Hello! My name is André Armenni!

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Heya, guys and gals.

My name is André, high fiving you all from Brazil, and I was diagnosed with ADD by the age of 22 and with ASD just a couple of years ago (I'm currently 31).

My biggest trait from ADD is the lack of motivation to do things that I find boring (which may kill me some day, probably sooner then later, since I have a lot a bad habits that have been acquired through the years.), but at the same time turning into a super human when it comes to things that sparks my interest. I'm grateful for having the opportunity to map this trait early, so I could shift my focus to a more "intelectual","quick-shot-result", "changes-everyday" career in tech, rather than something that requires rock solid routines.

My biggest trait from ASD is the physical and mental toll it takes from "being sociable". For me... (and, oh God, sorry for saying this out loud, for being this way, but I'm coming to terms with it)... the only three reasons that my brain accepts being sociable is
- To reaffirm to my EGO that I "feel" superior to the crowd I'm being sociable with (yeah, it's bad, but god damn it feels good)
- When I can genuinely contribute to the social interactions with NEW ideas, concepts and experiences
- When the other party has something very interesting and often NEW to teach me. Which means that I can't keep long lasting friends, because the "intelectual freshness" of social dynamics are usually very short spanned. The few long lasting friends that I have (2 to be precise) are on the spectrum as well so yeah...

In a nutshell, I'm capable of spending half of all my money buying plane tickets 1 week ahead, to an obscure country that no one ever goes, just because I heard that the food is amazing, going absolutely alone, but also making SURE that I bring my own exotic s**t from my country so every single person that decides it's a good idea befriending me throughout the trip, will have one of the best times of their lives, or at least a "unique" experience that'll be very hard to forget. But also, "one-shot", experiences. I prefer that they remember me as that fun, crazy, brazilian guy that I'm glad to be sometimes, and not the antisocial, introspective, apathic, boring autist that I am most of the time. So I'll rarely exchange contact information, regardless of how amazing my time was with those people.

And yeah... huh, I guess I used this space to write down, for the first time in my life, a fearless and public description of myself... Please be gentle, haha.

My goal here is to understand how far off I am from a typical ASD case, thanks to my equally potent ADD (specially regarding the lack of routine), and who knows, make some alien friends, since I'm *pretty sure* it's the only friends I actually can make! LOL!

Welcome to WP! I think you can find some ways to entertain yourself here.

Thanks mate!

welcome! I don't think there is a "typical" ASD individual, every single one of us is very different. It all depends on the uneven development of our neurology and which strengths and weaknesses we have. Most of us will be very good at a couple of things and very bad at others. Welcome, glad you are with us.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to Wrong Planet. I am glad you are here.

I think that taking off to try eating an interesting foreign cuisine would be fun and exciting.

André Armenni!, your introduction was a strange read. It almost sounds like you have two different personality types. Like mixing an introvert and extrovert into one person. At least that is the way it came across to me. Your fun loving extrovert self seems to be very captivating but not the real you.

Yeah, that's an interesting dichotomy you have there. While I don't have that contrasting sort of dynamo personality, my brother definitely is like that in a sense. He is quick to be zealous about new things, hopping from one thing to another. He has this aura of joy around him, enough to permeate the 1000 miles between us spare the couple weeks a year we see each other. He is quite intelligent and has a low mental barrier towards appreciating a wide variety of things. He also has an introspective, introverted side, although NT. He really helps me find enthusiasm in life, I don't know what I would do without him.

So since you have a similar sort of dichotomy all within you, I'd say, let both parts of you breathe.

That's exactly it. I'm introvert by nature, and extrovert by craft.

Also:

1. I hate social patterns. My biggest fear is to find myself in a group of NT people that will act in a certain way, just because the group says so. I've been questioning EVERYTHING for as long as I can remember, including religion, sexuality, social rules, and disrupting mindsets is one of my greatest motivations to be sociable. I have a feeling that I don't belong anywhere, which is comforting and sad at the same time.

2. Long term relationships is a big NO, since the likable extrovert is just a social mask. I've decided to give up on "love" as society describes it, and I'm now aiming to find a true "partner". Funny fact: People see the fictional couple from House of Cards (Frank and Claire Underwood) depicted as twisted, vile or even toxic. But when I imagine myself in a long, happy relationship, that's the only dynamic that comes to mind. Two independent, power hungry humans, living together and loving each other, but using their relationship to push each other further.

Yeah often groups of people homogenize into one entity, becoming some sort of force of nature.

To be honest, you'll definitely find this happening in these forums. Though an individual autistic person may be less likely to amalgamate their identity with a group to the extent that NT's do, the more starved need to find likeminded people counteracts this.

Yes, groupthink happens everywhere, even among autistic people, but it's less intense here on Wrong Planet than in most NT circles. We actually do manage to have reasonably civil conversations between people with different points of view.

Also, among autistic community spaces, message boards like Wrong Planet are better than the major social media platforms in this regard.

I absolutely don't want to discourage Armenni from being active in this community

There's quite a bit of overlap between autism and ADHD. See the following:

- Is It ADHD or Autism? Or Both? by Kay Marner, Additude, February 7, 2021
- Decoding the overlap between autism and ADHD by Ricki Rusting, Spectrum News, 7 February 2018

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

While it is certainly not complete: