Hi. Calling myself Burnbridge these days for good reason. Not too many long term friends, you know
I'm 36, just I found out I have asboogers a year ago. Heightened senses, particularily smells, tactile and (tonal) hearing. Enhanced visual perception for spatial relationships and textural details, as well as color recognition. Being good with smells, touching and colors brought me to cooking and baking for the last 20 years (great work for an asperg). Can't wear synthetic fibers - too distracting, and give me skin rashes and make my sweat smell bad. Can't talk or think in the presence of perfumes. Can't make words happen without lots of coffee. Can't makes words if I drink alchohol. Sometimes I think in smells and touches. Eiditic memory for objects how they have been used, how they were aquired, etc., but I cannot remember who told me what story when.
I run the kitchen of a fine diner at a resort on a big lake in Nebraska. Living half in the woods, on a lake that has 6 foot waves. Lots of wild aminals here: turkeys, beaver, otters, racoons, birds fish and icky bugs. It's an 18 mile bike ride into town once a week to get groceries.
I have two asperg neices and one autist neice, was how I found out. My shrink told me I have the emotional capacity of an 18 year old, and honestly I just hit the point where I can have seminormal human friendships about 4 years ago. It's odd that most of the people my age that I have met are jealous of me now for my enthusiasm, energy level and fitness. They don't know what they're missing, and usually don't want to listen when I try explaining it to them.
Having recently found out I'm asperglar is both refreshing and unsettling. It's a relief to finally find a diagnosis that actually fits, but I'm so used to being "weird" that finding out how utterly typically aspergan I am makes me kind of sad. Do not feel unique anymore, and belonging in a group has always scared me.
I'm the make friends easily, talks-too-much kind of asperg, but the never-makes-long-term-friend kind of person. If I can't see smell or touch you right now, you might as well not exist. A couple times a year I remember some person I used to know and wonder what they're up to for a brief moment.
My first social experiences were on the pre-internet BBSes in the early 80s, I'm probably from the first wave of people to grow up socializing on a computer. In the 90s, I gave up computers, for about 8 years. I used to think that internet socializing was what was causing my akward social problems, now I feel it's probably the other way around.
I like cats more than humans. Especially my cat, Mr Bonkers.
Any other Nebraskans here? <crickets>