autism and unhappy families

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I have come to understand that those who are socially successful, going through school normally without aides, and getting into univertsity and ending up in happy marriages, are all alike, while those who have a lot of difficulty understanding how actions make other people feel, and do things to prevent themselves being on good terms with other people, are each idiosynchratic, creepy or odd in their own way.
Could the Anna Karina principle, rather than the predominance of non-autistic people, explain why the world does not adapt or adjust to behaviour that is thus odd? Those who gain successful relationships with other people and go through school normally almost all share the following characteristics:

*Not needing that much alone time, I hope this requires no explanation.
*Practicing largely or entirely what one preaches. If the behaviour you exhibit is unusual, other people will regard it suspiciously. However, if you exhibit these behaviours but aren't patient with similar behaviour in other people, than you may not be able to fuction well in a society where your behaviours are typical. There could be no societies where talking endlessly about one topic is usual behaviour, because people do this often don't accept others doing the same.
*In order to get through school normally, one does need to aquire language pretty quickly in relation to the time it takes to grow up (biologically), much as livestock needs to grow much quicker than its keepers in order to be worth keeping. Toilet training also has to come pretty early in life, though late development is more a thing of Kanner's syndorme that aspergers.
*One also needs a notion of compromise to gain successful relationships with people, not just compromising whenever the other person has ideas you believe are good. In other words, not just compromising when it is going to turn out in a way you believe is better than what you were planning to do. If you want people (even others with ASD) to like you, then you need to be prepared to include other people's ideas even if you don't believe that will make the project or decision or whatever else not the best it can be.

I f I am understanding you correctly you are saying that by following a certain set of social norms will allow someone to be successful. What if some people aren't wired that way or don't care to play the game?

Basically, there is a certain set of inherent norms one needs to follow to function well in any society, if peolpe aren't wired that way, they won't succeed anywhere. Many aspies attribute their lack of success to the dominance of neurotypicals, and that they don't understand odd behaviour. While it might be comforting to the autistic community to think that they would be better off on the right planet, it seems that the Anna Karina principle prodives a better explanation for the social isolation of many on the spectrum, especially those with classic autism, and why they don't fit in. Those who fit into society behave all alike, while those who don't are each indiosyncratic in their own way. The Anna Karina principle also explains why even those who exhibit odd behaviour often still don't know how to handle it in others. Just because someone stims and rocks doesn't mean they like seeing others do the same. My experince and some advice I was given suggested that acting neurotypical even makes you better at dealing with other aspies, even if they don't act that way themselves.

So what are you saying? Aspies can't be domesticated?

I think Tolstoy was wrong. Not all happy families are alike. They are all as different as unhappy families are. He was over-simplifying matters.

Yes.

People can understand the non-verbal and unwritten rules of society, understand body language and social ques, will be more successful than those who don't. Not everyone has to conform 100%, you can express individuality, but you still know the rules of social communication and play by them.

People who aren't wired that way have to try to learn and adapt as best they can. Those who don't' care to play have a lower chance of succeeding.

What happy marriages all have in common is that they all suceed in sexual arraction, agreement about money, child dicipline, religion, in-laws, and other vital issuses, while unhappy marriages differ in which vital issue(s) that fail.



Sure not everyone has to conform completely, but a society where most people don't understand body language and/or social ques could not exist, anymore than the peoples of sub-saharan Africa or North America could have ended up with guns, germs and steel before colonisation by people from Eurasia. Eurasia has thriteen candiates that meet all the criteria for domestication, all cadidates native to sub-saharan Africa fail in one or more areas, usually in dispositions (think of zebras, hippos, rhinos, and African buffalo).



This would be true even in a society where most people aren't wired that way, thus there cannot be societies like that, anymore than zebras and onagers can be domesticated.

The fantasy of a society dominated by people with ASD where such people have a greater chance of success makes a midly interresting and amusisng hypothetical, much like Africans taming and then domesticating Zebras, Warthogs and Buffalo, and North Americans doing the same with their bison, peccaires, and bighorn sheep, and both going on to end up with guns germs and steel, making it harder for the peoples of Eurasia to colonsie them, I'm sure they would not have been wiped out, and more indigenous langauages, religions and cultures would have survived. In the real world, none of these dreams would come true, as they are impractical, and waste time.

And some food for thought:
While many people with ASD need their alone time, many animal species do not (it seems), most species that have been domesticed, including all domestic candidates, are in fact more social than autistic people typically are. Of species that do need alone time, only cats and ferrets have been domesticated.

