Positive assortive mating and the prevalence of autism.

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I'm not diagnosed but I do show a lot of autistic traits. Both my parents have few friends and no close ones. Both have above average I.Q.'s and socialize through facts and information rather than small talk. Many other people in my family are similar. Most accept that people with common personalities, behaviors, and even physical features tend to be attracted to one another. What is difficult for some to accept is that genetics accounts for up to 50% of who you are as a person.

So whats your family like? are you a black swan or a continuity of genetic expression?

My dad is undiagnosed, but obviously has AS. My mom and him are pretty much opposites- except their values and what they like to do. They have been together for over 35 years! (since they were 15) I am a lot like my dad. I married a man with AS and when we met neither of us knew we had it. I was definitely attracted to how alike he was to me (and my dad, who is a great friend too). His dad has some traits too, but not as much as my dad. His mom has Borderline Personality Disorder. His parents are divorced- they did NOT get along well. His grandfather (paternal) almost certainly had AS, but married the completely wrong type and they divorced too. I think my parents have just enough in common to get along, and they also were friends a long time before dating (childhod friends) so they really respect each other as people. My mom also induldges my dad's special interests- even getting into them to some extent as well.My husband and I are the same.
So, I think it does matter if two people are similar, but they don't have to be completely similar. Just share some core values and respect each other as people

Im the only one, so whatever. Sometimes I think my one cousin on my mothers side has it though. Im the only one with any social weirdness other than him and my mother, but my mother is because of severe depression. Everyones else on both sides are the normal supersocial animals :/

All my siblings are social. My mum is not as successful but still tries to be and she does have a few friends. Me, I'm the black sheep. My dad was like me too, not a great communicator but he was a teacher and well respected by people for it. He's Indian so he's name given to him by oh i dunno some elder meant teacher (Acharya - definitely misspelled that). He had friends, which were mostly his students but he was a very intelligent man. Knew a lot of medical things and had an interest in politics. Was in a Marxist group when he was in college in the 60's. He was really good at having conversations if they had to do with politics or anything in the news not relating to celebrities.
My dad even wrote about being asocial as a spiritual thing. I'm not hindi or anything but I'd like to learn more about that.

Everybody in my family is social, except for me. I've always been the quiet, easy going one.

My dad is uNPD (undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder). My mother is god knows what. She shows some narcissism, she has extremely low self-esteem due to severe abuse growing up. My dad probably had pretty severe abuse though he doesn't admit it. He is overly confident and she is underly confident. Both are intelligent though their intelligence is ruined by religion and loss of independent thought. If it weren't for the mind-control/compartmentalization that comes with being on the religious right both would definitely be of above average intelligence. Both are NT. Now I have completely forgotten the question.

I am a 'black swan' I think. I don't fit in my family in any way, shape or form. They are all religious and right-wing (those that aren't just pretend to be for convenience sake). I think the aspie stuff saved my life & mind from being a bot.

my late father told me that a lot of my relatives were "crazy." like his cousins would be eating in a diner when all of a sudden, one guy would slap another fella clean out of his chair, knocking him to the floor, and the rest of 'em would erupt in uproariously raucous laughter. then a few minutes later, another one do the same thing back to the original slapper. this would go on for a half-hour or so until they were ejected from the diner.

my father had a titanic temper and would try to drown his sorrows in stupendous amounts of alky, and would go on benders for weeks at a time. it was a more peaceful household when he was gone off the wagon. he was the best socially functioning of us all. when he was [mostly] sober he was an army platoon sergeant. my late mother had precisely one "best" friend who was her total opposite. she knew nobody outside of work. the rest of us had varying amounts of aspie addlement, in different areas. i [the youngest] was the worst in terms of being in special ed and developing the most slowly and dysfunctionally. i didn't speak until well past walking age, like between age 3 and 4.

all of us perseverate over different things. my sister [who is the most normal] somehow persuaded her bemused NT hubby to accompany her on days-long treks to find the perfect rocks laboriously dug-up from beneath running streams. a backbreaking task. she is a rock-expert and special ed teacher, in that order. my polymath oldest brother has a 6-car garage jammed to the rafters and beyond with mechanical "stuff" of which only he knows what is what, and somehow got himself a very tolerant NT wife. my older brother is a lot like the unabomer but without the bomb, as i am, but if given half a chance will bend your ear about airplanes, guns and motorcycles as well as the people who race them and maintain them. for many years he lived [as i do] out in the middle of nowhere in the woods, and was very casual about hygiene. he knows basically nobody outside of the motorcycle shop where he is a master mechanic. i know nobody besides my older sister who connects me to the outside world.

thank you all, good WP people, for paying attention to me. i am appreciative

My dad is a typical Aspie. My mom is the opposite. She's a fast paced busybody and social butterfly. She has soo many friends and can make friends with just about anybody. She matched up many couples. She can get things other people can't get, she gets around rules, she can avoid fines when she's caught speeding, she can be married and have multiple boyfriends as well and make them all work for her, she bought a property last year for a ridiculously low price due to her ability to associate with anybody she wanted to. The rest of us (dad, brother and me) just watch her act with stunned silence.

One time they were on the road and my dad needed to find a bathroom. He went into a gas station and they told him they didn't have one. He came back and told mom and she said no way, and went in and asked to use their bathroom. They said certainly and gave her the key. I think if social ability can be measured accurately her score would be at "genius level".

I don't think I got much of her genes in me at all. However growing up with her I did learn to talk well and start a conversation with just about anybody. But the problem is I don't like it and don't have any real interest in what people say, so the conversation never last long, and I rarely make new friends. I suppose if absolutely necessary I do have the ability to act and get what I want as well, but making friends takes a lot more than acting.

It's rife in both sides of my family.

I never knew my father. My mother has a few traits. My sisters' are NTs. But I am the black swan.

Never knew my father, my mother is diagnosed schizophrenic, extremely artistic, graduated high school by the time she was 14, high iq, ect.

My uncle jumped off a building when he was 30 ( never knew him).

My grandfather was was a funny kinda of guy, obsessed with golf, horse racing and machinery/electric systems. He was a ww2 vet, radio operator in the air force, and after the war bounced around machine shops, carpet mills, apprenticed as an electrician, and eventually made all his money in the stock market. General he was just interested in how things worked, and loved to talk about things he learned or experiences he had. I swear he had a story for anything you could think of.

My grandmother didn't finish high school, never got her drivers license, and was the nicest most understanding person I ever knew.

As for myself, I had an extreme difficulty learning in school, everything seemed so abstract that I never could never quite understand what they were trying to teach me. Other children playing didn't make sense, and I often wondered how they knew what to say to each other. I still find it difficult to verbalize my thoughts/feeling, and don't talk much. I'm probably most like my mother. I also find her the easiest to talk with, while with the rest of my family its like trying to tune into a radio station that you are just a little to far out of range of.