that is how me and my wife started. lived for 3-4 before we got married. nothing really has changed since we got married, but we been together for like 10 years.

Far out, 22 years, hats off to ya man.

While looks are an obstacle I think the bigger one is that I have very poor social skills. Due to my autism I find it incredibly difficult to read social cues like body language, facial expressions, etc, and I have trouble holding a conversation since I get stuck on what to say next and struggle to construct sentences on the fly.

Someone that roams this site, I've heard?

Single.

This is a mental state that you can get over slowly. Based on the way you communicate on here and your abilitiy to think logically, i would say the autism isn't that bad on the spectrum.

My brothers friend has autisum and me and him barel can commuicate but he ha managed to find someone who he eventually married and now has two kids.

Reading social cues, holding a converation is hard for most males that are different than the standard magazine picture depicts them. I struggled to with thee issues andeve to this day struggle to undertand some women or plain simply thing they are stupid.  

I think with you the issue is you have high level of intelligence and you need to find someone closer to your brainwave length. Trying to dumb down your discussion to someone who dreams each week about being something vs actually taken action and done something is a whole different level of socalising. I would say most intelligent girls would be somewhat similar to their male counter part. Ths certainly wa the cae for me, everytime i talked to girl that wasn't techincally mined i got real bored quickly. My wife in an egineer also and when we first met we used to talk about technical shit. The funny thing is now it all random jibberish that normal couples talk about like how was your day, you need me to buy this etc.. go away i'm busy lol.

The first step you need to get over is just being able to say somethig to a woman without feeling nervous. At school start with class related stuff. When you go shopping at woolies for example and see some chick browsing the begetable section, just say Hi, what wuld you recommend? my doctor said i need to eat less meat and eat some vegetables, what ones taste good as i've never really tried anything over than mashed potatoes.  She may look at you funny and walk away, but that's cool it don't matter you don't know her, but it may get her talking and at least you don't need to think too much on the fly as you are talking about one topic vegetables. This is just an example it could be anything. Baically saying limit the scope of the subject at first to build your confidence. 

PS - my keyboard is buggered so some of my words may have missing letters. 

The first step for an easier/possibily happier existence for you is to realize and accept that no one cares about how you look.  In fact, they probably don't focus on you much at all, because they have their own life and anxieties to deal with.  If you can achieve this state of mind, you will enjoy a new level of freedom.

I've been single basically my whole life thus far, i'm 19 years old. I wouldn't say i've ever had a "real" relationship with anyone, as in girlfriend or dating anyone.

I find your situation to be an interesting one, because you seem to have a strong understanding of society, but your autism presents an obstacle in execution. We had started to talk about it on the Games vs Sex thread, but the next day I couldn't log into VGC. The log in button literally disappeared from my iPhone screen for two weeks. Then it mysteriously appeared again.

I'm in the same boat. I'd rather get married instead of having a girlfriend and knowing it won't go anywhere far

A lot of people with autism typically have the same issue. It takes them quite some time to gain social skills

To make it worse, one of my friends was a heavily sheltered and autistic person. It felt terrible to see him not know why he wasn't considered a fun dude to be around