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techstepgenr8tion
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11 Jan 2008, 10:09 pm

0hanrahan wrote:
Can you explain Executive Functions as it applies to your adult life, if you don't mind :)
Paying Bills? Getting to work on time?


I think mostly in terms of steady social presence and energy. I'm a likable guy, don't have too much of a problem getting along with most people and even having their respect but I'm not real quick-witted IRL, so I can have a good social presence when I'm around people who are laid back but if people are all socially dominant or just not my types of people - its like I'm not even there. Also, I a lot of times feel like my gestalt has me looking weird of immature, which trips of my social interactions when I don't feel like I have a strong position to start from (ie. just talking to people cold).

0hanrahan wrote:
You also threw in "eugenic awareness" in regards to female perceptions of you.
How so?
Women would size us up and decide we may not make good breeding material?


No idea what else it could be at this point, aside from just having a personality that literally doesn't fit a stereotype - maybe most people's near absolute worship of personality and social conformity for reasons, I tend to be more of an independent and so far while its the only thing that makes me happy it doesn't really do much to make me more relatable on that level. Not that I'm specifically looking for a solution, I'd like to think as I find means of change that I want from within I'll find paths of life that work better for me - then again at 28 I'm a bit disgusted that things have gone this far and who knows, I could just be talking out the side of my neck thinking that its likely to happen.

0hanrahan wrote:
I think sex appeal was more on my side when I was quieter. I either joke way too much or get so hyperverbal, I can't stay on thread for very long. Quote from this page from O.A.S.I.S. is a good summation of my verbal skills:
"Pragmatic, or conversational, language skills often are weak because of problems with turn-taking, a tendency to revert to areas of special interest or difficulty sustaining the "give and take" of conversations. Many children with AS have difficulties dealing with humor, tending not to "get" jokes or laughing at the wrong time; this is in spite of the fact that quite a few show an interest in humor and jokes, particularly things such as puns or word games.
"

Since undergoing some diet and supplement mods a few months ago, my social/verbal skills are more nigh to NT. But the road is still uneven. Although my verbal communication skills have become more fluid, I seem to be more succeptible to being bland in mood or even depressed. Some of these blues are work related, and some is BS from feeling sorry for myself for not being as competitive as other guys at work in regards to picking up women.
I try not to compare, but it always has a way of getting to me.

I even have new gals notice me before anyone else, but as time goes by, they are talking more to the other males than me. It's the "too slow" or too whatever thing the OP started this thread with.

I also get the "too nice" bit too. I'm not caveman enough, which is ironic since I put some stock into the Neanderthal theory of the Autism Spectrum.


Same here in most if not all respects. I do get interest from some women but it always bunks out in one way or another - either with me not being attracted, me feeling chased off by certain personality traits, or alternatively mutual interest but not being able to get anywhere with it still to save my life. It gets aggravating in the sense that if I was a stereotypical aspie, if I couldn't dress myself, if I had poor hygien, if I had no idea how to talk to people, there's a straightforward solution to that. When you have all that, can read nonverbal communication, can talk to people, and you're still left feeling like the problem is literally all the little things about who you are and some sort of magnetic lack of magnetism that implies - it gives you chills anytime you think about it. In one sense I find it easier to be stronger and more confident just because without any fuel from other people to make it easy, I've had to learn how to be more confident, feel better about myself, etc. and do that mostly on my own decided choice. I may very well be happy in my 40's, still single, etc. but it'll be hillarious just how much I've gained by that point in terms of emotional strength, maturity, independence, and yet even then - with all the friends in the world, I still won't be able to make anything happen on that level. Its almost comedic and sometimes, as ridiculous as my life is in that regard (I wouldn't believe if someone told me, it sounds so far fetched, but I am living it) it almost makes me believe that a higher power is pulling the strings - luck just can't be this bad and this consistent. I think that's where if I'm to come to the conclusion that my thinking of things that way is as crazy as it sounds, it means that eugenicism is very much alive and well, it favors certain types of people and not others, usually based on their simplicity, and that probably a lot of the things I've grown to love about myself and seen as strengths are signs of a life of struggle - which means I had to overcome something, which means I started as being less rather than equal or greater to the next man.



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12 Jan 2008, 1:40 am

techstepgenr8tion brought up eugenics and I think that it may be against us, but can't decide where people on the As fit.

I sometimes think that Aspies and HFAs would have found life more their liking in the past; Especially anytime from the Renaissance through the beginning of industrialization. Many social customs were very straight forward and scripted. Scripted routines give AS folks something to sink their teeth in to. Society also grew to appreciate the great minds.

Maybe AS people were a branch of hominids that was developing more slowly, but with far greater potential. Neanderthal or not, the As bloodline dwindled and was mixed out, and as it diminished, so called "NT" tendencies came to the fore.

