How come there are so many books about Asperger's and Girls?

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What do you know about sustaining relationships though. So far I have five friends who are true friends. Some even come over to my place just to play video games with me and hang out. On some occasions I even leave my apartment to go to friends. Sorry I am not as sensitive as you are and take offense to everything people say when they are just being honest. On the other hand you calling everything I say mean just tells me you only seek people who agree with you, which would make you spoiled.

I must also add that you being older doesnt mean squat. So far I have fared pretty well in life. Mostly I am unemployed out of avoidance of situations I get panic attacks from, otherwise I could be in some lab working on human-machine interfaces or on building some kind of innovative robot technology. And imagine this, people on the internet may vary in behavior compared to real life situations. I write differently than I speak. With speaking I can appear friendlier due to various side factors such as tone of voice and mimicry.

Does that mean you don't use the same choice as words in real life as you do here?

In real life I mostly use German. People say I talk like a scientist presenting a research paper though.

So, you asked what I know about relationships. Quite a bit, actually. I had an interesting way of dealing with my challenges when I was younger. I got a degree in special education and started to work with young people who have emotional and behavioral disabilities. (In those days, my autistic buddies were included in that group.)

I'm not a special educator anymore. I own my own business. It supports me financially and I love the work I do. I work with people everyday and it feels really good to notice that they trust me to be there for them when they are sick or unhappy. I worked for many years on creating a professional persona that lets me be with people this way. I have many wonderful friends. I have solid relationships with my family. I have a harder time dating. This is mostly from a lack of internal "scripts" leaving me completely voiceless when I'm trying to be intimate with someone. I've been working on that by learning more about dating from a didactic POV, hoping that it will make me a better partner, but so far, my new skills seem to be simply making women feel like I'm taking dating too seriously. I do date though. I even had a couple of women stick around for a few years. So, that's my "resume." I am qualified to speak to communication and relationship building.

What I know is that people respond strongly to the kind of words that you are using. If you put them down or point out what you perceive to be their deficiencies, it tends to put them in a place where they just come back at you with more anger - they feel they need to prove to you that you don't have domination over them. Its a pretty common problem with autistics. When we don't feel comfortable, we start speaking in ways that are not appropriate. We start assuming we know things we don't. Because we are not thinking clearly, we miss things that we should have noticed. Then we make an ass of ourselves. We break the relationship instead of build it.

So, your calling me "spoiled" is missing things that you should have noticed and assuming things that you don't have enough information about. First off, its inappropriate to use the word "spoiled" towards an adult. It implies that my parents have given me too much, causing bad behavior. As I've lived independently for 20 years, the term spoiled cannot apply to me. as*hole has can apply. Jerk can apply. Spoiled cannot apply. Secondly, you seem to have made the assumption that I can't know what I'm talking about. I think I already addressed that.

I'm glad you have a few friends to hang out with. That's really important! Connecting over video games is a great way to get around social awkwardness because you have a common interest. Also, the "smack talk" aspect of game playing can cover a variety of problems with pragmatics.

If you want to talk more, feel free to ask.

Well if people dont like what I say, they can ignore me. It is not like I will stalk them just to point out stuff about them.

And good for you. Pretty much me: Learn to write age three, started school age five, learned to talk age seven, finished school age sixteen, spent a year at relatives in Quebec, got my masters in cognitive sciences aged 23 and got disagnosed around this time seven years ago. Had an incident shortly afterwards, now I dont just have a diagnosis, but also for mild CFS, agoraphobia and a physical disability (I need a cane to walk).

Hey, this is the second time I've been back to this thread since I started it and already, I've been attacked by one very highly strung agro-woman and seem to have kicked off WWIII.

What's wrong with you people? It was just a simple question based on a fleeting thought that occurred to me whilst I was looking in the Amazon bookshop looking for books on Asperger's (that I hadn't read before).

Don' worry about it.

Respectfully I must disagree. Narcissists can be depressed and can have suicide ideation.

In fact depression is quite common for narcissists because they tend to be perfectionists. They set perfect standards for themselves, which they invariably fail to live up to. This leads to regret, self-loathing and depression.

I would hypothesise that many depressed people could go through this process without even realizing their depression is caused by setting unrealistically high standards.

If you want a demonstration take a look at an eating disorder forum. They're all narcissists and they're all highly depressed.

I think you are mixing the informal usage of the word "narcissist," meaning someone who is overly involved with caring about how they look or come off around others, with the clinical use of Narcissitic Personality Disorder. NPD is a totally different thing. They don't tend towards depression - the whole disorder revolves around their projecting their emotional states onto others. So if they did fall into a funk, it would inevitably be projected into anger that someone else wronged them. The whole disorder is that they can't handle feeling their own vulnerabilities. They tend to be extraordinarily focused on manipulating others into participating in their farce that they are "extraordinary" and "the best ever."

