Good Article about being Aspie in college dorms

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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070319/autism
this kid tried to hide his Asperger's to make friends but instead got himself kicked out his dorms in college. He's still in school but living at home.

cool article.. it'd be cool to know if anything changed after being kicked out

Taken from the article: Daniel Passantino, 19, is a sophomore currently enrolled in the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Hunter. He lives with his parents and sister in Manhattan. As of yet he has not selected a major, but hopes to find a career which will allow him to continue advocating for the disabled.

Fair and unbiased reporting my ass. That's exactly why I hide my AS diagnosis like herpes. Daniel wrote a decent article, though.

I'm currently living in a dorm. It kind of scared me that they could kick someone out just because "he made other feel uncomfortable." I don't usually get included now. Although I get the feeling people will include me even less if I come out with my AS. They won't believe me and they'll say I am making an excuse for being a loser. There's no turning back if I come out either. If coming out does makes thing worse, the next 3+ years would be very hard for me.

I think I read that article like a month ago.

Well, that is a lot of my problem. To avoid interruption, I try to wait until they are free and, if talking in a group, I try to see if a logical line of questions has finished, and wait for a pause. Sometimes I slip up, and the person has to leave or another joins in, or they figure I interrupted anyway! When talking, I try to see if they seem preoccupied. If they do, I try later. It is almost always work related. For the social stuff, I tried that, but I just give up. These days, I might get invited to some daily things and SOMETIMES might be invited elsewhere. The first happens maybe at 20% of customers. The second only happens like once every three years. As for being so blunt, I lost that before I was a teenager. I am still blunt sometimes, but MAN am I lucky I'm not. If I told my company and coworkers the honest truth, I would be persona non grata! If I was independently wealthy, I would LET ER RIP!(Slang for just say it all!)

How could someone get to college and still have the beliefs he had?

Steve

i don't get what you're meaning Goatonfire. I read the same article where it was originally published (Wiretap) and there were comments with responses from Passantino.
He did not disclose that he has AS at the time. He kept trying to pass off as normal and the NT's saw his behavior as threatening.
One comment suggested that the NTs might have learned he was a decent guy if they had tried to get to know him. He replied that they felt worse the longer they were with him.

My husband has seen this happen at his work. There's a guy who is probably AS but hasn't mentioned it. He is feared, ridiculed and gossiped about behind his back. Instead of learning how to get along with him, they build the momentum of their fear and his eccentricity has become mythologized. His staring=pedophile. His loud voice=aggressive. His pedantic speech=unapproachable. My husband's insight into AS traits has helped with the Boss but not the other coworkers. They still maintain the pack attitude.

old news, but still a good read

I have a friend who has HFA and his time at college got allot better after people knew that he had autism. It gave people an understanding of why he was odd and different. Ok, some people still didn’t want to talk to him (usually women), but most people treated him allot better. He is now doing a MSc in microbiology, his classmates know he has autism and they like him. He is obsessed with mini-diggers and JCB's, a classmate of his bought him a model digger as a Christmas present.

No, generally most people treat people better if they know why they are different, they will be more patient. I’m sure if people knew that Daniel had AS, they would have made an effort to include him socially and to advise him regarding social errors, if so Daniel would not have made such desperate attempts to make friends that ultimately backfired. People assume people all have the same level of social skills, so when Daniel made mistakes they wrongly thought he was doing it deliberately.

Most people are helpful. Many people helped me when I was in college, even before I found out about AS people tried to make me more social. They invited me along to Discos and house parties. I also had people look out for me, they would warn me if someone was a danger to me or was a false friend and tell me how to behave. Also, in college it is very important to educate people about AS and autism so that both cultures can interact better.

Very, very interesting article. Thanks for posting.

If anybody wants to read about me, in contrast to Daniel Passantino, read on:

I'm living in a dorm building right now. I'm 24 years old. This is my first year living away from my family at the university. I'm in a student building where everybody is at least 21 years old. The college I attend is known for being very "social" and is consistently considered one of the top ten "party schools" in the USA. It's not like some engineering-physics academy where I'd meet some people who seem kinda close to the autism spectrum. Having a "social life" here seems to mean going very, very far from the autism spectrum.

