Young, Attractive & 'Society'.. with Crippling ASD??

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You are so right, it is heaven to be in the arena isn't it? Whether the dressage arena or the skating arena.. and these are both less common sports too. How did you get into figure skating? My mom and sister got into it; my mom b/c she grew up on a lake where she skated and my sister was just good at it naturally.

I was terrible at skating though b/c I have no coordination! That is probably the reason I took up dressage as opposed to other equestrian sports. I was challenged by having to learn coordination so it seemed like something fun I could work toward and the real payoff was when I became the instructor and was able to teach that to kids (I was actually able to contribute to society).

Anyway, about how you said you are not afraid to go up to people and ask questions; neither am I. I performed more solos than anyone in High School choir but still the quietest person in class. At my last job that was actually an excuse to go up and "get to know" people without actually having to truely 'connect' w/ them or make small talk- I would just blatantly ask some random "how do you..?"

And then when the moment would come that they would try to get to know me.. well I did the best I could but failed miserably. It takes time knowing someone on a professional basis before I am willing to start connecting w/ them b/c I connect w/ people on a very deep, honest level (and that makes people so uncomfortable they want to jump out of their skin if they are not already used to me)

Again, the horses accept me and my unique way of communicating.. they don't understand fake people s**t any more than I do

I can try to explain it to you. I had to observe it eight hours a day, five days a week at my last job (gag!) and as much as I passionately hate the way they connect, I do somewhat understand it.

It goes like this: when an NT enters a new situation w/ new people, they flock to the "group", b/c this is the most effecient way of connecting with the most people in the least amount of time. By 'connecting' I mean getting everyone on their 'team' as to rule out isolation. This down, they have to be 'fake' in order to get everyone in the group to individually accept them (pretend to like people and pretend to believe people like them).

The next step is to find an isolated individual to gang up on together as a group, seeing someone outside the group as a threat tightens their own bond to each other. Once this is done that person's acceptance is cemented-they are friend and not foe. Whenever the group congregates they are expected to join in and if they don't, someone in the group will find the perfect opportunity to gossip about them and thus isolate them. Once out, it can be traumatic for an NT and they will have to find their way in again.

Some NTs, like my former job trainer, are so phobic of isolation from the various groups they associate with that they develope amazing social skills and are capable of getting everyone to like them without much effort. It is amazing to observe that level of manipulation and deceit, but I will never respect it

Well, I have a rink within a bike ride distance of my house, and it's cheap. I just started skating laps in hockey skates just to get exercise. I was 20, and just decided "man I haven't skated since I was like 12, I should go skate" because I'd recently moved to the area where I'm near that rink. So I went skating...and kept coming back. My rink has a really fantastic deal where if you join the gym, you get free public skating sessions, so I pay $30 for my gym membership with a pool and weights and all that stuff, and my ice time. Can't beat it.

As far as figure skating, well, basically, it was partially out of jealousy in some fashion. I'd be in my hockey skates huffing and puffing "clack clack clack" along skating like crap, then I'd see a hundred pound girl FLY past me seemingly effortlessly, do a 3 turn and jump. So it became "man I wanna do that, that'd be sweet." And so I bought figure skates eventually, and decided I was going to figure skate. And I'm getting there. I've oddly enough got more power than most people now, actually, due to weightlifting and being male. Just have more power than technique... So I'd just ask people how to do stuff, and then do it a thousand or more times until it comes out right eventually, as that's the only way I learn to do anything in life.

My coordination and visual spatial skills aren't great, but I made them better with brute force I guess. As a kid, I sucked at sports, and would spend like 2-3 hours a day most days, in my yard alone, just kicking a soccer ball, hitting a baseball, etc, by myself. Some days, it'd be like, an entire day of "practice" on my own like that. It only got me barely competitive with the other kids who probably never practiced like that ever, but...yeah. As a guy, obviously more athletic expectations are placed on you. Skating I kinda got relatively easy for some reason. Genetically, I might have good skating genetics, I have naturally huge strong legs, but a tiny upper body and long arms. I skated a little as a kid, just invited to the rink by other people for birthday parties and whatnot. I also did 12 weeks or so of learn to play hockey league as a kid, too. But, my parents wouldn't shell out the money for me to actually play hockey (it was 1-2K a year, plus expensive equipment.) So that was a dead end, it was my favorite team sport of the ones I tried as a kid (nearly all.)

So for skating, even for normal people, the "do it a thousand times..." is kinda required, so it's very easy for me as that's the way I have to learn almost anything. Also, I feel like my NVLD/Aspergers is a bit helpful for skating, as it makes me think a bit outside the box as far as training and stuff goes. Most adults wouldn't try to combine weightlifting with figure skating like I do, for example. I still have naturally worse motor skills and whatnot, though. The mentality I have is very much a "adapt and overcome" kinda thing. However, I've not been able to adapt to like...real life...very well.