Simply put, I think AS was the direction humans should have evolved. It's not working out. What IS happening is a sort of devolution and return to primitive. All forms of music today is much less complex than before. Fiction is as well, and social customs are more dependent on gregariousness or social suaveness, than established social mannerisms, phrases and actions. The Alpha-Male foolishness is not so foolish for the devolving male. They are rediscovering primitive methods for mating.



techstepgenr8tion
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12 Jan 2008, 11:37 am

0hanrahan wrote:
I sometimes think that Aspies and HFAs would have found life more their liking in the past; Especially anytime from the Renaissance through the beginning of industrialization. Many social customs were very straight forward and scripted. Scripted routines give AS folks something to sink their teeth in to. Society also grew to appreciate the great minds.


That was only in the hands of rich patrons though, the rest of the peasantry and probably most of everyone else were the same as in the middle ages. Religious oppression was still running high and even then the creative types had to be real careful about what they said in terms of what their findings indicated. The remerging merchant class were probably somewhat more civilized but probably still nothing too much better than most middle class people today.

IMO, for aspies, we're probably living in the best times we ever have - anytime before this we'd either be institutionalized, cut out of society and just pushed to the left (like some are today but far more destitute and no hopes of doing anything fulfilling), and then there were the times where no people who were different existed just like no gays exist in Iran - same reasoning here.

0hanrahan wrote:
Maybe AS people were a branch of hominids that was developing more slowly, but with far greater potential. Neanderthal or not, the As bloodline dwindled and was mixed out, and as it diminished, so called "NT" tendencies came to the fore.


AS/autism genes are kinda like sickle-cell anemia in the sense that in small doses they're actually helpful to the body and create healthier people - like one or two autism genes gives an NT even more polish. However, as those pool too much, it turns into a genetic disease and the more that get grouped together the more you see people who have to be stored away from society because they're nervous systems work so badly and the frustration is so insane that they can't stop hitting themselves, banging their heads into walls, and there's no cure.

0hanrahan wrote:
Simply put, I think AS was the direction humans should have evolved. It's not working out. What IS happening is a sort of devolution and return to primitive. All forms of music today is much less complex than before. Fiction is as well, and social customs are more dependent on gregariousness or social suaveness, than established social mannerisms, phrases and actions. The Alpha-Male foolishness is not so foolish for the devolving male. They are rediscovering primitive methods for mating.


Sexual lib has done a lot of that and it has screwed us up, then again I think what's going on here is we're throwing religion off as the 'guiding light' of our society and really trying to piece things together - when you do that, of course things will be complete chaos for a while (probably will be for a couple generations to come). As for the music, I really have to disagree there - maybe the top 40, but the ideas that are coming out everywhere else in all kinds of genres - hip hop, electronic, blues, jazz, reggae, trip hop, even some of the rock thats more off to the side; I don't think that can be said at all, and if it can its sheerly in the music theory sense; the emotional complexity has increased exponentially in most cases.



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12 Jan 2008, 1:25 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
Same here in most if not all respects. I do get interest from some women but it always bunks out in one way or another - either with me not being attracted, me feeling chased off by certain personality traits, or alternatively mutual interest but not being able to get anywhere with it still to save my life. It gets aggravating in the sense that if I was a stereotypical aspie, if I couldn't dress myself, if I had poor hygien, if I had no idea how to talk to people, there's a straightforward solution to that. When you have all that, can read nonverbal communication, can talk to people, and you're still left feeling like the problem is literally all the little things about who you are and some sort of magnetic lack of magnetism that implies - it gives you chills anytime you think about it. In one sense I find it easier to be stronger and more confident just because without any fuel from other people to make it easy, I've had to learn how to be more confident, feel better about myself, etc. and do that mostly on my own decided choice. I may very well be happy in my 40's, still single, etc. but it'll be hillarious just how much I've gained by that point in terms of emotional strength, maturity, independence, and yet even then - with all the friends in the world, I still won't be able to make anything happen on that level. Its almost comedic and sometimes, as ridiculous as my life is in that regard (I wouldn't believe if someone told me, it sounds so far fetched, but I am living it) it almost makes me believe that a higher power is pulling the strings - luck just can't be this bad and this consistent. I think that's where if I'm to come to the conclusion that my thinking of things that way is as crazy as it sounds, it means that eugenicism is very much alive and well, it favors certain types of people and not others, usually based on their simplicity, and that probably a lot of the things I've grown to love about myself and seen as strengths are signs of a life of struggle - which means I had to overcome something, which means I started as being less rather than equal or greater to the next man.


I can totally relate to this, it amost sounds like my own life.


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techstepgenr8tion
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12 Jan 2008, 2:51 pm

Oops, I just saw a funny - I meant to say magic lack of magnetism, but I guess it could be a magnetic lack in the sense that its like two positives or two negatives.