I took the opposite approach compared to Daniel Passantino. I knew from the outset that trying to mix in with the others here would not work for me, and so I pretty much don't try to have contact with the others here. I know some people probably think my approach is horrible, but at least I don't have people feeling like they are being stalked, or pressured to be around somebody they find awkward and different. I have no wish to make anybody uncomfortable, and I accept that my natural behavior has that unfortunate effect. There have been times up to age 22 or so, when I was "like a bull in a china shop when it comes to socializing" but since learning about Asperger's at age 23, and analyzing my own behavior accordingly, I've simply eliminated most of my attempts at social contact with others. Now, I try to understand neurotypicals, and to strategically find ways to not make them uncomfortable. I actually read books and websites that would teach me about the NT social conventions, and styles of conversation. I put time into this.

With the extra time I have due to not socializing, I put an above-average effort into my courses, and I've gotten good grades this year. So at least I have that. And high grades are the most important thing to me. I decided to study here so I could get into graduate school, and have a career in something analytical, rather than the low-paying manual labor jobs I used to have. Meeting friends is not a must-have for me.

Aside from not knowing a single person who lives in my building, the big negative from my year here in the dorms is that my roommate decided to move out. He and I did not have any major dispute about anything, and neither of us claimed to dislike the other. I still have great respect for him, and he still offers to teach me how to drive a car if I want to learn that. But he is nowhere near the autism spectrum, found me frustratingly weird in many ways, and may have been disappointed that he didn't feel like he was becoming friends with his roommate. He spent, I believe, an extra $1800 of his own money, not that of his parents, to move to a single room. He's not a wealthy man, and I do think it's regrettable that he felt the need to spend that much hard-earned money to get his own room. So I probably should have done a number of things differently.

One interesting thing, is that the people who run the dorms decided not to send in a new roommate as a replacement. Even though the contract said they were supposed to. It is quite possible that the general impression of me, and probably stuff my ex-roommate told them as to why he needed to move out, caused them to label me as somebody who wouldn't mix well with roommates. So I currently have one of the largest rooms on campus, with two sets of beds, desks and furniture, all to myself, and I'm only paying for half of it. Because the contract I signed was to pay for half of the room.

If I had been in college 4 years ago, with the idea in my head that I should try to make friends, I think I might have had the kind of result Passantino has had. It's hard to say if he's better off, or if I'm better off. He's been openly ostracized and had to actually move out. I haven't had that happen to me, but I probably don't know as many people as he does. I definitely have zero friends at this college, I can tell you that much. I get rejected less than Passantino, but am probably more isolated. It's a trade off.

I notice Mr. Passantino says he now takes the approach of telling people he has Asperger's. I know this is something that can get debated ad nauseum in autistic circles. I think the better approach is to keep this private. If you haven't known somebody for very long, and you're telling them what psychological disorders you've been diagnosed with, you'll make them feel uncomfortable. It's too soon to get that personal. People need time to get to know you before they're comfortable hearing that you have a form of autism. And when I say "time", I mean probably many years. There may also be friends who'll never feel comfortable being told about what psychological disorders you have. Also telling people you have Asperger's can give the impression that you want people to feel sorry for you, and that makes them uncomfortable. Even if seeking pity was not at all your intent. Perhaps most importantly, almost all people know little to nothing about Asperger's, and I cannot change this fact. Telling them that I have it has not increased their understanding of me at all. If anything, it probably decreases their understanding of me, because then I am assumed to fit their ill-informed assumptions about what "asperger's" or "autism" might mean. And a lecture on Asperger's syndrome delivered by me, to somebody who doesn't give a rat's ass about the topic, won't educate them about Asperger's. It will bore and annoy them. You have to be really interested and do a lot of reading and in-person observation to get a good grasp of how Asperger's works.

