Thirty-six hours after dropping his date off at her apartment, Bradley Goldman was on a video call with his dating coach, breaking down the events of the evening.
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For one thing, he told the coach, he had chosen the wrong venue for someone on the autism spectrum — a bar of 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, hadn’t 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 ‘neuro-spicy’? Or ‘neurodiverse’? Or do I disclose at all?”
His coach, Disa Jean-Pierre, was sympathetic. “You could just wait for it to come up naturally after a few dates,” she suggested.