Aspies For Freedom

I scored 35. I got 44 on the AQ.

I scored a 33.  Is this a borderline score?  Sometimes I think I'm borderline.  I don't know.

I'm so confused.

I thought I remembered some of the questions asking if you liked collecting items or information.  

I don't remember any compulsions to collect items or make tangible sets.  But I become obsessed collecting information.  When I'm pursuing information on a topic, everything has to be in a neat and tidy order.  I'm sometimes driven to create spreadsheets or other structured lists to keep up with the information I've collected.  I also love rearranging and organizing information.

If these questions had not mentioned information, I would never have thought they applied to me.

I'm definitely a collector.  If I find something I like I want lots of instances of it. One of my friends thought it was sort of strange that I had over 30 bathing suits (I do swim a lot, to be fair). I have about 40 dinner plates that are living under my bed, all different.  Unlike Lulu, almost nothing I have directly matches, although many things sort of match (e.g. plates with different types of flower borders).  I make weekly trips to thrift stores always on the lookout for whatever categories of things fit my current collection obsessions.  The amazing thing is that some of my friends have started to imitate me! Plus, I have friends who ask me to try and find stuff for them on my weekly jaunts. I'm trying to apply the rule that whatever I have needs to be either useful or sentimental or beautiful, so every few months I go through all this stuff and give lots of it away to people or back to the thrift stores.

What do you collect?

My rules are that I have to find the stuff I collect in thrift stores or garage sales or anyplace but first hand retail (unless I see something I really really like--but since I hate malls I hardly ever go into a real store). That way I justify the excessiveness by saying that I did not pay much money for any of the items.  Collections from times past include astrology books, AIDS books, handwriting analysis books, coffee mugs, white dinner plates,  windbreakers, and celtic music CDs.  Ongoing collections include crystal wine glasses, nylon stuff sacks, camisoles, and plastic document holders. My workplace becomes the repository for kitchen stuff I have to liberate in order to make room for new stuff--so I get to still use my things when I eat lunch, along with the 50 some-odd other people who also use them. Fortunately, I do saturate out on any given category eventually. Otherwise my home would be a disaster area (I mean, more than it already is!)

:cool:
I would actually rather have something old than new. Sometimes I buy sort of beaten up or grungy stuff and then spend hours restoring it to its former glory--we're not talking antiques but rather enamel pans full of grease or clothes I have to get stains out of...For me, thrift stores symbolize the great potentiality of life--you never know what's going to turn up!

I got a 28.

34, and I try to get everything secondhand, too (although I stretch the rule for CDs and comic books). There's a great used-book store in my town, I've found paperback copies of my favorite books there for $1-$3. They also make coffee. The store is small and it always smells like coffee and chamomile and old paper and I know most of the employees at least by sight, which is nice. I much prefer it to, say, Barnes & Nobel's.

i think i made a 21 and 25 on that one

I got 33.

39


Is there any prize for the most aspy?

26

And that's how I found the AFF forum .

25

I'm scoring consistently borderline on most of the online tests.

35.

With some of the questions, I think it is big difference to answer 'often' or 'always', although those answers count as one. But maybe there is a threshold, and one does not need to differentiate more subtle.