Lastly, what I like probably most about figure skating, I have a hard time expressing feelings, and skating is one of my only emotional outlets. So it's great just for that reason.

I am assuming that figure skating is in some ways similar to what I do. About visual/spatial, imagine having to judge not for yourself but for 1500 lb animals, who do not particularly like primates bouncing around on their back. Dressage is called "ballet on horseback" and figure skating is "ballet on ice"... so like ballet they are all about posture, elevation of movement, smoothness of transitions, 'effortlessness' (is that a word?) and overall making very tough movements look easy and elegant and as exaggerated as possible w/out killing yourself trying.

Question: is the center of gravity/tension for figure skating supposed to be in your core/abdomen (like dressage) or your buttocks (like ballet)?? I have always wondered a/b gymnastics and martial arts too. In equestrian show jumping/ hunter/jumper the tension is in the calves (a really wierd place for it for any sport) and the body is pivoted around them as the center of balance

Anyway, I think doing it over and over is how you get good at any and all sports. Muscle memory. And yeah asking people too if you can't afford lessons, or if you have s**t trainers like I always end up having. Just like you I definitly view my sport, as well as everything in life, from a different point of view than most people b/c I learn so much differently than other people learn- but I also see things that other people can't see (outside the box) b/c I process info differently. I don't have a learning disorder b/c I did good in all subjects in school, but still I cannot learn things outside of academics like learning new jobs, and it was even hard for me to learn dressage at first.

Thats cool that you can express yourself through skating. For me expressing feelings is easy but I don't get angry- ever. We all need to feel angry sometimes and w/out that capability I just go insane! I guess I need to find a way to express that feeling???

Hiya, sorry for the late reply.

Figure skating I guess the balance is more from the core. At least that's what I'm told. My problem balancewise is I'm always too far forward. I think that might be the reason I got huge legs. I'd walk off my toes/ball of the foot too much, with almost no heel strike. Skating I'm learning to go further back. Sorry I can't elaborate much further... I also don't have a coach at all in figure skating. Just a random old dude who's sort of a dick sometimes who I ask stuff. I've managed to progress to three turns/waltz jumps without a coach, though.

For anger, maybe try Olympic lifting or weightlifting in general? Olympic lifting is really fun to me, though I suck at it for the most part due to crap technique. It's pretty much gymnastics with a barbell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwQTeFD0OKQ
Check it out. I started lifting oddly to help with figure skating. I figured technique costs money, but power is free. So I figured why not just get the extra power for free then, then when I get the technique coaching I'll be awesome? So far, the bet's sorta worked. The only problem is I eat like a pig and added a bit extra bodyweight than I'd have liked. But I now with Olympic lifting, really need a coach/equipment for that, too, as it's a sport in itself. So the lifts done with crappy technique help me skating, but I won't get the most out of them without a coach. Also I could injure myself. But I'm an invincible 21 year old male, so that's impossible! I don't know, they're sorta polar opposite sports, figure skating and Olympic lifting, but I feel they sorta offset eachother? Who knows.

As far as dressage goes... That must be hard. I can't get animals to obey me at all. However I do have a cat, a Maine Coon, who I can sorta tell to do stuff like a dog. Dressage I guess wouldn't be a sport you'd guess would have athleticism on the human part, but it makes sense. Even F1 drivers have to be athletic. Maybe the dressage thing goes along with the AS girl stereotype about being obsessed with horses. Like guys are with trains. Heh.

It sounds like you didn't feel connected to your coworkers, which we all suffer from I'm sure. I go in waves of feeling connected, and then not feeling connected. If you're a good looking person, and you're not connecting with people, maybe they think it's your fault, like you're arrogant or stuck up, when you aren't. They may not understand that you're actually different, have depth, etc.

But when you refer to them as unsuccessful and their lives being unimportant, are you judging them? Which would also indicate a separation between you and them.

Maybe you're question "what do they want, anyway???" should be rephrased as "why dont they like me?" If this is the truth, this isn't a judgement on you, it's actually perfectly reasonable if you've been brought up in an environment where physical appearance, money, and class are things that set a person's value. Since you're coworkers may not value those same things, they wont really react to those things in you. And they might even judge you, good looks and money means the person is an ahole right?

I'm a decent looking dude who comes from a rich neighborhood, although I am far from wealthy, but that might make people from other parts of the city are gonna judge me.

I don't have 'crippling' AS but the young and attractive part fit. My understanding - being attractive means that you're sort of shoved off and directed in with the attractive people. The funny thing is, while you get more leeway and more friends on some angles you have the problem on others where there's less understanding, more confusion over shyness or seeming introversion, and it also means that if you're looking for an equally attractive partner you may have to look much longer to find anyone who's had a life even remotely like yours (even just enough to relate).

