First time in history!! !! The NT/AS open hotline ! !! !! !

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First: Excellent thread.

Second: Maybe this doesn't belong here, but when is it a good time to let your NT boyfriend (or significant other) in on the fact that you have AS (or are on the spectrum)? Let's say it's been a month and things are looking good. Or is it too late and ... What to do?

ETA: Let me clarify and say that this is a hypothetical--I'm not in a relationship, but I like to be prepared for when it happens. (Still hoping, *fingers crossed*.) I still hope that this is the right place to ask this question.

And I know, hypotheticals ... um ... I'll shut up now.

...If they haven't run by then, LOL I don't think I'd reach that stage in a relationship, unless I told them well at the beginning not to interpret my behaviors the way an NT's would be interpreted... Eg: I was dating someone, he came to visit, rang the downstairs intercom, I asked who it was, he said "John", I was so happy and excited that I ran downstairs to meet him, and because I can't focus on 2 things at once, I forgot to buzz and/or say "I'm coming down!" so when I reached downstairs he had thought that I had slammed the intercom phone on him, was terribly angry, left and never believed me that I have a focus and multi-tasking problem, how come I'd never mentioned such an important thing about me to him before. I never saw him again.

Greentea, you make me cry.

Janissy, thanks.

Again, great idea for a thread. I foresee that this will become a sub-forum (if I were Obi-Wan Kenobi).

Seraphim, indeed. What's saddest is that back then I was very young and my mother had raised me to believe that when I do this kind of thing it's out of evilness, so when the guy said to me that I had slammed the phone on him out of evilness, I didn't defend myself much, because I thought he was right if my mother thought so too. It's been very recently that I've stopped seeing my symptoms as evilness.

Greentea, wonderful way to put it. I think it's especially damaging when we're led to believe something for so long that it eventually distorts our view of ourselves and our view of the world. And then to have the veil lifted and to have answers. Honest to Heaven ANSWERS. Ever since I've found WP, I feel like a weight has been taken off my mind. I love this place.

Janissy, there is a time machine, it turns out.

Soon after that happened, I left my country for good.

I went back (sent by work, by coincidence to my own home country) 18 years later, a couple months after discovering AS and WP and self-diagnosing.

The day I arrived in my country, after work, the local national office secretary was holding a party for her birthday at her home and wouldn't take no for an answer, so jet-lagged and all, I had to attend. At one point I went to the kitchen, and there HE was, standing alone, making himself a sandwich. We looked at each other, I made my best effort to pull my nastiest "You scum" face. We hadn't seen each other since that fateful incident with the intercom. With my prosopagnosia, I wasn't sure at all that it was indeed him (and after 20 years!).

Then I went back to the living-room, joined back the chatter, and the women were talking about a very famous child Psychiatrist, the biggest eminence in the country, the one all parents and talk shows went to for advice. They said his full name. It was his full name. They said he was in the kitchen making himself a sandwich. He was divorced and depressed. I told my local national colleague I was feeling bad, too jet-lagged, and to please take me home immediately. When I tried to open the door to leave, it was locked. He opened it for me. We didn't say a word.

When I was dating him 20 years before, he was in his first year at university, studying to become a doctor. He didn't know what he'd want to specialize in after.

It's one of the most amazing stories that happened in my life, and today is the first time I have the opportunity to tell it to someone. I never dared to tell anyone because NTs wouldn't believe me that it didn't occur to me to buzz the intercom and/or say "I'm coming down!" They'd once again tell me I'm evil. I guess with him being a child Psychiatrist nowadays, he would've believed me if I'd told him there's such a thing as Asperger's. But it's too late.

Thanks for listening...

Greentea, for the record, it is never "too late" when it comes to this sort of thing. IMHO. Well, if he was still married it would be, because one potential consequence is that the two of you rekindle the relationship (unlikely, but possible), but other than that, allowing yourselves to reach a point where you can both have a good laugh at the total misunderstanding could be very healing for both of you. It would be nice to be able to run into him without feeling awkward, wouldn't it? I know, it isn't always possible to get there from here, but that doesn't mean its "too late."

Willmark, of course. That's what was so unfair - that I blamed myself when actually the scum had taken that as a golden opportunity and played on my guilty feelings due to my AS symptoms. Nowadays I'm a lot wiser. It's just a question of experience.

DW, actually it's not a love story, I believe he had come that day to dump me and it was a golden opportunity for him that he didn't get to see me and saved himself having to tell me to my face, plus he could get away with blaming it all on me - a perfect bargain. This is why all I did when I saw him 20 years later was look at him as he was scum in my view. He's not guilty of my AS and he's not guilty of my having been brought up to be ashamed of my AS and feel it's my fault. But he's guilty of exploiting the situation in his favor - nasty him.

I would've certainly done that, no hesitations, but he was lucky that I was there on business, sent by the company, and couldn't afford to risk my job.