Dating Boot Camp to Help People With Autism Find Love

Researchers at UCLA Are Studying Ways to Help Such Individuals Navigate Dating and Romance

- Ellen Barry

NEW YORK — Thirty-six hours after dropping his date off at her apartment, Mr. Bradley Goldman was on a video call with his dating coach, breaking down the events of the evening.

For one thing, he told the coach, he had chosen the wrong venue for someone on the autism spectrum — a bar on the Sunset Strip hipster variety, so loud and overstimulating that he could almost feel himself beginning to dissociate.

Mr. Goldman, a tall, rangy 42-year-old who works as an office manager, had not decided in advance of the date whether to mention that he had been diagnosed with autism or that he was working with a coach. So he deflected, and they found themselves, briefly, in a conversational blind alley.

"I struggle with how to disclose," he said. "Do I say I am 'neurospicy'? Or 'neurodiverse'? Or do I disclose at all?"

His coach, Ms. Disa Jean-Pierre, was sympathetic.

"You could just wait for it to come up naturally after a few dates," she suggested.

Mr. Goldman thought this over. "I'm still figuring this out," he said.

Nevertheless, it was a solidly enjoyable date, something he credited to the coaching he had received from a team of psychologists at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

He had avoided "info dumping" or making too many jokes about American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, and he had carefully observed his date's body language to detect whether she was signaling openness to a good-night kiss. (She was.)

Mr. Goldman's results would be entered alongside those of 56 other human subjects on a spreadsheet marked "dating history updates," part of a three-pronged randomized control trial.

Over the coming months, researchers at UCLA will mine the data to identify which approach is most likely to help people with autism find love.

For mental health professionals to ask this question is new.