How Love on the Spectrum Illuminates Dating Joys and Challenges for Those with Autism

Let me be very clear: I am one autistic person. I am not a conglomerate of autistic people. And I, Joseph Stanichar, adore the Netflix series Love on the Spectrum.

The reality television show interviews people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as they go on dates and other outings. Unlike many reality dating shows, this series is fairly laid back. While it does naturally rely on some of the tried-and-true, occasionally obnoxious pacing techniques to keep audiences watching, it’s mostly a peaceful, occasionally electrifying, careful, and empathetic portrayal of the lives of ordinary people, autistic or not.

It is entirely possible that the entirety of Love on the Spectrum is fake, that all of the people in the show are sticking to a script or that the content is so tightly edited that there is no truth to the stories in the show whatsoever. If you have that level of cynicism surrounding every piece of media you consume, I’m so sorry. I can’t do that to myself. I’m a skeptic by nature, but only a cynic on my worst days—and I want to believe this show, and it’s necessary representation, is real.

Still, Love on the Spectrum isn’t perfect, especially in its first season. As Sara Luterman writes in Spectrum News, some of the questions posed seem inappropriate or infantilizing, even down to the tone of voice, and the music is occasionally too cutesy for adults going on dates. There’s nothing I saw that jumped out as actively hateful, but hey, microaggressions are a thing and there’s an unfair share of them in both seasons.

Season 2 rectifies some of those issues; the slideshows of likes and dislikes appear less frequently, and there is more representation of queer relationships (from maybe one to now two or three). Given that gender and sexuality diversity may be higher in those with ASD, this is a paltry sum, but yes, still higher than one. Progress?

The second season also appears to predominantly take place in 2020 Australia, where COVID-19 was and is a rapidly shifting threat, but perhaps not to the same level as other places in the world (this has recently changed dramatically). People seldom note the virus beyond euphemisms, and masks are uncommon even inside, although at the time of recording those safety measures might have been adequate. But as someone who has acclimated to Zoom and FaceTime dates, there’s a twinge of jealousy watching people across the world not have those same, specific problems presented in the same, specific way as my own experience.

But dammit, I still cried a lot during this second season, and unlike Music, these were the good kind of tears. I cried when two participants really hit it off, and squealed in joy when another pair kissed. And when (I think) Kassandra revealed that she has the same LEGO treehouse model as me, I screamed in delight. Don’t take it the wrong way when I say that I would love to meet and even date these people; it’s just that as someone who sometimes feels isolated by a “neurotypical” world, seeing others who think like me makes me so, so happy.