Substitutes for human bonds.

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Trees make up for a lot. Birds too - except when they crap on you.

Books, music, arts? Once I was a great reader. But now? Fiction represents possible ways to live, if it is not ersatz, a surrogate of life, the same way that playing is, for cubs, a way to live adult doings, or to exercize in adult actions (chasing, fighting). Now (at least for me) it's no more time for that. I need to explore the meaning of life, if there is still a chance for that. And a an animal, or a tree, or a flower are of more help.

For Neurotypicals, perhaps they experience Epicurianism - speculative, but based upon observation.

For an Autist? My senses are at once overwhelming and intoxicating by stimuli. Paolo, yes - and the Neurotransmitter that gives this 'feeling' (unsure of descriptive word) is Oxytocin, the molecule of love. Oxytocin is released in quantity by stimming as well; not a coincidence!

I recall reading somewhere (it was elsewhere, but I think Daniel Levitin has written about it in his books) that music triggers an oxytocin 'rush'. Makes sense, because music gives me that sense of connection.

Another solution to social void, is obliquity in relationships. That's what we do here in WP all the time. We can speak frankly as it would not be allowed in a face-to-face relationship. Very rarely (and I regret that) these exchanges add up to an engaging relationship. This is what happens with many writers of fiction. It's the case, to cite someone, of Patricia Highsmith. She never established a durable bond with humans, but only with cats and (in her mind) with snails. I don't know how she communicated with snails, but, when I was a child I took frogs with me in bed. They were probably not very happy. Anyhow Patricia confessed herself in her books, and the reading public was the addressee. Another example is Kafka. His epistolaries were a collection of falsities and a desperate exchange of misunderstandings which led nowhere (Felice Bauer, Milena). He told the truth only in his fiction. And the fact that, after his death, he received acclaim means that someone (many people) understood what he wanted to tell. He had millions of soul mates.
More modestly I have a large network of persons who know me and whom I know as shopkeepers and admirers of my little dog which is very important for me and give me a little fresh air to breath, even for a short time and without any verosimilitude of depth (for me these exchanges are much more important, I would say vital, than they are for them). Even cashiers of movie theatres, especially if they are females (I couldn't say why) are very important for me. It's a pathetic, kind of Walter Mitty business, but not very different from the exchanges between dogs in the streets, made of a little sniffing (front and behind) and wagging of tails.
Well, this reminds me that play is also important both for humans and dogs and nearly all mammals. It has some sort of obliquity, but also of deadly seriousness.

I guess Aspies must just be waaayyy more higher functioning than those of us with autism. I really don't have the ability to understand literature like all these posts about it on this thread. It was a major downfall to my pretty stellar undergrad gpa when I had the misfortune of being talked into taking a literature class in the Honors Program. Just don't think this way, and so don't really have the comprehension for literature. I guess that is sad for me, although I am not really sure what I am missing.

People can conjecture and spin this question all they want and justify why relationships don't work for some, but for me, there really is no substitute to fill the emotional void of not having a deep emotionally connected relationship. Nothing else is really worth pursuing or of interest. But I am not one to make any intelligent comments today, since I woke up in the throes of extreme entire body pain syndromes for some unexplained reason I don't know. It doesn't occur that often to this extreme, but when it does, I am not fit to do anything until they clear.

None of the above suggestions are of interest to me. I don't have any answers what in the human psyche causes the need for human bonds. I really don't try to analyse it. I just know I have an extreme need for human bonds, but since no one ever wants to be the friend or significant other to a person with autism, I buried all my emotions and feelings in my personified autism horse -- until my doctor said something to me to transfer them to himself, and since then I have really been feeling extreme emotions and feelings unleashed from my horse.

None of these really work to fill the voide for me, either.

While it is true animals are easier to relate to for a spectrum person, and I should be one to talk having spent a lifetime relating to my animals and burying all my feelings and emotions in my personified autism horse, there is really no substitute for deeply connected human bonds. It is just that this is the one thing as a person with autism I can never seem to have in my life. Which really sucks. But I am not in a very good mood, since I am having extreme pain syndromes in every part of my body today and having a very difficult time coping with them.

I used to avidly follow the adventures of The Beatles, though once they'd gone I never really got affected by celebrities any more, not to that level anyway. I was practically living their lives.

I started messing about playing my own music, and matured into a fairly good musician - recording and performing, either alone or with other musicians has been a great comfort to me. I can even stand going to small parties if I know they want me to play; no need to worry too much about relating. I can always hope that they'll be able to relate to my music.

