My dad most certainly has traits. He's reclusive, doesn't talk much unless its about his favorite topics--and then you can't shut him up. In fact he seems shy, until you get him started talking about his special interests--then he loves an audience. He is incredibly clumsy. He has amazing skills in spatial reasoning and logic, and is a self-taught computer repairer, carpenter, mechanic, guitarist and handy-man. He suffers from anxiety, bouts of depression, and has an explosive temper. He's paranoid of others' intentions, though he is extremely gullible. In the past, he's been taken advantage of by his "friends" because he fails to recognize when someone is being insincere. He has major problems with language. I used to think it was because English was not his first language (after 21 years in the U.S. he can barely produce a sentence), but I realize now that he has problems understanding his native language as well. Sometimes its obvious he doesn't understand what I am saying, though he pretends he does. As a teenager and young adult, the majority of his friends were women--probably not being able to deal with male companionship--and judging by the stories, they just used him for his nice car. I think he got picked on a lot as a kid, which caused him to get into a lot of fights. My dad is incredibly intelligent, but did not do well in school. He dropped out of high school and the vocational program his father paid for. His mother was diagnosed as being schizoprhrenic (this was back in the 40s/50s in a second-world country), but I think she likely was an Aspie or Autisitc. She was a quiet person, who would go through periods of mutism and attempted suicide multiple times, until she finally succeeded. He gets so hyper-focused on accounting, playing music, or fixing a computer, that he doesn't hear you. In fact, we all used to think he was a little deaf. He hasn't been diagnosed, and likely never will. I am exactly like him and I'm starting to think I fall somewhere on the spectrum. It would explain so much.