I'm sorry to bring politics into this. But Trump really is classic. Everything out of his mouth is about how great he is, and maneuvering others to confirm his dilution. This is the opposite of someone with anorexia, who thinks way too much about how they look, but feels bad about it, and will often try to get others to confirm the dilution that they look bad.

I'm sorry I hijacked your thread there. It was late at night and my commitment to ignoring the taunting from that user on other threads wavered. I should have gone back to one of the threads where it was aimed at me. I suppose it was easier for me to voice defending someone else than it was to defend myself.

I don't think there is anything really wrong with me. I think that kind of thing happens to a lot of people when the don't get their butts into bed on time.

I also have a hard time when I start a thread and people dont' stay on topic. I want them to play by my rules, lol. No wonder I didn't have friends when I was a kid. This flexibility thing did not come naturally to me.

My answer to your original question was already addressed. Most books on autism and aspergers are written as gender neutral, but they are really about boys and based on autistic standards that revolve around boys. Girls experience things differently, so its been stylish recently to write about how girls are different.

I think there is also some truth to the idea that women/girls on the spectrum are statistically more likely to be hyper-verbal. They want to talk, a lot, about their interests. And if that interest happens to be autism in girls, they can write a whole book about it.

Yes, narcissists are not immune to depression and suicide. My ex was depressed and told me he wanted to put a pistol to his head but what stopped him was he has a son. He was depressed because he didn't have what he wanted. He wanted a nice car, a nice home, nice furniture and nice pots and pans. I thought he was depressed because of his ex "playing games" in court and not allowing him to talk to their son while she has him and not letting him talk to her daughters.

So-called covert Narcissists tends toward depression.
They interpret almost everything as rejection and criticism, are often hypersensitive and avoid being in the center of attention.
Often they live drawn back from society.
They do not believe to be of any value to anyone.
That is also a form of grandiosity: "not be of any value to anyone", but in it's negative.
Insidely they often do believe that they are different from others, special.
This form of grandiose thinking stems from severe rejection, neglect etc. at very young age where a baby is not yet able to differenciate between the environment and itself, meaning being in an unhealthy, cold and unloving environment the baby does not interpret it as: "The environment is bad" but turns it into "I am bad".
Later the child builds a hidden image of "I am special" though it does feel without any worth.
Covert Narcissism often gets overlooked because there is no real assessment for it, only for the open form of NPD.
So they get diagnosed with depression instead or other disorders, maybe some even with ASD because of social avoidance and focus on things instead of people.
(Covert Narcissists can also hyperfocus on things to become great at them and be perfectionists).

This is from literature that I have read from a well-known German expert on NPD and other trauma-related disorders.
I also read a lot of work by Laurence Heller about so-called "developmental trauma" also describing this pathology.

There might be a little cultural difference going on here. In Germany, Fruedian psychoanalysis is still considered legit therapy. Here in the US, it is not. It turns my stomach to hear it touted, although I'm sure you didn't mean it to do so. (Very glad that you put a note that English isn't your first language, as this allowed me to change my perception.)

So, in the US, "covert narcissim" is an informal use of the word. It does not apply to the official diagnosis. But that word is being used in different ways in Germany (and France, too, one would assume.) Just a cultural thing.

Can we assume that US definitions apply here because this site is sourced in the US? It would be an interesting debate. Maybe for another thread.

My ex was a covert narcissist that is why you wouldn't notice he is one if you don't know about covert narcissism. They do not fit the NPD criteria so that is why they go unnoticed and why they are considered the most dangerous narcissists and low functioning. From my personal experience, they may also hide behind other labels like PTSD, depression, anxiety. I am sure these people also get misdiagnosed if the therapist is not aware of covert narcissism. Also people with it tend to be naive, gullible, and trusting but I think that may be due to them being so self absorbed and self centered and selfish. My ex was naive and he was always getting "screwed over." He was also very sensitive and very needy. He cried a lot and he would get very upset if I wanted to be alone or go to bed. I was so "self centered" but that was just projection there. I don't think he was really aware of himself and because narcissists are usually not aware, that is why they rarely change. He was just a unhappy guy. They may not realize they even have a problem and might only think they just have depression or anxiety or social anxiety or just think other people are the problem. Some even have thought they had Asperger's according to the psychforums I had been on about NPD. There are some who are aware of their narcissism. I think the ones who are unaware wouldn't be posting on narcissism forums talking about their condition. But there are some with it who see no problem with having it.

What does covert narcissism mean in your country?

Because nobody cares about men and their feelings, as a matter of fact no one thinks men have feelings. 75% of the people with Autism are male and that is why there is hardly no research done concerning the disorder, it doesn't effect anybody's mother, sister, wife, or girlfriend. Right now breast cancer, domestic violence against women (apparently that doesn't happen to men at all), and HPV are more important because they effect females.