"But you seem normal!"

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This is one statement that pisses me off really bad. To me, it's like the other person is saying "I know you better than you know yourself."

I don't believe I would ever get that response. I really don't seem all that normal.

The look on my best-friend's face when I told her about my Aspergers was priceless.

I've only told my mother and a few friends about AS, and they've all had the same skeptical, condescending response to it all and I've been lectured to no end about how I'm 'normal' and I just have a few kinks in my behaviour which'll iron out over time, etc.

The fact that I've lived and continue to live, in an area with little to no awareness of autism, let alone AS, acts as a major deterrent for one to tell people or to gain support. I guess that's why I'm undiagnosed till now.

From a third person point of view, an excellent academic career throughout school, a university degree and now a job as a banker would probably discourage anyone from accepting any deviation from 'normality' as it were...

I take it as a compliment. I don't get the ''oh that explains everything'' face. I get the ''oh my god I didn't expect you to say that!'' face. (Yes, for an Aspie, I am good at reading facial expressions). The only snag with this compliment is people don't believe me, so I don't like to tell them, and then something always crops up that gives my disability away to someone. For example, my friend has recently gone on job-seekers like me, and I require special help when looking for work, so I have a personal trainer that helps me fill out application forms and attends interviews with me, because of my high anxiety disorder getting in the way of official tasks like this. But my friend now suddenly wants to fill out applications with me at her house, and wants to start work in the same place as me, so I can't cover up my AS now because she will find out that I have a personal trainer and will ask why, then I've got to explain that I have this disability, after 3 years of her not knowing anything about this....

I hear this a lot, unless I have to talk to a younger NT female. then I hear weeks later from her foulball friends that I was "creepy".

The only people who say this to me are the people that are ignorant to what Aspergers even is. If I tell someone that actually KNOWS what Aspergers is, they see the connection almost instantly.

People are rude and dismissive towards anything that they themselves cannot relate to. It is in their way of saying "Whatever, you're nothing like the KIDS shown on tv so you're just wanting sympathy from me."

They don't really know much about autism or aspergers. Everything is a save face battle. In an attempt to undermine someone else to save their own face from being called out for being ignorant. It's like a shield to reflect onto you, hoping their shield will bounce it off to put you in the defense.

It's hard to keep internal thoughts sometimes. Autistics sure could use more positive examples but you're going to be facing heckling, people bashing you and dismissing you once it is revealed you don't think like them. They will be constantly putting you on the defense so my suggestion is just go about your merry way understanding that the majority of people are biased and come up with negative conclusions without asking questions and keeping up with those negative conclusions insisting that they are right no matter how wrong they are. Then they will tell their friends about their negative conclusions of you and the next thing you know, you're being isolated.

I got that response from an NT male at my workplace. luckily that piece of s**t doesn't work there anymore.

I get this "but you seem normal" response sometimes, mainly from people who do not know me so well.

I can kind of take it as praise when it comes from people who know me only casually, like people at work. (I had to tell some when I got officially diagnosed so it can go in my employee record). Around them, in the very public situation of my workplace, I will be working very hard on my normal act. Things like making eye contact and trying to do small talk with customers are things that have taken me a long time to build up to, and I am quite proud that I can do it even badly.

People I am close to and have told because I want to understand more, maybe because I can relax enough to be more myself around them. From them it is more the "oh, that suddenly makes more sense" reaction at first, because they have spent enough time with me to pick up on my more odd behaviours.

Bahahahaha, like I would EVER receive the comment "But you seem normal.". When I tell them of my suspicions of aspergers, you can tell from their response they're thinking "Oh, so that explains it.".

Since my experience seems to differ from almost every aspergers individual on this thread, I suppose I don't have aspergers, lol.

What type of people do you interact with?

I've gotten "Oh, so that explains it." from some people - including basically what my parent's reaction was, while I've gotten "you seemed to fit in well enough" from others - all of which were introverted geeks.

The introverted geeks at MIT? That's understandable.

Basically a few peers in my computer science department and a few others. Granted, some denied the possibility of autism but on further investigation, it was clear their objections were rooted in the stereotypes of the hand-flapping, drooling, glossy-eyed fixed gaze low-functioning types and after I partially explained what aspergers was (Monotone voice, flat and unusual facial expressions and pedantic language usage), they went silent as in "Oh crap, maybe you do!".

But, in all the objections I've heard, I don't think anyone would *ever* describe me as normal. If anything, I get accused of its antonym exclusively. But, you can tell when people call *me* "weird" multiple times, they're just trying to insult me so I brush it off and I never get bothered with it again. I think the process of insulting people is a way for people to assert their social 'superiority' as in to gain a step higher in the social pecking order, so if you brush it off, they realize their attempt didn't quite work so they're back to square one.

I would probably get that same response too. Although, when compared to another aspie, I've been described as "like that guy, but more normal."

.So you're probably more on the broad autistic phenotype instead of classical aspergers?

Man, I've for a long time wanted to meet a real aspie in real life. When my sister compared me to the aspie she knew, she was the only one who seemed pretty sure I don't have aspergers, so I need to meet a real, high-functioning aspie. One person I know online seems to think I have distinct autistic traits, but I can tell there's an antagonistic bias with her which may or may not be influencing her assessment. (Insinuating someone who's not diagnostically autistic as autistic is an insult in the "normal" social world.)

I'm not totally sure about that. I'm far from normal. I think the reason why I received that comment is because I'm much more of the introverted quiet type of aspie. The other guy was not. Much of my personality is hidden, because many people don't really get to know me; whereas the other aspie I knew was so socially clueless he seriously spoke his mind all the time. Everybody knew that he was crazy, but for me, I generally get the benefit of the doubt.

By the way your posts are written, your use of language is very similar to this aspie.