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

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A question for the NT's, how do you feel about love? As somebody who is AS I know I can love..but sometimes I think its a very different sort of love..if that makes sense..and it has really logical reasons behind it...anyway yeah..I'd love to hear an opion from both aspies and NT's on this one..

I've find falling in love - real, live long, with my soulmate love - to be a very peaceful, natural process. Quite unlike dating. Dating often involved excessive lust, insecurity, and need. Being with my husband (who is AS) was different from the start. Problems between us just never felt like problems. Its not to say we haven't had to work hard on certain things over the years - two people can't meld their lives without a lot of crap springing up - but to contrast how different it was from that rush of feeling one reads about in romance novels.

When you look at it that way, I don't see why falling in love would be much different for someone who is AS. You meet someone and just know it clicks. All feels right in the world. That seems like such a human instinct to me, not AS or NT.

But I do think that maybe AS are less likely to seek a relationship simply because society tells them they should. I fell to that sort of pressure for many, many years. And the funny is, that is exactly when you have about no hope of making it work. One has to be very comfortable with themselves to really be ready to share.

I have a question for AS folks.

I am curious whether autistic people experience "Projection". For those unfamiliar with the term, this is a subconscious response where one feels an emotion that they would probably feel if they were in an observed person's experience. The call it projection because the person is projecting his own feelings upon another person. It appears to be rather common among NTs who are INFP, but that group certainly doesn't have a corner on it.

I remember experiencing this when I was preschooler. I hated receiving gifts, Christmas presents, birthday presents, etc. that I did not like or want, because I would feel embarrassed for the giver of the gift. And I felt this embarrassment so intensely that my face would blush beet red, and I wanted to hide under the couch until the feeling passed.

When I was in college as a music major, the performance majors were required to give so many recitals per semester, and all music majors were required to attend all but so many per semester. And when a performer made performance errors, like forgetting words, or playing wrong notes that made my skin crawl, I would feel deeply embarrassed for them, and at the time I really would have loved to have been able to crawl under my seat until the performer ended his performance. After some self analysis, I realized that this embarrassed feeling was associated with my own low self esteem; that what was really happening was that I assumed that if I were in their place I would perform just as poorly and so I was associating myself with him and thus I was feeling embarrassed for me because I assumed I was like him. The performer, and the gift giver, were probably not at all embarrassed, though the performer might have been a little. But those were my feelings, my responses; nothing to do with them. After I worked through my low self esteem issues, most of my problems with feeling embarrassed for being like poor performers and the like, pretty much disappeared from my experiences.

Now, after reading posts by people who were not aware until an older age that there were folks around them who experience emotion, I wonder if projection is something many or most Aspies and Auties get to avoid. Do AS folks experience Projection?

In Spanish it's called, informally, "to experience another's embarrassment". It can be a very strong feeling. I know that it's very powerful in me.

Great Idea

Looking for NT's as I have always been clueless with these...

1. Why do NTs seem uncertain of Aspies that have poor eyecontact and may or may not appear nervous?

I am someone that as I've aged my eyecontact has worsened and is pathetic with anyone in authority.

2. Why do some friends not call or think up activities and I feel I'm the one that has to make out the agenda and set a time?

I've had friends in the past that they showed every sign of liking me as a person, but rarely called me and invited me to go out to eat ect.

3. How do NTs make negative statements about someone that is suppossed to be a friend and then that very NT turns around and acts like you are the best friend ever? I have walked up on conversations where I've heard "she's xxx or that is just the way she is" and so on and the talk ceased when I walked up to the group. Many NTs do not realise how that hurts as most aspies have keen eyesight and good hearing among the five senses. I tend to be a very loyal and accepting this and this has always puzzled me.

4. Why in work situations don't those in positions of authority let the worker know what is not a desirable behavior if it is something that should be addressed?
It has taken me years and being married to find out I ask too many questions. I try to be aware now of what I am asking and is it necessary and so forth. But for pete's sake if someone would've stepped up and told me I had this symptom of OCD it sure would've made life a little easier for me at work and with friends.

I appologize for these questions being so fragmented, but I have been analyzing them for much of my life and have not been successful at coming to some reasonable conclusions. Also I have told an Aspie friend of mine who is a therapist that sometimes I feel as if I am on that fine line between NT and Aspie. A no man's place if you will....I don't feel fully NT as I have differing anxiety disorder symptoms and learning issues and I don't feel totally Aspie as I enjoy a good joke, am usually able to read body language or don't have alot of difficulty in making conversation*just the presentation mind you* I don't know where I fit???

They're all excellent questions, actually! Thank you for posting them!

Only, we have to be a bit patient with the answers, because our wonderful Golden NT Volunteers are doing their very, very best to answer ASAP as questions are posted, but they're obviously a minority here, so it may take a bit of time.

Thank you. Thank you Janissy as now I see what made no sense to me before Bing. The lightbulb is now on bright