Idea which may or intrigue Aspies and NTs

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I think there's a market for it- albeit a niche market.

It could be analogous to a tourist guidebook. There is another thread where people say they do not experience the discombobulation that NT people report when visiting a foreign culture. I have visited many other countries and the way I initially felt in each one is probably the closest I'll ever get (or any NT person will ever get) to how Aspergers/Autism feels in social situations. Luckily for me every country has dozens of guidebooks published full of do's and don'ts and translations of common phrases. Plus people are very forgiving because they know you are a foreigner and don't expect you to know the local customs. This is surely a big part of why people on that thread said they didn't feel the discombobulation NT people feel. They are quite used to being out of the loop on social rituals but in a foreign culture people cut you slack because they don't expect you to know- plus there are guidebooks that will flat out tell you what to do, even though everybody in that country is an individual with their own individual POV. Nevertheless, guidebooks can come up with general guidelines that broadly apply.

The thing is, in your home country/culture, nobody cuts you the slack that they would cut to a foreign visitor because you are expected to know these things because you are a local. So people figure you do know and are therefore ignoring the customs out of sheer orneriness.

If it's possible to write a book that tells me what I should do and say in Japan, it should be equally possible to write a guidebook that tells a local person what they should do and say in their home culture....spelling out the things other people simply assume they already know and get angry when they don't.

Caveats:1) culture specific,
2)is an enormous undertaking

The first step I think we aspies/asds need to take is to start forgiving and to get over our own anger to those who wronged us or those who we have perceived have wronged us. I can say I'm in this category and I have tons of forgiving to do. If nothing else, I think we can at least do this. To be honest, I will need help to do that.

The second step we need to accept socrates' way and that is we know nothing and we know that we know nothing. Rose_in_winter did point out something to me as well. I have my own biases and my own predjudices. I think we all do as well on both sides of the fence. One of those is we lump all NTs together and one big monolithic entity. What if there are different types of NTs just like there are different types of AS's. This means the human race is truly diverse. One ancedotal example is Janissy. She is NT but she is different. I thought she was AS herself or on the spectrum but she may not be. She is able to go in both worlds. Maybe there are sub classifications to Neurotypical. We need more people like her who can bridge this gap. We need people like her to help both sides to discover the undiscovered country. (Classic Star Trek)

Greentea may be the AS version of Janissy as well. I don't know if anyone has seen this episode of star trek. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok
I say "picard and dathon at el-adrel"

I also say "Janissy and Greentea on wrongplanet."

Hi cubedemon, I really appreciate you brainstorming ways to increase and enhance communication between people, and producing an instruction manual/guidebook/dictionary could be very useful for building the kinds of bridges you mentioned. I am completely in favor of building bridges between people and would like to contribute as much as possible

One thing that struck me about your idea is that it would be somewhat of a monumental task for one person to take on, it would be like a full time job that could take years, with no payoff until the end of the project. And I'm not convinced it would be a huge money-maker, although you might be able to change my mind on the money aspect. As an alternative, how about an on-line-type instruction manual that is open access, similar to wikipedia, where everyone in the community can debate, discuss, and ultimately contribute to the final product? The advantages of this approach are that (1) it would not be so monumental an effort if there were numerous authors; (2) ideally it would be a collaborative effort between people with diagnoses and people without, and therefore more likely to gain wider acceptance; and, (3) it would be a living, evolving project that could be useful almost right from the start as opposed to having to wait for publication.

Bottom line, I think you have a great idea and would love to see it become reality.

I think your idea may be a better idea than mine. I would love to somehow get this started. I would love for greentea and Janissy to be in this major undertaking. I would love for you to be in as well. This is something I truly believe in. This is open and dynamic and this is what a system needs to be.

As a side, will you read this( http://ultimatesuperset.blogspot.com/20 ... ty-is.html )

I really don't get it. They say NTs can understand eachother's emotions - that ain't always necessarily true. I've got a NT cousin (who is 18 ) and she is a very selfish person, and always will be. She never thinks about other people, only herself, and she still makes so many friends! I don't get it. I'm always going around feeling sorry for other people, and putting them before me, and thinking too much about how they're feeling, and yet I'm the Aspie and she's the NT, yet she's opposite. Last week-end she wanted to go to a party, but her mates didn't know how to get home, so she just said, ''oh my mum can come and pick us up at midnight.'' And I think that was one of the most inappropiate things to say, because (a) she's not at all considering how her mum might be feeling about that, (b) she doesn't care whether her mum might want a relaxing bath that night and go to bed, and (c) she didn't even have the descency to go and ask her mum first. Am I missing something here???

Most people I know are selfish in an Aspie sort of way. They would never think to put themselves in another person's shoes. My mum often says, ''people are weird!'' and she's right. Not just Aspies.

If you don't have an etiquette that say "ill" then you can act like you want. But if you are marked by some sort of psychological illness, then you have to be taught how to do things.