog comes out you can find me on pretty much all social media under asperger's growth somewhere here yeah much love thank you so much for the support and I'll see you in the next video see you later guys gonna walk off in a dramatic fashion we