Aspies and Cliques

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As far as I'm aware, Aspies don't form cliques. However, I've only met about a dozen Aspies who are around my age, so it's not a very good sample size.

Which is why I'm asking everyone else on the forum. In your experience, do Aspies tend to form cliques, or is it rare?

Note that I only suspect I have Asperger's. That said, I have always disliked the idea of cliques, believing that people should be inclusive and friendly.

I was particularly shocked last year to see that a few members of a student society in which I belonged, who comprised a clique, began disparaging the members of another, similar student society - picking on innocuous, insignificant details and criticizing the "rival" society on a purely emotional basis, without giving any arguments to each other. It was like watching a troop of monkeys prepare for war.

Yes autistic people can form cliques. Often it is a way to make sure one is only around familiar people.

I find really that every social vice is possible for at least some autistics. For many, the only reason they have not done things is lack of opportunity. Once exposed to large amounts of autistic people (who can interact with each other in ways they couldn't with most nonautistic people), we end up with cliques, hierarchies, bullying, and everything else. It can even become dangerous because a belief we cannot do such things can prevent us from noticing we are doing them.

I have often found that I have crossed into groups into violation of non-verbal group boudaries that was set up to keep outsiders away. This I think is a necessary part of maintaining a clique and if this indiference/unawareness is widespread then I can see that aspies would have trouble maintaining a clique even if they wanted to. From an aspie perspective though, we talk about what interests us - invited or not. So a group either holds interest or it does not. I cannot really see what the value of a clique would be.

Anbuend, this is very interesting. I would be grateful for more information about it, because I've always assumed that people with autism cannot form cliques or hierarchies.

I think they can, but they tend to be weaker and more chaotic.

I don't really get my information from anything other than observation of the social dynamics of autistic people when they get together both online and offline. I've been involved in autistic communities for a little over ten years so I've had a lot to watch.

But if you want examples of hierarchies, you need look no further than some posts here, where people talk as if aspies are better than auties, HFA is better than LFA, diagnosed is better than self-diagnosed, etc. (And some other people occasionally make the opposite hierarchies.)

One thing that I've noticed is that a lot of autistic people expect that when they do these things, it'll be obvious and with intent to do them. It isn't. So then they do them without noticing, and then think they aren't doing them because they haven't noticed or specifically intended to do them.

I think that comes from a lifetime of not learning the lessons that most nonautistic people learn early in childhood from regular social exposure. We generally get that kind of social exposure later if at all, and then we think we're categorically different so those things won't happen or apply. Except we're not, and they do apply.

Yes aspies do form cliques. I think the certain groups of members on this forum are a pretty good indication of that. We may be socially awkward but we are no less subject to human nature than "normal"s.

There is always cliques going on here, amongst the more popular or spammy members, I won't give an example since they take offense if you have issues with one of their members rude behavior, they often go off to make their own forum in a fit of emo rage. Anyhow don't believe the myth that aspies are unable to be cliquish, most ASD forums or going to have them.

I hate the word 'Clique'... I don't know of any Aspies, let alone anyone else, who I could form such a friendly bond with, in a group, not to mention the part about closing off anyone else who doesn't fit in.

I've just had bad experiences with 'Cliques'. Trying to join them, then failing. All the time.

Yeah, aspies form social groups or cliques or whatever you want to call them. As moog said, they're usually weaker and less structured than NT cliques, but anyone who has a desire for friendship will at least attempt to form a bond with other people who they perceive as similar to themselves. You only have to look at these forums here that there are social groups with their own hierarchy and unwritten rules.

tl;dr - Yes.

We can form cliques. I see it happening on WP all the time.

I myself more or less don't but it's more because I have traits of every clique in me. I can be a redneck, a jock, a nerd, a gearhead, a goth and all that good stuff at the same time.

I was part of a clique in first and secound grade.

Isn't that the truth. The more time I spend on here, the more I've realized that despite our differences to NTs, we're all too human, and subject to the same prejudices and vices as everyone else.

Of Course.

I try not to be put in a group.