Aspies For Freedom

With respect to the fast paced talking part, and our slower, more intensive, deliberate manner of calculating a social response, DEFINITELY, said my last therapist Janice Grose LCSW (she said it not me, reference the appropriate source here).

And that probably helps explain the preferential pairing of most Aspergians and cousins versus the preferential pairings of most NTs.

Still, I haven't completely figured out the fact that I have a car and so far my gfs have not.  I reckon it sorta sucks hanging around the flat or the group house even if there is a check coming in, you don't go far or fast on foot, it's more fun with a guy with a car?

I wonder if the geographic distances and the availability of mass transit make a difference.

gf 1             80 miles             no mass transit
gf 2             10 miles             mass transit exists
gf 3             21 miles             there is a mass transit, she says they are not regular

All three seem to be relatively near places where it would be fun to spend some time with a guy, for example, Potomac Mills 30 miles south of Washington.

I wonder if there is a social expectation that a woman has to go out with somebody "doing better" (marrying up? or social status)

I know my brother in 1998 was fired on by his gf's gf (note a girlfriend of a girl is generally a platonic term in US slang) who insisted she get somebody with greater status (my brother had as much time in his first job as I do now in mine at the time, so money was not a concern)

Perhaps it is very difficult for an Aspergian or a cousin, male or female, to attain the occupational and financial level required to sign a lease, pay for a car's insurance and maintenance (also registration and local taxes and gas), and so on, even if she has or almost has an education (gf 1 was pursuing an undergraduate degree in special ed)

Perhaps I lose sight of how difficult it is because I did make the full financial equivalent of my NT peers, minus a mortgage which is probably wise given the subprime market meltdown.  Mortgage payments easily exceeded my rent by $400 a month. I am well aware that the tax deduction on mortgage interest does not last forever.  

So, maybe the fact that I don't attract women on my standard of living is because, then
1.  Women who do are usually NTs; NTs would not prefer to slow down to our processing level.
2.  A/C women rarely if ever reach the NT standard of living.  I think I meet one last year, Homeland Security employee, homeowner.  But we are too polite in the disability dating group to inquire about disabilities that are not readily apparent, so who knows?  (What she did say was that she had no religious affiliation. )

As a believer born again and saved, I want Jesus Christ to claim a secondary victory in my life, an earthly love.  
Interfaith exogamy would be forfeiting my participation in the endeavor and conceding defeat in the Name of Jesus Christ.  That's it, pick up your chips and leave the poker table, marriage is for life, and Jesus presumably didn't give a damn.  

One might ask, why wouldn't Jesus send a Christian a non-believer?
The same Jesus that told the Apostle Paul that it was a mistake to be unequally yoked with nonbelievers (like the Superman II movie where Superman gives up his Kryptonian powers for Lois Lane, only to discover three villians from before he was born discovered Earth)

I don't want a mega bitter taste in my Christian mouth.  The other rationales such as how to raise the kids, a magnetic personality throwing off your spiritual compass, etc. seem tame by comparison.

7 o' clock, I say Autism, AS etc is more prevalent now because it wasn't diagnosed as much back then. They probably didn't even know much about AS in the 20's or 30's, so it couldn't of boomed as much as it is now. As more and more people are finding out about the spectrum, and discovering that they too fit in with it, more and more people are being diagnosed, unlike in the past.

Fortunately, I dated Number One when gas was under a dollar a gallon.  (Was she worth all those carbon emissions?  Maybe, I haven't been that close to being married since)

It's over three a gallon now and even Woodbridge seems far now.

I think that described that bar my "friends" brought me to near Marshall U.  It might have been named the Warehouse, I dunno.  I do remember the bar was crowded, noisy, and dimly lit.  They also brought me to a gay bar (cheap laugh afterward).  No offense to our gay brothers, but that is what some NTs think is fun, dropping off a naive dormmate in a gay bar.

AlmostCoherent, excellent Baron-Cohen research!  But consider why Hoekestra might not have found the same effect.  Maybe there is something else going to entirely that explains one situation but not the other.

It is a shame Equally Yoked Christian Singles noted its hands-off matchmaking policy, as Aspergians have a disproportionate love shyness problem and issues with inferiority in the popular culture, matchmaking might have helped.  Indeed, Brandywine MD-based Dateable would not hesitate to attempt a match.

I do agree with your theory. But I think I saw something on TV that was similar. It was a while ago now so the details are vague:

Something to the effect that since there are such a large selection of "computer nerds" in Silicon Valley and because so many of those "nerds" are inter-marrying they are producing "nerd" children... that are now called Aspies.

