Aspies For Freedom

So why do I bother with Equally Yoked and Dateable and maybe even E-Harmony?

Energeia, I am not even sure many of us are even given credit for wanting to, much less given an opportunity to.  The most dangerous thing is that the NTs believe it, because they certainly do not understand what AS is, certainly not loneliness and wanting to love with AS.

I'm surprised someone didn't say we don't want to work either.  Maybe the NTs think we don't want to fit in, stop the interview in their minds right there.

Max, I am in your debt yet again for another excellent post!  We can agree to disagree on another issue, but we have much to agree on with respect to Aspie issues and getting over the Republicans.  If I do vote Republican in 2008 it is only to get Cheney off the ticket in November.  Impeachment, yes!

Now, if I didn't want any female entanglements, I'd have no borderline suicidal moments, would I?

My response to letters@usatoday.com follows:
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Subject: Reader response: A long shadow is lifted on Asperger's in adults

I found this article discussed on our blog site, http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com, and read it, however,
I have some concerns that the opposing viewpoint, although stated, is understated.

I am 37 years old with Asperger's syndrome, have a Master's inn sociology, and have been working in Web design 8 years.
However, I enjoy conventional levels of friendship and seek the same level of relationship intimacy my neurotypical peers have.  
In fact, I have joined two dating services, and the lack of a satisfactory relationship severely distresses me, to just short of a suicide
attempt.  This article seems to possibly explain a misunderstanding among neurotypicals that further explains my experience.

Your article gives much attention to the lack of desire for friendships, marriage, and parenting.  
However, without a heading to indicate that there is disagreement from the Asperger's community, a person reading quickly may miss the fact that there is
strong disagreement on this issue, and Katherine Tsatsanis of the Yale Developmental Disabilities Clinic represents only one opinion, perhaps not even
a correct one.

It is distressing to be dismissed, as Sergei in the comments section under the article suggested, as a jerk not worthy of consideration.
"Well, this would tend to explain an acquaintence of mine who, while being caustic and egocentric (my wife met him once and never wants to even hear his name again).
.... And all the while I thought he was just a jerk."

Both sides need to be discussed, as the issue really matters to many people.

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I need to change my moniker to Tin Man.  Some people think I don't have a heart.

I recently borrowed "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome" by Tony Attwood (2006) from the library, and iirc in it he said that Asperger's Syndrome is the same as Schizoid Personality Disorder. Also, the DSM-IV criteria for Asperger's are different from the Gillberg criteria... the Gillberg criteria seem to require a lack of desire to have friends or a spouse, whereas the DSM-IV doesn't have that requirement at all. I thought it was interesting that he mentioned Schizoid Personality Disorder, because I'd thought it came pretty close to describing me when I first learned about it when I was 12yo, but I'm really not so sure that AS and SPD should be equated and said to be the same condition. Obviously, there are a lot of people who fit the DSM-IV AS definition who don't fit the SPD definition, and it's ridiculous to ignore all those people... I think the confusion exists because a lot of Aspies are bullied and rejected so much that they claim to not care about friends and such anymore... Iirc though, Attwood's book also said that out of the initial group of kids that Hans Asperger diagnosed at least one got married... I would have to go back and check on that though.

Some guy posted this under the USA Today article, his name is Sergei

I, the Tin Man, responded

AND

And my colleague to my left said the same as I said on the commentary: I am not a jerk and any allegation to that would be regarded across the board by our headquarter staff with hostility.

I figured she'd say that, I believe her, this is a great company and I said it was like a refuge habitat for an endangered species.

Nevertheless, I regard with great concern the "educated consensus" that Aspies cannot have relationships, or vice versia Marieke, because if too many NTs believe it, I'm screwed (or actually, not, to be more literal).

HQ staff will have a cruise Friday on the Washington river boat Odyssey.  We call it the Love Boat cruise and even doctored some Internet graphics in our internal registration Web site.

Here's hoping my boat will have love in it one day, too.

Ahhhh thats like my Bible!

I would have to agree, that artical is really unacurate. If it is, then who the hell is the man I have been with for 6 years D:? Yes we can for relationships and yes we want to. I do at least, I'm good at intereacting, keeping them is the hard part. For now I don't have much interest in people, except to study them

I agree, Max, an attempt to dehumanize us by saying we can't love.
Does that justify making single Aspies romantic non-people?  Nope.

Yeah, the entire frigging article was called into question by the MERE FACT they also featured a photo of Liane AND HER FAMILY.

DUH!!!!!!

So-called intellectuals and their prolix terminology (which serves to make them sound so capable and intelligent when really they are not, they have not done their homework here in any case) can do SO MUCH damage with their generalizations.

I hope they catch hell for their stupid quotes.

In fact, I have recently been telling friends and family pretty much THE OPPOSITE of what's in this article. How do I know this being an NT myself?- because I spend so much time in the chatrooms, talking to REAL Aspies and their families not looking at poorly devised studies and by absolutely DRINKING IN AND THINKING ABOUT ALL THE ANECDOTAL stories, evidence, whatever you want to call it.

I am a menopausal woman and I wouldn't be on bioidentical hormones (which are all the rage now, though they have been used quietly for years by some women) now IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE. If I waited for the FDA to get their act together, if I waited for the research universities to study menopause in the correct way (using the correct age cohorts, not lumping women all together in one big pot) I would still be having night sweats and unable to sleep.

The experts know a little, but aren't the final word on anything in my opinion.