One thing I'm not totally against, is telling people about some trait of mine that is related to Asperger's, as long as they are being told something they understand. For example, if somebody asks why I wasn't at the loud music party they threw for those who live in our building, I might say that I just don't like loud rooms with lots of people in them, or that parties in general aren't really my thing. I'd mention this so they are less likely to assume I dislike the people at the party, or the person who organized it and wanted everybody there. But I would use this sort of comment in moderation. If I frequently reveal things like "Hey, I am uncomfortable with being touched by another human being" or "Hey, I do not like eye contact with people" or "Hey, I've got zero friends", I'm turning the weirdness-factor up a few notches, when it is not necessary for me to do so, and making people uncomfortable.

Anyhow, I just want to mention, I've never actually told anybody in person that I have Asperger's, not even relatives, so all of the above is speculation. I don't know what really happens when you tell them this.

^ good post

so far ive only told people that i'm very close to about my AS. i am also of the persuasion that it is a bad idea to just say 'hey dude I have AS' to someone you don't know too well

College dorm life is walking the fine line for all of us. I'm currently in a less than desirable situation with my current roomie. The last two I had were indifferent to my differences and we got along just fine. The one I have this year is the floor socialite. He on many occasions has questioned many of my traits. I don't dare mention to him what I have because there are people on my floor who would rip me a new one if that information was ever revealed.

While we can get along with each other, that has only happened because I've been forced to essentially make myself as invisible as possible to him. I can't be myself in my room because he's always around playing war craft. I hate any kind of racket in the hall, but that's what draws his attention and invariably he'll end up bringing five people into my room which drives me nuts more than anything else. I go to bed at 11pm and sometimes he doesn't go to bed at all at night. I like my room to be as dark as possible, he likes it as bright as possible. In this instance, he took the shades off the window just recently and took them to his house. If I need to crash, I have to crawl under the shades and suffocate myself.

But I don't dare question his judgment since doing so will put me at odd with everyone else on the floor and quite possibly like Daniel, get me kicked out the dorms by the community review board.

We're stuck in the proverbial catch 22 here. Of course for everyone else they could care less about us, but then they don't have the capacity to appreciate what we go through on a daily basis.

Yeah 'effort' I thought about the same way you have. I have done a lot of my own research into both AS and how NT's think too. I believe it is very important to understand NT's and to a large extent I find it somewhat liberating. I no longer attempt to "slide" into social situations thinking that if I could just get used to it, then theres no reason why I can't fit in and essentially become "normal".

I don't bother telling people about my AS, generally it takes a while for people to realise I am different. I don't think anyone in the world knows exactly to what extent though. Only I do ;P When they do realise because I can't help but drop little hints all along, I do as you do by just saying one thing. Give away a single quirk. This is quite acceptable and anyone in the world has one thing like, "Oh I hate onions".

I have managed to pull a large group of NT friends into my life that have been friends since highschool and go out on the town together. I won't get into the details of how but anyways... I like to go out with them and talk to their girlfriends and generally interact with them. I do this in order to test out my new knowledge as I learn it, from reading and researching and it's just amazing. I think eventually I will tire of them completely or they of me but for now it's very interesting and from my point of view finds a use for this kind of socialising. My general strategy is to lean back for the beginning of the evening and then as things progress I get people talking to me individually for the rest of the night and it works quite well. I have indeed broken some etiquette rules but nothing too major yet! I think when people have a few drinks in they are far more forgiving.

It's quite scary to think what I have learnt in the last few months but it has been incredible. Learning is surely one of the greatest enjoyments in life.

I thought in college that getting interested in a popular music star would make me seem more normal. (My true musical interests revolved then, and still do today, around the Beatles, showtunes and Classical). I made a major miscalculation. Most people's interests in pop music stars revolve around listening to the music (which I did) and going to concerts (something I would loathe, as I despise crowds and their idiotic noise). I am the kind of person who researches information about people's lives. I learned this was not NT behavior. Never was I so ridiculous in all my life. I have remained true to my own interests, and haven't followed a trend since. (Not that they are worth following.)