Does my friend have aspergers?

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Hey new here. I've been researching aspergers lately and my friend seems to exhibt some of the traits. However, when it comes to athletic ability, drawing, or other fine motor skills activities he's fine. For example, he is naturally a good athlete, but hasn't played a team sport due to social anxiety. He had no problem riding a bike, tying shoes, or anything along those lines. He is above average intelligence. And unlike some aspergers he doesn't come off as "odd", just shy. He can also understand tones, body language etc...

However, he is socially anxious. He has extremely poor social skills. For example, I tell him i'm not in the mood to talk about a certain subject, and he continues on about it. He is obsessed on 1-2 hobbies. One of which is Florida football team. And he dominates conversations with it when i'm not into it at all. Very immature. Doesn't pick up on normal social cues, obviously. Very routine orientated. He's 21 by the way.

So my question is, does it sound like he is an aspie? I decided to ask you, as you know much more than me on the topic. I've done the research, and he fits some of the symptoms.

Lastly, is it possible to develop aspergers over time after being socially anxious and isolated for some long?


Thanks alot for your input...

Last edited by SayHeyKid on 16 May 2008, 9:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'll go off of what some others have said here.

1.people with Apserger's don't neccessarily have to have all the traits and they might just have some and not others and yet still have Asperger's.

2. Your friend or you should think back to when he was younger and how he behaved if you or your friend are ok with doing that. Usually these traits manifest at childhood.

No you don't have to have all the traits to be AS and not all of us have coordination issues the same way. I am very clumsy when it comes to walking(bump into walls and furniture) and standing(feel like I am going to tip over) but I could ride a bike as a kid, climb trees, did crafts and my hand writing can be OK if I go slow and concentrate(basically I am drawing the letters like I would draw a picture),no problem with shoe laces but I do some activities backwards and can't mirror someone unless they are faced the same direction9 a problem if your trying to learn marshal arts of dancing by watching someone facing you)

NtTs get obsessions to. I recall many times being bored to death listening to some guy go on about a sports team or how to fix his car....my obsessions are so bad that they interfere with my life...does his. Does he miss doing stuff he is supposed to because he can't stop doing "A" ?

Autism is supposed to present more severely in youth,so it isn't something you can just develop from psychological traumas..that might be simple social phobia or a personality disorder...has nothing to do with neurology as autism does.
There is no one thing that classifies As because it is a cluster of traits and the severity of each trait is different for all of us.

To be more succinct...he might be or it could be just social anxiety and lack of social exposure leading to the poor social skills.

Apparently, the idea of lack of ability is overdone. The most common problems happen to be primarily with things done as a team. So your friend may STILL have that symptom.

If he KNOWS, he would probably not play. That is the truth behind why I didn't do a lot of things.

BTW I may not do well at drawing a real straight line(Then again, almost everyone I have ever known used a ruler for that), but I can draw well, etc... Some can draw REAL well.



I don't think I met a person yet that could HONESTLY say they were good with body language. I have been accused of flashing the wrong signals, though OTHERS have flashed the signals with the same intended meaning that I had, which was really nothing.

NOBODY was able to contradict me when I pointed that out.



Now THAT sounds like he might be AS



I would say it does sound like it!



NOPE! He is 19 though, so he may be hiding things even HE forgot about.

He might.
In fact i would say it is very likly.

If you get tired of his complaining, call him on it but do it nicely.

you seem like a good friend though.


yeah.that's it.*shrug*

Wow. Thanks for the replies, everyone of them was very helpful and thoughtful. Really appreciate it.

I want to call him on his ranting, but at the same time I think that's "mean", for lack of a better word. I've been friends with him since we were 6-8. He has never made his own friends, he has always befriended my friends. That said, he was still there real friend, opposed to someone who's just with me. When entering highschool I developed a case of social anxiety myself. Therefore I only made a couple friends, and lost most of my current friends. He developed no new friendships and only has me left...He is also so socially anxious he reads internet forums all day, but doesnt post on them.

I've come to the conclusion whether or not he's offically aspergers is irrelevant. He exhibts alot of the symptoms and suffers from the same issues as aspies do. Is this the right mindset? Is there really any difference between someone who has poor social skills with aspergers and someone who just has poor social skills?

That is a tricky question. On the surface, they may appear identical. Frankly, I say "Treat them the same". There are other good and bad things with aspergers though, it isn't just social.

If he has aspergers... His senses may be different than yours. For the mid range, they will pretty much seem the same. At either or both ends of the range what YOU like might hurt him or vice/versa. There may be hints at some sort of mental difference. They can range from the mild where it might take a little longer to formulate an answer or he can't catch a ball, to ones more dramatic like a TERRIFIC memory or the ability to quickly do complex math. Then, of course, there are the interests and how they may always creep into conversation, etc... He may have some unusual things that seem like habits, or STRONG preferences.

Also, he might not have much of a sense of humour, but if he does it's very..distinct.Like if he was typing something out in a certain way you could tell it was him.Sot of.maybe.

Having Aspergers VS just having AS traits.....

Here is why I think it matters to make such destinctions. I have to tart by making some assumptions. He is your friend and you want the best for him in life. The traits you mentioned(weither AS or "other cause"), often come with a lot of depression, anxiety and can effect him getting a job, further education and a relationship with a female someday (should he want a family or...etc)
School is a very structured environment and even though it can be a nightmare for someone with AS or social anxiety...things get much more complicated when you move on to get a job and have to support yourself.

There are medications that can work for both people with social anxiety/depression or with AS. They are basically the same meds,so that wouldn't make much difference. However, there is a difference in counseling for someone with AS and social anxiety that is caused by psychological causes or non verbal learning disability<---most people who are AS have this but there are people who have it that are not AS. That would be a good destinction to know for him. Someone with social anxiety may benefit most from behavioral therapy that forces them to increase their social interactions. My personal belief (based on my own experience with psychological services and other AS adults I have talked with),is that this is less effective for someone with AS. I believe that we are actually harmed by "to much" social interaction. (To much being relative in each individual...not saying we should all go live in a cave ). In either situation, we can probably get some aadvantge in learning some basic social skills.

Another difference, as mentioned by others is that AS can come with a lot of "co-morbids" that may effect social intigration and job preformance. Those are good things to be aware of if he is AS. If I report to my psychologist that I experience a high level of anxiety in social situations at work because everyone seems to be talking at the same time...He may assume that it is caused by my anxiety. However, for many of us it may also becaused by sensory overload or auditory processing disorder. In the first situation, their advice would be to force us to desensitize by increasing these social situations. For me, that will not get rid of my sensory problems and wont rewire my brain to be able to follow more then one speaker at a time of block out external noises.
Even if my BF is 5 feet from me, I can not hear him with the TV on or talk on the phone with the fan on. MY brain hears all these sounds at once and the whole thing becomes a garbeled mess. So if he thinks he wants a job working in a noisy environment talking on the phone...this would be good information to have.


So, now, while he has you and your friends to interact wiith, he may seem fine but once he has to get out on his own more...there could be problems that a proper DX might help him with.

noone with aspergers is exactly the same as someone else anyway so it is likely he coud be an aspie and be a good athlete