trying to answer some aspie questions

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I was watching an episode of Survivorman, and I had suddenly some insights, and i want to share them here:

As I always end up writing long posts, I'll put first some questions I try to answer here in this little post:

- Why do NT's conform easier to social norms?
- Why do aspies feel isolated even when theres people around them?
- Why do aspies prefer 1 on 1 interaction, and don't like groups?
- Why do aspies like to make fantasies?

Following the other post I made recently, and continuing with the common grounds theory, please bear with me. Let's imagine that there's this part of the brain that is dedicated to store the common view of the world that a group shares, we'll call it the 'common grounds'. NT's use the common grounds to communicate between each other, and it's easy because this common grounds area is mostly the same for every person that belongs to a group; without it they wouldn't be able to understand each other very well, because everyone would be in their own private world.
This is why NT's conform more easily to social norms, conforming makes the model of the common grounds in your brain more 'normal' (and by normal we mean average). What do they gain? They gain company, because they can communicate better between each other, and so they can feel closer together, they can feel a companionship.
In the measure that a person gets farther away from the average 'common grounds' of a group, he is more isolated. This would explain why the most communicative persons are often the most average persons, their common grounds model is totally average, and because of that they can communicate better with a broader range of people.

And of course then theres aspergers. By now it's easy to see, that from this perspective, the part of the brain that handles the common grounds isn't quite well in a person that has aspergers.
So what does an aspie do? I think that as an aspergers person doesn't have this common grounds thing working well with him, he tries to extrapolate his view of the world to the other person he is communicating with. He can't access very well the common grounds, so his only chance is to hope that the other person sees the world as he does; of course the other person usually doesn't, and so we have the communication problem. The communication does happen, it just doesn't happen very well.
But this is important, this explains why aspies feel better communicating with one person at a time. An aspie can only extrapolate his view our view of the world with one person at a given time, we cannot do that with a group of persons (it's impossible). It's also important to note that the extrapolation is also done with some changes, by the way the aspie assumes the other person sees the world (most girls don't view beer as most guys do for example).
But this extrapolation, as we said, can't work with groups, it barely works in 1 on 1 interactions.

And theres another variable, a very important one. Why does the extrapolation doesn't work most of the time on aspies? Besides some other reasons, i think it is because of the tendency of aspies to fantasize. Why do aspies do that? I believe the answer is simple. Did you watch that movie where Tom Hanks is left stranded on a desert island? What happened to him while he was on the island? He started to have fantasies, and he even went to the extreme of having an imaginary friend, so he doesn't feel alone. Of course most aspies don't go to these extremes, but aspies do create fantasies so that they feel less isolated, and to protect themselves from a seemingly rude environment.
But the thing is, that this fantasies make the communication even harder, it's a vicious circle. How can you extrapolate your fantasy world into another person and think that you will be able to communicate well? What's the chance that the other person has your same fantasies? None.
To be able to communicate better, you have to get closer to the real world, so that your own model of the world matches better the model of the world of most of the people. Then you can extrapolate it, and you will find that people understand you much better, and you understand them as well.

Well, at least this has been my experience. I'm sorry if i didn't make some points more clear, but that would take at least twice the space, I hope it's still readable, and again thank you for reading a long post.

I appreciate comments.

Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity. http://isnt.autistics.org/

NT's are wired differently to Aspies, but we all can learn from each other. With better understanding, comes better communication.

I am an NT Mum of 3 sons - 2 diagnosed Aspies.

At home, I communicate with my sons by speaking fluent 'Aspie'.

I teach them some of the NT language. I use diagrams/flow-charts to try to help them understand social situations at school that has left them baffled.

Helen