More Autistic Than I Thought

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I've been thinking I've been appearing relatively normal in public these days. Apparently not, though. Last night on the #wrongplanet channel, someone I knew from offline was there who I would have never guessed had Asperger's syndrome, too. Apparently, she thought I was most likely someone with AS. I know I don't act quite normal, but I didn't think I was still that far off the mark. This concords with Sophist's opinion that I still appear and act very autistic offline as well.

Maybe normality is not something I should strive to imitate.

I should add that it's Lowfreq50's opinion that my autistic qualities come out most during spontaneous, real-time interaction—even online.

You mean you just happened to run into someone in the chat room that you knew in real life, a coincidence? If so... weird.

I would say: Not so much normality as communication.

Being "normal" would mean denying who you are. But communicating with people who are closer than you to the average is a worthwhile goal.

Wait a second...are you saying that this person has AS too? If so, that's probably why your AS traits were more noticeable to her. Of course aspies are going to notice aspie-ness in other aspies.

Yes, it was an astonishingly unlikely coincidence. She lived in the same dormitory as me last year.

I know someone whos at uni/college in St Louis.

Anyway sounds like your in there NeatHumain

ooh does Neant have a little friend from school now??

No, she actually goes to a local community college now. Anyway, there's no romantic chemistry between us at all.

Maybe you have seemed quite 'normal,' but there were little things that only another aspie would notice.

I knew about Asperger's Syndrome long before I was diagnosed. I spent years feeling it would be the nearest thing to explaining my difficulties, but feeling I probably didn't warrant a diagnosis.

Once I was diagnosed I started thinking about people I'd known throughout my life. There were two that I felt were very likely aspies. Later I was proven correct.

Both people have told me how mild their AS is. But I'm not so sure I agree with them.
Maybe my AS is not as "mild" as I sometimes like to think either.

You can never really be sure how other people see you. But I've known for a long time that my social skills suck.
Unfortunately, this knowledge doesn't help much. Sometimes I wish I could just put people at ease in social situations with a quip or two to the effect that I know how lousy my social skills are ("so please don't think I'm arrogant or anything!"). That probably wouldn't work though.