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Hello everyone, new arrival at Wrong Planet. I am a 43 year old white male, married (remarried actually) with children. Until very recently, perhaps two weeks ago I had never heard of Asperger's Syndrome but I know it well having lived with it, around it and through it all of my life and at the same time I don't know a thing about it at all if that makes sense.
Perhaps a bit like living for four decades and all the while unaware that I had a "kick me" sign on my back yet no one bothered to tell me, but I somehow always knew it was there just didn't know what "it" was. I was aware, painfully aware that I was not quite like other people from a very early age, adolescence was a nightmare of social chaos, not a weird kid, just different and I didn't much care for others my age, always gravitating toward older people because I could appreciate their maturity level I guess. Frankly I couldn't stand the drama of others in my age group in my youth. I was always so serious and so not into fads, fashions or trends, "too cool for school" is how others would peg me but that wasn't quite it. I would rather play my guitar for 10 hours than (gasp!) go to a social function. Still, after 30 years of playing I pretty much suck. I know an awful lot of parts of songs but can play very few through from beginning to end. More than a few times I have pissed off my neighbors playing Crossroads by Cream 75 times over (sorry, just happen to love wailing on that one). I would classify myself as being rather intelligent but certainly not arrogant or narcissistic (can't stand those types) and my wife likes to say I am a treasure trove of useless facts. I do surprise myself sometimes and find myself genuinely enjoying social settings but more often not. I also have a voracious appetite for alcohol (beer) and I never met a beer I didn't like. I have never had large numbers of friends nor did I feel I was missing anything that way, I'd much rather go fishing alone or blacksmithing alone but like guitar playing I recognize that I have the potential to truly excel in the craft yet I am (hard to describe) seemingly at a glass ceiling with it and I cannot force myself to improve because it just shatters my interest, school was always the same way and I was a horrible student although I am not stupid and actually have a rather high I.Q. according to tests I was put through in junior high. I think though that my poor school performance was due to being so freaked out by being forced to be in a building with several hundred other people every day and the only label I've ever been able to put on that is just blind fear but I genuinely do not know why.
I guess the only thing I know for sure is that I have a lot to learn about myself, even though I have become more comfortable over time. When I first stumbled across "AS" a week or two ago while surfing the net and read up a bit on the description it hit me right between the eyes, like seeing a mirror for the very first time. I took a couple of the available online quizzes and pretty much scored a bullseye with all of it. I wondered why I have never in 43 years ever heard of AS but I seem to be a dead ringer for it. I was a bit stunned, intrigued and horrified at the same time, if that makes sense. Anyway I am rambling as usual.
I'll read up a bit around this amazing sight and probably gradually participate. Cheers! Dan.

I wondered too - except that I got through fifty-two years without getting the message.

Welcome aboard, Dan-O

Thanks for the replies gentlemen

Welcome Dan-O, to the chasm between the desert of the real
and the dramas of the Matrix!
(Or, as we like to call it here on WP, the postulating non epiphanies of the loud.)

Well, this is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and we show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Oh noes, you already took the red pill, didn't you?

...Joking aside, Welcome to WP!

I never did like the blue jelly beans but the red ones rock so I ate all the red ones in the jar.
Wha? PILLS ???! !! !

greetings d.o.........we have at least one ww2 vet on wrong planet, i'm a vietnam vet......so you're not old at all, only to the majority of w. p's. who are about 25.

i found out about a. s. when louie the wonder dog's veterinarian read a book called ' the curious incident of the dog in the nightime', and said.........'hey i know somebody just like that.'