The Chase's Anne Hegerty shares heart-breaking dating fears and why she never had children

The Chase star Anne Hegerty has revealed her fears of dating stem from struggling with someone encroaching on her personal space and attributes associated with being diagnosed with autism

The Chase star Anne Hegerty has opened up about why she has never had a long-term partner.

The 66-year-old TV star says she struggles with letting anyone into her personal space, attributing her fears of dating to being diagnosed with autism at 45. Anne said her terror of growing close to someone once resulted in her unplugging her phone to stop a boyfriend being able to contact her.

During a recent interview, she explained: "I really struggle with closeness and having anyone else in the house. I think an awful lot of autistic people don't get married or settle down. I don't even have pets for that reason and my capacity for living with other people is just diminishing. I need a huge amount of alone time," she insisted.

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Anne also admitted that she is quite happy to remain single forever as she now requires more space than someone could "possibly give me." Anne's last relationship lasted four months and she claimed that it only worked because it was a long-distance love with her living in Manchester at the time. The quiz star said she purposefully engineered the situation to the point where it would not work.

And while she was happy that it had come to an end, she candidly confessed that she initially cried with relief but that soon turned into tears of guilt. In a chat with the Daily Mail, she continued: "I'd be sitting there just waiting for the phone to ring thinking 'don't phone, don't phone, don't phone!' Other times, just to get over the suspense, I'd phone him and, of course, that made him think that I wanted to talk to him but I think I just wanted to get it over with. I didn't want to talk to him or anyone!"

And this explains why the star of the ITV quiz show never had children. At one point in her life, she said that she wanted to become a mother but knew she "wouldn't have been able to tolerate it a lot." She went on to say: "About 20 years ago there was a little boy and girl who lived near me and they used to come around my house. We managed to restrict it to just one hour a day and they always wanted to stay longer. They were absolutely smashing kids and we're now friends on Facebook but I couldn't even handle that for more than an hour."

Rather than embarking on a relationship, Anne said that she prefers having men as friends as she is drawn to them more than women. She recalled attending a quiz in June and at the end of that day another woman pointed out they were the only women left in the room.

But Anne said she had not noticed as she was simply talking her to her pals, who happened to be men. Anne is godmother to her co-star Mark Labbett's eight-year-old son, Lawrence. She added that she always remembers to send him his birthday present along with his Christmas present, as he is born in November.

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