How well do Aspies communicate with each other?

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The other day I was babysitting my neighbor's 10-year-old, who is an aspie as well, and to be honest, keeping up with him in conversation was exhausting. He's a smart kid, and he reminds me a lot of myself at his age, but we're definitely not on the same wavelengths as far as our special interests go. He's more the future astrophysicist type of aspie, while I'm more the burnt-out punk rocker type of aspie.

Thank you everyone for your contributions. It's interesting what a range of responses there's been so far. I'm bumping the thread to see if a larger sample results in a clearer consensus!

It depends on the person. I've found each aspie's level of communication skills are different. I struggle very, very much with the type of aspie who expects to sit back and let you do all the work - I cannot communicate, or even co-exist, with the person who sits and waits for you to either communicate or go away. But if the person is willing, I'm completely able to do so.

I've only communicated with a couple Aspies offline that I'm aware of & I think we communicate better than with NTs.

In person, it really varies depending on the people involved, from balanced engaged two way communication that is a really enjoyable dialogue, to trying to communicate with a person who only wants to engage in one or two word phrases delivered in a very wooden way, which is like trying to have a conversation with a statue..

There's a whole range of how it goes between those two points.

But generally I find people on the spectrum far easier to communicate with than NTs.

Well if you mean real Aspies, they talk to each other OK. Probably a little better than with NT people since none of them notice the social mistakes each of them made. If at least one of them is extroverted then they can talk for a decent amount of time, too. If aspies also cover all the people on the spectrum, it gets more difficult. Nothing can make non-verbal people very talkative, or extremely introverted people pour their souls out. So they probably don't say much to each other unless they share special interests.

We have 4 people on the spectrum in my family plus a couple aspie friends. Our data is not too typical since most of us are extroverted and often talk to each other. The introverts only seem to answer questions and never initiate conversations.

All of the above.

If I'm talking with another aspie I disagree with, conversation can get heated & frustrating - especially for them since I rarely get heated or frustrated anymore.

If I'm talking with another aspie with a completely different interest that I'm not interested in at all.. it's likely going to be a short conversation that doesn't go anywhere and I politely excuse myself vs. listen to them ramble about something I don't care about. Or I may politely listen, but there won't be much actual communication going on.

If I'm talking with another aspie with a mutual interest, especially with someone I know and care about, then I could talk with them for hours on end - and have. It's a wonderful thing, really. Dr. Tony Attwood's book describes socializing aspie kids with common special interests with each other for this reason.. but as a 32 year old man, I know this magic full well in communicating with other asd adults, especially one of my close friends.

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I'm a female with HFA and I have found that I'm able to communicate better with male autistics then females. The female autistic's cause me to go into overload quickly. The males I have known are more logical and have had a sense of humor similar to mine.

The other thing I've noticed about communicating with some other aspies IRL is that if we're both in highly asd mode & have a mutual interest and can rapid fire back and forth w/ intellectual conversation almost as if we're finishing each others thoughts… the NT's in the room look on in aw like "…dahfuq am I seeing here?" as if they're watching two super computers decipher some code between each other. Seriously. I've noticed it & their facial expressions and reactions.. they definitely feel like the one on the outside looking in wondering how they can join in on the conversation for a change. I remember one friend commenting one time that myself and another friend were just WAY too smart and he couldn't keep up with what we were saying let alone formulate any sort of response to participate in the conversation. It was pretty funny to me, actually.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

And another thing that I think helps me communicate with other ASD people isn't just the intuitive nature of being ASD, but also because I've read and learned a LOT about ASD.. so, even though I may be a fair bit higher functioning than the other person I'm chatting with, I find myself very aware & observant of their ASD traits and can tailor my communication to suit them w/o frustrating them. IMO the more an ASD person knows about ASD, the better they can communicate with other ASD people w/o getting set off or fired up about their particular communication quirks - that's definitely been key when communicating with aspies who might be frustrated, upset, or nearing a meltdown.

Otherwise it just seems that verbal communication between two aspies is as intuitive, natural, and enjoyable as typical NT communication & socializing is for the NT world. I've sat side by side with a friend for hours and talked about all sorts of things of mutual interest. We might not even sit or stand face to face at all, never looking one another in the eyes for all of those hours. This is something I'm aware of and have observed, but I don't think those things ever cross my friend's mind since he hasn't read and learned the things about ASD that I have - it's just what naturally happens between two aspies.

Oh, and often conversation will be dominated by one of us or the other as one takes the role of teacher & the other student. There's a monologue lecture w/ the other person listening intently because we're interested as well as like the other person, then perhaps a few questions and more teaching/learning, and then gears may shift and the other one of us goes off on a topic while the other listens and learns and we're both perfectly content to communicate like this. It's pretty awesome, really, and a great way to pass some time when the timing is right for it.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Bad.

The same as anyone else in other words (or possibly worst).

I communicate better with other aspies on forum, and met one aspie face to face I communicated better than nts.

But if they both have different special interests, if one is bored to death by the other's special interest, seeing that we tend to go on and on about our special interests and that we get bored quickly and a low frustration level - oh, dear... recipe for disaster.