Aspies, do you ever wonder what it's like to not have AS?

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i have tried to imagine what other people see but i have no idea really.

the only people who like me think that they see what i see, but i do not see what they see.

i am very sorry if i have to be sorry about that.

Last edited by b9 on 18 Dec 2009, 10:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am not sure I got AS but we do share tons of traits. Anyway, I do not wonder what would it be like to be normal. Because I already do. My brothers are , unlike me, very sociable and do not have issues at all in those regards. I was able to see that the normal human life is a lot more expensive and busy than mine. I got time to do a lot of things I like to do. And my current income source is quite good for my lifestyle. But if I was normal I would apparently have no free time and my salary wouldn't be enough , apparently, the whole social experience is quite a money leech...

Sometimes I do. Especially when I was in school. I wonder what it would be like to actually want to sit in groups during lunch, instead of spending the entire lunch hour in the library, looking through books. And of course, if I didn't have AS, then I could answer many 'why's. If I thought like other people, maybe I could understand why they do such the odd and difficult things they do.

But if I didn't have AS, I wouldn't have my collections. I also wouldn't have time to watch my movies, I'd even not be able to sleep in on weekends. Having a social life takes up an awful lot of time and energy. I'd rather invest it in things I enjoy.

I do wonder what it's like when I see a big group of them bantering and chattering with such ease and grace, ggrrr it makes me so envious.

I also used to hang out in the library looking at old Parenting magazines through this machine. I forget what's called. You put in old film with printed pages of the magazine and put it in and you zoom in and read the pages. Then I got told I couldn't be in there anymore during lunch and I needed some pass so I hung out in my locker instead playing my games. Yes literally in my locker because I would sit in it. I never wanted to talked to other kids even if they wanted to talk to me and I would get irritated if they would talk to me. I spent most of my teens with computer and video games, including TV.

I wonder what my life would have been like without it. Would I have done more school sports, have boy friends, have more friends and be hanging out in the halls socializing without feeling lost or bored or out of place, would I have had parties in my teens, would I not spend all my time in the basement and not get upset or bothered when my brothers and their friends be down there too? I sure know I would have never gone to Europe if I didn't have it because then I would have never been obsessed with 101 Dalmatians and London. Mom said she would take me to London after finishing high school. So thanks going to London, we decided to go to Paris too and travel all over the UK except Northern Ireland. (Just had to add that just to keep UKers off my back , they're sure picky about language).

I don't know whether or not I have ever wondered..it has always seemed that there were certain things that seemed really simple for everybody else that seemed really difficult for me....I maybe have wondered what it would be like if all these trivial things that constantly trip me up in life were easier...but I don't know if that is the same thing..and for all I know, knowing what I know, how do I know that I am not just a messed up neurotypical in the first place?

Yeah, all the time.

Yes.

Often. I am not very enthusiastic about being an aspie. I was always wondering, how should I feel, if I were inside instead of outside all the time.

Yes, only at the time I did not know it, so I thought everyone was wrong, so studied Cultural Anthropology.

My study found plenty wrong with them.

My main view was Social Dependence. They have a deep fear of being alone.

For one they have to associate, even with people who do not like them, nor do they like, such as High School. Younger it is about the same, the pool of neighborhood kids is small, the ones they can play with can be horrible, but they stay, because they know the rest are worse.

My study started with University age, it did amaze me that people who had never met became best friends in the first few days.

About all they had in common was age, and that they were not going to the better out of town schools, or even the better in town schools, but to the public commuter school, the lowest ranked.

There was a lot of turnover in their groups, all downward, dropped, flunked, and gone, and I saw it, they joined in any group they could, because people were vanishing. Hang out with five girls, when the lion comes it will take one, good odds, be alone, bad odds.

The guys lived in fear of being beat up, so they never wanted to be alone, I agreed with them, they should be beat up.

First Symester in the bottom ranked school took out half. Groups had to merge to keep up numbers.

