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

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1. I find eye contact really uncomfortable. I will look in the direction of someone but not into their eyes - especially if it's someone I don't know. I find people who give a lot of eye contact weird.

2. I wouldn't personally stay up all night doing something no matter how interested I was. I like my sleep too much!

3. When I interrupt people it's usually because I'm excited to say something or I want to say it before I forget. I usually realise just after I've started and apologise and let the other person continue though.

I have a question for the aspies. What would be the best advice you have for the parent of a high functioning child?

It takes some perspicacity on the part of the parent.

Always remember that your child is on the spectrum, so when they make a social misstep or engage in an obsessive interest, filter your reaction through the knowledge that they have a different mind. Definitely teach them discipline and manners, but do it in a loving and supportive way. Whatever you do, don't lose it and blame them for behaving in ways that aren't "normal". Guide and teach them, without anger.

It irritates me to no end when small-minded people actually blame the autistic person for acting outside social norms. Life isn't just about fitting in. Of course, we all need to be mindful of other people, and we need insight into how to act appropriately in certain situations. But nobody chose to be autistic.

Shaming the child is very bad. Teachable moments, on the other hand, are good.

Thankyou for your reply. It's rare I lose it with my kids and when I do I apologise as it's generally more to do with how I'm feeling than anything they've done anyway. And I love talking to my son about his special interests as it makes him really excited and happy.
Any other advice welcomed and I'm happy to answer any NT questions anyone has.

You might like the book Pretending to be Normal by Liane Willey. I am reading it now and it provides great insight into the mind of someone with Aspergers. She also talks about her experience raising her children one of whom also has Aspergers. The forward is by Tony Atwood who is well known in the field. It's hard to come by so you may have to order it used online.

Hi all, new here so hope I do things correctly and feel free to tell me if I don't!

1. I don't find eye contact uncomfortable or unnatural at all. For me, I probably look someone in the eye for at least 80-90% of the conversation, depending on how long the conversation is or where we are. But I am an auditory learner so I've always looked at a person's face, even in school (rather than taking notes) since I retain more information that way.

2. I will stay up all night working on something I like if I am working against a deadline or if I am really, really into something AND I don't have obligations the next day that make this a bad idea. So I used to not do it much but now that I work from home, I have more freedom and do it more often. But by more often, I still only mean a couple of times a month and even then it isn't all night as much as it is 3-5 hours later than I would normally go to bed.

3. I interrupt when I think I know what the other person is about to say BUT that only applies to extremely close relationships such as with my husband. I will interrupt if necessary when someone just keeps repeating themselves and we need to move on (like within a work meeting). Sometimes I will interrupt because I am worried about losing my thought, like what you said, but again only within close relationships. Generally for most NTs I know, interrupting is rude and/or hurtful because it implies that you don't care or want to hear about what they have to say or you think your next comment is more important than their current one.

Hope that helps!

I am NT so I know your question wasn't directed at me but I think you'll understand why I'm responding.

I have always felt more comfortable with men for most of my life. I tend to be very direct, not overly sentimental, not especially romance-oriented, highly opinionated, and I value principles over relationships. This has definitely cost me in some ways but it is who I am and trying to change it hasn't been any more realistic than it is for anyone else. By and large, I fit the socially accepted standard of masculinity more than femininity because of my reliance on honesty and openness and directness. Sure it would be great if my husband could figure out on his own what I'd like for Christmas but it doesn't bother me or hurt my feelings that he doesn't and it never has - since long before I knew anything about AS.

So the reason I'm answering is because I do believe that all of this is a healthy chunk of the reason my husband (AS) and I are more compatible than many AS/NT relationships. In fact, at least one of my exes has AS and I have obviously been attracted to it (though I never knew it until a year or so ago) because I value honesty and straightforwardness far more than charm and seduction. I had a really bad relationship when I was young and I know one of the reasons I fell in love with my ASH is because he simply didn't have the capacity or desire to lie to me (I know that's not universally true for AS individuals but I do believe it's due largely to AS for him). We still have a LOT of other problems but I do think there's a lot of room variation within NTs that can make an AS/NT relationship more or less successful.

Thanks! I'll see if I can find it.

