First NT friend who understands me..

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This afternoon I was in my local pub and one of my closest friends said something and I clearly didn't get it, I had told hid the week before of my issues (after more than ten years of knowing him) and he noticed the blank, quizzical expression and explained his joke in detail...he actually checked himself and made a concious effort to realise I didn't have a clue what he was talking about; something no-one else has ever done for me before.

For years we have spoken on a whole range of subjects but he had always known at the back of his mind I wasn't really getting it and he told me himself...until I explained that I try so hard to understand. I am not stupid, none of us are but sometimes we do need help understanding...

He is the first "normal" person ever to accept me fully for who I am and actually try to help me understand rather than running the other way....

I sometimes wish I had parents who had bothered to or even cared to try to understand me, but that is a story for another day.

Has any normal person ever tried to understand you without a paycheck behind it?

I have had one NT friend who did understand a lot of things that other NTs couldnt understand or couldnt see in me. Like he just had this strange correct intuition about me. But he didnt nessarily do the correct things with that understanding. There was a lot of awkwardness in our relationship so right now we put our friendship on hiatus. I think we could be really good friends if the awkwardness is put aside.

Like we'll be in a group of people. He sees me not really talking a whole lot. Most people would assume, my aloofness was intentional. He saw the I was struggling to say something. And I didnt need to tell him my whole life story for him to know this. He somehow knew that I was once suicidal. He knows when Im about to cry over the phone before I even started crying. He somehow had an idea when I was stressed or the least bit comfortable. But him reading me so well might just be part of the complications in our relationship. Im not sure. You know how friends sometimes hide certain ways they truely feel about something to protect the friendship or simplify things. I could never hide very much, he always knew somehow yet was never really comfortable with it. Unfortuently I couldnt read him in the same way.

While my friends not on the spectrum, I think hes very close to the spectrum, defiantly BAP. I think thats one of the reasons why he could understand me so well. He's got a lot of aspie traits, yet their milder, dont affect his life as much and not enough traits to get a diagnosis I suspect. Maybe he is on the spectrum, like PDD-NOS/borderline spectrum, i doubt it but I wouldnt be too surprised if he was.

Sadly I have never found any of the NT friends I had to even be remotely interested little lone understanding of me and the way I am. Most of them try to mould me into the person they want me to be and try and change me from being just me to some person they want me to be. They arent at all interested in Aspergers at all and redicule me for being Aspergers and make fun of me especially about my Aspie meltdowns.

I would dearly love a NT to be understanding and understand me and not question and make fun of my blank looks, my behaviour or change me from just being me it would be so refreshing to have someone not put you down for everything you did or said and that wont yell at you if you talk about Aspergers syndrome to much. I have many disabled friends who are down syndrome, cerabalpausy, bi polar and AS who are more understanding and excepting of me then NTs their more concerned about their Interests and hobbies than anything else.

I've found introverted geeks as a whole understanding, both before and after they know of my diagnosis.

The first person outside of my family who is without question NT who heard after my diagnosis was the GM of the mage game I'm playing in. He was not only understanding as a person, he also was trying to determine if there should be anything different for how he should be pushing the character - both in terms of being easier on me, and in terms of purposefully challenging me to let me have the chance of learning things I don't know.

Along with this, he was talking about wanting to have someone actually write about how roleplaying games can be helpful for autistic people, rather than having them viewed as just for fun so not really able to do anything. He's without question NT, but very introverted, and it was through roleplaying that he learned about himself in ways that he feels can also be helpful for [some] people on the spectrum.

However, truthfully, I've not really had negative responses to anyone who I've told. Most people just treat me the same, but a few people will go out of their way to make me feel like I'm welcome and do what they can for me. Like I said, geeks are friendly - I've specifically found older geeks to be friendlier than younger geeks though.

My best friend is possibly an NT with some mild autistic traits. He reads me surprisingly well, I put up with it long time ago. He knows when I have a problem instantly by simply looking at me. Most of the time he knows what I'm thinking whilst I'm saying something by reading easily between the lines. Sometimes he enjoys making fan of me, I don't even notice it mostly. He's determined to help me with my life. We'd talk through what happened to me recently and he'd have suggestions about what to do. I either accept it or argue with him. I can't internalize his suggestions unless I see the point in them. To be honest, I was not always right following his suggestions in hindsight, I should have been more careful. If only I was smarter...