I am a spy and evesdropper for science, they talked of nothing, nothing of university intellect, just nothing that could have them tossed from the group.

In general, not much different between girls and boys.

Night life was a different story. There were some famous clubs, I went. Now it is different, the girls are with guys who are not in school, who are older and have jobs, and had been since Junior High.

The guys are just standing around in groups.

Then I saw the girls in school, and noticed they were providing witnesses to where they were and with who. With the turnover it changed, but they took in enough to always have three witnesses about where they were. Daddy watched them, boyfriend was the new daddy, a lot had been invested in keeping them good girls.

The guys that survived started to wonder what next? It was not the kind of school that the sons of business owners went to, but they would need jobs, so they started grouping around that. The natural leaders were people they were sure would get jobs in sales, good people to know, when you are job hunting, or those who would work for the State, who had to accept the diploma.

In both cases it was based on don't get anyone mad at you. Lack of content made both groups safe.

I observed the same in the young work world. First networking who had found a job, then those vanished, for now it was Mary and Peg at the office who were the new safe group, they were horrible gossips, but if you hung out with them, the gossip would be about others.

Those who worked in real estate or insurance became devout church goers, they wanted to join the PTA even though they had no children, any customer group would do. They were everyones friends.

They seem so happy and well adjusted, till you hear them dumping on their kids, husband, or some other safe place to vent. They are really demons from the lower pits of hell, but if the door bell rings, can be sweet and happy and smiling in a second.

They all know that they and everyone they know are demons. They know they live an act, and the best explanation of my differance, is I have been told I see through them. Some get very upset when I do not play act with them. Others just look guilty.

I of course did play act at times, closer observation, and it turns out the good girls are not always good, they just have to be careful about their play dates. Guys in bars will open up, which shows a void between superficial thoughts. They are the act, and education does not add content.

Most become reclusive in their thirties, job, home, no books, no hobbies, the living dead. Thirty years later, they die.

The few I identified as human, now called ASDs, did read, even understood, and did have hobbies, now called Special Interests. While the world saw them as slow, they did learn as a way of life, and about the time the living dead were coffin shopping, were starting businesses.

Living the act is dangerous for men. Those who stayed fully engaged died early forties. It is a lot, banging forward day after day with no content, meaning, will kill you. Most settle into work and TV, go through the motions and die twenty years later.

You too can be NT, try it sometime, you won't like it, and will be glad to get back to Wrong Planet.

We are too many, too consistant in our ways, yet each so different, to be defective NTs.

We can learn to pass, just be a mindless lightweight. Play acting is all they understand, never mention anything that is not common knowledge, there is an industry of common knowledge production, watch TV, talk about it, like chirping in a flock of birds.

The whole idea of flocks is to deflect attention from the individual.

They lack only a sense of self, or we are cursed with one, or we can play our own games.

In old age, we are the only game in town. Our interests keep us going when boredom kills most.

Being old and autistic is much more fun than being dead.

While my study did define NTs before I knew what they were, it took Wrong Planet to bring together the few I called human.

i suspect it's similar to being drunk.

When I eas diagnosed, I wondered and pondered what it would be like to be neurotypical. I often felt that I would be happier and that I would have more success in life if was "normal". However, after reading Look Me in the Eye, I realized that AS was the reason for many of my eccentricities and gifts in music and English. After that, I embraced being Aspergian. I wouldn't want to have better social skills if it came at the cost of changing who I am.

I guess I'm too busy trying to cope with what I do have that I don't have enough energy left over to speculate what it would be like if I didn't.

Same for me. I wonder how they feel, think and view the world.

I only learned about ASDs a few years ago, but from childhood I remember looking at others wondering how and what they thought, certain that it had to be different than me.

For that matter I feel the same way about Down's, LFA and schizophrenia. Or how different animals are like, for that matter.

I would very much like to know exactly how any of those are like temporarily. I can't imagine I'd want to trade, I've never felt bad about being me or had problems accepting myself.

But the insight and understanding would've been both interesting and valuable.