If you weren't born autistic, how do you think you'd be?

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i have a supportive partner now. if i were neurotypical, i likely could have found someone supportive of my career choices much sooner. i was able to afford good child care. well-adjusted children spend an hour of face-to-face time with a parent each day. it would have been easy to swing that as a doc. while i practiced, i was a summer mom to my ex-fiance's 5, 6, and 7 y. o. daughter. it wasn't a stress. it was a joy. had to break up with him because he repeatedly hit me. he never let me see her again.

my mom was a nurse. i took an early (kindergarten) interest in her medical books. no reason to think that would have been different.

Wow...I really just don't know.

I'll bet some things would be the same, though. For instance, I'll bet I'd still love reading and music and history.

A top five list, only speculation obviously, but if I had been born totally NT, I suspect...

1. I might have taken the religion I grew up with more seriously and not seeked alternative beliefs.
2. I would have been more popular in my K-12 schooling.
3. I would likely have played tight end or wide receiver in football instead of kicker.
4. I might have considered a military service stint, especially in a branch like the Navy or Coast Guard.
5. I could have ended up a drummer or guitarist in a rock band instead of just costuming them.

If I were born NT, I'd probably still be an introvert, but perhaps with more friends. I probably wouldn't have graduated college in four years, flitting from one major to the next with no real clear idea of what I wanted. I might have gone to a few college parties, hooked up with a few guys, it's possible I wouldn't still be a virgin. Who knows. Frankly, I'm much happier with the life I have now than with what I imagine I could have had had I been born NT.

I do not think my personality would be different. But I know I would be much more like my cousin who is my age and does not have all the neurological impairments I do.

That the me everyone sees online would not be so drastically different in real life because of the autistic impairments.

Ironically though, without the autism, I would still have severe dyspraxia. lucky lucky me.

some things would be different but i predict one thing will be the same: i would have still been a shoddy 200m runner in high school track.

it's impossible to know. i won't say i'll be this ultra popular (or even sort of popular) outgoing person with amazing grades and very well rounded socially, because i couldn't imagine myself that way regardless of aspergers. i just don't think being an aspie has much of a bearing on why i chose the interests i chose. (then, what does?)

could be wrong.

I think my personality would be similar but I wouldn't have trouble making friends, instead perhaps if be good at it and can achieve more.

Well one of my traits as an aspie is that I am really passive.

I can't help thinking that if I wasn't an aspie I would be like that girl who I used to work with. She reminded me of me but without the autism. She was angry, paranoid, quite intelligent but not educated, out going, not as popular as she thought she was but she had a really human and caring side to her despite all the bravado.

We actually got on really well because we were quite similar except she was in no way passive and I'm aspie and she's not.

I'd have been able to have an overview of what was going on in social situations instead of zooming in on minor details due to stress. I'd have been a lot more selfish because I wouldn't relate to other people's problems.

I might actually have been really professionally successful, emotionally cold and bitter about all the misogyny I'd encounter in work life, not understanding that I'd had it easy compared to others.

There are some aspie traits that are strengths in a relationship - loyalty, staying power, honesty, tolerance for personal differences, a well calibrated BS detector.

OP, you need to decide whether what you want is a relationship or a series of one night stands. These are entirely different things. Just be warned that casual sexual encounters, after a certain point, erode one's ability to be close to another person.

Respect yourself. I don't understand why people say this to women and not to men. It applies equally.

Unlike most Aspies, I am not going to assume that I will be extroverted, have a million friends, socialize 24/7, attend a party every week, have a really good job, be well-adjusted emotionally and in life, and have moved out of parents house by age 18.

That is not how the common NT life works, although it looks like it to Aspies. But it is not.

If I were NT, and I mean NT with no anxiety disorders or any other things like that, I don't think I would be that extroverted, as shyness and passiveness is a strong and common trait in my family. I think the main difference is I would have fitted in better through school, not saying I would've been the most popular kid in school but I most probably would've still been accepted and included and not rejected and teased like I was.

As an adult I think I would have been working in retail or something like that, because unless an NT has social anxiety, most NTs can work in retail and deal with customers, even if they are quite shy.

Otherwise, not everything I think and do are to do with Asperger's, so I don't know. I suppose it's the same as asking a (straight, typical) girl what her life would have been like had she been born a boy (and vice versa). You can imagine some things, but other things are just about your personality as an individual that has nothing to do with your neurology or gender, etc.

I'd still have the depression and anxiety but life would be easier due to a few more social connections that my autism precludes. However, I do not think I would have a lot of friends even w/o autism, because I've known plenty of people who have depression that can't seem to connect with anybody.

A much happier person.

I was a pretty cute little kid, and that fact didn't go unnoticed by the socially connected, high-achieving girl in 2nd grade who had a friend pass me a note. What my looks failed to communicate was that I couldn't relate socially to the opposite sex in any sort of normal way. I remember putting a bunch of staples in the note and throwing it back into her adjacent classroom. I'll never know what she wrote.

Without autism, I would likely have been more outgoing. I might have joined a definite clique. I may not have turned to food for lifelong solace, leading to a weight problem and eventual diabetes. I may not have struggled with depression.

I don't know if any of us could truly know what it would be like to be neurotypical. We can observe how they behave, but a weak theory of mind prevents us from understanding what thought processes (if, indeed, they are the result of conscious thought) motivate them to behave as they do.

Today I'm married and have a good job doing what I love - two things that would have seemed highly improbable even in my 20s. Autism has so thoroughly shaped my personality and experiences that I wouldn't want to be neurotypical at this point.

Hard to say---I'm the only me I've ever known, and how I'd be as someone else.....no clue.

I would probably have been in a different place in my life---married and had kids earlier, paid off mortgages, able to retire now rather than somewhere down the road and moving to where it's cheaper to live, instead of getting married at 35 and becoming a father at 38. And again at 41. But you never know.

I'm OK with what and where I am now.

i think i can agree with this.

I might have had an easier time in that I would have gotten a steady job, and even if I was hit by the recession and laid off, eventually I would have found another job. For me, Asperger's has made it extremely difficult to get jobs because I don't do well in interviews. That said, at this point, I wouldn't want to be neurotypical because my Asperger's is a large part of who I am.