I am also in this sad plight...

Like most of you here, I have done the "Fitting in," stage most of my life. While I have seemed to try it, that just never seems to work. I have tried everything from preps to geeks. Even the geeks seemed to push me away and act that since I did not go to some top school by a certain age, I was not smart enough because I did not talk about all these interesting topics.

I'm really starting to think my own answer will be this: become as much 'me' as possible. Right now I'll be testing for red belt next Sunday in an integrated mesh of Kuntao, Panantukan, Kali, etc., just picked up a 9mm to plink with at the range (have some friends who've really been getting into that), at the same time I've been getting bigger into occult/metaphysics, want to do OOB/Astral Projection, I plan to on at least one of my off days do a good form or Yoga just for even better internal energy (let alone if there are any good metaphysics groups in my area I might join).

The more I do that, the more I gain confidence in the quality of who I am, being 'eccentric' to the norms in certain ways won't be as much of a problem because I think I'll be putting myself in places both physically and psychologically where I can shine and where I can also find people on the right or similar energy streams who can *get* me rather than me having to wear a mask, work to dumb things down; you can do that socially with friends of friends and acquaintances but relationships can never work like that.

I'm attractive but I scare people with my weirdness so I don't know what to do either.

I believe I fit all the categories in question. Upper middle class growing up, strangely competitively yet friendly adults in my parents’ social lives. Father did modeling, mother could have, and my sister and I are both generally considered beautiful people. I did some modeling and acting as a teen (Not my idea). Don't even seem to be aging much, I'm thirty and still pass for a twenty year old. So maybe I don’t qualify as young anymore, but that fact isn’t apparent. I've turned my unique skills into moderate real world success professionally, and earn an upper middle class wage. Most of my family is well off, some are outright wealthy. Highly educated professionals, business owners, what have you.

All I can say regarding wealth is that it makes things easier. There was a period when my family did fall out of fortune while I was a teenager for a few years, and personally I served in the military for four, and the pay was questionable at best. I’ve sampled lower class living, and find having wealth simply makes life easier. I do not understand any challenges this could add, unless the acquisition of wealth itself becomes an obsession. Maybe I’ve misread, and you mean something entirely different by “society”.

Being attractive itself is handy. Aside from the ascetic neatness factor, people will generally interact with you on a different level than others. While that may not always be beneficial, it is hard to make a case for how being unattractive is a better option. I’ve never thought of this as a detriment either, or additional challenge to conquer, personally. I do recognize though, that at least in my case, I’ve never been capable of leveraging my attractiveness as effectively as NTs seem to be able to towards gaining something for effectively just being pretty. But I’ve never really desired to either. I am far more substantive than my looks alone; I just view them as a free bonus, a bit of garnish on the side.

The core of my difficulties in socializing has been, and continues to be based on the condition alone. In the past few years I’ve made increasingly encouraging progress, not at pretending to be NT, or at fitting in, but simply at embracing who I am, accepting my limitations, compensating for them, and becoming a more functional and happy me. But again, this process isn’t made any more difficult by wealth or beauty. I could argue that youth doesn’t lend to having acquired much personal growth, simply due to lack of time and experience.

I think we are all rather capable of sorting ourselves, creating segregations based on qualities. Attractiveness, for example, can be used to separate a group. You can sort them out, and say these people have this going for them, this other group don’t, and oh god don’t look at this last group they’ll burn your corneas. You can try and look around the people in the group you’re sorted into, and try to reach out to these people based on this commonality… but you will likely find that each person in your group is still drastically different from one another, that in the end this categorical comparison of individuals is somehow flawed. That you are just as likely to find someone whom you can relate to in the other categories than the same grouping you find yourself.

There are infinite number of qualities you could attempt to sort people by, you can choose your own, let others define them for you, or some combination of the two, but they are each arbitrary, really. Why is any one quality more of a defining quality than another? How do you determine which are more important?

I’m beginning to go off on tangents, but I think that is because the more I mull over the topic of this thread, the more of what isn’t sitting right about it comes to the forefront of my line of thinking. And I think that is: We fit in wherever we decide we fit in. Whoever you are, whatever unique or generic life experiences you have or don’t shouldn’t be left to define yourself or limit your understanding of who you are or your capacity. You set your own goals, whatever they are specifically is irrelevant to discussion… follow them, achieve them. Whether rich or poor, attractive or not, young or old, ASD or NT… diligently working towards accomplishing our dreams is the lifeblood of a happy life. That is where we should fit it, where everyone should fit in.

Interesting Topic!

