I get what you're saying about "he's just not into you." Yet, my sense is that people are more nuanced than that. The ex is one of those people who says it's not what you say, it's what you do. So in strictly black-and-white terms, and based on his behavior alone, I would say that what he's shown me is that he doesn't respect me as a person and having me around strokes his ego. That's hard and painful to say, but definitely a possibility.

The thing though is that I know there have been people who have dropped out of my life who I would suspect would say I just wasn't into them or that I was self-centered or careless with them. For me, two things are at play: 1) I have a really hard time figuring out what I'm feeling or thinking about experiences and people, and 2) I get mentally, emotionally, and physically drained after a while when I'm around people a lot. I'm better with one-on-one, but being around groups of people as one is during work leaves me spent. For those two and other reasons I'm very jealous of my personal time and physical space, which has nothing to do with how much I like, love, or respect others.

But on my own I had begun to realize how frustrating it must be to others to interact with me when I seem so unreliable and difficult. As my ex and others have said to me, I baffle them. The reality, however, is the paradox that is my life: I can appear to be indifferent, discourteous, or self-centered to people I'm close to, but it's not because I'm not into them, it's just the opposite. I think about the people who I want to be closest to and care about very much. In plain terms, they mean the world to me and I want to get it right with them but when I'm drained I find it difficult to do much besides withdraw into my metaphorical cocoon, so that I can sort through my experiences and interactions with them and others. For example, I know people have been frustrated with me because I might make plans and then back out of what I had agreed to do. What can come off as me focusing strictly on me is really me trying to make sense of the world, how to fit into that world, in addition to trying to understand the people who are important to me. I've had people tell me that it's obvious that I don't suffer fools gladly. That is true, but not because I mean to be arrogant or dismissive to people who don't measure up. It's that I can't see the point of engaging with people who don't hold my interest. This has very little to do with that person, and mostly to do with me trying to reserve my mental and physical energies for the people and things that are the true foci of my thoughts and feelings.

What is helpful to me now is having a name for these characteristics and that in fact these aspects of my personality are two of the ways having Asperger's manifests with me. Before last month I didn't know these where classic signs of Asperger's and I didn't have the language to articulate what goes on with me internally, but instead felt frustrated with myself for being this way and frustrated with others for interpreting my actions so wrong in the very way that I interpret their actions so incorrectly. That's one of the reasons I sought help and wanted and want to find new ways to navigate through this world and my life. To my surprise I also ended up finding out just how very much I fit the classic profile of someone with Asperger's.

Yet even before I had a diagnosis I had the wherewithal to tell a new person in my life with whom I would like to be real friends and not just acquaintances that he may find me unreliable or preoccupied at times, but that isn't because I don't care but that I do get mentally and physically drained after a while, which leads me to retreat into myself and that these are aspects of my personality I'm working to improve and ask that he be patient with me. Telling him that really seems to have helped our interactions and hopefully will make it easier for us to be friends.

For all these reasons and others I have cut my ex slack and why I said in my initial post that I accept responsibility for my actions in all this. I do have much personal work to do to better understand and articulate what is going on with me without leaving others feeling frustrated and put off by me.

More important these are the reasons I worded my initial post the way I did. I truly don't understand why someone at his age who has had the life experiences that he has had would put himself back into the very type of vanilla scenario that caused him so much pain and self doubt before. Regardless of his thoughts and feelings toward me, it just seems sad to me that he thinks this vanilla incarnation of himself is the means through which he will achieve happiness long term. I also don't understand why he has decided to erase and ignore me. Although I do think Adam is on to something when he says the ex may feel shame and guilt about his kinks. He has, just as I have, become used to hiding our kinks and who we are at heart, and feel ambivalence about having desires and wants that don't make sense in the context of the wider world. I truly believe he's facing an internal struggle, and as Adam posited he feels and thinks that pushing me away is a way to deal with his own ambivalence (and shame) about what he really wants and needs. I also suspect that part of him is mad at me. I imagine it would be difficult to perceive the possibility of the kind of relationship he's always wished for and to see someone who could help him to achieve that dream but who frustrates and baffles him. I can certainly see why someone at this point in his life would want to have a relationship with someone much younger, who it takes no more effort to be with than to do what he would do anyway, i.e. go to work, and who may present a light and breezy relationship that is unambiguous and easy. I just wonder what price he is and will pay for denying who he is and why a mature person like him would do that.

Of course my thoughts about his actions could be completely wrong headed and it may simply be that he isn't that into me. I suspect, however, this situation is more nuanced.

Thank you all again for taking the time to reflect and comment on what I've written and asked. Your insights and comments and overall generosity of spirit in taking the time to answer my questions in such a ruminative way is forcing me to think deeply about all of this and to see the situation from other dispassionate vantage points!