Am I the strange one?

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Izaak! Great to see you back!! ! Where have you been?

"you're such an aspie greentea!"

You're right. I should put this example in the report I'm preparing for the shrink to diagnose me.

But Celtic, I still don't understand why it's called a sightseeing tour. They should be called "lectures on location"...

I've been around. Just not around here. I've actually been getting out in the "real world", for want of a better phrase. Doing basketball twice a week, swing dancing twice a week (I can touch people now which is pretty cool (well, without flinching or feeling too freaked out at the least). And been studying as ever. Almost got a computer science degree so I can fund my anthropology interests.

Hope all goes well with an official diagnosis. BTW, the fact you are putting together a repot should indicate severe Aspie tendencies. At the very least, whatever the diagnosis, hopefully the prognosis is positive.

You shall ever remain second on my "most intersting to meet wrong planet people". That is, at least until I have a conversation in scouser with a certain memeber who is a fan of Sid.

Oh! I misunderstood you. With that in mind, I would definitely say it's an eye contact thing. You know how Aspies are constantly being told "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"? NTs don't have to be told that. They instinctively look at a person who is talking to them, such as the tour guide. This instinct trumps even the desire to look around at interesting scenery, for them.

On multiple occasions I have heard people express the sentiment "But what is the point if there's nobody there to experience it with you?" I'm actually an extrovert, I enjoy being with other people. I used to think I didn't like crowds because of the people. Now I know it is that I'm sensitive to the over stimulation. Managing to hold myself together for a concert is something I treasure even if I don't plan on making a significant change to the once a decade trend. At the end of the day, I don't conform and I clearly exist on the perimeter of social gatherings.

I've managed to find my place however. The rest of the group maintains the group coherence bond, and I get to establish myself as part of the leadership hierarchy. I want to go to museums and churches and lakes and see stone carved lions and so on. When they just want to be a group and have an experience, I get to steer them into having the experience I want, and then I get to let loose and be the tour guide and talk about my interests until I'm blue in the face and they let me, nobody says jesus you ramble on and on, they say wow that is cool, I'm glad to have learned that and seen this.

you're only "strange" because you know want you want to do & do it.. most people follow the crowd.
strange, to me, is not a bad thing at all, indeed the more strange the better. keep it up

That is brilliant, Crassus! That shows the exact difference between me and 'them' in all my life. Years of 'is it only you dining alone?' '[ah, so you are on your own, then?' from pitying 'thems' that don't have a clue that life can be lived differently.

thank you, I shall have it engraved upon my tombstone!

I once called a lovely B&B at an artists' colony and asked for the price of a single. The owner answered: "Gee, I don't know. No one ever asked me that question..."

I voted yes, you're strange...
Strangeness is determined by the group, so the observation that you stand apart and do something different than the rest indicates that in that setting, you're being strange.

Here, it's not strange. It makes sense to all of us. We'd drive a tour guide absolutely batshit.

So you're strange. This can't be news to you go, enjoy yourself, take nice pictures. Notice if anyone else starts acting strange... Hmmmm.

I ALSO break away from the group a bit.

Oh yes. When my husband and his staff went to the dental convention in Hawaii, I went around the island all by myself so that I could see what I wanted to see and look at what I wanted to look at as long as I wanted. The staff has known me long enough to not find that surprising at all.

The place I usually go on the tours is Jerusalem. You'd like it then, because It has the highest concentration of churches per square meter. And since the lion is the symbol of the city, there are carved lions everywhere, as old as the Middle Ages.

And I love being a tour guide for acquaintances coming from other countries to visit Jerusalem. But I'd never expect them to look at me instead of the scenery!

I just do the bruce lee thing and slap them for looking at me not what i'm talking about.

most people are a little frightened to look and see with their own eyes. Most people interpret the world through a kind of filter that is in effect "other human beings." I think your example of the tour and tour guide is a prime example of how most people "see" or view the world. And for many, the social experience of the tour is as important as the historical site (go figure that one???)

And i think autistic people tend more towards a direct relationship with their environment - unencumbered by others' perceptions or the mainstream way of perceiving things - including an historical site or a stop on a tourist itinerary.

it is not that we are any better. we may just need to engage directly with out environment in a manner that is more self oriented.

Yes, I quite agree. I can be as fascinated by the scaffolding the restoration workers are using as by the structure itself. I notice the patches, the dings, the bullet holes in historical structures that many others don't. I can visualize the place without dozens of tour groups, new and surrounded by a simple town or village, the oxen, the donkeys, the farmers and craftsmen, the women , the fields, the stench of open sewers, the clink of metal harness, the tapping of hammers, the clomp of feet and hoof...

Ooops, wandered off.

So why would anyone want to hang with a bunch of ordinary folk in the 21st century?

Millie, I had indeed thought there was something like that. I had thought that people don't really want to have a real experience of the places, a direct encounter with them, because they feel threatened in their belief systems (I usually take tours that go to see other cultures and religions, and there are so many different ones in this country - nomad Bedouin tribes, Druze, Arab - Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, Black Africans, White Africans, Russians, Palestinians, Greek Orthodox Christians, Bahai, priests of all denominations, Holocaust survivors, war veterans, Mossad members, IDF soldiers, and many smaller sects I hardly ever heard mentioned). But what you say is beyond that, and the real insight, I think. I'm not afraid of direct exposure to other religions and cultures and thoughts and beliefs. I've always had more emotional courage than anyone else I knew. This is, ultimately, what sets me apart from other people. On the contrary, my fascination with Jerusalem is for the amazing contrast between human groups there. So yes, I think you've hit the nail - people need the tour guide to protect them from the experience. It reminds me of what someone wrote once, that some men pay a female prostitute to turn off the lights and bring in a male prostitute without a word said. I wonder if all Autistics have a stronger psyche than NTs...