asperger paranoia

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since my realization/ diagnosis, every time i encounter a peculiar person (who has traits similar to me) i cant hep wonder(and suspect) if that certain someone has asperger syndrome, and that maybe he/she is just oblivious to it or something......anyone ever experienced something like this?

Same here. I found out about me being an Aspie last Christmas. Now each time I see someone displaying traits similar to me I'm like are they an Aspie as well? Would be nice to meet another one. By the way I see your from the Philippines. I'm currently traveling Southeast Asia and I'm in Vietnam right now. When I make it over there we should meet up! Would love to meet someone on the spectrum finally!

Me too, with a classmate.

I won't call this paranoia - I believe Temple Grandin said we have a special radar for seeking out people like ourselves.

I never met another aspie. Or any at least any HFA of my age.
When I was newly diagnosed, I never compared any similarities. I just hate things instead of learning them.

I only suspected my cousin so far. He never questioned himself nor anyone else. He's only in his preteens, perhaps too young for me to take a speculation.
Then there was one I suspected online few years ago. It turns out that she's not an NT at all, but not specifically an aspie either but she might have been one. We simply understand each other's contexts. Sometimes others mistook or accused us for being the same person.

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When I was first diagnoised it become a bit of an obsession. It has not totally gone away but now I know more about what a muddled mess it is not only "if you have met one aspie you have met one aspie", but also "when you have met one person and ask them to define autism you will hear one definition of autism", and that is just the proffessionals, how common autistic traits are in other conditions and neurotypicals. I know not only that I do not know but the task is utterly hopeless.

In a psychological sense it is understandable. When one has lived a life in which ones differences has somewhat alienated them from the 'normal' it can produce some degree of longing for ones own sense of community. With diagnosis, there can come a sense that there are other people who may have some similarity to oneself and thus that there may a chance for community.

It was kind of the opposite for me. When I started to read about AS, I started to see traits everywhere so it made me question if it was even a real condition and why did I had to be the one diagnosed with it? I didn't know everyone does something from the criteria or from the list from time to time and because there are so many people in the world, I will see it all the time but not from the same person. It's that people with actual AS have these things all the time not once in a while and it impacts their life and causes them an impairment and you need to display enough symptoms to have it and also often enough to have it for it to impact your life. I have ran into NTs who seemed to have some things in common with autism like dislike of talking on phones, not keeping touch with friends and keeping them, not being very social, being nervous in social situations, dislike of crowds, my uncle knowing every area code in the US, someone using a certain cup for their drinks and always using it no other cups and i have even heard of NTs who have a routine like my sub teacher I had in 4th grade, she always watched Little House on the Prairie every morning with a cup of coffee and one day it wasn't on so she was pretty upset about it and I understood the feeling because I always hated when my shows wouldn't come on. Plus I have known NTs who also seemed to be immature because they didn't act their age. You can find AS symptoms in someone but they might not even have enough to be on the spectrum so it's just their personality. Also it has to do how they react and express it for it to be a symptom. That is something that most textbooks and webpages fail to mention but I notice some of them mention it now like "Everyone does things from this list from time to time" or "some of it may sound like you but it doesn't necessarily mean you have Asperger's." But at least it made me feel normal now as a high schooler. But then I used it to justify to not get better because if everyone else could have traits, why should I work on mine?

But however, I can pick up on which aspie has anxiety because of the way they react like how Max does on Parenthood and I met a girl with AS and the way she snapped at her mother as we were leaving screamed anxiety to me because I act a similar way when I get anxious so I am sure she was anxious about leaving and her mother was holding her up by talking and she wanted to get going. But when I think of my past, it has dawned on me who might have been on the spectrum and I never realized it. My 5th grade teacher for example because he always had half of the lights turned off in his class, always typed on the computer instead of writing on the board or overhead and he would sometime just raise his voice at his students like he had an outburst and my mom told me in 8th grade he did have an autistic son so he could have had symptoms himself if he didn't have it. Also I remember when I was four years old, there was this girl named Sarah who always went there too and she always wore the same outfit so it was like she was a cartoon character. She was always getting into trouble because I often heard her name being screamed. One time while our teacher was reading to me and the other kids, she came over to us and started talking and then left. She was in a different group because she was a little older than me. It also dawned on me if my great uncle could have been on the spectrum because he was always alone and he told me friends were lot of work and wives and he always left to go home after family holiday meals and I had an uncle who was also a loner, had anxiety which resulted in anger and he was also a loner and wasn't very social and hadn't had a relationship since 1986. He was short tempered. I was in high school when I realized my dad had poor social skills too but no way was he aspie because I lived with him my whole life. My mom and husband agree he has traits and his traits do impact his life. People might think he is just an as*hole if they don't know him. My mom on the other hand who isn't even close to being an aspie or on the spectrum cannot keep friends. She makes them but then loses them when she moves or changes jobs or when they move or change work. She doesn't keep them maintained but it takes two to keep them maintained so the other person is at fault too for also not doing it. But people like my other aunt, now she has friends from her old area and friends she knew from a long time even though they don't live in the same area anymore or work together anymore. My mom would find that too overwhelming. She also has some sensory issues and doesn't like bright light, they give her a headache sometimes. I also think this boy in my 3rd grade class and who also rode my bus in the 4th grade definitely had it even though he didn't do any self stimulation and didn't ramble on about his interests. It was either SCD or ASD. He did show signs of sensory issues.

I do this as well but I think it's because I'm always on the lookout for people like me.

However, the people who do seem to have particular traits normally turn out to be far too in tune with the mainstream.

Or maybe like me, they're just doing their best to get by.

thanks for the response guys... thought i was just strange

I do, but I don't trust it. It's the same when you're pregnant, you see pregnant women everywhere and wonder if there's more of them than usual for some reason.

That said, a certain number of people must be autistic. It's highly unlikely that there is nobody around.

I have my eye on a couple of kids. One is very lonely, socially clumsy, appears cold and is struggling with OCD-like problems. The other one seems to be stimming, is obsessed with computer games, seems to have EF problems and gets into stupid fights with schoolmates that seem to come from a lack of understanding of the other kid's perspective.

I might be totally wrong, though, which is more data is necessary.

This makes me nuts when I see my parents. It's obvious to me they're both autistic. "Milder" than me, ok, but autistic. It's obvious! It gets more obvious when I conduct behavioural experiments on them, accommodating the way I would an autistic person, and suddenly it's so much easier to interact with me and they make comments about how helpful I'm being, and why can't their respective spouse understand how to behave like that.
But every time autism is even mentioned (which it is off-limits with me nowadays) no, autistic = "ret*d."