Hmm... maybe it was a magazine article instead- I can see the words and pictures. Either way I don't know the source.

But I think its true... we're breeding ourselves into an army! (ha ha ha)

The Geek Syndrome, Wired magazine, maybe 2000 or 2001.  You can still find it online.

that's the one guess who! Thanks!

I re-read it just now... wow, that is old in modern times. But I was thinking about when I first read it (sitting around in my college library, 6 or so years ago) and I thought that there were some striking similarities between me and the boy, Nick. But they always make it seem so dark and sinister... like the nacirema article. (http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~thompsoc/Body.html) Until you know what all that really means, it sounds so scary.

And... here is the article online

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers.html

It does seem to accurately describe Asperger a la Marsh, if indeed I am not the only Aspie on dad's side of the family.  
Only I am properly (and repeatedly) diagnosed but there is compelling anecdotal evidence that puts my brother, my dad (when he was alive), and dad's brothers on the possible list too.  

Technical abilities and related employment:

1.  The only confirmed Aspergian, I am a Web developer with 8 years experience (effective Friday 10 August, having earned the full 21 days of annual leave per year, and long ago being fully vested in 401K).  Never mind the Master's in social research, I do not expect to use it again, and I wouldn't switch careers now, who would pay me more for a starting salary in social research than what I make in my career after 8 years, and what idiot would I be to take a pay cut when I like either career pretty much the same?
2.  My brother is a computer programmer with 16 years experience.  Two months after quitting college, he took a chance and applied with an Inwood WV library automation software company.  They hired him, in no small part because his chemistry teacher in high school respected his maturity, and "encouraged" her son to hire him.
3.  Did somebody say chemistry?  Our uncle was a chemist and either got his Master's or just missed it.
4.  Our other uncle taught mathematics in public schools in Illinois.  He got his Master's at little or no expense when instructors were being subsidized to credential up.
5.  Dad was not a math, science, or engineering phile, and like Mom a proven computer phobe.  But he just missed his Master's in mass communications, and with undergrad in English, was a writer-editor first for Kiplinger's Changing Times and later for the Social Security Bulletin.  

Our uncles are California-based all right, but not Silicon Valley, they are south of Los Angeles.  I was there two years ago visiting, first experience with LAX and driving a Chevy on the West Coast.  They advised me, from a resource sustainability perspective, what happens when the groundwater is gone, and I also saw renewed oil drilling in Whittier.  Get every last drop, folks.

Now the assortive mating question.  Hey, I have liked female technical colleagues.  But I'm too chicken to be out of line with an office sister.  I don't want any trouble, this is the best job I ever had, and might have even in the future.  I don't mind living next to the biggest terrorist target in the free world (or second only to Israel) (and perhaps even within suitcase nuke range) to have the privilege.

Bring it on.

Yeah, give me a daydream, Steve.

So it seems the $15 per session copay was really worth it, what my LCSW told me about internal processing of social interaction responses.

Such a shame we switched insurance and I couldn't get her for $15 a session any more.  It is kind of hard getting another.  Maybe mental health professionals hate playing hardball with the insurance companies.

Add the processing speed issue to our inability to read nonverbal cues of romantic interest without deliberate conscious mental effort.  And even then, what signals would we send back?  And how convincingly?

It reminds me of Shepherd College (today Shepherd University) Job Placement Services mock interviewing me to death before I got in the Census Bureau job in 1998.

And also, the mock interviews we had on one another at Maryland Rehab Center before graduation.  My classmate (the other super computer programmer in the group beside me) mock interviewed me and shot me down in under 30 seconds.  He said he had actually done interviewing in the real world, and I had done something wrong.

But I more than impressed the folks at DTI Associates in July 1999.  And I am still there.

Interpersonal social interaction processing, slower, yes I'll agree.

In other cognitive tasks, however, a lot of us go at a superior rate of speed.

vits3k, do you have knowledge of stats on occupational exploitation and abuse of Aspergians, or it is anecdotal evidence?
Where is this happening?  USA or elsewhere?  In some sectors more than others?

I don't see any today.  I am more familiar with Aspergerian rejection than with exploitation, but I did experience abuse once in my worling life maybe nearly ten years ago.

Is there published data?  Anecdotal reports are fine for us armchair social scientists but the professionals need statistics.

And what about the Aspies who don't excel in the areas you listed?

I, for one, don't excel in any of the areas listed, or anywhere near it.

I also asked a question, vits3k, and was hoping you would answer it.

I mean on workplace discrimination against aspergians.