i am a 38 yr old woman who began dating a nice guy in april this past year. he had some odd habits, but all my other boyfriends have, too... i liked him a lot. we have had some rough patches but the relationship is sound. i gradually, though, came to learn that he is likely an aspie. now i am hoping to learn more about the condition. sometimes i get very annoyed by his behavior, which at times, is inexplicable to me. i now see more clearly that the behaviors that annoy me are associated with asperger's. i am on this site to help myself in accepting my boyfriend. i moved in with him recently, and i really want the relationship to succeed.
he had plans to eat lunch in a local restauarant w/ 4 colleagues to wish one of the colleagues well as he leaves the current job he has for a new position. i also was going to lunch today- i asked him if he minded if i also had lunch at the same restaurant... i was dining with my own colleague (we work at different jobs). he said that was fine. then he said something like: "i'll say something like, what are you doing here? i did not expect to see you."
to me, this is strange. i live with him! i cannot comprehend why he has to "plan" his words, "plan" what he will say when he sees me. but since i am beginning to learn about asperger's, i chose to not tell him that i found this annoying and strange. i did not complain. can anybody help me understand why he does this? he has, generally, a great deal of difficulty initiating conversations with people.
Maybe he thinks that a small lie would save him from having to give an explanation to his colleagues as to why he wouldn't invite you to sit at the table with them. Maybe he's afraid that he might offend them in some way if he is seen to exclude you. I can't speak for all aspies but speaking as one I have to often plan what to do and say around NTs. NTs often have social rituals and behaviors that are abitrary and difficult to negotiate without a certain amount of preplanning.
Social behavior is very hard for us. It does not coem automatically as it does for you, we cannot easily "wing it" without experiencing or risking experiencing panic or worse, a horrible social gaffe which results in public ridicule. This leads to our wanting to script all possible social interactions before they occur.
And it is why I hate phone calls, too!!!
the replies you are giving me enhance my understanding. in turn, i think my ability to accept grows. acceptance leads to happiness. i am grateful that you are encouraging me to understand. my boyfriend has really been wonderful to me. i want to extend as much acceptance to him as i can.
When I was younger I used to "plan" every conversation I had to do. Knowing that there can be various reactions to my answers I did a lot of planning! I tried to plan every possibility!
Only being "prepared" that way I could go to an social event. Of course usually everything turned out to be different than I thought it would be, but that made me only plan things more the next time :roll:
I still do that from time to time, especially if there's an important event (or one I think might be important) coming up.
Sibylle
Hello.
I have been with my amazing NT wife for 12 years now. Since my diagnosis a few years ago we have had less and less misunderstandings/rows - in fact we hardly ever fall out. I'm not saying this is common or that it is easy all of the time. We considered ourselves to be soul mates right from the beginning.
I don't pretend to have all the answers but if you have any specific questions/problems then we are more than willing to offer advice from both points of view.
Good luck!
though i suppose i am NT, i question the notion somewhat. to me, many people who are NT have also experienced occasionally great difficulties in fitting in.
in many respects, when i am with other NTs, i, too, am "acting". i am just a better actress than my boyfriend because i am NT.
my job demands overwhelming amounts of interaction with others. after all that social exertion, i find solitude and silence a necessity. in silence i am able to return to my self. in stillness i become aware of my innermost feelings.
fitting in and feeling that i belong is an nimportant component of my well-being. when i do not feel a sense of belonging, my emotional health really deteriorates. but finding groups that i fit in with has been very challenging at different points in my life. i attribute that to my high IQ, frankly.
my AS boyfriend is gifted in a lot of ways that i am not. at rare times, i think he is even dolphin-like. dolphins are said to use sonar to locate points of illness in other living beings. i think my boyfriend has an ability to pinpoint my emotional wounds and then, like an acupuncturist, apply a behavioral needle that releases the blocked pain. PRETTY NEAT.
he is very tender and caring.
Dolphins could only detech changes in otehr organisms if they were physical changes. A chemical imbalance in the brain wouldn't show up but constipation or changes in blood flow would. A dolphin might seem to have unusual diagnostic abilities because they are in a liquid medium and can take a sonogram of anything they like. When they 'look around' in sonar they dont jsut see anotehr dolphin's exterior, they also see their innards. The ability is analogous to sonograms, they are essentially taking a sonogram of everything they look at, and they are probably as good as if not better than interpreting the results, as they have eveolved the ability to interpret them over a very long time. They can sense any change in anotehr dolphin that has physical effects, notably including arousal. It occurs to me that the senses a dolphin possesses are as unfamiliar and strange to a human as the nonverbal skills of an NT are to an aspie.
learning about AS reminds me of experiences i had over twenty years ago. i was brought up in an upper middle class jewish household in new york. but i was a rebellious teenager and i travelled to jamaica, west indies, and lived among west indians for a while. their non-verbal communications were nearly impossible for me to interpret. also, they used a ghetto slang that i did not understand most of the time. the experience was at times terrifying and sometimes induced anxiety, paranoia, great confusion, fear--- you name it.
i am amazed to be sharing the world with so many people whose way of experiencing social reality is different than mine. it's terrible that these prejudices are so prevalent.
it also seems true to me that the prejudices and discrimination suffered by AS people mirror the sufferings of any group upon whom social paradigms are imposed. there are so many, at all times, in human history.