Animals - every so often one of the local cats adopts me, and I feel a bond with animals generally. How real that bond is, I don't know, but they seem to like me well enough. Plants as well, though not so strongly. I might have made a good farmer if I'd had put more energy into it.

Films - especially when shared with somebody else (I don't watch much on my own). It's a rare film that has no human interaction in it. Last one I really liked was "Skykids," which I watched with my wife - objectively it was a stupid film but somehow very believeable to me, easy to understand and I was completely absorbed in it, probably got sucked in because of the openng scenes with the kids standing up to bullies - I really relate to that! Then at the end when one of the kids has to admit to the other that he lives in a down-market flat, and other says "I don't care where you live!"

Fiction books as well - though it's been years since I had the time. I thought "Full Moon" by P.G.Wodehouse was brilliant, once I'd written down and memorised the names of the characters. Loads of "bright young things" forming relationships with each other, a clumsy one who has no confidence and keeps accidentally kicking over the cake stand, and and old guy who has no interest in anything except breeding fat pigs.

But for me there can be no substitute for human bonds. Admittedly I'm bad at the game, but somehow I can't quite let go of all hope. That social craving just won't let me be for good, I still feel acute loneliness. So I can't give up permanently, all I can do is to have long tea breaks.

Are you aware of how much better off you are than someone without human bonds and without a life partner? And of how much better you are at social relations than them?

Sadly, at the time I wrote that post (3 years ago), my wife was in the process of moving out, and I don't have a life partner.
I don't know why you think I'm better at social relations than them.

I know it could be worse for me.

Goodness, I can't believe I wrote that exactly on the 3rd anniversary of your post, 2-day difference. I'm sorry I bumped this thread. Please disregard my comment, it's just that I see so many people on WP saying they suffer from massive rejection, I wouldn't consider myself massively rejected if I had a life partner.

Last edited by Moondust on 02 Jun 2012, 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not all of us – I have an AS diagnosis and my comprehension of books, poetry, plays (even after a lifetime working in professional theatre!) is very low indeed.

I learned to read at 3, and my reading age remained years ahead of other children throughout school, so I was given challenging books to read all along. And I read them! Voraciously. But I've realised now that reading was a kind of stim for me, not a means of communication or understanding. It was act of reading itself that satisfied a need in me, there was no comprehension – and usually no memory, either – of what I had read. When I did take in content, I read it entirely at face value, I couldn't then and can't now pick up subtext and other levels of meaning.

When I got to the age of 15, because of my excellent skills in written English, my teacher suggested I study for an English Literature qualification as well as the English Language exam that all students took. I worked hard at it for a year, but my result was a U (Unclassified, meaning the candidate did so badly they didn't even qualify for a grade). My English Language grade was A*.

I always loved theatre, but because of my complete inability to comprehend 'serious' plays for adults (which have complex meaning and/or are about adult relationships, neither of which I understand) I decided to specialise in theatre for children. Not silly pantomimes or bad puppet shows or ghastly sugary musicals, but proper plays written to challenge children and young people in the same way that good grown-up theatre challenges adults. Because the level of subtext is limited, and because they're not about adult relationships, I can recognise good from bad in these plays, offer constructive criticism to writers developing new scripts, and so on. My colleagues are utterly baffled as to why I can do it so well with children's theatre but always claim I have no ability when it comes to adult plays – and actually, they don't really believe it's true that I have such poor comprehension.

I've felt a bit left out in some of the WP discussions because people talk about books or songs or films that have meaning for them, when I know I couldn't get very much from them. I'm glad MKDP posted the above; this lack of comprehension has always felt like a significant gap in my professional abilities, and even having got my AS diagnosis I still feel stupid about it. I wonder if there are any other others who struggle with it?

There's an assumption in the question starting the discussion that Aspies need as much human bonds as NTs do, but their lack of social abilities makes it too hard for them, therefore leaving great emotional void in their life. It's the NT's point of view considering AS as great disability and handicap.

I'm lately amused by the naivness of S-F films such as Star Trek, when people are making contacts with other civilizations, which think very similarily to them. They can understand and explain their motives. In film. In reality they can't even imagine and understand our motives and our way of thinking.

AS have limited need for social bonds. In fact, that what we need, is not the social bonds themselves (as opposite to NTs) but those what we can gain from them: the possibility to discuss, to undertake common initiatives, to exchange ideas etc. IMHO this emotional void comes really from the brain being bored, unable to find something challenging to cope with.