Since I have no idea how you define the term "neurotypical," I can only say that I think this is, well, if not exactly a bad idea, something that seems to me to as like as not do nothing but cause confusion.

I'm going to mark the survey as "I'm indifferent," but I suppose the best answer would be "Need more information."

I have a question about how NT's interpret body language. I recently came across an article online about how to tell if girls are flirting with you, and it included things like "if she's touching her hair, fluttering her eyes, she might be flirting" etc (I'm paraphrasing here). I also saw a book in the library about reading body language. As far as I can tell, neither of these are directed towards people on the spectrum.

I've always been under the impression that reading body language for NT's is something intuitive that they don't need to be reminded of. If an NT guy was talking to a girl and she did the "flirty" things mentioned, wouldn't he know it because it's part of the NT's social language? Why, then, the articles reminding them of this? An NT guy in this situation might not act on it due to insecurity, social anxiety, or other reasons, but he should know what's going on right?

Is body language in themselves and/or others ever something NT's are consciously aware of or monitor? Are you only aware of it when it's abnormal or ambiguous? Does it take any mental effort?

tl;dr wondering why there's so much advice about body language directed towards NT's when I was always told it's something NT's intuitively understand and practice.

Anyone can have issues with flirting because people don't want to get it wrong. NTs mistake someone being nice with flirting all the time. If an NT is insecure, they may not think that anyone would ever flirt with them and so they can be taken aback by it, and question it.

Some people are naturally harder to read than others. There are some people in which it takes more mental effort to figure out. No one is completely intuitive when in comes to reading other people. That is why there are so many problems among them.

I don't think anyone can accurately read body language. No one knows for sure how someone else feels unless the person states it directly. As a female NT sometimes I am being nice to a guy and he interprets it as I am Interested in more than that.

Rather than "wonder" if someone is flirting my advice would be that if you are interested in a girl ask her out. Women appreciate a confident guy who is not afraid to approach her. If she is interested then she will let you know via her response. I also think its ok to persist in a nice way if she says no the first time yiu ask her out OR you don't have to make it a "date" just invite her to events etc. that you may be going with your friends.

So to answer your question "no even NTs have no clue." I think NTs may be more aware if social cues as far as when someone is done listening to you or when someone seems sad but as far as flirtinf that is difficult for everyone. Hope this helps.

Maybe it's just natural and the way it is, or maybe pop psychology has distorted humans' behavior... But I think that in the area of showing interest in one another, people tend to inject far too many psychological games. Seems very strange that two people may like each other, but feel pressured by society to play a game of obfuscation, and miss each others' intentions completely. So much more sensible to be able to indicate an interest in one another in a respectful but less complex way.

Well who am I to say anyway. Never had a relationship because I could never figure all that stuff out! I guess I'm jaded by the inefficiency of throwing cues and hints. But then again I have an engineer's mentality when it comes to these things, certainly not that of a poet or knight on horseback LOL

Ok, so first I'll try to give something of an answer to the question about interpreting body language, then I have a question of my own as well.

If you like movies, and watch the movie "Hitch," a good part of what the story is about is that some people are more socially savvy and aware than others. Hitch is a so-called "love doctor" who makes a living by teaching average or awkward men (in a social aptitude sense) how to play the "love game" better and get a girl to like you. So that is already indicative of the fact that some are just not as good naturally picking up on social cues, but also that it can be an acquired skill if you practice. The Love Doctor eventually explains that he was an awkward late bloomer himself, and after a devastating rejection he decided to become as good as he could at being aware of these social cues and subtle tricks of social interaction (especially romance), so as to prevent ever feeling that hurt again. One thing I like about the story is that eventually it sends a strong message that although it is possible to get better at these little tricks... truly generous and loving people can still make a connection without being so polished and careful about such things.

So I would say that the answer to your question of why the article exists is going to be two-fold. On the one hand, I believe there is such a thing as getting better at reading people's non-verbal indicators. Mostly this level of communication tends to be subconscious, meaning for example that if a person feels nervous, there is a certain set of indicators that they will naturally display (not completely unlike some of the involuntary tics or gestures that AS individuals will experience as a result of certain feelings, just on a much smaller scale), and similarly anyone they are talking may even be able to sense that they are getting nervous by picking up on those indicators... but again it will all be subconscious. Neither party would be able, naturally, to know what the indicators are. Especially since it is fairly widely understood that people from different cultures or even different families may have various ways of expressing themselves nonverbally.. or different levels of intensity when they do so. People from my family don't tend to use their hands and make gestures while talking... but some of our friends do, for example (not a great example though, admittedly).

