Aspies For Freedom

Hi, I'm new here... just like many, I don't even know if I'm in the right place...
when a very good friend (and lover) suggested I might have Asperger's, I thought this was the silliest thing I've ever heard. At first I thought so this is his newest way of explaining my lack of emotion in the relationship - and in relationships in general.
Mostly because I think I am really good with people.

Then I found "Pretending to be Normal" - he was reading it, and I just picked it up. Well, that got me into researching on the topic in general.
I wouldn't say I have typical Asperger traits, but definitely fit most of the criteria when I was a kid. There are still familiar patterns, but rather mildly - it is as if everything in the diagnostics fits, but just in a way that makes me think: "Yes, but not in a significantly enough, or not anymore".
My talents are rather on the linguistic side, though.

In "Pretending to be Normal" I found many parallels to how I grew up and function now as an adult. Actually, the similarities were so stunning I could hardly believe it.

But as I said, I would never have guessed there is anything off what's considered "normal" about how I deal with people. Only my best friends and family have ever suggested that, but who only knows me superficially would never guess.
Truth is: I just learned the rules. As a kid I mostly could do what I wanted, I didn't understand what most other kids liked to do, but I didn't think about it much. I had friends, mostly because it was fun to hang out at our house and because my sister was so popular, but I was rather quiet and usually preferred reading books to everything else.
I could speak in full sentences before I was able to walk properly, and was always clumsy, but my parents thought that was because of my short-sightedness.
As a teenager it was horrible. I found that I matched none of the expectations and being good at school just seemed to make it worse.
Suddenly nobody wanted to talk to me, be seen with me. I had a horrible hairstyle, thick glasses, no idea about how to dress (and didn't care), no interest in music and all the popularity games.

And then I just learned the rules and played cool when I didn't know what to do. I watched people and how they interacted and found reliable patterns. Until a few weeks ago I just assumed that was what everybody else did, that I just did it a little later, that I was just a little slower.
I was always different, but since I'm about 20 or so, it's rather considered interesting and refreshing, not that it makes people not wanting to interact with me.
I am good at smalltalk. Sometimes I even enjoy it, because it gives me the feeling that people like me, that I can make them like me.
I am good at lots of the superficial communication things, but I do have trouble with faces.  

Actually this is the only thing I've been wondering about for a very long time - I learned expressions, I can look people in the eye, but I don't recognize them. Even my best friends, when they cut off their hair, or wear a costume, appear in an unusual place - it is really hard for me to recognize them, and I've often wondered about that. Especially in movies it's horrible. Why are there so many women with straight blond hair and guys with short dark hair?

I suspect myself being drawn to subcultures not only because of all the obvious reasons but because they tend to have a less uniform styling...
As a kid I often didn't even recognize my mother and sister, I'd follow the wrong family until I heard a voice and knew "this isn't right".

Actually I just wonder about the whole topic because of how I deal with personal relations - otherwise I feel fine, I didn't ever think I have a problem.
Close friends, lovers, family, tend to have a problem with me:
I don't miss them. I don't need them. I feel love for them, but that doesn't mean I need them around all the time.
It even angers me when they tell me they miss me when I'm gone for a while or don't call frequently enough.
I get accused of being "cold".

I am reliable, I am there if somebody really needs me, but if they don't, I don't get the point. Just like phone conversations - if there is nothing to say, why call?

Does that sound familiar to any of you?


Thanks a lot if you read all of this. I would appreciate your answers, suggestions, anything.

LOL...yeah, much of it sounds familiar.  Except that I don't enjoy smalltalk.  Your post reminded me of a phenomenon I'd forgotten about, namely, how when I was younger I'd have friends tell me that they didn't like me much at first and then came to like me a lot...that I was a person who took getting used to.  I suspect this is still true but people don't tell me this anymore.  They just start interacting with me more.  One thing people would need to get used to is my being direct.

*The devil presents himself, trying not to scare*

Many of the things you mention sounds familiar. You could be more or less aspie, still I am not sure if an official diagnosis would help any and it is likely hard to get. I am also less aspie now than I was before in primary. One difference with me was that people usually was nice to begin with at school but would after some time grow more hostile.

