Help for my Borderline Aspie brother

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My brother is borderline Aspie. Relatives jokingly suspected it when he was little because he was obsessed with machines, statistics, and made a lot of repetitive noises/motions. But he is able to make social connections with other boys- he has friends, and he's close with his family. But for some reason he finds a lot of trouble communicating with girls, especially with dating. he took a diagnostic Asperger's test, where the score of non-aspie people was averaged at 16 (i took it, and got 17) and he got 23, which was borderline (32 was autistic). It's not a legit answer but it gives him some insight.

I would love to find out how he can "train" himself to act more typical with other people because his issues with girls are causing him a lot of distress, he recently asked me for tips but because I'm not in his shoes I don't know what to say.

Anyway, his problems are as follows:

- He says he can understand how other people are feeling quite well, but has a hard time understanding what he is "supposed" to say. He never knows what is expected of him. He says this happens with all people, but mostly with girls. When I told him to ask more questions about the other person, he said he had never even thought of this.

- He doesn't understand most social conventions, both in and out of dating. For example, he doesn't understand the point of buying women drinks. A girl gave him her phone # recently, he texted her just his name, and never texted her again- even though he was interested.

- He says that a part of him doesn't feel "authentic" unless he is 100% speaking his mind, even if it offends other people. Kids he knows are often angry at him for being rude, especially about political things and opinions. He says when he tries to be likable, he feels unauthentic and sad. He regularly annoys or upsets people by acting in a way they perceive as condescending or rude, and he generally doesn't care if people dislike him- however, his trouble dating has caused him to rethink this.

- Although he says he is intuitive, it's been common for him to have close female friends with obvious crushes on him, and he doesn't notice it.

- Despite being very good looking, smart, and funny- he has never had a girlfriend and only kissed one girl, which did not turn out well. He says he feels abnormal and wishes he could have normal interactions with girls.


What are some basic social rules that you've learned, that helped you with dating and other social interactions? Would love to hear from people who are similar to my brother but anyone is welcome.

As a first step, he should get diagnosed. It will answer a lot of his questions about himself (and leave him with a whole set of new questions instead, but hey ho).

You don't say how old he is. Chances are he may pick up a lot of useful stuff through natural processes, depending on his age.

And -- without in any way wishing to make him 'your' problem -- I think your guiding role as 'Big Sis' (particularly as it relates to his experience with women) will be invaluable to him!

Good luck to you both.

Maybe he should take some steps to help himself.

1. Get a formal diagnosis.. or at least a professional to say he isn't. That way, people will be certain.
2. Soul-searching. and he may need a lot of it as well as some self-analyzing.
3. Start learning body language on his own.
4. Need to understand and know what it is he wants.

I'm loath to diagnose strangers via the internet based on third-hand accounts, but he doesn't sound 'borderline' to me. Uh-uh.

Keep up the protective Big Sis part though -- you are probably the one person best placed to help him as he embarks on this phase of his life, and he will remember it forever.

Perspective: I had a younger sister who helped me come out as gay in my mid-20s (the AS diagnosis came much later), we went out together and she helped pick me partners, and interpreted their behaviour for me, and all that sort of s**t, and it was a watershed in our relationship. We are so much stronger and closer as a result.

Hi, okay, one thing might be if he also pursues young women one or two years older than himself. They might appreciate him being more mature than average and be very matter-of-fact with his quirks. Maybe, this is be no means universally true. He may hit it off with a girl exactly his age.

And perhaps suggest to him that he view the process as engagement, rather than conformity. Just like with religion, he might be open with his own views but not run down someone else. And also similar to politics---hopefully!---in this regard.

And then it actually helps to undertry, combined with being interested and appreciating aspects of her personality. And undertrying is kind of a tricky zen aspect. For example, I've had some success making a conscious decision to turn down my internal censor so that the default setting is that it's probably okay to go ahead and say it anyway. Combined with, just letting a medium mistake stay a medium mistake. And if another person needs space, go ahead and give them space, without the intermediate step of asking whether they 'should' need space. If they need space, give space.

Got news for you - your brother is not "borderline" anything. He sounds as autistic as I am and I've been that way for half a century. What you're calling "borderline" and some people like to lie to themselves and call "mild autism" is just another way of saying he's developed sophisticated coping mechanisms and is able to hide his handicaps well.

That said, you cannot "train" autistic people like dogs. Well, some people do it with autistic children and call it "Behavioral Therapy" but I consider that child abuse.

He'll learn as he learns. We all have to develop our own coping mechanisms, for various aspects of life. It's a slow and painful process, but you just have to figure out what works for you. It's not the same for everyone, so there is no textbook, there is only experience, which comes from repeated attempts and multiple failures.

It certainly helps if you have a mixed-gender peer group to hang with, who are friendly and accepting of you as an individual, but sometimes there's no controlling that. For instance, my family moved to a small town in the rural Deep South between my sophomore and junior years of High School - between that and the youth group at the church where my Dad worked, I was put into the middle of a bunch of very friendly kids my age and it did wonders for helping me break out of my autistic shell a bit and function socially in an almost normal way. It was a world away from the large city we had lived in before, where I was swallowed up in the sea of faceless students in a huge school and remained isolated and invisible the whole time I was there.

OTOH, if you want to see what DOESN'T work socially for lonely autistics with romantic aspirations, peruse the Love & Dating threads here on WP. Lots of whining, not much learning.