It can be valuable sometimes to be more consciously aware of these gestures or cues, and what they might mean. For example, even if you ARE nervous about a job interview, it is rarely helpful for the potential employer to know that you are feeling nervous (I suppose it makes you seem to lack confidence?)... so knowing what to deliberately stop doing nonverbally can be useful to help you appear confident and get that job. Or in the dating world, I don't think I need to explain very much how nice it would be to have an idea that a boy or girl fancies you BEFORE you have to risk saying that you like THEM.

Now, I said the answer was two-fold... I think those articles and even entire books on the subject exist partly because there is some semi-helpful knowledge to be gained and practice that can make one more "savvy" in this area. The other side of why I think they exist is because enough people WANT to be good at reading others' non-verbals. So the publishing companies know that they will be able to get people to buy their work if they claim to be able to make you really good at "reading someone's mind" just by looking at their body language. It's like snake-oil salesmen pretending to have a life-saving medicine for you, but really they just want your money and know a lot of people will jump at the chance to be a little more savvy and more "cool."


Now for MY question, and let me thank anyone still reading this far in I do tend to ramble.

I am interested romantically in an AS female that I know, and so when she told me about her diagnosis, I began to do the usual research to get an idea what it meant, and what I could expect, and what I could do to be helpful and kind ongoing in light of this side of her. However, not only did I learn a lot, but a lot of the aspects of the syndrome sounded familiar (although not all). I did take the handful of tests from the forum post about online tests for AS... and they seemed to indicate that I am likely AS or at least share some strong traits in my own personality.

So my real question, for NT and AS alike: how important is it for me to ever find out for sure? I already am an adult, and live on my own... and I have an admittedly unconventional lifestyle but it works for me. I can't really decide whether I even want to know for sure, or what about knowing might be helpful if I did. I'm not overly troubled by whatever effects it's had on my past, and I do feel pretty comfortable with who I am today, whether I would officially qualify as AS or not. So this is mostly an opinion question, I think, unless there are any concrete factual reasons I should go one way or another. What do we think, folks??

It is very important to find out for sure if you have AS. If you don't find out for sure (assuming you do have it), you're going to spend the rest of your life wondering why you are so different from everybody else, why people do certain things, why you get disrespected for certain things that don't seem that bad to you, etc. Finding out that you have AS is a very relieving moment. It's an explanation for everything you've long wanted explained to you. Knowing that there is a good reason that you struggle with communication, are bad at sports, have bad handwriting, stimming, and everything else will make you feel A LOT better, as opposed to being labeled "stupid," "ret*d" or anything else. Plus, if you have a formal diagnosis, you have the ADA on your side. This makes it easier for you to get and keep jobs. Without the diagnosis, it can be VERY hard for you to get a job. During a job interview, interviewers will notice that something is abnormal about you. No matter how much you try to hide it, it's hard to not stim. If you don't have the diagnosis, than can legally not hire you solely because you seemed odd in the interview and you didn't disclose disability, leading them to believe you could be hiding something bad. Or if you already have a job, you could still be in trouble without a diagnosis. There are people with AS who are fantastic at their jobs who get fired not specifically because they have AS, but because they don't talk to coworkers, don't attend social events, or don't get along with coworkers because of AS-related reasons. If you get the diagnosis, they can't legally fire you or not hire you on the basis of your disability.

I chose "neurotypical" when I registered here, because I am not autistic. But I am far from neyrotypical.
So neurotypicals: Why does it bother you if I'm aloof in public? Is it the whole "hate everyone different" thing because I'm keeping to myself? Frankly, I don't want to make eye contact with everyone I pass and I dread engaging in small talk. I go into public for school or errands. I'm not out and about to flirt, chat, make googly eyes, greet people or whatever is expected.
Another possible reason: You don't actually think I'm aloof, but instead sneaking glances at you.

Question for NTs. Can you tell the difference between an introverted NT and an Aspie?