Lacking in social instinct, grrr

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What it take from this is that the point was not about aspies being ''better'' but just taking from the story that nt and people on the spectrum can behave very similair, so actually if aspies where superiour the nt man in the story wouldnt be excluded in the first place. It shows how nt/aspie are more equal if you change their positions their behaviour would be the same.

So, you spent a lot of your life on the fringes. Your self-esteem is probably low. You wonder why people don't think like you and the world seems strange. Then you find a community of people "just like me" and your self-esteem is probably better. All people are exclusionary to some extant and everyone has biases, even if they don't admit them.
"aspies are superior" not necessarily, however there are many advantages to being on the AS. NT people will often claim these advantages are exaggerated or incorrect. It is therefore reassuring (isn't it?) to realize that you are not messed-up or defective (or diseased even!).
Now where is the irony? What do you not get? or maybe What do I not get?

This is what was fascinating to me. Not the differences but the similarities. It's freaking HARD to be excluded from a group, even when it happens without intent or malice. I felt for he guy.



This confuses me. People on the spectrum have speech difficulties with great regularity and are often harder to converse with.



Since I wasn't there I can't really say, but this sounds like bias and prejudice. What is it about knowing a person is NT that suddenly changes your relationship?




What would really be interesting is if they labeled a few NTas as aspie to see if everyone thinking they were aspie improved communication. And label a few aspies as NT to see if they got excluded.

Ok, those two kind of have the same answer so merging them to answer. The reason people would feel uncomfortable and leave was that the entire point of the camp was that Aspies be able to meet other Aspies face to face (or more probably awkward both eyes firmly on ground entire time talking to one another ) in a safe structured environment designed for their needs and comfort. So a huge part of it was that there was the expectation that the majority of people would be like them and have certain shared experiences and hopefully interests as well. Same way there's many things I feel comfortable talking about here, Aspie things like not liking people touching me or getting splitting headaches in social situations like parties, that I do not even try to explain to most NTs I socialize with. Discussing those things makes most NTs extremely uncomfortable or they start spouting platitudes like how I'm not trying hard enough or I just need to get out more and all my problems will fade away. Which in turn just makes me uncomfortable because there's some basic experiences they don't share with me that are extremely difficult to explain even if they don't shut me down when I try..

So it's the expectation in that specific environment that you are talking to someone who is more similar to you than the people in your normal day-to-day life, who won't reject or try to make light of your AS difficulties, that made people not want to talk to the NTs. The same is applicable to most conventions as well if you think about it. I mean if you go to say a Dr Who convention, you presumably go to such a convention to meet other Dr Who fans, not because you want to talk about football with the guy handling the security.


I agree, and I ended up discussing this with my friend a few times. She also thought it would be an interesting experiment - though not appropriate to a summer camp like that.

TB, Yes the point I was trying to make was that if the situation was inverted the outcome would be inverted. If NTs were the minority, perhaps they could then be regarded as loners having poor social skills and lacking empathy, struggling against the same issues Aspies face today.

I was trying to “demonstrate” my observation of this prior to the TECHNICAL SCRUTINY my post received.

I am not quite sure where the idea that “aspies are superior” came from. I am a firm believer that each and every one of us is entitled to an equal measures of dignity and respect regardless of anything, NT or Aspie.

I have lived on the fringes as long as I can remember and I am quite sure nearly everyone here has experienced this too. This is something I can well and truly empathise with completely. To me the experiences of isolation, rejection and exclusion I have experienced make me more determined to treat everybody with the same dignity and respect we ALL DESERVE.

KBerg, I think the badges were a good idea for the situation at hand.
I recently went to an astronomy meeting in a public park, the members had tags identifying them so the newbie visitors, as I was could find the right people to talk to, and not go off and start talking to a football player about the Orion nebular.