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This seems a good place and time to introduce myself. As English is not my native language (I'm from France), it won't be so easy.

I became aware of asperger syndrome a few years ago in a website forum some of you may know: AVEN. Aspies are not unusual there. The described symptoms were quite familiar to me but at that time I though I was just an introvert guy. I did not felt affected enough to qualify for such a condition. I have friends, a good job, a normal life (nearly).

Now I see I am just trained to pretend to be normal. Most of the time I'm quite confident in this skill and everything goes well. Sometime it just doesn't work, the illusion disappears and anything I can or can't do makes it worse. It happened recently at the hairdresser, she was talking as if I were dumb and I could not react at all.

I won't enumerate symptoms you all know. I can relate with a lot of them. Just a minor one, when I was a child we had a set of small ivory elephants I was always aligning by and sorting them by size. I still have tendancy to align small items, like bordgame pawns, but at least I know it so I can refrain (or not ).

A more annoying ones is the lack of discussion ability. When there are more than two people talking, I never have the good timing. So when I want to say something I can't find the opportunity to take the speech, or I have to cut someone. Sometime I talk and everyone seems not noticing at all as If I didn't exist and I really hate that. I read exact description of this phenomenon in "The Speed of Dark", by Elisabeth Moon, a science-fiction book about autisms. It cames from the difficulty to read facial expression and naturally exchange information of who takes lead of discussion. Without that I would not have notice anything about not reading expressions. When someone smile I see he is happy, that's not rocket science. Actually, I suppose I can see it but it's not a natural thing as it should be.

I sometime see people describing AS as another way to be, having also positive points. I don't fully agree. It remains a disability. In my case, this is not a severe condition. But I have real limitations, I try to accept them, to assume them. This is a part of my identity.

Before ending this long post, I would like to enumerate some subjets of particular interest to me (you know what I mean).

* Science-Fiction, especially written. Amongs my favorite authors there is Greg Egan, Vernor Vinge, John Brunner, Van Vogt. I participate to French SF conventions.

* Games of all kinds. I play go. I also play "german style" boardgame a lot. And, well, I lose way to much time on World of Warcraft.

* Ontology. The idea that the physical nature of universe cames from mathematical reality. Importance of observer point of view. The many worlds interpretation. Max Tegmark's "theory of everything".

Nice to meet you, Strange.

I like the writers you like except for VanVogt (unless I'm thinking of a different writer and have swapped the names) who bores me to tears with his incessant and I think incorrect psychoanalyzing. I think you would like Stanislaw Lem and his sly commentary on modern life.
Among my favorite writers in SF are Julie Czerdna and, uh, oh shoot, my mind went absolutely blank. Guess I'd better clean the basement after all since my brain just walked away. Maybe I'll find it in a corner somewhere.

Welcome to WP!

I agree psychoanalyzing stuff in Van Vogt is incorrect, but I find it interesting anyway. This is science-fiction, not real science. You have to take this with historical perpective, even if Van Vogt himself believed seriously in some weird things, unfortunately for him.

I like Lem too. I just replied about it in Hedgehod's thread, as SleepyDragon was talking about Solaris. I would not have guessed Lem is so highly praised in aspie community, but that makes sense.

Welcome

Hi and welcome to the aspie community...

Pleased to meed you Strange

Welcome Strange,

Pleased to meet you.

Hi Strange,

welcome to WP.

Being trained to pretend to be "normal" is not such a bad thing. It's a helpful skill to have.
About the hairdresser talking to you like you were dumb...wasn't that patronizing to you? I would have found it that way, personally.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy posting here.

Welcome Strange!

Sure, I took it that way you.

However what could I do ? I don't want to be rude or patronizing myself. Anyway, that doesn't have so much importance.

Thanks all for the welcoming.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!