Since for me part of the problem is not being able to concentrate on/remember rules etc. if I have to act on them at the same time, nope... I wish I had been even a Hundreth as aware of these rules as the author of that book was when she was growing up. I found the book very frustrating and really not representative of what I experience - she is a person who is wayyy too aware/self aware for my liking, she feels edgy-sharp-electric to me (her main problem seems to be compulsions and OCD stuff, which I can't identify with too much since I don't have OCD) . I guess opposites of the same thing can create similar sympoms?

It sounds a lot like me as well. I too have learned to act semi-normal when I'm around people, but I can't do small talk, so I end up not saying much at all and consequently a lot of people think I'm shy (I'm not). I can pass for normal enough that I think no one else would suspect I have AS, not even my psychologist. As mentioned in another thread though, as soon as I'm alone I go back to my Aspie tendencies (stimming, talking to myself, etc) because being "normal" doesn't feel "natural" to me and I don't like it. I have read a few places that Aspie women in general are more capable than men of "covering up" their Aspiness in social situations, and I think that probably has something to do with it.

I have lots of little OCD-things I do, but I always thought everybody was like that, they just wouldn't admit...  I learned as a kid what behavior is considered ok and what isn't.. and I got fascinated by how people interact, spent hours watching people and developing strategies, playing dialogues in my head, and made it a game for myself to find something in each person I can connect to. So if I want to, at work or interviews or whatever, when I want somebody to like me I usually can.
But in reality it's just a game I play with myself, since I was a kid and figured out how to make my father enjoy conversations with me (he is an Aspie too, I'm more sure about him than about me). My mother always suffered because she could never connect to me on an emotional level, just talking.
I was always really good to talk to because I love stories, I find it so interesting what people do and feel and I did since I was a kid.

Well, my therapist always tried to deal with me not having deep relationships, not missing people - she thought it all was because my parents got the divorce when I was little....
I got annoyed with her, because I just didn't believe that. My parents stayed friends, it just doesn't work having a relationship with my father -just as it doesn't with me.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/article318.html

just found this. this is exactly what i like about smalltalk. i know how it works and how to use it.

I sort of understand the idea and sturcture of small talk, but because I don't care much, I find myself scrambling for things to say. Someone will ask me how it's going and I'll say, "Oh, fine, thanks" (Or I'll be way too honest and give them an answer they didn't want because I wasn't thinking) and then I'll think to myself, "Uh-oh. I should say something or ask them something now, and I don't know what to say," and I'll stare blankly at them with a faltering fake smile on my face while my brain scrambles for something- anything- inane and appropriate to say.

I'm a newbie as well... my first post as an aspie actually. I haven't been "officially" diagnosed... but in my own opinion I have to be an aspie... anyway...

I feel like I've learned a lot of the rules... eye contact and such. I think I was lucky in that I had two younger sisters and a very social mom. So they would point out the "obvious" problems and left me to dwell on how they knew that already... I also managed to find a good stock of friends who wouldn't mind occasionally looking over their shoulder to see what I was staring at during a conversation. :) Or would hold up an occasional mirror when needed (Why are you running that way?) (Why are you talking in an accent? Is this a joke?)

But when I had my two daughters I really had to FORCE myself to take action. They really needed friends... before I realized I was an Aspie I thought that the problem I had had was because I hadn't been in a lot of social settings so I tried like crazy to get my daughters into little friendship-making classes and groups. Which were and are SO painful for me... At least my oldest is now capable of doing more things herself and its not an awkward "mommy group" setting where we all just sit around and chit chat for hours.

As usual... I've written entirely too much and shared way TMI. sorry.

Sarah - no. You didn't share too much. And you didn't write too much either (I have to say this, otherwise how should I feel about my first post here)?
All this is about sharing information.
We aren't standing in line in front of a theater....

And Solana: I think lots of people actually like honesty. If I don't feel well, I'd say so. Sometimes, when I don't really think I would even explain why, but this really is TMI.

There's nothing wrong about saying "not so good, actually"  - and then they can ask why (and then they are forced to think about if they really want to know). Or: "I'm not so well, but how are you? Are you having a good day?"
And if you don't feel like talking at all, just shrug and mumble "it's ok".

Alll that was new for me to learn - I'm from Germany, and we don't do that. Not to strangers, at least. And I hate lying, so I had to develop a strategy...  was often weird at first. Especially when I found that people don't want to know at all. Why do they start a conversation then?

I like smalltalk to get into having a conversation, if I see somebody I would like to talk to. In this country here people often talk because they can't just stand around waiting without saying anything. Weird.

word

lol
thanks. appreciated.