Is this how people see us?

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Twice I have seen NT's refer to Aspies with the "crazy/ret*d" hand gesture. Why do they think we're stupid or crazy when we actually have average to above average IQ, and are probably more capable that they are in some areas due to our intense areas of interest?

Why do some of them value social skills above all else? It baffles me. It's as though they see nothing else.

They do that to me too; I don't understand them.

I either see people using that reference, or even worse, the hand flap. That really annoys me, because those people don't know me, and the talents that I have, and I don't flap, or slur my words.

I think there may be truth to that last point...I think that a full NT's "sight" of others really is wired differently and until they get the signals they're expecting, it truly can be hard to see down to the ideas or to a more unusual way of thinking. I do think many people can be taught, though--I don't like the idea of writing NTs off as lost causes any more than I like it done to those with ASDs.

Because they're dumbasses who think they're oh-so superior when they've probably done f**k all to better the human race.

I haven't encountered this, but to be fair I haven't told very many people in person that I'm a suspected Aspie. I was called stupid a lot as a kid, though. This was from both classmates and teachers... long before I was diagnosed with even ADD.

Some NTs are not as social as we think. They dislike people who are different from them. Well, on my turn I dislike them and avoid them, unless I must say something to them, and it is only that.

On the other hand, I can interact will with very social NTs, because they respect people as they are, regardless whether they have autism, Asperger, ADHD or other handicap. These are the NTs I really like, and I can become real friends with. They can be either men or women. Several times I have had NT friends from both genders.

NTs tend to misread mental retardation, they apply it to people who do not meet their "normal" criteria, however, someone with MR who has decent social skills will not be seen as MR, just "dumb, but likable.

Yes, I think it is something like this. Many NT people have a very linear view of intelligence with social skills being seen as the absolute easiest thing to master. For 99% of the population, including people with mental retardation but not autism, they really are the easiest thing. So the (incorrect) belief is that if somebody is unable to master social skills, then they will necessarily also be unable to master things that are "higher up" on the linear chain of skills. So many people with mental retardation in fact do have decent social skills so they are percieved as "slow" but with enough intelligence to have mastered this baseline level. If you don't know what somebody who is "slow" knows then oh my.....

The problem of course is that intelligence isn't linear. Being able to do one thing well or poorly gives no information about what other things a person can do well or poorly. Unfortunately, a solid century of IQ testing has cemented into many generations' heads that intelligence is very linear indeed- so linear that a line can be drawn with an IQ score at one end and another score at the other end and every single person is an intelliegence point on that line.

Although IQ tests don't measure social skills, this idea of linearity of intelligence carries over from them and it is assumed that people with mental retardation are some sort of baseline so that anything they can do, everybody else can do better. So if they can do something you can't do, you must not be able to do much of anything else either. Horribly unfair and innaccurate, I know. I don't personally buy into this linear concept ( I write an anti-IQ test rant about twice a month here) but the concept is out there and a lot of people buy into it.

You'd hate me lol. My friends always comment on how when I mess around flapping my limp hand against my collarbones that I do it waaay too good.

Sheesh, I JUST now figured out what gesture you were talking about with the hand flap. I hate that one. Not only is it factually incorrect (it kind of looks to me like someone's trying to mock intellectual disabilities, but really "just" mocking CP, which does not have to come with a low IQ--at least, that's what I thought it looked like), but I just find it a particularly mean gesture.

What's a crazy/ret*d hand gesture?

I think involves making an L with your index finger and your thumb (either left or right hand), placing it against your forehead, and moving it away from you.

I do a certain hand gesture when referring to AS-ers. Not a crazy or ret*d one, I just wave my hands above my head like it's an arial, because I'm talking about my "A-dar" and they have an A-dar.

That's loser lol. Crazy would be spinning your finger around your ear.

It's when you twirl your finger aroung your ear. Atleast I think that's that it means lol.