I know that on these discussion boards, there's all this talk about how ASD/HFA folks ("Aspies" to use the old term) are different from neurotypicals and how we try to bridge the gaps in communication and what-not, but in what ways are we the same as them?
I realize some of the similarities may come about more "artificially", like from masking - as I've done from an early age even pre-diagnosis when I realized something wasn't right, and I had a strong motivation to become intimate with women (my techniques worked to a fairly good extent, BTW) - but I believe there are still some ways in which we think the same. IF I could venture a few:
1) General desire for social harmony, to get along (i.e. most of us are not "Cluster B" personalities)
2) Similar attitudes against recklessness (not counting some 18-19-year-olds that we might have known!!)
3) Similar desire to "nip things in the bud" instead of ignoring them ( but this is context-dependent...I'm not including situations where an Aspie misses non-verbal hints and the NT keeps on with the same approach...)
4) IF someone needs help or a favour, and openly expresses that need (not leaving you to guess or intuit), then there's an equal desire to help that person (as long as the person has a "clean slate", and it's not a huge favour).
5) Similar responses towards humour, from various sources (like Will Ferrell or Sasha Baron Cohen movies, or Monty Python, Dilbert, Calvin & Hobbes, Mad Magazine)... I have used this as a bonding mechanism with NTs in my early days and even got mildly popular doing humour of my own at parties
as long as it wasn't mocking certain groups like military, or racial or ethnic groups, or "dumb jocks", it was fine. Lawyers and bureaucrats were "fair game", especially when mocking lack of common sense policies and such.
6) Feeling vindictive or vengeful towards those who have wronged us, or not giving a s*** towards a rude or bullying person like a housemate, colleague or boss, etc., essentially the desire to engage in passive-aggressive behaviour. I've felt vindictive towards others who've treated me badly, just as an NT would do in such a situation (and I've commiserated with NTs in sharing stories about "people from hell"). I even shared revenge stories with them , but what I did wasn't illegal, just really embarrassing or unpleasant towards the person who'd wronged me, e.g. I'd revealed some secret of theirs to the "wrong" person, with evidence - no blackmail, just going for the jugular. And over this, I actually bonded more with the NTs
As I've often heard some commenters on various threads say, "what you describe is not an NT or an AS thing - it's just an individual person thing" - meaning the behaviour someone described from someone else wasn't predicated on anything THEY (the poster) did -or, conversely, when they (the poster) reacted a certain way to something, the follow-up poster said that this would have likely been the NT reaction as well, that there was nothing "weird" about their reaction.