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Originally Posted by Serpentine Leaf
The meetup venue you are using is, I presume, Meetup.com? I never had good experiences with that one either. It's very much focused on extroverts. I started a group that no one showed up to, was part of another group where someone liked to question other people super aggressively, and another where some guy got very creepy with me.
Female virgins are likely to be those who are staying at home alone much of the time, as I did. I understand how embarrassing it can be, even though females don't face quite the same stigma as males in this case. One of the very few gender-based double-standards that we have the upper had on. But also remember there are women who are not virgins but have experienced bad relationships with men who have made sex feel dirty, degrading, or painful, or that sex was all she had to offer in a relationship. Your innocence will be appealing to a woman who has been hurt and used in this way.
Some scientists can be highly extroverted, and even world-class jerks. Those are the ones who attended that meetup. The introverted ones were probably in their rooms on their computers. A quieter venue like a lecture, forum, symposium, or the like might be a better option. There are also, counter-intuitive as it might seem, gatherings for people on the spectrum. Temple Grandin has spoken at some of these, and some other activists and public figures.
And never be afraid of being in a slim minority! That means different, not defective.
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Yes, they are events from the platform meetup.com. I definitely felt the same vibe like you said, it is quite slanted towards extroverts. I used to attend a foreign language meetup, but you would be surprised how much sex was talked about despite the meetup not being anything related at all to sex. Instead, although people would speak different languages, just as I do, the topics would invariably revolve around dating and sex. And some people attended despite not even knowing any other language other than English. Some monoglot Anglophones talked to me, and just talked about how the dating scene was so hard that it would be better to talk to and try to date foreigners.
I actually tried to make my own semi-meetup group. In 2016, since I could not afford the $15 per month fee to own a meetup group, I just made a Facebook group and tried to invite people from other meetups to come. Eventually the turnout was so bad that only 2 or 3 people attended, then I ended up attending alone. Depressing would be an understatement to describe that experience.
I had talked a bit with my mother further about this virginity thing. You may be right--I know that as a male, a lot of things are heavily in my favour just for being male, but that male virginity is an exception--it is a big taboo up to this day. My mother reported never really feeling any sort of terribly low self-esteem nor experienced heavy bullying for being a virgin until age 27. Sometimes a random, occasional comment about when she would get married and stuff, but nothing along the lines of the "You are scum, virgin loser" or being called "worthless loser", "no woman will ever want a virgin like you" and related comments.
Just last night I had to go to an early Christmas dinner where extended family were present. I was asked the usual, "Hey boy, how old are you now?". Then when I said 30, the expected follow up was, "And you married yet? Where is your wife?". It is a lot of pressure on me from all sides. Since I was 13 or 14, extended family used to make fun of me for not having a girlfriend. There is gossip within the family that I am asexual or gay or mentally retarded. I have been suspected of being autistic, in which case they would not be exactly wrong about that. But retarded or gay, just for failing to have a girlfriend, well, that is a sign of as you say, the stigma of being a male virgin. I have a second cousin who is in his 60s yet still single. Extended family make him the butt of jokes and call him gay and f****t behind his back, even though I am very sure that the guy is not gay at all. It is part of the reason why I try to avoid extended family as well as negative people from meetups as much as possible.
I think that studies show that whilst on average, male virgin adults with Asperger's have a lot harder time finding girlfriends and losing their virginity compared to female virgin adults with Asperger's, even though their female counterparts do have on average more sex and more relationships, that often the relationships are broken and rotten, and the women get tricked and taken advantage of more. So it is quite hard for adult virgins for both sides, Asperger's just making it a lot harder. It is like trying to compare which is worse, having one's leg amputated or one's arm amputated. Neither choice is particularly appetising.
I do notice that some scientists are similar to those neurotypical, gregarious types that are highly judgemental. Perhaps they are book smart, but never let their knowledge of science positively influence their personal character in their lives. Perhaps in some cases, having a science background does not even make one a decent person at all. For example, Josef Mengele and Shiro Ishii were both well-trained doctors, but they were also both horrifically brutal, world-renowned war criminals.
That is interesting, I never knew that there were specific meetups for people on the spectrum. My intuition tells me that they probably are not listed on meetup.com, but perhaps Facebook or some other platform. It is strange, for being such a reputedly "accepting" city, people are othered here a lot, and ASD is not seen in a good light at all here, even amongst the younger. In fact, the younger generation, which unfortunately is my own generation, often regard ASD as just a step above "retarded" and "creepy". In the dating world here, "ASD = creepy" is almost an automatic reflex thought.