I remember reading the story of an Australian barrister, William Ah Ket. His father was a Chinese goldminer who came to Australia in search of gold and he stayed and bought a shop. He married a Chinese woman, and William was born in Australia. Sadly, his mother developed what is now recognised as post-natal depression, and didn't live with the family since William was a boy. One day, at a Christian Church, William told Gertrude Bullock, the woman he would, after a four-year courtship that finally gained her father's approval, marry, "If I could marry an Australian woman, I could be accepted."

William was subjected to racism from other barristers, and on one such occasion, he put on a stereotypical Chinese accent outside court, after the man who turned out to be the barrister against whom he would be arguing, was rude to him on a Melbourne train that morning.

To take the reverse of William Ah Ket, I say, if an autistic person dates or marries a neurotypical, well, that's nice, but never should it be that an autistic person should have to say to a neurotypical, "If I could only date or marry a neurotypical, I could be accepted."

I, myself, am nearly 50, and if I wanted to date, again, I would want to date an autistic woman. Amazingly, my mother, who needed my sister-in-law, who is a mental health nurse, to tell her that I am as classic a case of autism as you'd meet, right down to the quirks, said that, as my parents are getting older, it would be nice if I could meet an autistic woman and we could share our lives as we age.

Okay, 21 years ago, I dated a neurotypical woman, and it was a disaster. I'm not going to go on the pretext, "Okay, that was one, so never again." Yes, she was the wrong woman, that much is certain. But now that I know that I'm autistic, I know what's missing.

My life, in a way, has been like being born in Vietnam, in 1973, to a Vietnamese sex worker mother and an American or Australian father who didn't know that he'd fathered a child, and was airlifted to Australia, by Gough Whitlam and was adopted by an Australian couple and people would ask who dropped me off at school, and when I replied, "My mother," they replied, "Yeah sure." To me, dating an autistic woman would be like the child in the analogy I gave dating a Vietnamese born child orphaned by the war, who was also airlifted to Australia and adopted by an Australian couple.

One of the challenges I say, is, many of us are set in our ways. Even if we wanted to get married, we wouldn't necessarily want to live together. A situation that neurotypical folks may find bizarre. I know, if I'd been dating a neurotypical woman prior to 2010, it would have been challenging, as I would be, "No, Saturday nights are for The Bill. That's my favourite show." Also, I would need time and space for my special interests.