Member poll, in preparation
Do You Disclose Your Autism on a First Date?
Telling someone you are autistic is one of the few parts of dating where the timing matters as much as the words. We are putting the question to Spectrum Singles members. The poll has not run yet, so there are no answers on this page, only the question and the four options it will offer.
The question we are asking
Do you tell your date you are autistic on a first date?
One question, four options, one vote each. The four options below are the answers the poll will offer. They are the starting point for the question, not findings from it.
- Only if it comes up naturally
- Not until I know them better
- Yes, always upfront from the start
- I do not think it needs disclosing at all
If none of those is the answer you would give, the poll will have a box for it, and we will read what goes in it.
Why we are not answering it for you
Every one of those four answers has a real cost, and which cost is worth paying depends on the person, the context and what you want out of the date. Disclosing early risks being turned down for a diagnosis before a connection has formed. Leaving it risks a stretch of time spent managing how you come across. There is no universally right timing, which is exactly why guessing on the community's behalf would be worse than asking. If you want the argument set out properly rather than put to a vote, we have a guide to disclosure and how to handle it.
What will be published when members have answered
A percentage on its own tells you almost nothing, so you will not be given one on its own. Any figure published here will arrive with the number of people who answered, the dates the poll was open, and the raw count behind it. Anyone who votes will have chosen to vote, which skews the result, and that will be said next to the figures rather than in small print underneath them. If an option draws too few votes to carry any weight, it will stay a small number rather than being written up as a finding.
Status: poll in preparation. No votes collected yet. When it has run, this page will carry the number of members who voted, the dates the poll was open, and the raw count behind every figure.
Related reading
Disclosure guide
Should I tell my date I am autistic? A practical guide
The long-form answer to this poll question: when to say it, how to say it, and what to do if it lands badly.
All polls
All Spectrum Singles community polls
One poll in preparation and two more on the list, covering disclosure, first dates and reply times.
Correction
An earlier version of this page showed a set of percentage results and a bar chart for this question. Those were sample content created when the site was built, not member answers. They have been removed, and the poll described above is the replacement.