Look, I don't know who's wrong here.  I wrote a friendly e-mail to Ami Klin, Ph.D, sharing my research experience and interest and background in Asperger, and asking some questions based on research, if any.  I was referred to a researcher who might know.  I am convinced that Klin and Tsatsanis are dedicated professionals and they really care about children and adults like us (with Asperger's), and I'm sorry I brought up the Tin Man motif.  I brought up The Tin Man because I not only believe many of us want relationships, it HURTS US that they elude us.

I think the pain comes from three sources:
1.  Loneliness, pure and simple, cranked up even higher when we know people whom we are intellectually, educationally, and professionally parallel to seem to enjoy it far better than we.  If it's any consolation to us, we also aren't familiar with topics like rejection, relationship abuse, sexual cheating, and so on.
2.  We start to feel invisible because that is the conclusion we draw from the apparent indifference of our neurotypical alternate gender counterparts.  In all fairness, maybe we don't know when or if they are sending nonverbal signals of interest.  Read Groovy Druid's article on wrongplanet.com on Asperger's, nonverbal cues, and flirting: http://www.wrongplanet.net/article297.html
3.  If popular culture gets us down, we may even feel inferior.  I didn't even realize until March that's why I had a self-esteem problem with certain extroverts on the same floor (Wikipedia and the nerd depiction of feeling envious of women above their so-called status).  It is dangerous enough to include oneself in an inferior social class (even if you realize the class is defined by popular culture, which can be a lie, but lie or not, it is your culture too, and you've lived in it all your life, pal).  It becomes critically dangerous if we start to reason that is the reason why our NT counterparts of the alternate gender seem blind to us, if we even think that is why they seem blind.  (I cling to the rationale that no two people in the same office can operate under true free will.  It gives me a valid excuse not to start thinking that way.)
     3 (continued): it would be a poor idea to like anyone because "popular culture" said you couldn't have him or her, but I keep thinking about Men of Honor:

Please reserve your judgment about Ami Klin, Katherine Tsatsanis, and Suzanne Leigh until the facts are better known.  Thank you.

Thanks, Max.  Culture is a very big meanie, like a river.  And it hates you.  (Emile Durkheim, French sociologist, early 20th century, described culture as almost a living thing, reproducing itself in people's minds, and encouraging them to punish noncomformists.)

I think every little bit of truth (Culture is a lie) helps us not to feel so threatened by our status versus the status of our colleagues.

If you believe the Wired article The Geek Disease (what a bad name for an article!), in my case, Asperger might not only include the nonverbal language deficit and social situational awareness deficits, but also include a nice collection of intellectual gifts such as math, science, engineering, and/or computer programming skills.

So the so-called "Marsh curse" my uncles in the southern Los Angeles area banter about made my brother and I in the Washington NoVa suburbs computer professionals (and also gave us some mathematics proficiency and scientific interest), the older uncle a mathematics teacher, and the other uncle a chemist.  

Aside from the older uncle being the only one of us four first married so far, and in his early sixties at that.

For Dad's part, possibly an Aspie, he did not choose a typical career, he was a writer/editor with the Social Security Administration and one old Kiplinger magazine Changing Times, had a fascination with World War II history, but did indulge his vocal music gifts along with at least one of his brothers.

Things like Marsh intelligence are clear cut gifts, granted.  It is nice being a top gun of a Pentium III or Microsoft Internet Information Server.  

It is harder to recognize the rest of Asperger's legacy as a gift, unless you consider the advanced moral development of my father or I, for instance.  Sounds too much like Spock.  

But I am sure there are female human beings who relate to guys like us, hey, even my uncle found one?

My husband and I are technically agnostic, not atheist, but we're atheists for practical purposes... Libertarian also. I'm pretty unemployable at the moment, but my husband delivers pizzas. Delivering pizzas sounds like a fun job to me but I still don't have a driver's license. My husband also wants to start his own woodworking business... not sure how that'll go, but at least it avoids the employable/unemployable issue.

a grain is not a cornfield.

I said this before, but you already know that quite a few of us not only have romantic feelings, but the (search for correct word) not being allowed to share them in otherwise acceptable times and places often hurts us very badly.

1.  At worst, we feel lonely, then we feel invisible, and then feel inferior.  Extreme dehumanizing is inferiority.
2.  If we understand our self esteem, feeling invisible can still be a problem.  Ordinary dehumanizing is pretending we don't exist.  (Or are we invisible to neurotypical radar like I suspect we often are?)  

(as an aside, I also felt I didn't exist when a. a few dozen interviews did not succeed and b. when I was too well educated for jobs on the low end.  Perhaps the need to justify poor wages and working conditions is so strong, employers on the low end need to hire poorly educated people so they can shift the blame on the worker, but they can't do that to a college graduate or greater, certainly not when even the hiring dude is outranked himself)

3.  Dealing with invisibility does not mean that loneliness does not hurt.

This article came out some time ago (6 weeks?) and it bothered me no end too. Hell, the author cites a leading Aspie spokeswoman and author(whose name escapes me now), US News included her picture for God's sake, who is very happily married with children, but no, Aspies can't form intimate relationships and seldom get married. Right. Again, doesn't anyone do any homework/research anymore before mouthing off? Where is the hesitancy to generalize, to put everyone in a neat little box for convenience's sake?

Anymore I think the media publishes this half-baked garbage (Jenny McCarthy et al.) for the effect, for the drama, angst, titillation, it will generate, It's all about ratings and sales, unfortunately. There is no passion for the truth anymore.