This week I went to the library and on my way back, while sitting in a café, I met a beautiful looking young woman. She approached me and asked me out... While sitting in the train on my way home, I wondered if she had done so, if she knew where I was coming from and how weird I can be. Well, now I know. Anyone ever tried dating a woman, that likes talking about fashion, parties ... while the only thoughts floating in your head were math? At least she thought I was interested in what she said... though I was just doing the latest homework in my thoughts.

It's kinda weird. Everybody who does not know about my ASD has more or less the same image of me: "Smart and good looking guy. Would be the perfect date." For me it just makes things more complicated... It makes people interested in me but then, when they know me their reaction is always the same: "What a weirdo." They think I'm playing at a higher level than I actually do. Okay, I am intelligent and good looking - but also unemployed and have the typical ASD related problems: don't like going to new places, no idea how to act even if I was able to read the facial expression and what not... Sadly the people interested in me, don't understand me.

Partly it made the past more difficult than it had to be. The "image" that other people had, made them oversee my ASD traits.

True... But sometimes it feels like a permanent fight. Every time I switch on the TV I get reminded. In some way media tells me: "Look, that would you've been, if you didn't have ASD." I had enough opportunities for it: could have been a professional soccer player, got asked to model, ... but still: it all didn't feel right. Everytime I tried, I felt misplaced. I feel so much more comfortable sitting in our math library than being the "guy everybody looks up to". But on the other hand I kinda miss it.
I don’t know... I can relate to most of the things that have been said.

Something that was going through my mind. Sometimes I think about it: maybe my mom wasn't lying when she said I was good-looking. I have actually heard people refer to me as such multiple times, I just didn't believe them and that's probably why it didn't register. I always shrugged it off as "random sh*t people say". Despite my short stature, I do have a decent amount of muscle mass and relatively low body fat percentage. I can look at myself in the mirror and honestly say "I am not ugly" (at least until I make those involuntary faces that I make when I am not actively paying attention to what face I make). People have openly referred to me as "attractive" in the past, until I started speaking. Perhaps it's self-defeatism that gets me.

I have this tendency to obsess over one female I am currently most attracted to. Call it an inability to multitask. I would be spaced-out for days on end, thinking about one female, until I finally convince myself that there is no possible way that she will ever reciprocate that attraction. If she did, I would never know. If I knew, I would never be able to do anything about it. I occasionally see this girl around. She has looked at me once or twice. She even talked to me once; Some small talk over breakfast that I answered with a nervous laugh and ran away from. I am rather insecure about my height, which usually is my first line of defense against hope, but she is significantly shorter than I am, so I really don't have that excuse. In fact she could be tired of getting hit on by all those tall dudes. She usually eats alone, and she spends too much time in the gym to be a party animal, so there goes my excuse of not knowing how to have "fun" in the traditional way. And I don't really think my cauliflower ear bothers her, so I pretty much lost my three go-to reasons to rule out 90% of the females that I like. This time I went with the basic "it won't lead anywhere" routine. "What am I going to do, invite her to my place and let her sit on my one chair so I can show her the porn collection in my laptop while we share one pair of headphones?" "One day she will have to leave or I will." "We won't be able to communicate." "A relationship with me is a bad idea; I'm a drowning swimmer, and jumping-in to save me will only lead to the two of us drowning." "Anything she may find likeable in me, she probably also can in another person, and more. He'll probably be tall, or athletic, or smart, or not autistic."

I have a hard time reading signals from females. I usually misread them. Therefore I just keep my distance. I try to be respectful, considerate, and not have an agenda. This makes me seem like a creep. Females don't like creeps. This is exceedingly frustrating, especially when your patronizing peers egg you on about your [made-up] exaggerated chances with her. Eventually you actually start believing them. You actually think that you have a chance. What if? But you don't make a move. You don't know how to anyway. You watch her, constantly, waiting for the perfect opportunity to talk, or hoping that she makes the first move, but you know from experience that you live in the real world and that sh*t never happens. If she does see you, she notices that you watch her. Now she thinks you're creepy. Dilemma resolves itself.

I don't know why this is bothering me. I experienced one semi-relationship once, and it was mostly a huge pain. I only get my assumptions from movies that show two attractive people being happy together in montages and ending sequences. Couples who do things together on the weekends. People who give up things that they used to, and still, find fun, because of another person. I don't know. Maybe I just want to really matter to someone who is not my mother.

Been thinking this way lately, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I do complex stuff for a living, but I think the hardest thing I have to deal with is the question of whether people like us should be more normal or whether normal people should be more like us.

I wish there was a way to find that answer.

Thank you to everyone who wrote something here. I am in this situation where people make certain assumptions based on the way I look and get somewhat disappointed when they start talking to me. I agree with the comment about people being scared off by good looks and it does seem that men are scared of me sometimes, although I am definitely not a supermodel, not even close. I don't talk much in social situations and I guess that looks weird and doesn't help getting to know people.