why is expressing our emotions hard for us then a NT?

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I concur, but let's get back to reality. Nothing is going to change in that regard, the majority doesn't just rule, it dictates-- that goes all the way down to how one expresses emotions. Look at it from their perspective: autistics are less than 2% of the population, why learn special things for such a small minority? -- best just to sweep them under the rug and forget they exist.

It's a start, but as a theory it may be overly simplistic. There are things that NT's want that I as an Aspie also want. There are also things I don't like that most/many NT's do want. There's too much crossover to say that what Aspies want and what NT's want are opposite.

I don't disagree with you there at all. However good my explanation may or may not have been, it is only that - an explanation, not a prescription for a solution.

I would say that there's rarely even an explicit or implicit "sweeping under the rug". The human brain has evolved instincts as an efficient way to make decisions - at the very least, prevarication when under threat would not be an adaptive behaviour. NT social instincts are probably not even acted upon at a conscious level most of the time, and their life's experience will likely be that those "gut feelings" have kept them safe and led them to friendship. That autistic behaviour triggers a negative response from those instincts sometimes is unfortunate for autistic people, but it is not malicious (mostly!)

To expect NT people to have an "off switch" for their social instincts would be no different than expecting autistic people to suddenly be able to turn them on. NT people don't get to choose which innate traits they are born with any more than autistic people do, after all.

First, they share the same instincts as virtually every other apex animal this planet has seen-- they've all went extinct. So much for instincts leading to positive conclusions, perhaps "in the moment" but certainly not long term conclusions. Second, malice can be subconscious, and with NT's it certainly is. The instincts we're talking about are pack instincts: cull the weak or the group suffers. The instincts themselves are malicious.


Funny, because they DO expect autistic people to turn them on.

It's because they're always ready to knock us down every time we do try to express them.

I think Aspie women are close to NT men - they have more feelings and can express them like NT men, but they aren't as emotional as NT women. Aspie men are the extreme - they have feelings, but maybe not able to understand them as much as NT men because Aspie men are more logical and they really don't know how to express their feelings as much as NT men. NT women are the extreme of feelings and Aspie men are the extreme of logic.

As an aspie male I have to disagree with that. I feel emotions as much as anyone else, it's just that men tend to hide their emotions more then women and aspies have a harder time expressing emotions then NT's. Women get the reputation for being more emotional because of the mood swings caused by the whole PMS thing and aspies get the reputation of having very little emotion because we have trouble expressing it, we all experience just as much emotion though.

For me I would have to say this is not the case, I know for a fact I lack emotion in comparison to a NT individual. There have been many times in which I have had problems in social situations due to not feeling any emotion when know I should have. I would know that I should be feeling something, but the emotions just weren't there. I would guess the amount or relative lack of emotion would most likely be on a spectrum just as autism has a spectrum.

Why can't personality play a factor as well?

There could be some truth to what NurseAngela says. For me, I do have emotions like saddness, anxiety, anger (s**t I have had meltdowns sometimes dude. In fact, on my neuropsych, it says I have emotional regulation problems. ) Right now, I'm grieving a loss of my mother who died last Oct. It's been horrible.

On the other hand, this is what my wife does. She'll ask me something like what time does x store close? She expects me to simply know to take initative and voluntary look it up. For me, I just keep asking why can't you just tell me what you want? For her, it's an emotional thing for her. She wants to feel as though I "want" and "desire" to do the task for her. I tell her "No, I don't want to do the task but I don't mind doing it and will do it anyway." We got into a minor argument over it. Until I realized what it was. It wasn't about me doing the task itself even though she still wanted me to do the task. It was about my desiring to please her.

For her, her emotions are mixed in with the task. For me, it's about the task itself.

As far as I understand, our brain is less inter-connected so the emotion part doesn't connect to the facial expression or language part as well. This separateness is also what helps us excel in specific things.

I'm not one for NT vs AS. Yes I know it's easier to use "them" and "us" to discuss our differences, but sometimes it sounds like it's 99% of the population vs 1%, and 99 is a huge number.

Neurology is like gender; you get typical males and typical females. But there are some very feminine males and some very masculine females, also let's not forget LGBT either. So those are the grey areas of gender, it's not always just alpha male or alpha female.
So, it's the same with neurology. It's not either Aspie or NT. Some NTs might think more like Aspies, some Aspies might think like the average NT. Others might not be Aspie or NT. There are grey areas too.

I once had an "NT" online tell me either she has AS herself or I have the whole world figured out because she feels the exactly the same as as I do about what it's like to have AS. She also said in her other posts she is not a very good diplomat meaning she just says things the way it is and doesn't think of another way of saying it to make it sound nicer. I have the NT in quotes because I don't know if she is really NT or if she has any aspie traits that would make her think like an aspie and process information like one even if she might not really have it.

Once again, there is some data to back this as a plausible hypothesis, but it's still too simplistic as a theory.
You might as well just say an Aspie woman is an NT woman with a little too much testosterone.

It isn't that Aspies aren't emotional. It's that we experience them differently, regulate (or fail to regulate them) differently, express emotions differently, read them differently in others, and respond to others' emotions differently (or not at all). I don't think Aspie men feel emotion any less than any other person, they are simply less likely to base all their actions and decisions on them. We have strong emotions. We often internalize them, suppress them, or seek outlets for them such as stimming. Other times we are so emotionally dysregulated that there are meltdowns and shutdowns. These meltdowns and shutdowns would never occur if Autism were a simple matter of extreme logic with minimal emotion. There is no logic in a meltdown. There is far more to the difference in neurodiverse expression of emotion than just a base comparison to male/female.

Just like the rest of ASD, ability to express emotion is a spectrum. Some of us are more able to adopt or adapt to the NT way of expressing emotions. Others struggle much more with dysthymia and emotional dysregulation.

When I talk to Aspie women, I feel like they have more feelings and are able to express them pretty well. The Aspie men I talk to it seems like they express no feelings and can take you one day and leave you the next. It's like no relationship or friendship even matters.

And both Aspie women and Aspie men are difficult to get close to and form any kind of friendship. By the time you think maybe a friendship is starting, the next second all is cold again and it's like you're starting all over from the beginning. Very draining.

Like my ex-Aspie friend that I knew 2 yrs, there was never a point that I really knew him - it was like he was always holding something back. And if I got upset about something (like all friendships or relationships have at some point), he would just be quiet and you wouldn't hear from him for a couple weeks. He could never have a real discussion about "feelings" which I get that most men can't, but he really couldn't discuss them at all. I don't get that.

Aren't we complicated?

Because NT's perceive us differently on how we use body language and facial expressions; one part of the brain is either damaged or isn't functioning properly so we cannot connect to it allowing for a smooth expression..

You CAN express your emotions and tune into that part of your brain with willpower, but initially the outcome from a NT's point of view will just look like a Two-Faced person or an Animal trying to express their feelings, it just won't happen smoothly because of: "facial expressions, facial structures, tone of voice, body language, movements or eye contact"....

When you express your feelings the part of the brain that's supposed to deliver the message deep from within and connect with others spiritually so to speak is disabled in Autistic's brains.

Hope this helps.