Unusual traits for people with asperger?

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Hi!

For example:
I can knowingly and deliberately say things to my landlord that I know he likes to hear and will make him feel good. I do this to "suck up" to him because it is an advantage to me that he likes me, and the relationship between us is good. Well it also worry me though, that he might understand what's going on, and that would have the opposite effect.. LOL
Before when I trusted him, I was more natural around him. But something changed, so now I just fake it.

Another thing is:
I like gossip. I love to hear about other peoples problems, what strange things they have said and done and so on.. I don't like it because I consider myself any better then them. I used to though, but with getting older and having better self-knowledge, I know that I'm not! Which this post probably shows anyway.

Well that was a couple of examples. Does this sound familiar to anyone? or am I the only one with these "charming" traits.

I think these are normal triats. People suck up to landlords,bosses and other people in positions of authority because they don't want problems with those people.

Gossip is also an NT obsession, and I typically have a strong aversion for it.

I'm interested in what is going on with people. I majored in psychology and tried to understand people. I also like to mentally sort people into categories. That might explain interest in gossip.

A person in politics (maybe James Carville?) recommended sucking up to the people below you.

Can't we all just get along?

I have had an interest in psychology for many years. Both for trying to understand myself, and understanding other people.

I think one of the reasons I like gossip is that it makes me feel good hearing about other people having problems.

Sometimes it can be a little bit uplifting to read about struggles in the world in the newspaper for example. That's usually when I feel low. Maybe it puts my problems in a perspective...
I try to accept it, but it's hard, because I think it should make me feel exactly the opposite.

I think misery really does love company. Maybe support groups are based on this. I would not wish a problem on anyone but I would rather have a problem that other people have than have a problem all by myself.

Years ago, I used to type through the night at home for added income. I felt less miserable when I would watch the video "Playing for Time" while I typed because I thought "well, at least I'm not in a concentration camp."

When I talk to people, I like them to tell me their problems so they can vent or maybe I can offer a suggestion that might help. It's all I can provide in the give-and-take of interaction. If I did not have that to give, I would have nothing as an offering.

I think you are right about others' struggles putting our problems in a perspective. It's not like I'm wishing misery on anyone.

I like Victoria's Secret models, and I can recharge relatively quickly most of the time after social interaction.

Awesome...

What's awesome?

Liking Victoria Secret as an unusual trait for aspergers, that’s rare I would say. So I said "Awesome”.

Unusual traits of aspergers is what the thread is about.

I have an unusual job for someone with Aspergers - I'm a postpartum doula, and a really good one. It's the one-on-one connection with a new mom and that shared experience of having a new baby (which is also probably an area of my own hyperfocus). Mind blindness my arse. I can be extremely in tune with people's emotional states. It's their hidden intentions that I'm blind to, and the unspoken expectations of society that I either don't know or can't fake. None of those things come up in postpartum doula work.

My traits are not unusual for what I am.

I like physics and patterns, lights fit this description.
I have 3000 watts of LED lights, 3600 watts of high energy discharge lights, 1200 watts of ultraviolet fluorescents, 1400 watts of incandescents, plus the regular house lights.
Turning them all on at once is beautiful but the house gets hot really fast.
I combine them for different moods, got sunburn and skin peeled off an ear once when reading a book too close to the UV.

I like knives and shiny stuff. 35 pocket knives and 18 swords. Skinning knives and throwing knives too. Keeping them all sharp is one of my calming routines.
The shovel collection is under the snow, I sharpen them also, a dull shovel is annoying.

Plumbing? pipes scare me. I bet it was the noise when I was young, not sure but I do not have plumbing. A honey bucket in the winter and an outhouse for the summer. Infra-red light in the outhouse.

In themselves these may not be unusual, but I live in a five sided house I built myself paid for by a job involving counting stuff. Fun and more fun is not a normal state of affairs.

The sheer good fortune I have experienced is most unusual. At times this wonderful life worries me, what if it all goes away?

Same. I can't hear a news story about some kid who got killed without putting myself in their shoes and getting really distressed about the fear and confusion they must have felt. Some kid in our area got hit by a car about 2 years ago, and I can still get teary when I drive past the spot and look at the flowers and toys. But I did drive past on the day and see his mum lying next to him on the road, which probably made it too real for me.

I am pretty good at saying what people want to hear, but I may have learned this over my life. I did try.

And I like knives too, don't know why. And sharpening pencils (but not when they are already sharp - that would be nuts )
LOVE physics, especially astro.

One weird thing - I have hundreds of records which I used to listen to when I had a good record player. I started by listening to them in alphabetical order, but sometimes the next album would just not fit my mood, so I adapted by listening to them in alphabetical order, one letter at a time instead of one album at a time. So I might have 30 albums in "A" which I could listen to in any order, as many times as I wanted, and even play single songs over and over. But I had to listen to every album at least once, from beginning to end, before I could go on to the next letter. Even if I didn't really like the album, just one song or two. So I would often listen to my favourites many times over because I knew I would not get to hear them again for maybe a whole year.
I don't know I didn't feel comfortable to just dig out whatever I wanted and listen to it whenever I wanted. It was some weird 'paying my dues' thing.

Crap, it even sounds weirder now that I'm looking at it written down.

My unusual trait is talking to myself.

I can talk to myself (out loud) for hours on end. I have been told it's an asperger trait and therefore not as unusual for us as you may think.

I don't get terribly overwhelmed by crowds. I don't enjoy them, but I've never even come close to a meltdown from them. I can go to sold out movies, go shopping on Black Friday (as long as people aren't touching and pushing me), go to amusement parks, etc. My family never had any sympathy for me disliking crowds when I was growing up, so I just had to adapt and create ways of managing them. Now as long as I'm not being touched, I don't mind them.

When I am upset I need to talk about it to another person with whatever words I have not temporarily lost."