I have a roommate with autism who is well into his late 20s and just exists in a nihilistic grind loop. He goes to work for the socially acceptable minimum wage and then comes home and sits at the computer and game console all day until he goes to bed. He has never been on a date and peaked in high school. His only social interaction is when he tags along on household trips and sometimes when he comes out to hang out with us.
I feel guilty about allowing him to just “exist.” I feel like as a condition of letting him live with me for relatively cheap rent that I should have some sort of expectations for him to improve himself. I’d be willing to work with him on it. I’m thinking I could set goals like he needs to go on a date regularly, needs to spend a certain amount of time on his days off outside of the house, needs to work on interests and activities that he can do with other people.
I’ve always been weirdly empathetic with autistic roommates and it tears me up when I see them come in and then barricade themselves away and never work on developing any interpersonal relationships.
I know it’s fun to just exist for a while and come home and eat junk food and watch Netflix but eventually reality is going to come crashing down.
As someone who has matched this description, still do but in different ways, forcing your idea of ‘normal’ on them isn’t going to help them. It’s more to make yourself feel better.
Life sucks. It’s not your choice how they cope with the suck. Also that you think they’ll just be able to start going on dates or whatever is laughable to me. But that’s me. I empathize with your roommate in so many ways and fully hope they pack their stuff and leave instead of putting up with your ‘good intentions’.
Can you explain this more?
He is not living a sustainable lifestyle and it’s going to catch up with him and he’s going to be miserable.
I see a lot of desire among people on the spectrum to do the easy thing and constant aversion to anything difficult. Living an easy life is going to bring nothing but misery. I have a friend with BPD who is miserable because he never leaves his comfort zone and leaves jobs as soon as they get remotely challenging. Grinding away the days by coming home and watching Netflix until you go to bed and work again is going to create misery.
If he’s so averse to dating that it causes him to pack up and leave, that’s better for me because then I don’t have to deal with the empathetic baggage of visualizing him growing into an 80 year old virgin and living alone with no friends and having never accomplished anything.
My sister was diagnosed with autism and she used to be a male incel.
This western philosophy of “just do whatever feels good” is satanic misguidance. It will lead to nothing but suffering and misery.