Fot those who don't know what we're talking about Tolstoy wrote: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Ok I suppose if you list the similarities that sort of makes sense, but you could equally list the similarities within unhappy families. If I could be bothered I could list all the similar areas families fail, lack of commuincation, violence, egotism, not telling the truth, lack of trust, jealousy, lack of patience, autism (according to the premise of this thread) etc. and they would be things in common.

I still think Tolstoys comment is oversimplified, you've also got to take individual personalities into account. Also, he's saying happy things are easy to list, but unhappy things are so abstract I can't even put them into words. Unhappy traits can be listed and put into words too.

Hang on a minute. I've just realised something. Tolstoy was saying there is no drama to write about in happy families and they don't make for good fiction because there is nothing to write about. Hence why Anna Karenina's unhappy marriage was central to the story. It was more interesting than if they'd been happy and she'd ignored Vronsky.

Fact is, regardless of individual personalities, that all happy families succeed in all the areas you mention, while unhappy families differ in which areas they fail, a family is unlikely to fail in all the areas you or I have mentioned. Is Jaraed Diamond's exlpanation as to why most candidates haven't been domesticated also an oversimplification?

Those who have acheived enough social success to end up in university and happy marriages are all alike, those who end up is neither are each unsuccessful in their own way. Among the traits that wild animals need to lend themseves to domestication is pleasent disposition, the obisously excludes grizzly bears, hippos, rhinos, and also excludes African Buffalo. Zeberas and onangers are hard to tame becasue they have habits of biting people. Domestic candidates also have ovelapping home ranges, each specimen tollerates its friends being friends of those from other herds. This excludes antilope, and most deer (except reindeer).

There was this one girl that I heard about in a video about AS who had some problems that would definitely preclude her from a happy marriage, in any society. First of all, she only wanted her friends to be her friends and didn't like it whe her friends were friends with others, she thus intollerant of other social groups, and dosen't want her home range to overlap with others, but rather maintains and exclusive territory. This would preclude her for ending up in a happy friendship in the same way the intollerace between herds derailed domestication of antilopes and most deer. She would let of her anger by going around speading rumours, she told one woman "I had sex with your boyfriend" and went around say "I had sex with [this guy]," "I had sex with [that guy]" and also say "[this person] doesn't like you," "[that person] doesn't like you." This would also exclude her for a happy marriage much as zebras' unpleasent habbit of biting a person and not letting go precluded them from being tamed, let alone domesticated. Note that one is vanishingly unlikely to be patient with this sort of behaviour (spreading rumours) or tollerate it in other people, even if one exhibits this behaviour.

Good grief. Its been 6 years.

I was raised in a very unhappy family which was dysfunctional all the way around. While a lot of my family members were frustrated with me for being "Different," they had some good qualities. Still, when I started to get away from them, I had poor social skills and trouble finding the right types of friends. In fact, I really didn't know what a friend was.

Most NT people are successful when it comes to friendships. If they fall out with a friend they have other friends or will make a new friend. When you're an Aspie or have some other neurological disorder, to make at least one friend you have to be in the right place at the right time with exactly the right people, and all timing has to be precise. If you're an NT the process of making friends isn't so limited and you have less chance of being bullied or rejected (NOT saying an NTs chance of being bullied is zero, but it's still less than a spectrumer's chance of being bullied).

It's sad when you and that only friend outgrow each other, fall out or they lose their interests because they were your safety net that helped build up your self-esteem. When that's gone, it hurts because I see other female-female platonic friendships doing so well and I feel jealous. At work, there are a group of women who seem to be really close to each other and it hurts.

A couple years ago, I started bonding with this woman who I had things in common with but because she is married to a creep, who is very controlling and extremely abusive, he took her away from me. After that, I felt alone again.

Since I cannot edit my post, I will add it here.

I was sad that when I lost my connections with this woman and the opportunities that came with it. However, I realize that it just was not a good fit. It was not healthy to be around her husband because he was mean and unpredictable. He would also scream at his wife and kids right in front of me, and especially if things were not his way. He eventually started being mean to me. The relationship was also one-sided and I would go over to their house, but when I invited them, they could never make it. Finally, they just were not that supportive.

That said, I have since made connections with other people who are part of an autism support group and started associating with them. So far, they just seem to be a much better fit.